<p>I would pass this article on to any seniors who are applying to extremely competitive schools; I see this article as comforting for these students because you can (and will) be successful regardless of where you go if you are a gifted, hardworking individual.</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on this?</p>
<p>Thanks for posting the article. I thought it was wonderful. For the kids who aspire to elite college education, I think it is difficult to have such great perspective. It is our job as parents and adults to help them see their journey as a success whether or not they reach their destination.</p>
<p>Interestingly, I would say doing Ivy alumni interviews and the results of them (one in particular) being mostly negative, has caused me to advise my son not to apply ED to my alma mater.</p>
<p>It is sad, but seeing so many amazing kids rejected made me feel that if he does get in, with borderline grades, I would feel guilty.</p>
<p>The one person who did not get in who I thought was a shoe-in had already spent time on campus, had contacted the department she was interested in both for her major and minor, had researched why the school was the best fit for her, clearly conveyed to me how excited she was at the prospect of going to the school. But she was rejected. I also have interviewed schoolmates of my son who are older, and they got rejected.</p>
<p>The one who did get accepted got an academic LL, which was exciting because they let me know when she got the LL.</p>
<p>However, I am fully expecting my youngest will apply to and get into the Ivy I went to, if she so chooses. The mistakes/trials/issues with my oldest have informed us enough that we think we’ll be able to support her in ways we just did not know how to support my oldest.</p>
<p>That is, if she goes to college at all…</p>
<p>@rhandco, The “pancake theory” at work! (the second or third attempt will come out in a more controlled fashion, or the way we expect, than the first). She may not go to college at all? She’s that good? Congratulations!</p>
<p>Nice article, it really put things in perspective. I did not realize that the interviewers cared that much and remember so many people. That definitely makes it less scary feeling for me.</p>
<p>@theonewhoknocks Thanks for the article; it really helped, like @Cazoon said, to put things into perspective and also helping to recognize the truth about the applicants for Harvard. </p>
<p>@rhandco Like you said, the applicant that you were talking about in your comment seemed like a shoo-in. Do you know by any chance why they were rejected? </p>
<p>No, they don’t give us the full app, just an overview. However, specifically there was a link to another college as well, and since I am into conspiracy theories, the second college may have spoken to the first college and said “we need her here”.</p>
<p>My son is very bright, and like me had a tough time with grades in HS. I think he will be happier at a “second-tier” but highly respected school than at the Ivy I went to. Different personalities, my daughter may end up at HYP at this rate (taking extra courses online, winning academic awards in middle school) but she is strong enough, in a different way (he is silent strong, she is boisterous strong) that I’m sure she would do well anywhere, especially a highly competitive environment.</p>
<p>@rhandco What do you mean by this? "No, they don’t give us the full app, just an overview. However, specifically there was a link to another college as well, and since I am into conspiracy theories, the second college may have spoken to the first college and said “we need her here”.</p>
<p>I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Applying to “top” schools is like playing a game of admissions roulette. You could be rejected (or accepted) for any reason at all. A Tufts admission counselor told me that one year, they accepted the first few tuba players who applied because the band’s tuba players had graduated. A Yale (I think it was Yale) admissions counselor rejected a kid because her kid fell from the swingset while she was reading the application, so she denied him in order to bring her kid to the doctor. It could come down to which adcom reads your essay, what time of day they read it, and where your application falls in the pile. There is a much larger element of chance than many of my peers realize.</p>
<p>On a related note, a lot of kids got rejected from Ivies and are DEVASTATED. Once kid has been home for the last couple of days because of his rejection from Penn, and I hear that parents want to form a sort of high school inquisition in order to figure out why no students got accepted into Ivies. They’re taking rejections as personal insults. It’s even more unpleasant than when they were bragging that they were going to be going to the Ivies.</p>
<p>At the time, I did take my acceptances to two Ivies as the most important thing I ever did in my life, and I realized before I graduated, it was more of a crapshoot than my skill. If I did not get in, I would not have been upset because I never expected it, it was like burning up two twenty dollar bills to me. When I found out I was in and would go to an Ivy, it was surreal walking around knowing that half of the kids I knew didn’t get into their top choice. I don’t know one HYPMS from my grade. I know one other kid went to Penn. I don’t know any others that went to Ivies.</p>
<p>As for:
"What do you mean by this? "No, they don’t give us the full app, just an overview. However, specifically there was a link to another college as well, and since I am into conspiracy theories, the second college may have spoken to the first college and said “we need her here”. "</p>
<p>Not sure what part you were confused about.</p>
<p>1) They don’t give us a full application for each student interviewed, we get a name and a prospective major and no other info. So, I don’t know if the candidate had great or bad scores.<br>
2) I did know from speaking with her that she formed a charity when a sophomore which was reaching out to many many MANY kids, and was well-publicized, with her name attached. Uber EC as far as I was concerned. Also, she had sports and music. And languages. Everything in the interview was top notch.
3) She told me that her major selection was specific and that there was only one other school that she was targeting. Because of the specific major, and details I won’t reveal, this other college was a more natural choice and it is likely the people at the department at Penn would have a good relationship with the other college. </p>
<p>There might be an explicit ban on admissions committees talking, but it is possible with very small majors who only get a handful of kids applying each year, the departments can talk and give word back to their admissions.</p>
<p>And FWIW, one of the kids who got into an Ivy ED whose grandfather gave millions and has a named facility, he’s also on the admissions committee it turns out… Saves time for the admissions counselor who gets her app, give it over to grandpa…</p>
<p>This topic always reminds of an article I read over a decade ago in Time, Newsweek??? The facts are a little hazy at this point but the article quoted some admission officer at an Ivy who said that she could go to top of some 3 story campus parking structure and throw the 20K+ applicant folders that they had received off the roof and then go down and the first 2K folders she picked up at random would all be gifted, hardworking high stat superstars and could be offered admission. </p>
<p>So how does an admission office decide? I think post above (tuba players/element of chance) is on point about college admissions especially at elite schools. Colleges are businesses. Along with things like with legacies, URMs,etc, colleges have many different depts (athletic (don’t forget Title IX), music, engineering, drama, science, humanities, etc, etc, etc). These depts have needs which can fluctuate from year to year. I think dept. heads make yearly assessments of their needs and submit their dance cards to the admission office. Admission offices that will end up admitting less than 10% of applicant pool then have to make not only hard decisions between superstar applicants but explaining to department heads why when they asked for say 4 tuba players they only got two, or explain to administrators why they made certain decisions. Admission offices probably face strong pressures pulling from several directions. It’s not necessarily something negative about gifted, hardworking superstar applicant that gets him/her rejected. It’s just in any particular year, a superstar applicant’s background/interests doesn’t fill a department need or you’re one of 4 superstar tuba players but they only needed 2 or you lose out to some legacy or kid of faculty member or donor, etc. </p>