<p>And Harker is not the best school to compare Menlo to on the peninsula. Crystal Springs, Castilleja School, & University High in SF are closer peers of Menlo.</p>
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<p>What is wrong in arm chain analysis? If I had to put my DD thru Menlo School to know about the developmental admit (Legacy and Sports) at Stanford then she would have been going to UCB instead of MIT.</p>
<p>It was my arm chair analysis that was able to provide me enough information to ascertain that fact that the high acceptance rate a Stanford is not for an “Ivy-Caliber” academic applicant but for developmental (legacy, sports) applicant.</p>
<p>Maybe that is why there are more asian at Harker than at Menlo even though the composition of bay area is neither like Menlo nor like Harker because they know that they are not Stanford legacy and neither going to be sports star so Menlo might not be a good fit.</p>
<p>Because once again parent at Menlo or Harker are not constrained by any factor other than finding the best fit for the applicant.</p>
<p>"I don’t think it make sense to depend on HS CC to come up with a list for the applicant.</p>
<p>If Menlo does that then I’ll recommend people to stay off. "</p>
<p>Pffffffffffff. POIH, You are once again making assumptions. Most parents at Menlo ALSO hire private college counselors, just to cover all the bases. I came to CC 2 years before son was a SR, just so I could learn about the college application process, and because I knew my son better than any college counselor could. It turns out that the schools I thought would be a good fit for my son were also on his counselors list for him. So stop with your “recommendations” based totally on your own experience, your own assumptions and a total lack of knowledge of what other parents and HS’s do for their kids.</p>
<p>I’m done with this silly conversation.</p>
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<p>Certainly, because “Crystal Springs, Castilleja School, & University High in SF” has equal number of developmental (Legacy and sports) admits to Stanford.</p>
<p>But point was to highlight the fact that there are more developmental admits to Harvard, Stanford than what people think because when I put up the number 600 for Harvard people came on to me like hungry lions.</p>
<p>But this is what I was trying to point. MPM did a great favor by putting up the Menlo school numbers which clearly indicates how large the developmental admission at a school can be.</p>
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<p>So you are admitting that CC at Menlo lacks so much that applicants need personal CC for college process and than on top of that you tell me that you know a lot about college process.</p>
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<p>POIH, why do you insist on calling legacies and athletes “developmental?” That is NOT what they are, as this has been pointed out to you several times in this thread. They are hooked applicants, NOT developmental admits.</p>
<p>"It turns out that the schools I thought would be a good fit for my son were also on his counselors list for him. "
you chose to ignore this statement that was in the middle of my last post. I wonder why.</p>
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<p>I called those developmental with respect to this discussion of “Ivy-Caliber” applicant. So a hooked applicant is not a general “Ivy-Caliber” applicant and considered development because there is a compromise on the standards of admission otherwise that applicant should have equal chance of acceptances at a peer school.</p>
<p>But I can change to calling it a hooked applicant but it will still not be considered a general applicant.</p>
<p>MenloParkMom:
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<p>I didn’t but as mentioned earlier we operate on different level. In our case DD came up with a list of good fit schools for her and not my wife or I.</p>
<p>ParentOfIvyHope, to clarify, the fundraising branches of many universities are called the “Development” branches. So a “development” applicant is one who has a hook from “Development,” aka “Family Donations,” and not one who needs to develop further in order to reach the typical level of an admitted student.</p>
<p>This thread certainly has emotion running through it. I will stick to our little Midwest private school where in the last 5 years 100% of the kids go on to a 4 yr college and 2 of the last 3 years they were named by ACT as only one of only 9 midwest college prep schools to achieve ACT’s highest award. What is interesting/curious is that they have never had a kid apply to an Ivy college. I don’t know why (I could guess $$$ because most of the kids are middle class) but I think Holy Cross is the farthest east anyone has gone.</p>
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<p>This bothers me. What is with this calling legacies and athletes not "Ivy-Caliber’ academic applicants. I am a Stanford student who is not a legacy/URM/athlete/first generation and I don’t feel like I am significantly smarter than my legacy/URM/athlete/first generation counterparts. A lot of “hooked” applicants would have stood a chance at being admitted without their hook (albeit, there chances would have been significantly less). I have only had one experience where I have thought “Wow, this kid defiantly has no business going to school here.” I latter found out this kid’s parent founded a fortune 500 company.</p>
<p>About menlo, I know a decent number of people from menlo who are legacies. Guess what, as far as I can tell they are plenty smart enough to go to Stanford. The same goes for all of the other local privates.</p>
<p>I really don’t have a horse in this race, I did not go to menlo or any other school on the peninsula. I went to a no-name school in the midwest that only sends a student to HYPS every other year. The only point I wanted to make was that people need to stop bashing the legacies and athletes. Yes, they get a boost in admissions, but that does not mean that they are not academically qualified as you suggested in your post.</p>
<p>well said firehose.</p>
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<p>ParentofIvyHope – Hello</p>
<p>From what I have been able to ascertain your kids go to an elite private school. That means that you have really good college counselors. My kids go to a publc school and our college counselor couldn’t be worse for helping parents and students who aspire to the Ivy League. And would she be any good at it? Most of the kids she works with are going to the state schools.</p>
<p>So parents who are hopeful to get their kids into the really prestigious schools hire college counselors to help. If I had known about that I would have done it too. So what?</p>
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<p>You might want to consider getting out of your armchair and joining the real world. It isn’t that bad.</p>
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<p>An “Ivy-Caliber” applicant for HMSPY should have an equal shot of getting multiple acceptances. If some can get into one of the HMSPY because of some hook (Legacy, sports, under-represented-minorities etc) then they are not same as as general “Ivy-Caliber” applicant.</p>
<p>Why it bothers you? It is a fact and you need to take it as it.
We are only talking about hooked applicant that got into one particular college and no other.</p>
<p>Better fit? Who says?
Most people would prefer Stanford to MIT, if only for the weather. My S is the only person I know who turned down Stanford (I made him apply, it was not his idea) because of the weather–among other things, such as distance from home.
Looking at the list of schools where students from our school matriculated, it’s astounding how few are on the West Coast or even Midwest. There is a definite East Coast bias, just as there is a West Coast bias on the West Coast. Nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>Coolweather:</p>
<p>I use the term superstar not as a descriptor of excellence but as a descriptor of known identity. I believe that is the way it’s used by adcoms, though I could not swear to it. In other words, there are probably students who are every bit as good as the Olympiad stars out there, but they have not competed so they are not known as superstars. Students who have published novels, wrote history essays that got into the Concord Review would be considered superstars. But someone whose novel remains in his or her drawer would not, even if it turns out eventually to be very good.
That is why I think that Harvard (and others) admit many more very highly qualified students beyond the “300 academic superstars” that Fitzsimmons refers to.</p>
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Applicant says and knows what is best for them. I was just pointing to the reason why an applicant might want to go far from home even an equivalent option exists at home. Like DD joined MIT over Stanford.</p>
<p>But the emphasis on the Menlo numbers was to show that 50% of the group of Stanford acceptances are not “Ivy-Caliber” applicant.
In order to prove the point from my Arm Chain analysis is to look at the UCB, UCLA acceptance.
It is easy for MPM to refute the analysis by saying most of these applicant got in early so they never applied to other HMPY. But deadline for application to UCB, UCLA is before that and looking at the acceptances</p>
<p>Menlo School:
Stanford: 52
UCB: 72
UCLA: 56</p>
<p>Harker School:
Stanford: 31
UCB: 184
UCLA: 151</p>
<p>Decide for yourself. It is for your own benefit.</p>
<p>POIH:</p>
<p>Spouting nonsense again. This time about legacy status. How do you know that without legacy status, a student would not have been admitted?
I gave some examples of students with multiple hooks who were also stellar; and since some are now in grad school where legacy status counts for zilch, their admission was no fluke.
My S had hooks at H coming out of his ears, and none at Stanford. He got into both. Yeah, I know, Stanford is not “Ivy.”</p>
<p>As for the “might” in your post 278, it’s sheer speculation. Like so much of your posting. Your DD is a data point of exactly one. How’s that for scientific methodology?</p>
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<p>I have no idea what this is supposed to prove.</p>
<p>More people got accepted to Stanford from the first school than the second?
More people got accepted to UCB/UCLA from this Harker School than this Menlo School?</p>
<p>To me this is meaningless unless we know how many people applied to each school.</p>