<p>marite - I believe you had not read my post when you wrote yours but as you see I am completely in agreement with you.</p>
<p>Alumother--yes, indeed, we are agreed.</p>
<p>Alum and marite~</p>
<p>That makes three of us! ~berurah</p>
<p>I'm wondering if you think it was unfair for the parents to have made that investment in the PG program. If you go to a prep school, you know that this is very common. Most of the PGs are strong athletes (they displace a lot of us as starters!). They get an extra year to beef up their academic profile and counselors who know how to work with college coaches. </p>
<p>If one has money, the advantages have been built in for years. From great private schools to tutors to travel and overall exposure. In the case of PGs though, many are on full financial aid and are brought in to make our teams win.</p>
<p>Parents must do the best they can for their child. So I do not think it is unfair of parents to invest in a PG program, hire $120 an hour tutors (though I think it is unethical to expect the tutors to actually do the work for the student, as was claimed in a Newsweek article linked on CC).<br>
I am not even thinking that Andi is claiming that Yale was unfair in admitting that student and not hers. After all, there is no guarantee that had this student not been admitted, the slot would have gone to her child. She is disappointed on behalf of her child and upset that Yale apparently valued athletics above academics and musical talent.
Although I have two unatheltic kids, I can see the value to colleges of athletics. But I can also sympathize with Andi's disappointment.</p>
<p>suze--thanks for your insight. It is something that I am not familiar with. The first time I ever heard of anything like a fifth year of high school was last year. I was talking to S's high school counselor about how far he had come in his last year of high school and how if he had one more year, he would be even better. I was kidding, but you know, thinking that with just a little more maturity, he would be that much more ready for college. Then the counselor surprised me by saying, actually, there are fifth year of high school options. . . That was the first I had heard of anything like that for someone that actually graduated high school.</p>
<p>berurah - yup.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>I actually think Zagat's analogy is a good one. We spend 18 years preparing to apply and then get a combined total of 45 minutes of a few people's time to assess our candidacy. That means a lot is random. How the adcom feels when he picks up your application, whether you happen on an adcom who shares a passion with you, random.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>As in pretty much any human undertaking, college admissions is affected by a certain amount of good fortune and bad fortune. But there is a huge difference between that and a process being "random". Random means that all outcomes have an equal chance of occurring, or in terms of college admissions, all applicants have an equal chance of being admitted. If admissions were random, then within statistical error, the incoming freshman class of every college in the US would look the same - same mean GPA, mean SATs, same degree of EC achievements, the same ethnic makeup, etc. On paper you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the students accepted at HYPS and those accepted at the local community colleges.</p>
<p>Human beings are making purposeful selections in college admissions. In a lotto you have numbers on ping pong balls popping up in a true random manner. That's why it's makes much more sense to be angry with the choices a college makes than if your lotto number doesn't come up. For whatever reason, the adcom deliberately chose not to admit you.</p>
<p>The frustration I would feel if I were Andi is that it is not all that clear why her son didn't get accepted anywhere,</p>
<p>But it is so blatantly clear why that one boy got into Yale...and the reason seems so insignificant in a broad sense.</p>
<p>I also don't think it is randomness that is at play here. If her son was accepted at 4 schools of similar caliber, and not the 5th...well that is random. Her son's situation is not that one, unfortunately, there could be something in particular that is not yet known which took a seemingly fine applicant and put him in the not-accepted pile. </p>
<p>I think knowing is always better than not knowing, and as difficult as it may be to hear, it might help with "moving on" to know what the factor was.</p>
<p>In the interim, I continue to feel it is also okay to complain and feel sad. And, I also feel that energy needs to be devoted to the next steps.</p>
<p>Robyrm, not to beat a dead horse... it's pretty clear why Andi's son didn't get accepted anywhere.... a short list to begin with, top-heavy, "match schools" which have a well-documented need to see strong interest before admitting high stats kids, and no safeties at all, let alone super-safeties. We've flogged this to death on the other thread. He's an exceptional kid who got bad advice and now needs plan B.</p>
<p>The issue now is, how riled up can you get about the perceived unfairness of the admissions policies of different schools? If venting here is helping Andi deal with her son in a sensitive and positive way, then her anger is a good thing. So Andi-- bring it on. If it's clouding her judgement and preventing her from helping her son... who after all, is only 18 and needs to figure out a plan for next year and beyond, then it's time to move on. Only Andi can tell us that.</p>
<p>Hi Blossom, I agree 100% with the 2nd half of your post! While in a generic sense I also agree with the first half, I still think that as a parent or an applicant you wonder (even in the context of the obvious statistical uncertainty) if there is anything specific about a given application that represented a negative...particularly when the glaring "postive" of that other kid looms....</p>
<p>By the way, still loving the kid in front of me...</p>
<p>robrym, it has been my feeling all along that what you say in post 89 is right. Given how much this young man has achieved, it's my guess there was something that made all these schools say no, and figuring out what it is will be the key.</p>
<p>Zagat,
I would be carefully re-reading recommendations and essays...or have the GC or an outside GC do the same. The other uncontrolled factor is interviews..</p>
<p>Suze wrote:
[quote]
In the case of PGs though, many are on full financial aid and are brought in to make our teams win.
[/quote]
So basically its a double-cheat -- do-overs all around, in a sense. The prep school gets to load its teams with experienced 18 & 19 year old athletes - in theory to gain a competitive advantage over rival schools whose athletes have graduated already, though I guess we can assume that the rivals are doing the same thing and loading up their teams with PG's. The ones who really get hurt are the athletically talented 17 year old's who are overshadowed by older players, and thus lose out both on opportunities to play for at the high school level, and to get the attention of athletic recruiters from the top colleges. </p>
<p>The PG athletes get a do-over of senior year, with better advice and massaging of their college apps..... and Yale or whatever other Ivy the prep feeds gets a well-groomed athlete for their team. I see how this works for the PG student, for the prep school, and for the college -- its just redshirting taken one more level.</p>
<p>But I have to say that view simple sheds some more light, and possibly a new twist, to the thread's sarcastic title: "Yale, a quality institution"......</p>
<p>Any school with an investment in intercollegiate sports is going to have students whose "numbers" are below others accepted and not accepted. (Except, of course, The University of Chicago, where I believe the football team has an average GPA HIGHER than the average of the undergrad student body as a whole, and they have to take the "Core" as well.) One can argue that the athlete's special talent contributes something unique to the school environment that benefits all who attend, and it is that quality that these students have that others do not.</p>
<p>Andi, I've told you before that you're a very classy woman and you proved me right again! It was indeed quite classy of you to come here to vent rather than saying something which would make the mother of the athlete uncomfortable. Obviously, the stressful situation you are in could provoke a saint to feel bitter and unhappy. I hope good news comes soon to help dissipate any negative feelings you might have.</p>
<p>I try to collect philosophies of life, or mottos to live by. My newest one is, "If you have to make a choice between joining an attack on an institution or a real-life person, it's probably better to choose to do the former."</p>
<p>Does the U. of Chicago have a football team again? I thought getting rid of the team was the most famous act of that university's most famous president.</p>
<p>Well, they aren't ready to reclaim their spot in the Big 10 (now held by Univ. of Michigan I believe), but they do have a full fledged intercollegiate team!! <a href="http://athletics.uchicago.edu/football/fb.htm%5B/url%5D">http://athletics.uchicago.edu/football/fb.htm</a></p>
<p>IMO: Some of the Ivy schools are in a quandry. The populus sees them as the top of the pile of schools. The faculty think they have the golden touch. And the students and graduates have the ring. In the long scheme of things, it is harder to maintain top billing than to be incrementally be #2.</p>
<p>In any rankings, its nice to be #1, but it's a long way to fall to any thing else.
Being anything BUT #1 can give you (students and school) more opportunities to exploit. I'd target going to a lesser known school for just the increase opportunities. </p>
<p>If you think that going to a well known school can get you a "better job", then look a bit further both in your current situation or future. The person you work for, isn't an HPYS alum, b/c there are too few of them. Were you hired because of your smarts, personality or because you are a HYPS alum?</p>
<p>There are too many less well known schools that were #3,4,5,6,...100, that are now getting much better in relation to the quality of the mentioned institution(s). Some maybe even better than HYPS.</p>
<p>I think that the HYPS realize that being extremely selective is and will hurt their standing and turn people away or just off. Witness this thread. Examine our Presidential candidates (both Yales and same fraternal organization)-Yale may be proud of their alums but ~100% of us dislike vehemently one or both.</p>
<p>BTW: My bro is a HYPS (not telling which one) graduated in mid 60's, From a PS, West Coast, definitely not athletic. Coming home for holidays and spring break often was not done because of the cost. At that time, preps represented a very large majority of the enrollment. Conditions are infinity better today than 40 years earlier.</p>
<p>There is of course the following issue: How accurately do rankings represent the quality of an undergraduate institution? USNews rankings are notoriously dubious in their statisticial method, and by all means, horribly unscientific.</p>
<p>How is it that CalTech was #1 a few years back, and this year is 8th? Did the program somehow lose significant qualities in a few years? I doubt that...</p>
<p>The Ivies are good schools for a good reason. However, they are not the only road toward a successful and happy life.</p>