<p>I am not inclined to join in a pity party for white affluent kids of well educated parents. Disadvantaged? Try changing places with some my S's schoolmates: parents with limited English and equally limited education, working 20 hours a week plus helping in the home, limited access to computers.... Yeah, right, these schoolmates are truly advantaged in the college application process. Not.</p>
<p>"As a nation of laws what the elite privates do in terms of admission policies might be deemed, and in many cases, have been determined to be unlawful at a public institution, the University of Michigan for example, using race as a factor."</p>
<p>Not only is the distinction between public and private institutions critically important for these purposes, but on the same day the Supreme Court held that private school could consider race as part of a holistic admissions process.</p>
<p>Re Post 99 & 100: Why do so many discussions on CC tend to devolve into repetitious anti-AA whines?</p>
<p>For the same reason that every use of the n word, or antisemitic slur draws a response. All discrimination should be opposed, in any form.</p>
<p>I get so tired of the abuse of the word "discrimination," as if some civil right exists to attend an overly desired, over-enrolled PRIVATE University with finite ability to house & educate a large population of echo-boomers.</p>
<p>All entitlement attitudes should also be opposed, in any form.</p>
<p>Mammall, to say it most kindly, I think the facts do not support you although I thought the exact same a year ago. Michelle Hernandez, posts as Classicsgeek is undoubtedly one of the true authorties in this game! She sat in the Adcom chair. Golden did WSJ quality investigation. They report even higher numbers I believe becausetheir URM says over 15%, Ms. Hernandez says 10%. So truth is between 40-45% have the hook. Lots and lots of no hook 2250 plus who will be no go at top schools now.</p>
<p>I think kids do what they can with who they are. Hats off to mammall's daughter for her academic prowess and amazing testing results. Not many have her talent. And hats off to D's friend who is an Olympic level hurdling without those stats who is at an Ivy.</p>
<p>And hats off to my kids who are at competitive LAC's which fit them better than the Ivy they were accepted at. Neither did sports, though I wished my son had, just to develop his body. D danced. Neither of my kids are in the same academic league as mammall's D or marite's S, but they're no slouches either and are each happy and successful.</p>
<p>I don't think we can reshape kids based on reported stats. Some are athletes, some are scholars, some are artists, actors, musicians. I think we can only counsel kids to play to their strengths and follow their bliss and work their butts off. If they do all this, I'm pretty sure they'll get where they need to go whether the label in Harvard, WashU or UMichigan, or even less prestigious state U's or Smith or Bard, well you get my point.</p>
<p>For those lucky and gifted enough at anything to end up at HYPS, well hats off to them. And I don't begrudge the legacies or URM's either, even though I don't think either of my kids would have been admitted there.</p>
<p>There is not just one way to be excellent or happy.</p>
<p>ccbrown and mythmom - You are both gracious and wise. I do want fairness for our children. I get upset whenever it feels as if our hardworking wonderful kids are not getting a fair shot at things. I know we all want that. Maybe that's why we're all on here posting like crazies all the time. Peace.</p>
<p>I agree with mythmom. The part you really get to keep from your education lives between the ears. I think a flock of these 2250 no hook kids shut out from the ivies would make exceptional classmates to study with and learn from in whatever college these kids end up in nowadays. I think that they MAKE those colleges better because they go there and plenty of their echo boom peers will go there too. I think its important that we as parents encourage our kids to do their best and be who THEY want to be even if it doesn't fit the ivy mold. I like the academic advice - I think that makes sense, but don't really like the way the admissions committee's and all of these books end up influencing what kids choose to do with their free time. I think it's really important to make time to just hang out with friends in an unstructured way, just because it's fun. For me, those were some of my fondest memories.</p>
<p>Back OT for a sec--</p>
<p>I am not a fan of Ms. Hernandez, nor am I a fan of Ms. Wissner-Gross. I actually went so far as to tell customers in the bookstore I worked in not to purchase her book (something I never do, not even when it's Ann Coulter or Kevin Trudeau) because I just felt that it abused an already fearful demographic (white, wealthy, well-educated professionals who want their college-bound children to be as happy and assuccessful as they are).</p>
<p>Hernandez gives good advice, if your ultimate goal is attending a top school. I must say, though, that I had the opportunity to chat with her when I was a high school sophomore and I mentioned how much my transferring from a vanilla public school to an elite public helped develop me socially and intellectually, and how I was so grateful to be surrounded by peers who were my intellectual equals, whereas in my other school two or three students and I were tops and nobody else cared about school.</p>
<p>"Oh honey," Michele said, "You should have stayed in your old school. There are so many students applying from ____!"</p>
<p>Needless to say, I got into my first choice, and had I not gotten into my first choice, but rather, into my nth choice, I still would have had a great high school experience (and I'm inclined to think I would have had a great college experience too, even if I went to the Ivy reject's reject's reject's reject's reject school). Had I stayed at my other school, I would have had a terrible time, and my Ivy prospects would have been doubtful at best. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!</p>
<p>Unalove:</p>
<p>Great story! I would never advise students to do things for the sake of getting into some college, to sacrifice today for tomorrow, or to remake themselves into people they are not.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad: You are so right about that, I have often thought the same thing. If the Ivies are rejecting so many 'unhooked' wonderful kids then these kids are going to make such wonderful peers in these "ivyreject" colleges.</p>
<p>It's heartwarming to think that there are so may intelligent, gifted kids coming out of high school.</p>
<p>I hope we are doing as good a job at educating their hearts as we are their minds. Then we're really in business.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The most discriminated against class, in terms of college admission, is white kids from affluent families.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There is utterly no empirical data to support that statement, and plenty to support the contrary statement that low-ability young people from high-income families fare much better in college admission than high-ability young people from low-income families. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ff0615S.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ff0615S.pdf</a> </p>
<p>BW</a> Online | July 7, 2003 | Needed: Affirmative Action for the Poor </p>
<p>In my body of my comment I was referring to admissions to elite schools for unhooked well to do white kids from public schools, and trying to make the point that they face an even increasing difficult time getting into the very best schools.</p>
<p>Windy, perhaps the real "very best" schools are the ones these kids will ultimately go to. </p>
<p>Case in point, my wife's works in quantitative finance where they usually look at only the top schools but recently interviewed and hired an intern from a well regarded public who she said was the best she'd ever worked with. When she told HR who she wanted to hire, they questioned her, but he was so hungry and made such an impression that it's now in her mind to look specifically for that hunger outside the "privileged" schools. The Harvard kids don't have much to prove; the intellectual peers of the Harvard kids that didn't get in do. Who would you rather hire?</p>
<p>Another guy in her firm stopped doing alumni interviews for Brown because they kept rejecting such outstanding kids. Talent finds it's way to it's rightful place and people are starting to figure that out.</p>
<p>Unalove -- in a million years, I would never have called you honey -- I don't even call my two cute kids honey or my dogs. I have never used that word in my life. I think you are confusing me with someone else. In addition, more than half the kids I work with are from top prep schools and I'm a huge fan for the reasons you mention -- intellectual atmosphere, etc... Right now I'm also helping several of my clients apply to elite prep schools and I used to teach at prep school, so I would never have told you to stay in your old school. I sometimes take the time to explain that it can be HARDER to get into HYP from a top prep school as colleges are not overly sympathetic to that increasein competition. But please don't make up apocryphal stories about me. There are enough urban legends around there. Maybe another counselor would have called you honey and given that advice to you, but that wasn't me and it's not consistent with anything I would ever tell anyone or anything I've written in my 4 books.</p>
<p>As for the Deerfield stats -- again, that is the TOTAL number of matrics and over a huge number of years. I never said a lot of kids didn't go to top colleges, I said (and have shown statistically) that the acceptance RATE from Deerfield if you break it down by school is lower than you'd expect (often lower than the average acceptance rate). And the pool has a lot of "tagged" kids, so the acceptance rate from non-tagged kids from those schools is lower than the same rate from a typical strong public school. See A is for Admission for the stats which have not changed. Naturally when more kids apply (virtually 70% of the class at Deerfield or more will apply to top colleges) more will get in TOTAL, but that does not mean the colleges accept a higher percentage. And even with these stats, I never discourage kids to apply to top prep schools IF they are doing it for the right reason - if you want a great education, YES, they are awesome! If you want to make it "easy" to get into a top college, it won't make it easy, but I'd apply anyway if you thrive in that kind of environment. In fact, I spend a lot of my time telling kids that they have to pursue what they enjoy and should NOT do something just to get into college. So Unalove -- contact me directly, but don't spread ridiculous stories about me that are so far off from how I operate that I know you are inventing.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>All discrimination should be opposed, in any form.>></p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>I so agree with you here. Can we start opposing discrimination well before college admissions?</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Now I do understand it would be far worse to be poor and attend a crap high school and such, but that's a separate discussion>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>Why is it a separate discussion? Colleges do not think so. We, as parents do not think so, otherwise we would not try so hard to get the best k-12 education for our kids whether in private or public schools.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad:</p>
<p>It's interesting that your wife's firm took so long to hire people from outside the top schools. I've argued for a long time that great schools are not limited to HYSPMC or ASWP.</p>
<p>mammall:</p>
<p>It depends on the job. A lot of firms find actually that athletes make the best hires for a number of reasons: networks, discipline and work ethics, team spirit. These are qualities that may be far more important to a company than a string of As in classes whose contents may not be directly relevant to the company's mission (speaking as the parent of two totally non-athletic kids). Someone who has been involved in lots of extra curriculars will have a better chance of being hired in fields where social skills are important than someone who spent most of his or her time holed up studying. If a student wants to go to graduate school, however, the ECs are irrelevant.</p>