Why have parents gone crazy in the last 10 years?

Parents Forum
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<p>No more side tracks. You either want to learn what colleges like or you don’t. No more pointing at others. Be productive, yourself. Or lose time. If this thread is crazy, it is because of crazy unfiltered comments by people willing to say things, all sorts of things. Use the time wisely. </p>

<p>Stanford isn’t going to ask your D what her mom thinks admissions should look at. How her mom thinks admissions should change. And then say, oh wow! You have to learn what they value. Not what you heard, not some back page or stranger ideas, not some lawsuit in Texas or some kid in LI. Start with their web site. </p>

<p>Or just be angry and see how far that gets you.</p>

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<p>@lookingforward‌
If I think that something is unfair, I don’t have to internalize it. “You have to learn what they value” - really? </p>

<p>BTW, it’s not “some lawsuit in Texas”. It is the latest supreme court case regarding affirmative action. I posted an official Stanford letter in support of affirmative action. Letter, signed by the Dean of Undergrad admission. </p>

<p>I admire Stanford faculty. They are smart and great! </p>

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<p>For petes sake cali…two options. Either apply to non holistic school or move to another country. I, for one, vote for the latter.</p>

<p>And good grief, she is in 9th grade…you have no experience in current admissions. Come back in a few years and hopfully you will have extracted your foot from your mouth, or other orafice.</p>

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<p>@GA2012MOM</p>

<p>Bad admission policies are not enough to discard Stanford. It is a good school with good faculty. I know excellent faculty at Ivys, smart, intelligent, devoted, brilliant. Holistic approach is bad (in my opinion), but I have to accept it as a bad weather. </p>

<p>Again, I’ll learn the game and I’ll learn to play by the rules. It doesn’t mean that I am enjoy this game or find it fair. </p>

<p>Studying abroad is a valid option, certainly. It is much cheaper. Oxford/Cambridge are almost twice cheaper than Stanford, and they do provide excellent education. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to be admitted to Oxford/Cambridge after HS in US; requirements are very different. </p>

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<p>Californiaa, one way of relieving your stress is to recognize that there are many excellent colleges and universities in the US that provide a top tier education. For some reason, you are fixated on Stanford and maybe Berkekey as if the rest of the schools in the US are chopped liver (=idiomatic expression meaning unimportant). You won’t stress nearly so much when you take time to educate yourself about many fine options. I don’t know where you got the notion that Stanford is the only game in town, but if you truly are smart, you’ll listen, observe and find that there are plenty of colleges whose names you haven’t heard yet that are excellent. </p>

<p>What are other colleges have you heard of at this point? You seem to be making the classic immigrant mistake of thinking that there are only a few good ones. </p>

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<p>". It is very difficult to find out what colleges are looking for. That is the problem."</p>

<p>That implies that your goal is to find what colleges are looking for, and mold your child to fit that. We look at it differently in the US. We believe that you support your child in whatever her interests are and in being the best “her” she can be, and naturally as a result she will be interesting to colleges. </p>

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<p>“I admire Stanford faculty. They are smart and great!”</p>

<p>Uniformly? Every single one? There’s not a dud in the bunch? See, that’s part of your problem. You idolize and idealize some of these schools. Stanford is a great school, but people are people, and not every class at Stanfird is filled with Brilliant Professors Imparting Insight Found Nowhere Else. Are you familiar with the idiomatic expression “everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time”? If you stopped drooling over 1-2 schools, you’d be better off. </p>

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<p>“Corruption in US admission policies? It is called donors and legacies. And recommendation letters from trustees and politicians. Please tell me, how is it different from old-time corruption?”</p>

<p>The number of kids who are unqualified who get in because parents are donating millions is so small as to be trivial and not worth worrying about. </p>

<p>As for legacies - if you did research, you would know that at all elite colleges, the vast majority of legacies get REJECTED. So how is that “corruption”? </p>

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<p>Just to confuse you further, MIT & Caltech are holistic. they each have their own essays. They will want to set a high bar for interest in math/science, and broader for MIT. Caltech didn’t accept APs, but gave kids the chance to take exams and place out of some courses. </p>

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<p>Indianparent was a dad. FWIW. I think his kid was in elementary school.</p>

<p>As for college admissions, the private schools, and several of the publics do us a holistic approach. (some publics do both- numbers for early, holisitic- requiring essays, etc, for regular admission). They, especially the smaller privates, want to build a class of students they think will be bright and interesting and will contribute to their community. It is their perogative . </p>

<p>If you want a numbers driven school, apply to a numbers driven school. But don’t grouse and expect a school to change its approach because you don’t like it. And you cant have it both ways- complain about the holistic approach but expect that your little snowflake should be snapped up by the tippy top schools where you want them to go. Complaining about it is a waste of bandwidth, IMO. You have 2 choices- take it or leave it. We all think our kids are special, and as the admission stats show, there are thousands of kids who have impressive grades and test scores and resumes and have perfected cold fusion and won Inntel science awards who still can’t or dont get in simply because there are lots and lots of qualified applicants. Anyone remember the outrage when some places referred to the less interesting applicants as “textureless math grinds”? Whoa. Sparks sure flew.</p>

<p>Personally, I think the holistic a good life lesson. When one applies for internships or jobs, the companies may start by reviewing a paper or online application, but in the long run, its how an applicant initially presents to an employee at a job fair or how they handle interviews that makes them desirable or not. Companies and coworkers want to see if the applicant is not only knowledgeable, but seems to be someone the will get along with in the work environment. The holistic approach isn’t that different. In the applicant’s essays, personal statement, etc, and in face to face interviews on campus or with adcomms touring the country, its how they present themselves and are seen by the admissions folks- what they do or say that catches the attention of the admissions folks that makes a difference from amongst a group of equally qualified applicants. So, rather than grouse about the unfairness of the system (which gets old, having heard it for years) that rejects many qualified applicants, learn to approach it from the other direction- to see how to stand out from amongst the pool of qualified applicants, to be the cream that rises to the top. JMO. </p>

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<p>@apprenticeprof stated, “Awcntb: The issue I think a lot of posters have is that way back at the beginning of the thread, you presented your family as an exemplary antidote to college admissions craziness, ascribing a particular value to your choice. While you acknowledged that other people might have other priorities, the tenor of your posts made it fairly clear that you thought you were doing something that had relatively wide applicability and which should be emulated by many other families.”</p>

<p>Interesting take. I say interesting because I thought the entire premise of CC was to share different ideas and approaches surrounding college admissions etc.; an information forum / reservoir of sorts. Think I got that part correct.</p>

<p>It is a given different people / families have different priorities, and it is also a given not all people can emulate the experiences of another, so not too sure why that even needs to be acknowledged. It would be stating the obvious. </p>

<p>Others can choose to emulate if they like because it darn sure was effective, and I highlighted said efficacy. It is impossible for me or anyone else to predict the uptake and wide use of anything, as I cannot predict how others accept or use information. The best I can do is tell exactly the steps taken and why.</p>

<p>But, the more relevant question is are the posters on the thread the only people in the mix? Of course, not. Is it not possible thousands of lurkers read my posts and said, “Oh yeah, never thought of that. Sounds like something I could do!” The point - I did not and do not not write posts for the other posters only. I write them for the entire CC community, the overwhelmingly majority I bet who do not post. </p>

<p>You also stated, “But a blanket policy of not sitting for AP tests seems to limit your options needlessly.” No, would have no effect on my kids options at all, so it was a good decision for us.</p>

<p>I do agree what may work for us, may not work for others who post on the thread. However, none of us can speak for the people who do not post, and my posts are for them as well.</p>

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<p>Glad it worked for you, but what bugged me was that it was such a “me first” policy. You went to extraordinary efforts to help your kids, who were gifted, not disabled, and who seem to come from exceptional backgrounds, not needy backgrounds, get special treatment. If you told me you had paved the way for other kids to also opt out of tests or you had persuaded your school board that there were too many tests, I would have looked more favorably on your plan. </p>

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<p>I look forward to reading the thread when californiaaa’s child decides she wants to apply to the University of Iowa, Emory and Hamilton with the intention of majoring in creative writing.</p>

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<p>Funny you should mention that. My 8th grader wants to become a writer, and to me it seems that the opportunities to participate in organized EC’s and win awards etc. that impress colleges are far greater for STEM than for writers. When I looked in the summer programs forum there are almost no threads about writing and it took a lot of digging to locate info under the mountain of info and discussion about programs for STEM. I looked on the majors forum here, and there isn’t even a sub-forum for English.</p>

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<p>Maybe lurkers are reading posts and thinking “wow I hadnt thought of that”… or maybe some lurkers are reading the posts and thinking “what a pompous windbag”…</p>

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<p>MIT not holistic?

from What to do in high school | MIT Admissions
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<p>Yes, that text was also on a postcard MIT sends out.</p>

<p>Another thing the college has to consider is to provide students for their profs to teach. If you want to offer classes in French Romantic Poetry, you need students who want to study that. One curious thing I once noticed is that at Duke, the engineers have higher test scores than the liberal arts students. Not just math, one might expect that, but also verbal scores. So, by californiaa’s reasoning, they should just accept more students of the type that applied to the engineering program–they have the higher test scores. And let the liberal arts college die.</p>

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<p>You read it here first everyone. Having a child out of wedlock is a way into all top-tiered school. So, tell your daughters to go out and have a baby because it is a sure path to a top-tiered school and a truly successful life. We all know that there are hordes of unwed mothers with a baby in tow just having the time of their life on these campuses. There is daycare on every campus and free babysitters at night if you want to go out with your friends! #-o. Single motherhood as a hook has to be one of the most asinine statements in this thread.</p>

<p>@jym626‌ Said “Companies and coworkers want to see if the applicant is not only knowledgeable, but seems to be someone the will get along with in the work environment.” </p>

<p>Yes! This is called people skills. In my value system, which I will readily admit is not the same as some people’s value system, this is just as important as any academic skill in this game we call life. </p>

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<p>What high-level job <em>isn’t</em> interviewed for on a holistic basis? </p>

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<p>

I think what apprenticeprof was saying, very tactfully, was that your kid was lucky that he didn’t end up needing those scores. Other people following your lead might not be so lucky, which is why a lot of us think your example is one that it would be unwise to follow. There are some people who don’t buy homeowner’s insurance–as long as their house doesn’t burn down, they save a lot of money–and they probably think they made a good decision. Those AP and PSAT scores are a fairly cheap insurance policy that pays off for lots of kids.</p>