Sally_Rubenstone

Question: My son was thinking about applying ED to Tufts. His guidance counselor told him that no one from his high school has ever gotten in with his GPA and his ACT score. He told him not to waste his early decision. What should he do? Last week “The Dean’ started a thread on the [...]

View the complete Q&A at CC's Ask The Dean...

zobroward

well, it may be a lazy or uncaring guidance counselor or it may be an honest one doing a reality check and helping the student!

p.s. this is a case where an outside private counselor would come in handy.

Hunt

I wouldn't assume that the counselor actually knows (or remembers) the stats and other qualifications of students in past years. If it's on Naviance, that's a bit better. I agree with the advice to listen to the counselor, but to investigate on your own as well. One place to look is "results" threads here on CC. That gives you at least some anecdotal evidence that allows you to compare yourself to students who were accepted (or not).

rodney

Some Naviance programs do not distinguish between ED and RD; a high school has to pay extra for that feature.

Make sure the counselor is comparing apples to apples and, in addition, whether FA was involved with the histories

Tufts is not need blind

lookingforward

In the link, the advice back from the dean is on target, imo. One of mine applied to a high reach, though the GC discouraged her. The record is usually only one or two from this hs get admitted and there were several better candidates. But, for D1's major and strengths- and for that college and that dept- I thought it was quite reasonable to apply, that she would thrive, if admitted, be a solid student there- fit, match, excel, be empowered and all the other good words. She was rejected and so be it. Her eyes were wide open when she applied.

Sikorsky

I agree that Sally's advice was great.

I am struck, however, by the fact that if somebody else had posted about his or her own college-admissions service in a regular post on the CC message boards, the moderators would have pulled the post because it was "advertising." And they would have been right. I give Sally credit for disclosing clearly and completely that the service she mentioned was her own enterprise, but I don't know whether anybody else could have done that.

Sally_Rubenstone

Sikorsky--Back in the days before Hobsons bought College Confidential, when we at CC offered our own fee-for-service counseling, the majority of "Ask the Dean" responses included a plug for this paid assistance (unless such assistance wasn't relevant to the question being asked, or if the question clearly indicated that its author was in no position to pay for extra help).

Now, however, you'll notice that this "advertising" is rare and that it's only in the body of the "Ask the Dean" answer and not within the forum post itself. I only include the plug when I think that a Stats Eval would be very helpful and thus it would be a disservice to the CC member to omit it.

Glad you liked the advice.

Strawberry22

We did not listen and daughter got into one of those "reaches". The counselor was clueless as to these colleges and based his opinion on scores and GPA alone. She interviewed and did very well. She's in and happy.

Sally_Rubenstone

Strawberry22 ... stories like yours are always good to hear. Glad your daughter is happy.

marshallmeyer12

People apply Early Decision because it is their absolute first choice school. Therefore, if the kid is set on going to Tufts, let him apply. What's the worst that can happen? He gets denied, and applies to more realistic schools.