<p>Why do you think it’s unfair or unreasonable? What are the criteria for judging that a school acted unfairly? Schools reject highly qualified students all the time. Some students get rejected by Emory and end up at Harvard, and vice-versa.</p>
<p>In the case of the student with perfect scores who got rejected at Emory but got into Brown, I could speculate that the Emory adcoms had great doubt that somebody from that part of the country and with her background and profile would really matriculate if she were offered a slot. Tuft syndrome is not confined to Tufts.</p>
<p>Kelowna, I think at the end of senior year, they ask the seniors to report what their plans are for next year. I imagine the college counselor remembers things like a kid being admitted to Harvard and Yale. if something big happens (like the year 5 kids were admitted to Cal Tech) that seems to linger in institutional memory for a while. Also, teachers seem to know about students they wrote letters for. It’s possible the college counselor keeps a list of where kids are accepted – but I’d be very surprised if those kids are listed according to GPA, scores, etc. But there is no formal data that students and parents can access to my knowledge. </p>
<p>So here is my question. How much does Naviance cost and how much work is it for an overworked college counselor? Our parent group allocated some funds to our college office – should this be something we are pushing for? She’s very overworked so if it means more work for her, it’s not really worth pursuing.</p>
<p>^I’d be curious about this too. I wondered what our HS paid for it. It would seem to me any hired secretary could enter the historical and ongoing school data (which would be the biggest time sink and not a good use of a GC’s skills and time). </p>
<p>And as with any new app, there is the start up to learn it, but it might actually make things easier for an overworked GC down the road because the system could answer questions for the students and families (which might mean she has to spend less time addressing those questions with them), it might give her easier access to info to save her time doing research, it would be an easy way to communicate to the student body about all things college, and it would be a repository for all the files she’s probably already working with. </p>
<p>There are colleges that don’t “like” our kids and the reasons vary. Here are some possibilities:</p>
<ul>
<li>One popular college choice tends to put a lot of emphasis on class rank so it ends up being very selective with our kids because they only take the top from any high school but we have lots of kids apply.</li>
<li>There are a few schools that offer alumnni’s kids preference and if your school happens to have a lot of alumni, it makes it difficult for a non-alumni kid to get in. </li>
<li>Maybe too many kids from your school have turned down a particular college. One of my kids applied to another school (Case) that gave 1/2 tuition and turned them down. My kid was worried because Case has been good to our school-- and no one has gone there for several years. My kid happened to know that it was because a bunch of those kids had applied to a combined degree program and were accepted to the college but not the combined program. It doesn’t seem to have affected our admissions at Case but it might at another school.<br></li>
<li>Another factor is that I have found that Catholic colleges will go way deeper into the applicant pool of a Catholic high school than they would from a public school. </li>
<li>Also, sometimes a certain ‘type’ of student applies to a college-- and admissions may be harder for that ‘type.’ For example, if a particular high school has a lot of Asian science-oriented kids and there are many applicants to a top tech school, the high school may find that admissions stats seem ‘higher’ from that high school than the college’s published admissions data (because, presumably, the college’s data includes kids for whom the stats may be lower-- urm, athletes, etc). The corollary, of course, is that a high school may tend to send a certain type that’s desired to a college (for example, if the high school has an exceptional sports team) and the college can look like a match for an unhooked kid when it’s really not a match.</li>
<li>I read on another thread here how a college had data that tracked the performance of kids from different high schools. So if other 4.0 kids from your high school struggled at the college, the school may be hesitant to accept others.</li>
</ul>
<p>Thanks. I’m guessing the $1200 a year to maintain would be the reason against getting it even if we purchased it for her. That’s more than we could commit to as parents and there is just no funding for anything right now. Our college counselor lost her aide this year due to the cuts. We’ve lost our testing coordinator. We’ve lost other secretaries. I don’t think it’s a justifiable expense at our school. It seems that a student can get a good idea of whether they are in a ballpark for a school from college guides and college websites, etc.</p>
<p>That is too bad mim. Price may be per capita so different for your HS. I never appreciated it until I tried it but I think it has lots of value added. Far more than just an estimate of one’s odds for a college. If it saved the GC work it would be well spent. </p>
<p>How many students or seniors? Say you had 240 seniors, it would cost $5 per family. Double that class size or have jrs. and srs. pay for it, and its $2.50 each. I dunno, it seems pretty reasonable to me but I’m probably living on a different planet.</p>
<p>School doesn’t like your HS? I wasn’t too concerned when my son was rejected by a moderately selective university that I didn’t like at all. But the rejection letter itself was very condescending and snooty. Fortunately we didn’t have many other rejection letters to compare it to, but I wondered if this school had some ax to grind. Then I learned that not one kid from my son’s graduating class was accepted by this school including kids who were accepted at Ivies. I asked the GC if there was some problem between our HS and this university. The GC didn’t let on that he was aware of any problem. What do you think? Was there a problem in 2007… carried over to 2008? I wondered if one of the 2006 admits was an ED that reneged. Never found out for sure. </p>
<p><<<<<<
mom- their practice may be reasonable. They may feel the students from the school just do not add to the quality of the class they are trying to create.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>First I should have used the words “appear to be unreasonable” or “appear to be unfair.” </p>
<p>As for the first quote…How would these ivies (or similar) KNOW that the kids from “School B” wouldn’t offer anything, IF they’ve NEVER accepted a student from that school? That is the question. That is the issue. That is the problem.</p>
<p>As for the second quote…There would be no evidence if it was a one time only thing, but when School A in one county annually gets a few acceptances to a certain elite college, while equally good School B (in the same county) never gets any (even though its students are equally as strong in stats and hooks), something is fishy. </p>
<p>It suggest that the Adcoms have some “go to” schools that they routinely accept more kids. I realize that elite schools receive thousands and thousands and thousands of apps, so it would make sense that some employ little tricks to make that process easier. Such as…"we know that School A has given us great students, therefore we’ll take a couple of their applicants. But, we’ve never had anyone from School B, therefore, let’s not take any risks there. Besides, we don’t have to take any risks, we already know that the kids from School A are great. "</p>
<p>So, you ask, what is the criteria…well, when repeated students from School B get rejected, while neighboring School A routinely has kids accepted. </p>
<p>I realize that these are private schools and can largely do what they want. But, even private employers can be held up for some scrutiny for any unfair hiring practices. If it can be demonstrated that some desirable company was routinely hiring men, even though equally qualified women were also applying, there would be an OUTRAGE. </p>
<p>I know that it’s hard to show “unfairness” if only a few males are hired, but what if year after year after year, only men were hired and never any equally-qualified women? Wouldn’t that demonstrate unfairness? Yes!!! And wouldn’t YOU be the first to “pooh pooh” any statements from this company that these hired male employees “added to the workforce that they’re trying to create” (to paraphrase Tom’s quote). No one would believe that some of the female applicants also couldn’t have “added to the workforce”. Believe me, if this happened with hiring, the country would be outraged.</p>
<p>But…I still think it’s a case of certain elite colleges depending on some “go to” high schools for a few acceptances acceptances, so that then they will have more time to spend on achieving “balance” with majors, male/female ratio, and other desirable interests.</p>
<p>I know that Santa Clara U does that, but I don’t think that info is secret. I think that it’s reported on Forbes college info website. If so, maybe it’s also on SCU’s website. Graduating from a Catholic high school may also be a consideration at Notre Dame, Georgetown, and others. Does anyone know?</p>
<p>If Catholic colleges are going to give some “consideration” to Catholic high graduates, then that should be on their website somewhere. If it is, then good for them; at least they’re not keeping it a secret. I can’t imagine that the “consideration” is major… But, maybe I’m wrong.</p>
<p>However…such application consideration is different at Catholic high schools run by dioceses… At my kids’, nieces’ and nephews’ Catholic high schools, when the 8th grade apps come in, they go thru the Catholic kids’ apps first and pull out all the ones who make the necessary minimum requirements. If there are still spaces available, then they go to the “non-Catholic” pile, and accept those who also make the necessary minimum until all the spots are filled. So, yes, in such an instance, some Catholic kids’ will have lower stats than the some non Catholics that were refused. But, that’s how diocesan high schools kind of have to work. Their main focus is to educate Catholic kids; educating others is nice, too, but they must accept their own members first. Sometimes there are exceptions; sometimes siblings are given a priority.</p>
<p>The problem is evidence. It’s easy to show unfairness if no woman (or man) is ever admitted to a supposedly co-ed school. But the question here is of unfairness toward students of a particular school. That, I would think, would be impossible to prove. You just need to check the thread about Harvard waitlisting an IMO gold medalist to see how hard it would be to show that it discriminated against a particular school. The same would apply to other schools, including less selective ones.</p>
<p>What the heck? I’ve never heard of a snooty rejection letter. I thought rejection letters are supposed to be written in a soft “we’re sorry, we can’t admit you” kind of way. Gee, if rude or snooty rejection letters happen on a regular or semi-regular basis, that could be it’s own thread here on CC.</p>
<p>Again, that is a one time occurence; so it reveals nothing. Does not show a pattern of unfairness or favoritism.</p>
<p>The issue I’m talking about is a multi-year, long-term pattern of NEVER accepting very qualified students from one school, while routinely taking students from a school in the same town.</p>
<p>My analogy of a company only hiring males (year after year) while ALWAYS rejecting similarly qualified women would raise eyebrows, is a good analogy. Such a company could not say with a straight face that the many, many, men that they hired somehow always “filled their various desired needs” for a well-rounded company, BUT they couldn’t find ONE woman who could also meet their company needs. No one would buy that…no one.</p>
<p>In fact, the Emory example is a good one, Emory is the only college which our Naviance seems to actually practice Tufts Syndrome admissions. Tufts admissions look perfectly reasonable, Emory definitely is rejecting kids they don’t think will attend. (I hear they also value visits and other signs of demonstrated interested. Ditto with GW which has told our counselor that.)</p>
<p>One would need to establish that College X routinely rejected students from school A who were totally as qualified as the students it admitted from school B. And that goes beyond GPA and test scores. One would need to establish that the rejected students had as great recs, great essays, great ECs that fit what College X was looking for as the students from School B who got in. That’s what I mean by evidence.<br>
I used the example of the IMO waitlisted because we simply do not know why Harvard waitlisted him. We can only speculate. Similarly, we can only speculate as to why the students of certain schools do not get into College X but seem to have no trouble getting into College Y that is as good or even better than College X. But speculation won’t get one far in a court of law. And trying to get information about the applications of students would breach privacy laws and confidentiality rules. And Tufts syndrome is a perfectly legitimate admissions strategy.
I’m not trying to suggest that the system is a good one. Just that fighting it is not easy. GCs cultivate relations with adcoms, and adcoms are more familiar with certain schools than others. The adcom officer who was in charge of my S’s admission left one year later to become GC at a private school.</p>
<p>I specifically mentioned Catholic schools because I know you have son who graduated from one. Mind you, I didn’t say the colleges prefer Catholics. I said they prefer Catholic school grads. This was across the board when I graduated from Catholic school: kids who got into Fordham, BC, Holy Cross, etc, would not have been admitted if they had graduated from public school. </p>
<p>I don’t understand why you think colleges have to be “fair” to applicants from different schools? We’re talking about private colleges and they simply do not consider an applicant from Exeter the same as one from a top public school in Westchester or a regional Catholic school. We all know that and we knew that when our kids entered high school. My kids have been in public (both magnet and local schools), private and boarding school-- and the privates (including religious and boarding) make no bones about telling parents that the kids do great when they apply to college because “colleges know our students.” Why would it be different even from one public to another? Why would we pretend that students from a school with a mean SAT of 410 would be equally educated as those from Stuyvesant? They’re not and colleges can make those distinctions.</p>
<p>Oh please, you can not be serious. Next thing you know, people will be mandating that every high school in the country gets to send one of their students to HYP.</p>
<p>It is a free country, and private colleges can and do set their own criteria for admission. Just because someone doesn’t like it or feel their HS is being shunned by certain schools doesn’t mean the colleges are doing anything wrong. Admissions is highly subjective, especially for super competitive schools who have far more qualified applicants than spots</p>
<p>I’m not referring to situations where the 2 high schools in question are very different (such as one is elite private and one is public or anything like that. That would be comparing apples to oranges!!) </p>
<p>I’m referring to complaints on this board where 2 neighboring public schools of equal quality both have top students applying year after year to a specific elite college. Yet, year after year, only students from the same high school EVER get accepted. That is weird…and hard to explain. It would be easy to explain if the chosen students were coming from Exeter, while the nearby public kept getting rejected.</p>
<p>And, yes, kids who graduated from Catholic high schools have an advantage at Catholic colleges. And, I believe that Catholic colleges fully admit this. They may even state so on their websites.</p>
<p>But…I don’t see situations where secular elites colleges are being similarly upfront. I’ve never heard of a secular elite college school state…“Special consideration will be given to students who graduate from this list of public schools.” </p>
<p>I’m not suggesting that they should post such a statement. My point is that when 2 neighboring public schools of equal quality repeatedly have high quality applicants to an elite college, there just isn’t a reaonable explanation if the accepted students only come from the same one school every year, year after year after year. Could there be a reasonable explanation for this to happen one year? Yes. Two years? Possibly. Year after year after year??? NO. </p>
<p>Just like my analogy about a company never hiring women - year after year after year. No possible legitimate explanation.</p>
<p>They don’t HAVE to have a reason. The flaw in your analogy is that women are a protected class, students from a public school aren’t. The schools can do what they want. College admissions isn’t “fair” and colleges don’t have to be upfront because, for many privates, admissions is very subjective.</p>