| I'm an attorney/parent of '07 law school grad who is a refugee from the law boards. I'm not a professional--just someone who got interested in the whole process back then--as many CC parents have.
If you were more involved in the music world, it would be an equally obvious assumption. As menloparkmom's post indicates, the fact that Stanford is weaker in music than H or Y is well known. Kids who are interested in music but aren't *superstars* in music; I mean kids who are all-state in orchestra, but are unlikely to ever become professional musicians--figure that out and apply to H or Y because they get more excited about the opportunities for musical ECs at H or Y than at Stanford. They ignore the fact that everyone else can figure it out too.
They apply to H or Y and then apply regular round to "safeties" like Oberlin or St. Olaf's--other schools that also attract a lot of excellent musicians and have filled a lot of their places already in the early round. Then they are surprised when they get rejected despite much higher than median gpa's and SAT scores.
ALL of this stuff is public knowledge. And all kinds of kids make the same "mistake"--it's musicians, actors, debaters, chess players, kids into robotics, whatever. Which colleges have the BEST chess teams? The high school chess players research and find out and then apply to the colleges with the best chess teams at every level....just like the majority of all the other high school chess players in the US with high gpa's and SATs--even when the applicants are good, but not great chess players at a national level.
Then they do the same for majors. Which is the #1 ranked history department in the nation? Which is the BEST French department? Which is the BEST creative writing program? For the last--my "safety" will be Sarah Lawrence. Yeah right...it's harder to get into Sarah Lawrence as a creative writing major than it is to get into MANY colleges which are tougher to get into overall--and which have very good creative writing programs.
It's not rocket science...it really isn't. Hey, if you're good enough for Julliard, I'm NOT suggesting Stanford. I'm just saying that while there may be fewer performance opportunities for non-majors at Stanford, the good but not superstar musician might have a better chance of getting into Stanford and participating in what's on offer than getting into H or Y and making the student symphony orchestra.
If you are interested in a particular field, you usually can find info about it on the internet....kids already do. So, lets say you are into robotics. You check out college competitions. You see which schools do best in them. How about seeing which schools ompete but do not excel? Where you can be on a robotics team--but one which isn't going to be inundated with apps from every other kid into robotics?
Again, I'm not saying not to apply to the team with the best robotics team, if that's your dream. I'm just saying not to apply ONLY to schools with great robotics teams.
I'm also saying that when you look at reach, match, safeyy categories, especially at LACs, you shouldn't just look at the stats, but at the concentration of kids like you. That becomes crucial if you are applying in the regular round to a college which has an early round.
I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but I am sincerely trying to help. If anyone thinks my 'strategy' is repugnant, well, there's no need to use it. But, quite honestly, I don't think most kids or parents will find it such...and if used judiciously, I think some kids, at least, would be happier when the envelopes arrive. |