<p>Every time I contemplate what lookingforward describes in 11:36AM --why, oh why, do we not have post numbers!–I am amazed that most of the kids I know who got into Harvard were accepted. They just aren’t that special. </p>
<p>Sorghum, Yes and No. There is a presumption that being tops in your hs is all it takes. Or being URM. In fact, on CC we tend to categorize too much- as if ‘female STEM’ and a couple of good ECs automatically conveys some depth and richness. Or URM converts to less qualified. Sheesh, you have a whole app to fill out. They read the whole app. It’s not just a listing, fill in the blanks. It’s not just another hs essay. You aren’t applying for a lateral move to another hs or a better hs, 13th grade or, as Blossom called it, 5th year of hs.</p>
<p>This nifty blurb captures some of the “more” the tippy tops look for. Each has its own and, yup, you have to look for it- beyond boxy categorizations or assumptions:
We want to see your commitment, dedication and genuine interest in expanding your intellectual horizons; both in what you write about yourself and in what others write on your behalf. We want to see the kind of curiosity and enthusiasm that will allow you to spark a lively discussion in a freshman seminar and continue the conversation at a dinner table. We want to see the energy and depth of commitment you will bring to your endeavors, whether that means in a research lab, while being part of a community organization, during a performance or on an athletic field. We want to see the initiative with which you seek out opportunities that expand your perspective and that will allow you to participate in creating new knowledge. That’s Stanford. And just one part of what they say. </p>
<p>Consolation, in reality, I don’t think you and I are that far apart- we have our eyes open. Just as we can’t presume stats are all it takes, nor can we assume some kid didn’t come across as all that special. </p>
<p>Every year the top URMs in schools in this area are accepted to the most selective school, and that is not the case of the vals and sals for the same schools. There is no question that a kid who fits the URM category AND has the stats has a leg up. The geographic advantages get maybe “a toe up”. </p>
<p>Sorghum, there should be an article on the front page of every newspaper in the country announcing that HS kids who tell a highly competitive college that they are pre-med should be prepared to be disappointed. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. A kid who self-identifies as a potential linguistics major needs to understand that some adcom, somewhere, perhaps, may look at another linguistics application on his or her desk and say, “if I can only have one, which one is bringing something special to the party?” The good news-- there ain’t that many linguistics majors who self-identify in HS. And I’m willing to bet that the ones that are are pretty damned special and diverse and easily distinguished from each other. And since about half of them demonstrate some interest in the cog sci/neuro end, and the other half will demonstrate interest in the philological end- the colleges these kids apply to may even “over enroll” their potential linguistics majors that year, without worrying about capacity or changing the climate on campus.</p>
<p>Over enroll your pre-meds and watch out. You’ll be scheduling chem labs at midnight and having professors teach review sessions at 4 am in order to accommodate your hoards.</p>
<p>How is this hard to understand, and why does this mean that a white girl is getting the shaft somewhere?</p>
<p>
This happens at my kids’ high school as well, and I think perhaps it creates an illusion that the Ivies are overrun with URMs. This is not the case. For example, Harvard has about 6% African-Americans–compared to 13% of the US population. This is one reason that highly qualified URM gets into a bunch of top schools–they are all undersubscribed for that category of student, and he can only go to one school.</p>
<p>I have no idea what you mean about potential linguistics students. At its most simple, Harvard is ‘race-aware’ and wants to be 10-12% black, and the admitted students will come off whatever pool applies in the various categories of interest. All admitted students are capable of doing the work. There is a legitimate argument whether fairness at an individual or social level ensues.</p>
<p>Here is the breakdown from last year’s freshman class at Yale. Does anyone know which states are in the NE and which are Mid Atlantic. Specifically NJ and PA?</p>
<p><a href=“9 facts about the new freshman class | YaleNews”>9 facts about the new freshman class | YaleNews;
<p>Students come from all U.S. states and territories. Broken down by region, that’s 35.5% from the Northeast; 7.1% from the Mid-Atlantic states; 10.8% from the South; 12.5% from the Midwest; 4.6% from the Southwest; and 16.8% from the West. New York and California were well represented; each is the “home state” for 12% of the class.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sure (although I know some of these kids very well). One thing they DO have in common is a conviction that THEY are special. Yes, the kid has that conviction. And most likely it came across in the application, and was bolstered by their recs. </p>
<p>They radiate a confidence in their own exceptionality. That does’t mean they aren’t nice kids, and I don’t like them.</p>
<p>The problem is that the admissions process for highly competitive schools has turned into a kind of arms race, with everyone trying to figure out how to game the system, and in many way the schools themselves are to blame because they cause confusion. Schools like HYP schools and the like claim they are looking for diversity, they want a campus of multiple ideas,backgrounds and so forth, as if a college today is really the meeting place of ideas and such…yet they brag about the incredible stats of the students getting in, GPA’s, EC’s, all the things people think you need for a ‘good admit’. </p>
<p>Part of this is the collective “us”, that college is viewed as something that guarantees the golden ticket, that if you get into an HYP you can go become an investment banker or doctor or lawyer and be up there with the elites, so these schools attract a ton of applicants who mostly are near perfect SAT’s, etc…and many of them with the view that these schools are the golden ticket. I am not going to debate whether HYP or the like are or are not that golden road, but when people think that, it attracts those desperate to get in, and they often have done all the right things. </p>
<p>The problem is, with such a huge number of students applying, how do you choose? If you did it strictly on stats, ec’s, etc, you would probably see the Ivy league schools heavily Asian, either Asian American, South Asian or Asia proper, given the kinds of stats kids from that background often have, I am talking a percentage well above the majority… </p>
<p>Or if we looked strictly at stats and the EC’s and such, we might have a campus full of kids who are really good at busting out stats, at getting great grades, and most of whom are interested only in that, and in ‘getting ahead’, so you might have a campus full of students who spend all their time figuring out how to suck up to professors, grind through to get perfect GPA’s in an area of study (STEM/Pre Med/Finance/Business) designed to get them that great track, but the campus life would lack in students participating in clubs, who are interested in learning about other people, viewpoints, etc…do you want a campus full only of future doctors, lawyers and investment bankers or executives? </p>
<p>The reality is the schools of course love the high stats, it gives them bragging rights, but they also want a school that they can say has more to it than what I just mentioned, and they look for kids who are different. Harvard has turned out some brilliant people in a variety of fields, and while the Goldman Sachs of the world are full of ivy graduates, they also have turned out people who have done brilliant things in a lot of fields, from public service to charities to poets to composers to artists and writers and whatnot…and they probably look for that as well. They also look for kids with unique life stories, who seem to have real passion, who rather than doing 13 EC’s to look good on a resume, really care about something, whatever it is. They also see that a kid from Bed Stuy or Harlem, who faced not great opportunities, managed to do decently with schools and situations that weren’t that great. The kid who is a 4th generation legacy at Choate or Andover is almost bred for getting into an Ivy, a kid from Watts or Harlem or some rural district in the farm belt has faced lack of opportunities the other kid had, and they take that into account. My dad, bless his soul, once made a point to the local HS principal, who was boasting about the kids in National honor society, National merit semi and finalists, went to top tier schools, and my dad looked at him and said “yeah, but what did you really do? Take a look at the product you have coming into the school, kids from upper middle income families, parents generally college educated, what feat did you really accomplish?”…and he was right, and schools understand this. </p>
<p>Is it a fair process? No, but the reality is that they can’t admit 50,000 kids, and one of the reasons that HYP and the other top schools are top schools in the first place is because of the environment they offer, they got that reputation in part from turning out more than their share of people across a wide spectrum of things who did something, and they are still looking for that, and among a sea of kids who seem to be cookie cutter, kids who went to public schools like Scarsdale or the like, kids who went to elite private schools, kids who you know have had SAT prep up to the wazoo, had a school with a strong AP program, who had educated parents, who did all the ‘right’ ec’s, they need to differentiate and yes, it is going to leave kids out. The Asian kid from a school district where most kids excel is going to face a regional bias, and also a lack of differentiation from his/her peers. Women can lose out, because schools try to keep a 50-50 balance, and I read something not long ago that in some cases, these schools would become more female than male…it means if you are in a demographic that is well represented, you are competing against bigger odds…</p>
<p>Probably the realistic way of looking at the admissions process is realizing that there isn’t one pool, that they in effect break kids up into categories. So the high achieving white male from the northeast might be in a pool full of people like that, a non white, non Asian female might be in a different pool, an Asian kid from silicon valley would be in a different pool than a kid from Flushing, Queens who while Asian, came from a family of recent immigrants where he would be the first to go to college (or her)…and from there they hypothetically would work to pick the best candidates from each pool, and then make a pool that they later cut down (note, I am not an admissions officer, I am not associated with any school, I am not speaking as an expert, just trying to give a framework to think about this). And these groups can be based in intangibles that aren’t measured by EC’s, by test scores, by GPA alone, and being subjective, it is hard to see it as being truly fair, but the obverse, using only discrete numbers, would end up changing the school in a way that they may not want to go. </p>
<p>And yes, sometimes it comes down to a crapshoot, and it seems unfair. As the parent of a music student at a conservatory where the competition level on their instrument is as bad as the Ivy league admissions, there is no numerical formula, it boils down to a 10 minute audition, which in itself is subjective, and then a teacher has to be willing to teach you. you can perform great on the audition, but no teacher has room or has a willingness to teach you, so you don’t get in; you could be a fantastic musician, but have a bad audition; the audition panel if you are a violinist may not like your playing style, because you were trained in the Russian style but they are all Franco-Belgian; you do you audition at the end of the day, when they are crankly, having heard a hundred kids, want their dinner, and as a result, don’t even listen to the audition much, what they do hear is filtered through fatigue and grumpiness, and you don’t get in. A kid gets in and you don’t because the kid in question had some history with a teacher on the panel, so though you play better technically and musically than the kid, the teacher takes the other kid because he knows and likes him…in the music world this is well known, over on the Music Major board it is openly called a crapshoot, and you have to be aware that there is serendipity in getting in. (continued)</p>
<p>(continued from above)
Believe me, I understanding the questioning, the bitterness in some cases, you seem to have done all the right things, and you don’t get what you wanted. I have seen that for years with music, where for example judges at a competition are prejudiced against certain things, and when they see a kid from that background, style, whatever, nail them. In the music world, there are teachers who think technical precision is everything, and you get music students getting into top conservatories who play robotically, very little music feel, no stage presence, yet that is what is often chosen to get in, while kids you enjoy watching don’t get in, because they aren’t technically as brilliant…</p>
<p>What people say over there is applicable here I think, and that is to focus on the possibilities with what plays out. If getting into an HYP school is all you want to do, then take a gap year and work on something, on yourself, a passion, to see at the end of the year if you still want to go there, or if you do, talk about the things you did with that year, and how getting into Harvard or whatever fits into that. Or if you get into other schools, look at what they offer, and choose to go there, and dedicate yourself to being the best you can be. U of Chicago is a fantastic school, and I would bet pretty good money that the kids who didn’t get into HYP got into schools that might not be Ivy or stanford, but are brilliant schools in their own right, but simply don’t have the brand the Ivies have. In music, Juilliard is a magic word around the word, literally (friend of my S’s, who is of Korean background, went back to visit family, and he swears that he would be visiting relatives in a small, rural town, would mention he was a music student, and they would immediately ask “Juilliard?”) when it comes to music, but there are a number of schools in the US and overseas that can provide as good, if not better experience, depending on what you are going in for, but to many kids it is Juilliard or bust (Juilliard’s acceptance rate is about 6% or so because of that, they get a ton of people applying there), and a lot of brilliant musicians come out of the other program. The guy who founded my company went to a state college, was admittedly not a top student, got an MBA from a state school in California, and in a little over 10 years took it from start up to being one of the dominant players in the industry it is in…which tells you, as they say when selling mutual funds and such, that returns are not guaranteed anywhere, HYP or not. </p>
<p>I understood the linguistics reference. Plus, a number who think they want it, based on some tangential hs exposure, may find the major not to their liking. It’s a bit different with something like classics- the kid may change majors, but to be qualified in the first place, he/she has usually done several years of prep.</p>
<p>Really like Hunt’s post. But, as an aside, they aren’t taking these kids from some desperation. A lot of these kids convey an impact in their activities, have taken rigorous classes and done well, have the right tone in LoRs, etc. Top colleges don’t take them just to have the in the stats for the matriculating class. They want them to graduate and succeed in life, whatever their directions may be.</p>
<p>ps. students of color can include Asian American.</p>
<p>I think that part of the problem here is that there are a lot of frequent commenters here on CC–wonderful, helpful parents that have great advice for the newbies–but there is one big difference between them and parents who start a post like this: most of them have kids who won the lottery for a lottery school. The parents whose kids didn’t win the lottery are less likely to stick around and offer good advice on CC. </p>
<p>Now, my kid only applied to one lottery school and it was no big surprise that she didn’t get in there since her stats are below the 25-75th percentile. But it was worth a try. She was much closer to likely admission to her other 2 faves and was rejected by one and offered delayed admission to the other. Fortunately her 4th choice admitted her and gave her a do-able financial aid package, and she will be happy to attend. We both think it will be a great fit for her. But I can’t say that it doesn’t hurt.</p>
<p>Really, some (not all) of it is the luck of the draw. We do the best we can for and with our kids and it hurts for us and for them when their top-choice schools say no. In my very humble opinion, some kind-and-gentle treatment is called for here. Just because we (even me!) read a zillion threads started by parents and students who display their ignorance here doesn’t mean that they are idiots for not knowing everything in advance. After all, that’s why they are here.</p>
<p>^I think sometimes in the aftermath of disappointing results parents and/or students make posts with inflammatory titles that they might think better of with a little time to cool down and reflect. I don’t think they’re thoughtless or cruel people but their posts can be hurtful nevertheless. Someone who writes, “I got rejected from every decent school on my list and all I’m left with is UMass Amherst. I want to cry.” may be expressing an honest emotion, but it’s not one likely to be welcomed by a kid celebrating his acceptance to UMass. It gets even more frustrating for the reader when the acceptance has come from a truly world-class university which accepts fewer than 1 in 11 applicants, as is the case in this thread.</p>
<p>The threads with a racial subtext (“If I were only an African American kid with my same stats I would have been a shoo-in for Yale, instead I was rejected”) can be seen as insulting to the smart, talented AA kids who were able to win that golden ticket and would seem to devalue their accomplishments.</p>
<p>Expressing one’s disappointment is to be expected but doing it in a mature and thoughtful way can be a challenge when one has received a lot of thin envelopes.</p>
<p>oldmom: I would not agree that most who post regularly have a lottery winner kid. </p>
<p>What strikes me on some of these posts (and the initial post here certainly did), is that being a middle/upper middle class white student from the NE be you female or male is often associated with a high level of privilege to start with (not always, I was the kid from the wrong side of the tracks but still got the benefit of my excellent high school). Is it fair that those kids go to some of the best high schools in the country and have guidance counselors that know what they are doing? Is it fair that many (not necessary the OP’s daughter, but many of the kids I know) get enrichment classes, tutors when needed, SAT classes and summer camp? That better preparation carries over to college, where it is easier to be successful if a student has good preparation and is able to do some social things without worrying about every penny.</p>
<p>Things are not fair and venting is one purpose of these forums. No harm in that. But if you have read more than a handful of threads on CC Parents, you should know it is not an echo chamber and folks here tell it like they see it. Personally, I find that refreshing. </p>
<p>As others have said here and in other threads, there is little to distinguish students at the tippy top of the applicant pool. Is there really a difference between a 4.0 and a 4.3 GPA in ability? Or a 725 and a 775 SAT score? Between a kid that worked in one lab or another?</p>
<p>Certainly, the applicant pool is deeper for the high achieving, high scoring, good EC, middle to upper middle class, majority students from highly ranked high schools from suburbs of NY, Boston, Philadelphia or DC. It can be harder to distinguish oneself in that case. But don’t forget that those kids have generally had (and will continue to have) very nice lives. It is certainly OK and expected to be disappointed but don’t bash kids who happen to belong to a different demographic and may have had a much more difficult road to being the sort of student that is accepted at an elite college - even with the edge a URM or a low income may provide. </p>
<p>Sue, I agree that the race-baiting is very unattractive, but in some cases, can you really say that the statement you posted ("If I were only an AA kid with my same stats I would have been a shoo-in for Yale) is false, depending on the stats?</p>
<p>I don’t know whether these numbers are available or not, but what is the acceptance rate at Yale for African-American students of any background with, say, a 2300 in the top 5 % of his or her high school class? I would have to guess high enough to make that student pretty close to a “shoo-in.” While I don’t actually have a problem with that, I think we might as well be honest about it. </p>
<p>No one’s a shoo-in for Yale.</p>
<p>I did a little data mining and came up with this:
<a href=“The State of Black Student Freshman Enrollments at the Nation’s Highest-Ranked Colleges and Universities”>http://www.jbhe.com/features/61_enrollments.html</a></p>
<p>The Yale stats are incomplete, but assuming the yield for AA students is the same as that for students overall, approximately 11.4 percent of AA students were accepted. Higher than the 8.6 percent overall admit rate, but hardly shoo-in territory. These are admits for fall 2008 so the numbers will have changed a bit in the last 5 years.</p>
<p>It could be that the AA applicant pool is substantially weaker than the non-AA pool but I don’t think we can make that assumption.</p>
<p>Students at every top college come from all US states and territories. What is relevant is the INDEX of what % come from a given region versus the total pop of the US who live in that given region. </p>
<p>My numbers are slightly different from yours because I’m using the 4 census regions versus the breaks that you have. But here are the relevant indexes for Yale:</p>
<p>Northeast 214
Midwest 60
Southeast 54
West 89</p>
<p>In other words, Yale has twice as many students from the Northeast as one would expect based on the size of the population that resides in the Northeast. They, like all the other Ivies who have similar profiles, are strongest in their home region. Indeed, every top 20 uni and LAC has a similar pattern of being overindexed in its home region, with Duke being the only exception.</p>
<p>Now, this doesn’t mean that Yale has a preference or doesn’t have a preference for NE students - because we don’t know the make-up of the applicant pool. Depending on the makeup of their applicant pool, they could a) be favoring NE students, b) be neutral towards NE students, or c) be negative / “under-admit” NE students. Any of those can be consist with the over-index shown above, so you can’t draw any conclusions about that with the data on hand.</p>
<p>Ivy League admissions are a complete crapshoot and I have become even more skeptical of them throughout the four years I have been at Penn. They will tell you when you come that your class consists of “the best and the brightest” but this is just not true. Money and connections are huge factors in admissions, and many of the criteria the admissions office uses to make decisions are in my opinion, very sketchy. There is really no good way to reall get a good picture of an applicant at this level. Most schools don’t know individual teachers, their is rampant grade inflation in many schools, and a lot of the times credentials are exaggerated. Even the SAT which would seem to be an equalizer between schools is incredibly biased.
Once I got to be an upperclassman at Penn, I started to notice that even though most of my peers were smart and diligent, there were many more mediocre students than I had expected here. A lot of them are just resume padders who can’t think for themselves but for some reason think they are a gift to mankind. The are often very elitist an believe they are better than others for simply going to Penn.
A lot of very smart students likely get shut out from the Ivy league because of lack of high school extracurriculars. Frankly the options in high school are mostly superficial and I would rather have time to myself than become involved in something I was not passionate about. This was something that helped me tremendously in grad school apps but I am skeptical I would have gotten into Penn had I not applied ED.
Another thing that is interesting compared to grad school is that in grad apps, the not so great people have been weeded out, so although the acceptance rates are around 5% versus 10%, the best applicants stand out from the pool much more than they do in college admissions.</p>
<p>“New York and California were well represented; each is the “home state” for 12% of the class.”</p>
<p>No! That’s not the conclusion to draw! The comparison of the two as a horizontal is irrelevant!<br>
California makes up roughly 12% of the US population.
New York makes up roughly 6% of the US population.
New York is overrepresented at Yale; California is only averagely represented.</p>
<p>Think of it this way - if I were talking about Brown, and I said New York and Rhode Island were well represented, each were the home state for 12% of the Brown class - you’d intuitively know that Rhode Island was “punching above its weight,” no? Same principle.</p>