A parent's cautionary tale – SWF- Northeast need not apply?

Parents Forum
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<p>I would like to start out by saying this is not a rant just one parent’s observation as I’ve participated in this process over the past 3+ years; I would like to thank the many members who have provided their effort, time and expertise in transmitting the information that has been so valuable to me and I am sure others on the site. I would like to be as transparent as possible so that others may benefit from this Odyssey that was just undertaken – –</p>

<p>There are many reasons why parents and their children play the game of high stakes college admission but I think it gets crystallized down into the scene that we will probably remember from “Jerry Maguire” where Renée Zellweger says as the curtain closes to the first class compartment of the airplane to her son “first class used to mean a better meal and a more comfortable seat-- now it means a ticket to a better life” there is some truth to that statement as far as I see it in terms of this process that many of us have entered.</p>

<p>As Northstarmom might have pointed out my daughter was competitive in most every way except one – she was not an athlete in any way. In every other respect, she was “beyond the 75th percentile”; perfect score on the ACT; NMF; 800/800/750 on 3 SAT II’s. She took 90% of the APs offered at her school and got fives on all of them. Her unweighted average was 98.5 out of 100. She was the editor of the literary magazine for the school which has won awards across the state, and she was the technical director for the theater company for 4 years- proficient at mechanical props and such… She started her own business and website and makes $$; and most importantly (as seems to be the rage today) showed a “deep EC” over 10 years with the culmination in a GS gold award project with 3 regional speakers, 2 national speakers on safety issues for girls regarding pertinent topics of the day including sexual assault, financial literacy and the like.She has also held other leadership positions across her state for STEM programs, and currently has a nomination for the US presidential scholarship for her state.</p>

<p>As you can see, It appears as if she has almost all the things that "they"prize/request/advise.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, she is a middle-class/barely upper-middle-class white female from a high tax state/NE with parents or family who are not legacies of any of the schools she applied to; her ancestors come from Northern Europe; and she is not interested in sports competition.</p>

<p>Her results were typical of what many will report today-- denied at H, Y, Brown, MIT. Waitlisted at Bowdoin, Williams, Davidson.You might be wondering if she neglected the other things that we all talk about on the site. She did not. She visited each and every small school/LAC and interviewed at each one (other than Williams which has no interviews). She wrote personal thank you notes to each interviewer; she wrote personalized essays that mentioned professors by name for the classes that she shall sat in on while attending. She weaved and the such that (at least in this parents opinion) would likely make any Adcom smile in a gesture of knowing. In other words it was not generic, it was not canned; it was authentic.</p>

<p>Everyone has read the platitudes 1000 times "it’s a crapshoot"its holistic/they can do what they want (and boy they sure do)- but this does not answer the why of the process for some. </p>

<p>I’m struck by what I read on a recent thread concerning the boy that was lamenting his friend’s inability to get into one of 4 Ivy League schools that he had chosen based upon his stats, etc- and the multitude of pages that ensued all of which were enlightening- the most enlightening for me was the post by Lucilake who provided the concept of “institutional engineering”.</p>

<p>As I mentioned at the outset this was our family’s foray into the high-stakes game of college admissions – I have one special needs child was already in college doing well and I have one behind this child who is decidedly average in most every way!!!. Again, I am so grateful for the information provided on this site- it was interesting throwing our family’s hat in the ring for this process.</p>

<p>PS before anyone takes us/me to task she has applied and has an acceptance to a financial safety a full ride to a NMF school.</p>

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<p>Thank you for sharing. I appreciate your honest telling of your family’s story. In reading on cc, it is easy to understand in theory the slim chances for admission at elite schools. The reality of reading an exceptionally qualified individual’s rejection story is harder to process.</p>

<p>Best wishes for your child’s future. From reading her story, I am sure she will succeed wherever she lands.</p>

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<p>I don’t know what NMF school means, but until I got to your last paragraph I was going to ask “did she get accepted anywhere?” And now I know she did! And a full ride??? Incredibly wonderful. Congrats to her.</p>

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<p>Glad she has some choices and sorry for the rejects/wait lists. Unfortunately, this is why top students apply to ma high number of colleges, which makes the competition worse. With a <20% admit rate at any of these schools, some really great kids are not going to be admitted to any of the elite schools. She is probably not alone in this outcome and hope she is happy with her choice. It can be hard to not be at least a bit bitter when a kid has worked very hard and does not get what she wants but it usually works out very well. She will probably soar at her “safety” or may decide to transfer to her dream school (if finances are not a concern). Did she get into schools in between her top choices and her full-ride safety?</p>

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<p>What choices does she have and how does she feel about them? Does she intend to stay on any of the waitlists, or is she ready to make a choice now among the schools that have accepted her?</p>

<p>Of course, she (and you) can take a few days to lick her/your wounds, but it’s time to move on and consider the options she does have.</p>

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<p>There are plenty of northeast white females at elite schools. Indeed, bclintonk and I did an analysis that indicates that the Ivies skew towards the northeast. So please, no sobbing that white females are “disadvantaged.” </p>

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<p>I think rather than focus on the rejections it’s better to focus on the acceptances. It really doesn’t matter “why” one particular college chooses a group of students…when you have a cohort of highly talented kids there is nothing more they can do other than dig in with the “team” that does pick them. Please don’t do your daughter a dis-service by focusing on what didn’t happen.</p>

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<p>Disadvantaged is the wrong word – but I’ll bet if you could do an analysis of their acceptance rate it would be lower than the total acceptance rate of all applicants. If you visit the campuses, you’ll see lots of SWF from the Northeast, but what you don’t know is how many applications were rejected compared to other subgroups. </p>

<p>It’s like the endless arguments about Asian applicants. From the universities’ perspective, and given their institutional priorities, what happens makes sense. For the outsider looking in, it’s frustrating. </p>

<p>The key thing is recognizing this possibility beforehand and applying both to reaches and to schools that will accept you – which the OP daughter apparently did. Four years from now, when she graduates debt-free, she will probably be thrilled at how this all transpired. A kid like her will bloom where she is planted and I’m sure will thrive, and will realize that her “ticket to a better life” came from a different place.</p>

<p>Chris, I’m sorry your daughter didn’t get the results she badly wanted. It does sound like she did everything she could (although we really have no idea what her recommendations said or what her essays were like – yes, I’m sure they were fabulous, but that is another part of the process that’s less obvious). She may get off a waitlist (it does happen). Good luck to her.</p>

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<p>Other people’s kids are amazing and do great things too. You might not know it or see it but they do. We see out own kids’ accomplishments, unique personal qualities and hard work in a vacuum. Thankfully, I think, the world is full of amazing people who contribute in their own way and I’m glad that it is. I’m glad that there are lots of smart, resourceful, talented, artistic, athletic, entrepreneurial, determined kids out there who make this world a better place. Stanford and Harvard do not have enough room for them all. We could go back to the days before excellent need based financial aid, diversity recruitment and the idea that to a degree admissions is a meritocracy - but then we’d only be complaining that they were full of rich white guys from old families and most of our kids wouldn’t get in anyway.</p>

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<p>I think the answer to “the why of the process” is that there were several hundred candidates as equally talented as your daughter, Chris46. This is why some people apply to 8 schools or as many as 30. Congratulations to you and to your daughter on her acceptance to the top-ranked University of Chicago.</p>

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<p>There are plenty of northeast white females at elite schools. Indeed, bclintonk and I did an analysis that indicates that the Ivies skew towards the northeast. So please, no sobbing that white females are “disadvantaged.”</p>

<p>If that’s what you got out of what I wrote, then I must be not very clear in my writing! No one’s crying over here…Just dealing with the hand that has been dealt and detailing our story. </p>

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<p>If it is true that the student did get admitted to the University of Chicago I find it wrong that this information was not included in the original post. </p>

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<p>It was good for me to read some of these cautionary tales when I first came on CC many years ago. We were very surprised by D’s results last year also. You can’t predict admissions with the extremely selective schools.</p>

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<p>Hugs. It hurts. If you aren’t familiar with Andison’s saga, you may want to read it .</p>

<p>In your case, I would suggest a post mortem. Something went wrong. </p>

<p>Years ago, a young woman I know had similar results. Her mom called one of the wait list schools. The real reason she was waitlisted? Some of her materials were received WAY after the deadline. In this case, it was TOTALLY the GC’s fault. The GC’s mom was very ill for a few weeks and died right when materials were due and as a result, the GC didn’t get things in on time. Mom called the other 2 schools where her D was waitlisted. Same story. There’s a happy ending. When the schools figured out that the kid was not at fault and was going to end up at a super safety, 2 of the 3 let her in in the first batch of people who were taken off the wait list. (The third school never went to it that year.) She graduated from Wellesley 4 years later. </p>

<p>Now, obviously, that’s a rare example. But if your D is really unhappy with her options, it might pay for her to take a gap year and reapply. I think something did go wrong. A bad rec, bad essays, something. Of course, she may still get in off the wait list. </p>

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<p>Chris46, I think you wrote quite elegantly; it is the title of the thread that sounded a little sour grapes.</p>

<p>If indeed your DD has an acceptance at UChicago, that is wonderful. Are there others that waitlisted her that she would prefer?</p>

<p>Another poster wrote of her DD getting acceptances to 2 very good colleges, but smarting over the rejections.</p>

<p>When my son applied (I think it was easier a few years ago), he had many more rejections than acceptances. Since 1 of those acceptances came towards the start of those dreaded envelopes/e-mails, that made it easier. </p>

<p>My attitude was “It only takes 1!”</p>

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<p>According to an earlier post in the financial aid forum, the daughter was accepted EA to UChicago. </p>

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<p>I support the OP’s writing of this story. A lot of starry-eyed students and parents who are just starting this college admissions process need to understand what the realities of “slim chance of admission” really looks like. A lot of super qualified kids will be getting rejection notices, and prospective college students (and their parents) need to realize this and be prepared with a wide variety of match/safety schools.</p>

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<p>The results could have been different if she applied EA to other schools first.</p>

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<p>Part of the problem is a matter of statistics. Purely from a statistical standpoint, by applying to 6 schools with a 10% acceptance rate, the likelihood of being rejected by all 6 is still 53% - meaning only a 47% chance of being accepted by at least one school. Given those numbers, why are people surprised by this type of result? Even with 15 applications, there is still statistically a 20% chance of being rejected by all. Add the fact that acceptances are not random, and we really shouldn’t be surprised by such results for well qualified students who nevertheless don’t quite stand out in a significant way.</p>

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<p>Hugs to you. Yes, there are a number of SWF from NE that get accepted to the schools where your daughter was not. And even more who are not. Just too many apps to take all of those who want a place, and most all of them are stellar in stats.</p>

<p>For MIT, I believe last year 15 % of the 5391 women who applied were accepted whereas only 7% of the 12, 718 men who applied made the cut. So you can see there, that the gals have the advantage. But those 5000 women had some strong stats. My close friend who is an alum chose not to encourage his engineering major daughter apply there because he felt it was a rough crowd. He also doubted she’d get in with her stuff, as MIT does not give any or much weight to legacy. He was probably right. </p>

<p>7% RD accept rate at Penn. IF that isn’t crazy, what is? Even as there are fewer kids that are college aged, those applying are focusing more on the same few schools making it crazy competitive.</p>

<p>There is that thread here on the board titled “Why Do Seemingly Perfect Students Get Rejected by Ivies”. It’s just that no one can imagine how tight it has become.</p>

<p>Also depending upon your high school, some of these top school will only heavily consider the top 2-3 kids. Taking 90% of the most difficult courses is not good enough these days. If school doesn’t calculate class rank the school estimates it and the results often the very top students of schools that don’t do this in hopes of making more kids inclusive in consideration. </p>