No, they are given false signals that make them think that they are a top student.
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Exactly. There is no indication high school or college students are as a group smarter than thirty years ago, and a fair amount of anecdotes from professors that they are less prepared. They just have higher grades for achieving less preparation.
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we have to remember the SAT āback in the dayā was not a walk in the park. There were far less perfect scores, especially with the Verbal section. There is a chart somewhere that you can take the score you got on the old SAT and it shows what it would be on the new SAT. The popularity of the ACT made the SAT change. Test scores honestly dont mean what they used to. I think schools are not comparing someone with a 1500 with a 1550 and choosing . I also agree with the GPA inflation, which are parents pushing teachers āplease let Johnny take that quiz again; what can they do to increase their gradeā.
Also now there is AP. which is weighted higher , along with honors. A student that doesnt take 10 AP classes barely stands a chance for flagship in state schools. See the stats here in GA for GT and UGA.
So the students are getting close to A averages, with a watered down SAT/ACT, taking AP classes starting in 9th grade (are they going to start to offer in middle school soon!?). They are being told to have activity after activity and win awards. Parents of some of these students are hiring college advisors to help with essay writing and marketing the kids back to the schools.
Then there are the other 90 percent of students in the high schools that are going to CC , in state non flagship, and non Top 50 privates.
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BTW my kids ended up in schools ranked ā60 and 100ā, but having programs for each of what they wanted, and these are well known schools
Yeah, I think thatās the double whammy. Grade inflation and the ridiculous AP game rendered GPAās meaningless. The standardized tests, meanwhile, became easier (substantively) and easier to take multiple times. And instead of averaging the scores, the colleges took the top ones.
So for my older child, it created immense pressure to take the ACT more than one time. Why? Because she attended a high school that engages in grade deflation and is moving away from APs. Getting an A in her honors English class wouldnāt move the needle, but picking up an extra two points on the ACT Composite seemed worth the extra studying.
Will be interesting to see if the much-forecast demographic cliff reverses these trends in five years. (I doubt it).
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I joined CC because my S21 was applying for BFA drama and I had no idea what we were doing and was looking for help. Now with my S24 I am amazed by what is going on. We are from a high performing wealthy suburb of NYC but the amount of advancement, AP/IB in early grades and need for perfection that parents and students obsess over is amazing. I dont think we can blame the schools when kids are taking 5 AP classes in 9th grade. There are so many schools out there, our kids deserve to enjoy their high school years and we as parents need to take a step back to help this issue. My S24 only does activities he enjoys and if he gets a few Bs he will find a place (and be successful in life).
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There are positives over the last decades too. Colleges are much more diverse in terms of socioeconomic background, with increased financial aid, and some of the marketing and other efforts by admissions to get out there and let low income students know they can apply to top schools, have had a very beneficial effect. Elimination of loans at some schools is a huge factor in leveling the playing field financially for applicants.
This kind of thread tends to grow exponentially and bitterness may rightfully come from families who donāt get financial aid but feel they cannot pay fully either. So figuring out what can reasonably be paid and being upfront with our kids can be a helpful antidote to the craziness too. But we should not assume public is always more affordable than private.
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Not just the last decade- and compmom, I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment.
Iāve posted before about the top girl in my HS class- the ONLY girl in AP Chemistry and Math. Went to nursing school (not even a BS, just an RN from a local nursing school affiliated with a hospital). I donāt think her parents thought it was āworth itā to pay for college when there was a cheaper option. The second ranked girl in my HS class got a full scholarship to one of the 7 sisters (the guidance counselors were really, really pushing her to āget out of dodgeā). Her parents were appalled that their daughter would leave town- she went to a local college, got a degree in elementary ed.
It is hard to remember- but itās not that long ago- when brilliant and high potential people- women, racial minorities, first Gen, immigrants- werenāt even part of the applicant pool for top colleges. That made it much less competitive for the traditional Ivy bound- white men. But does society lose something when the ācould be an MD/Researcherā ends up as a pharmacy tech or when the ācould be a brilliant historianā is teaching preschool?
Yes, secretarial school. A bunch of capable girls in my HS class ended up there. Many of them were not Smith or Bryn Mawr material, but these days, theyād be encouraged to apply to a four year college since many of them were quite talented academically.
Re: the mailings- itās easy to hate them (donāt check the box if you donāt want them) but the day I interviewed the MOST exceptional young man from a rural community in the midwest who got a mailer from Brown, asked his HS principal if heād ever heard of it, and when the principal encouraged him to apply- he did. First Gen college in his family. Just the most exceptional HS kid I had ever met, and I pretty much harassed the admissions team for the region until they told me heād been accepted.
So it only takes a few hidden gems for a college to decide that the pain of the mailings is worth it. The kid who is heading to the military who discovers he can do ROTC at a four year college and become an officer. The kid who plans to commute to the local state college branch while keeping the HS job at Walmart who learns about need based aid from a marketing piece. Etc.
If you think US admissions is crazy, look at some other countries. At least we donāt have a gatekeeping exam in the 6th or 7th grade which can literally determine a kidās futureā¦
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Beyond college rankings, hereāre a few more causes that contribute to our current problem (for those of us who think thereās a problem):
- We made easier to apply via Common App, etc.
- We made admission criteria more vague and opaque.
- We made easier to get As in HS classes.
- We made standardized tests easier, and now optional.
- We encouraged excessive test prep and repetitive testing with Score Choice and Superscoring.
- We encouraged students who have little or no chance to apply, ostensibly for diversity but mostly for collegesā own benefits.
In addition, thereāre some bigger sociental issues/trends that also contributed to the problem:
- The gradual but continuous bifurcation of the types of jobs/careers (i.e. elite or bust) and the perception of the role colleges plays in oneās career path
- The failure/inadequacy of secondary education that made tertiary college education a necessity in preparing students for almost any career
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Message to U of Chicago:
My student has received marketing materials (hundreds of postcards) since 10th grade. Your approach to marketing and canvassing students in a mass mailing has become tiresome. In some ways it is insulting. Even though my student has the stats to apply, your marketing strategies have backfired! If our kids are actually smart enough to apply to your college, they are smart enough to know what you are doing to increase your number of applicants. We all know your game and we are not going to play. Your marketing materials are a turn-off.
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Just to add to your points @1NJParent -
The marketing of student loans and the result of having huge debt after college for tuition bills that have skyrocketed exponentially in the past 3 decades.
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Itās crazy. My kid hasnāt been bamboozled (uh, no, mom) and even if he had the stats the whole āwhere fun goes to dieā would be a big turnoff.
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4/3 of people donāt understand statistics. 
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I didnāt have my son consider Colby, when he was looking at most of the other NESCAC schools. Their gaming the system through fee waivers and marketing so they got to a 9% admit rate left such a bad taste in my mouth that it was off the table. Colby is selective, but not 9% selective, and there are so many excellent liberal arts colleges that we didnāt have to even look at it.
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UChicago doesnāt get the free advertising that the Ivies do from TV/movies. When was the last time that you heard that someone got accepted to all the UAA schools?
When I was in high school, not a gazillion years ago but close, we had an excellent vo/tech program with everything from auto mechanic, welding, and various building trades to early childhood education, cosmetology, and nursing assistants. Maybe 20% of my classmates went there for half a day but they are the ones now who own businesses (auto shops, day cares, salons, etc). DH has been struggling for the past decade to find someone reliable and competent to do small engine repair on our mower and snowblower. IMO, too many good students and good kids are pushed into college and saddled with debt when there are accessible and necessary occupations with far too few qualified workers. When did it become OK to elevate doctors, IB, and other āimpressiveā occupations and denigrate those who chose to do something that lacks āprestigeā? As a whole, we look down on a self employed plumber who makes $150K/year in favor of dime-a-dozen bio undergrads with student loan debt who may not even be able to replace their own shower head.
*** No disrespect to any professions or majors mentioned. I am sure many bio majors can figure out Teflon tape! Just illustrating a point.
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Iām going to push back a little on look at whatās happening in other countries. I have first hand experience of the education system in three European countries in which the only gate keeping exams happen at the doors of the universities (which by the way are free or nominally free). I know of parents that were not able to go to college at 18 that sat the exams alongside their teens and gained entry to four year programs. These exams are very hard and unique each year (they are also free and administered either by the board of education or by the Higher Ed institutions themselves depending on the country) and yes, very stressful. Most kids spend about a year studying for them and donāt feel compelled to put in 18 hour college prep work days starting in sixth grade (what is happening in our Silicon Valley proximal communities). Most of my male friends in high school didnāt really study that much until the summer of 11th grade, which for many boys seems to be about the age when their executive functioning starts to kick in. The percentage of boys to girls that go to college in these countries is roughly 50-50 unlike here (and itās not because of sexism but rather because entry to college doesnāt depend on past yearās grades and performance). Of course there are down sides to this system, for example there arenāt enough spots for all and changing majors is a major pain, but I wouldnāt throw it under the bus.
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My kid was admitted to top university in 3 different countries. By far the worst admission process was the US
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Thatās really great advice to live by.
Isnāt it still this way in Canada?
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And I will push back a little bit on what you are seeing in your Silicon Valley proximal communities. That is NOT representative of the entire US. I have close friends in various parts of California and they are always surprised when their ābut everyone doesā comments get hoots of laughter from people who live in ājust as educatedā neighborhoods in other parts of the country.
I live in the most affluent county in my state (Northeast) and most of the kids in my close- in neighborhood go to our State U (and no, itās not on par with UVA, Berkeley, Michigan) or one of the branches. Next down in popularity-- Providence, Holy Cross, Stonehill, Villanova for the kids who graduate from our local Catholic HS, and down from that is Yeshiva University/Stern College for Women for kids who graduate from the Jewish Day School, with an occasional U Maryland or Brandeis thrown in to the mix. These are all fine institutions, but NONE of them require SAT coaches, 18 hour college prep classes, essay coaches, etc. Many of these kids apply to two colleges- the first choice and āthe backupā which of course varies depending on the kidās ambition and stats. Sometimes the backup is the flagship of another state U-- but then thereās a hard conversation about paying a premium for what is basically someone elseās State U vs. staying instate. Maryland seems to get a pass-- although since it admits a lot of kids for second semester start, it gets a lot of love until itās time to enroll.
So no- college insanity is not universal-even in the turbo-charged Northeast, and when I lived in a big city in the Midwest it was even MORE chill.
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