College Discussion - View Single Post - What's going on with the College Admission this year?

jonri · 04-10-2008, 11:06 AM

GFG--

The OP originally asked what his second child could do to improve his odds of getting into a top college. I answered that question.

I think that it helps kids to understand that college admissions is a lot like casting a school musical, even if they are a soprano and don't get the part. So many kids really don't "get" that they aren't just vying to be one of the 7.1% of students admitted to Harvard, they are vying to be one of a smaller percentage of applicants to Harvard who are the equivalent of sopranos who are admitted--and I personally think it helps to know that when the alto in their high school class gets in.

It also helps to understand that if you are not "naturally" different from the typical applicant, you should do what you can to make yourself unique. My example about an essay on the topic of growing up in two worlds, one Asian and one American, is not fiction. I know a wonderful girl who actually wrote such an essay when she applied to Stanford. I cringed. I knew that killed her chances. (That essay could certainly work in the right hands; it's just that you'd have to be an excellent writer to be able to impress an admissions rep who will have read lots of other essays on the same topic.)

There are schools, e.g., Duke, which weigh the essay much less heavily than most top colleges--and if your kid just can't write a good personal essay, I think it helps to know that. You can say it's phony or artificial for a kid who is interested in engineering to apply to Duke rather than Stanford because he can't write that well and Stanford weighs the essay more heavily than most and Duke less. I don't think there's anything wrong in doing that. And, while the kid might prefer Stanford, he might be happier at Duke than at Rose Hulman or RPI, which might have been his "matches."

I think there's some validity to your criticism, but I still think my advice is valid. You know, there might be a lot of schools in between the point at which your type is so rare you are given an almost full merit scholarship as your son was and the colleges where you can't get in because there are a zillion candidates just like you. It's not always one extreme or the other. There are, for example, schools which are not more than a quarter Asian-American, a la Stanford, but do have more than 10%. There are also kids who choose to go to a college with few folks who look like themselves, but find a way to interact with them out of school. One young African-American woman went to a women's college with few African-American students. She became very active in a national association of African-American college students and made African-American friends through that.

I assure you the young Asian girl in my kid's class who went to Harvard to major in studio art would have preferred to attend Yale, which rejected her, but I don't think her life was over because she went to Harvard instead.

Andison is extremely happy at MIT--and it wasn't on his original list.

And my young female neighbor is very, very happy at Macalester, which ultimately became her real first choice--even though she only visited it in the first place because her guidance counselor sat her and her parents down and said in effect "If you are willing to go to college in the Midwest, you'll be able to go to a better school than if you insist on staying within a few hours drive of New York"--which was her original plan. And, yes, though it take a bit longer to get home, I think she is--and more importantly she thinks she is--happier than she would have been closer to home at a college less academically rigorous and with a less diverse and talented student body than that she is enjoying at Macalester.

And seriously...at the undergrad level does it really matter if you go to the college ranked #1 in sociology or #8? But the way the most academically oriented American kids choose where to apply too often assumes that it does. And at least half of college students do switch their majors. (My kid would be one of them.)

So, yes, following my 'strategy' might not get you into your "dream" college--but from what you said, your S didn't get into his "dream" college without following it either. And every spring, I listen to kids who look at the list of colleges which have accepted them and start talking about a gap year because they don't want to go to any of them. And I think that some of them are all-state musicians who applied to Yale and Harvard and were rejected, but would have been happy at Stanford (which gets FAR fewer apps from all-state musicians) and actresses from Westchester County, New York who get rejected at Vassar, who might have been accepted to and happy at Carleton. (And the Lenny Dee Players are darn good.) Yes, it's harder overall to get into Carleton--but not if you are applying in the regular round as an actress from New York. That's the point.

In any event, I hope that your S and the OP's S are both happy when they get to college; most kids are. But I hope neither of your sons looks back at his high school career and says "If I'd known where I'd end up, I wouldn't have bothered to do X, Y or Z in high school. I only did that thinking it would get me into a more elite college.If I had known that it wouldn't, I wouldn't have done it."

04-10-2008, 11:06 AM	#91
jonri Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 1,173	GFG-- The OP originally asked what his second child could do to improve his odds of getting into a top college. I answered that question. I think that it helps kids to understand that college admissions is a lot like casting a school musical, even if they are a soprano and don't get the part. So many kids really don't "get" that they aren't just vying to be one of the 7.1% of students admitted to Harvard, they are vying to be one of a smaller percentage of applicants to Harvard who are the equivalent of sopranos who are admitted--and I personally think it helps to know that when the alto in their high school class gets in. It also helps to understand that if you are not "naturally" different from the typical applicant, you should do what you can to make yourself unique. My example about an essay on the topic of growing up in two worlds, one Asian and one American, is not fiction. I know a wonderful girl who actually wrote such an essay when she applied to Stanford. I cringed. I knew that killed her chances. (That essay could certainly work in the right hands; it's just that you'd have to be an excellent writer to be able to impress an admissions rep who will have read lots of other essays on the same topic.) There are schools, e.g., Duke, which weigh the essay much less heavily than most top colleges--and if your kid just can't write a good personal essay, I think it helps to know that. You can say it's phony or artificial for a kid who is interested in engineering to apply to Duke rather than Stanford because he can't write that well and Stanford weighs the essay more heavily than most and Duke less. I don't think there's anything wrong in doing that. And, while the kid might prefer Stanford, he might be happier at Duke than at Rose Hulman or RPI, which might have been his "matches." I think there's some validity to your criticism, but I still think my advice is valid. You know, there might be a lot of schools in between the point at which your type is so rare you are given an almost full merit scholarship as your son was and the colleges where you can't get in because there are a zillion candidates just like you. It's not always one extreme or the other. There are, for example, schools which are not more than a quarter Asian-American, a la Stanford, but do have more than 10%. There are also kids who choose to go to a college with few folks who look like themselves, but find a way to interact with them out of school. One young African-American woman went to a women's college with few African-American students. She became very active in a national association of African-American college students and made African-American friends through that. I assure you the young Asian girl in my kid's class who went to Harvard to major in studio art would have preferred to attend Yale, which rejected her, but I don't think her life was over because she went to Harvard instead. Andison is extremely happy at MIT--and it wasn't on his original list. And my young female neighbor is very, very happy at Macalester, which ultimately became her real first choice--even though she only visited it in the first place because her guidance counselor sat her and her parents down and said in effect "If you are willing to go to college in the Midwest, you'll be able to go to a better school than if you insist on staying within a few hours drive of New York"--which was her original plan. And, yes, though it take a bit longer to get home, I think she is--and more importantly she thinks she is--happier than she would have been closer to home at a college less academically rigorous and with a less diverse and talented student body than that she is enjoying at Macalester. And seriously...at the undergrad level does it really matter if you go to the college ranked #1 in sociology or #8? But the way the most academically oriented American kids choose where to apply too often assumes that it does. And at least half of college students do switch their majors. (My kid would be one of them.) So, yes, following my 'strategy' might not get you into your "dream" college--but from what you said, your S didn't get into his "dream" college without following it either. And every spring, I listen to kids who look at the list of colleges which have accepted them and start talking about a gap year because they don't want to go to any of them. And I think that some of them are all-state musicians who applied to Yale and Harvard and were rejected, but would have been happy at Stanford (which gets FAR fewer apps from all-state musicians) and actresses from Westchester County, New York who get rejected at Vassar, who might have been accepted to and happy at Carleton. (And the Lenny Dee Players are darn good.) Yes, it's harder overall to get into Carleton--but not if you are applying in the regular round as an actress from New York. That's the point. In any event, I hope that your S and the OP's S are both happy when they get to college; most kids are. But I hope neither of your sons looks back at his high school career and says "If I'd known where I'd end up, I wouldn't have bothered to do X, Y or Z in high school. I only did that thinking it would get me into a more elite college.If I had known that it wouldn't, I wouldn't have done it."