<p>"No I do not feel a bit ashamed of knowing the competition and measuring my kids’ progress with others’. "</p>
<p>Ah, here’s the difference. I never saw my kids’ academics as “competing with others.” They were trying to better themselves, to learn more, expand their own horizons. Not out-shine Betty Lou and Billy Jo. I guess to some people, an A is only sweeter if someone else gets a B. </p>
<p>Hoping folks will kindly stop generalizing about “east coast,” “tri-state” or “Northeast.” We aren’t all carbon copies. Not everyone here is aggressive, competitive, has lofty goals, sneaks a look at others’ scores- or is even so outstandingly smart. And, we could generalize about other parts of the country, if this gets out of hand. </p>
<p>"Academic performance of each student (straigt A or not, honor roll or not), is published on newspaper and county website every quarter, and it’s posted outside of the main office. "</p>
<p>Golly, the local-yokel paper publishes the breathtaking detail of all the high school football and basketball games too. That doesn’t obligate me to read and memorize it. I have no clue if my kids’ high school football team was good, bad, or indifferent - they could have been last in the league or won state for all I know. Why would I possibly care unless my kid was on the football team (or perhaps an auxiliary activity for it like band)? </p>
<p>"It seems to me that the issue is that the admissions process in American academic institutions has been expanded to include things other than intellectual capacity. Athletic ability, legacy, donation potential, race, geographical preferences, international status, children of those employed by the university etc. "</p>
<p>ROFL! Are you harkening back to some golden age when Ivy admissions was predicated solely on intellectual ability? I think you missed the time when it was the Choate headmaster who told Harvard which of the graduating class were the “right sort” who should go there. </p>
<p>And anyway, I don’t really believe you believe what you write here.
Because if the Ivies / elites (take your pick) aren’t admitting based on intellectual capacity anymore, and there are tons of brilliant kids who are unfairly shut out - then the only logical conclusion would be - I want to find out where those brilliant but denied kids are going, and send my kid there too. But amazingly, despite the so-called belief that the top schools are chock full of undeserving candidates, you want your kid there too. I call b.s.</p>
<p>“Yes, it is. It’s only going to appeal to a limited set of students who are even open to single-sex, and it’s going to be limited in terms of its knowledge among the general population. Oh well. Eliciting oohs and ahhs from the general population is of no interest to me, so its lack of broad brand awareness wouldn’t and didn’t stop me from sending my D there.”</p>
<p>EXACTLY. So substitute Engineering and Science for single-sex in your above post and the same can be said for Caltech.</p>
<p>So much for Caltech being a niche school that does not have board appeal."</p>
<p>Huh? I think you think you “got me” somehow - but I said upthread (sorry don’t have post numbers) that Wellesley is, indeed, a niche school that doesn’t have broad appeal. So yes, if you want to substitute E&S for single-sex, the same thing applies to Caltech.</p>
<p>I find it ironic that some posters who are very quick to condemn others for making the most mild and provisional evaluations of those around them are themselves so judgmental that they castigate whole swaths of people (many of them teenagers) as pathetic, egocentric, entitled losers not worth knowing on the basis of so very little. </p>
<p>I wonder if some of you would be as harsh on the behavior of convicted violent criminals as you are on the behavior of people who
a)admit that yes, they would like to go to a particular school or schools
b) occasionally discuss some of the germane and widely publicized factors influencing admissions to that school, some of which will include known data, however necessarily incomplete that data may be, about other students in one’s immediate peer group
c) upon rejection, feel and express to family or close friends a certain amount of frustration over the results before happily moving on with their lives.</p>
<p>Looking back ten years later, I WAS too invested in the college admissions process. I was also a seventeen year old who hadn’t had much in the way of life experience, so the question of which school I would wind up in loomed large. My parents said all the right things about there being lots of great schools out there and admissions being a gamble, but I still cared deeply, and my parents were, I admit, weak-minded enough to occasionally let slip the words “You’ll do great wherever you wind up, but you’re so smart and you’ve worked so hard; you deserve the best.” Horrific, I know, and a huge smack in the face to all of the equally worthy kids who didn’t happen to be their daughter. </p>
<p>Again, looking back now, I wonder what I was so worried about. But you know, I don’t blame my seventeen year old self for being a little preoccupied with college admissions, and I’m not ashamed that I verbalized, to my parents and best friends, things like “oh, I heard Jenny is applying early to the same college I want to apply early to, and I think she might be a good enough swimmer to get recruited. Do you think they would take two from one school?” or even “I think it is really unfair that athletes have it so much easier in admissions. Why should it matter to a university how fast your backstroke is?” I think those were emotionally honest comments based on real concerns that were, within certain limits, appropriate for a teenager of relatively limited experiences raised in a pretty intense east coast academic culture that probably did place too much of a premium on a certain group of schools. </p>
<p>I really don’t think that mindset was incompatible with also being a generally compassionate, intelligent, interesting person who wound up having plenty to offer in a college environment. It also wasn’t incompatible with growing up a little bit into someone who can cope with failure, which I certainly have experienced by now (although not in the undergrad admissions process)… And even with some more years under my belt, I don’t think it is an assault to all that is good and decent in the world to sometimes wonder, as I teach students who are, while quite bright, not always as uniformly excellent as school reputation would lead one to expect “might there be a few more really brilliant students in this classroom if adcoms gave slightly more weight (not exclusive weight) to purely academic factors?” I think parents who have seen their terrific student get rejected by a good dozen schools have some reason to ask similar questions, even as I hope they also keep a sense of perspective about the whole thing. Even if part of the question in their case is motivated by a certain level of ignorance about just how difficult admissions is, or their failure of a Massachusetts parent to have caught on to how competitive Vanderbilt has gotten these days, I don’t think that’s a sign of a fatal character flaw, either.</p>
<p>“Your typical CC poster with the 3.9+ GPA, the 2300+ SAT score and a healthy roster of run of the mill EC’s had a much better chance of acceptance to the top tier in the 1960’s, 70’s or 80’s than he/she does today. And I don’t not believe the general rise in app #'s solely accounts for that discrepancy.”</p>
<p>Oh good lord, of course it does. There are tons more kids applying for every single spot. Of <em>course</em> that’s the main cause of that discrepancy.</p>
<p>And just to add, knowing which kids routinely show up in your own honors or AP track classes and tend to be frequent faces at awards ceremonies (academic and otherwise) does not require any particular level of obsession, or memorization of a lengthy and largely meaningless honor roll. </p>
<p>“But amazingly, despite the so-called belief that the top schools are chock full of undeserving candidates, you want your kid there too. I call b.s.”</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter where I might “want” my kids. I have raised pretty independent kids who will go where they want to go. But for the record, if I might speak for myself, if I did “want” my kids anywhere it would not be an Ivy for undergraduate, but perhaps that “small niche school” with the lack of broad appeal.</p>
<p>And who ever said that the top schools are “chock full of undeserving candidates?” They are your words not mine. My point was that today there are many, many more factors considered in admissions than academic ability. Some people make value judgments on what makes a candidate deserving, and I made it clear in my previous post that I make no such value judgment. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not always due to the following factors:</p>
<p>The ones who are commonly seen as smart may seem that way because they’re much more better at putting on an appearance as such and/or more extroverted. </p>
<p>High school cultures where students have a strong incentive to front being the smart kid or front being the average/dumb kid to avoid being singled out for ridicule or bullying. </p>
<p>High school cultures where there are groups who enjoy fronting they’re smart, fronting they’re average/dumb, or didn’t care one way or another for their own respective sakes. </p>
<p>Rebellious students who enjoy getting a rise out of jerky self-proclaimed “smart students”, their parents, and teachers/admins inclined to openly judge students on such basis by taking any dismissive comments about their less than tippy-top GPA/SAT scores as compliments or better yet, openly berating them for being status-obsessed bootlickers and happily accepted being sent to the dean’s office repeatedly for it. </p>
<p>Yes, of course kids know that Betty Lou and Billy Joe are the smart kids who always seem to get a bunch of awards. But knowing the level of detail about Betty Lou and Billy Joe that you (think you can) accurately “judge” that Princeton was wrong in not admitting them <em>does</em> require a certain level of obsession (and information you can’t ever really have, anyway, since you’re not privy to essays or teacher recs). Which is why I don’t <em>really</em> believe anyone has enough information about Betty Lou and Billy Joe (other than their parents). It’s the hearsay of “gosh, Betty Lou always seemed to be so smart and won all the awards, Princeton was foolish to not admit her.” </p>
<p>it’s not a character flaw to be disappointed. We’re not talking about disappointment. We’re talking about anger based on entitlement.</p>
<p>“Even if part of the question in their case is motivated by a certain level of ignorance about just how difficult admissions is, or their failure of a Massachusetts parent to have caught on to how competitive Vanderbilt has gotten these days, I don’t think that’s a sign of a fatal character flaw, either.”</p>
<p>But this is where I disagree with you. How can anyone have a “certain level of ignorance about just how difficult admissions is” when you’re talking schools with 5%, 10%, 15% admissions rates? The number is right there!! To me, it says - this is someone who just didn’t think that number applied to them, that they were a special snowflake.</p>
<p>“Have you noticed, however, that Caltech (a fine school, to be sure) is really a very niche school that doesn’t have broad popular appeal? Why do you suppose that is? Hint: A “pure brains” admissions criteria doesn’t make for as interesting of a class as a holistic one.”</p>
<p>Sorry #pizzagirl but you can’t have it both ways. You put down Caltech as a niche school that doesn’t have broad popular appeal, with the “hint” that pure brains admissions criteria doesn’t make for an interesting class. Then when it is pointed out that the same can be said for a single sex institution, the niche school with the less than “interesting” class is all of a sudden just fine. </p>
<p>I’d point out that the smartest or most interesting kids aren’t always in the honors classes at school. At my d’s high school, we all thought going into senior year where the kids stood: the class president was in line to be Val, my d. and another student were tied for Sal. I honestly don’t know who the other girl was in “competition” for #2 place, because none of those students graduated at the top of the class. Instead, two other students who I had never seen before or heard of took the #1 and #2 spots, I think my daughter ended up in 6th place. And why did those students who we didn’t know in top place? Because the high school has a policy of weighting grades earned in concurrent college classes – so kids can take classes at the local community colleges, and juniors & seniors can dual-enroll to take classes at the local CSU-- the kids who ended up at the top of the class simply turned in their college transcripts late in the game.</p>
<p>Now I honestly don’t know if those kids were enrolled in organic chem or in basket-weaving; they weren’t particularly involved in the high school centered EC’s (or I probably would have known them ), but I have no clue as to what was going on in their off-campus lives – and I don’t know where they went to college, but I know that it wasn’t an Ivy. </p>
<p>My daughter was also not in many of the honors or AP courses, because she opted to study abroad for a semester in her junior year, which threw her whole schedule out of whack. Her foreign-earned grades were counted toward her GPA but not weighted, she was able to fit in a few AP classes but really had to cobble together her schedule.taking some senior-level courses in spring of junior year, then making up junior-level courses that she had missed because of her travels during senior year. I had similar issues in high school – I dropped out of the honors English track early on because I disliked the teacher – and I graduated in 3 years rather than 4, meaning that very few students in my graduating class knew me. </p>
<p>So bottom line: some kids follow a different track. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So schools with broad popular appeal get that way by having interesting class composition? And Caltech class is not interesting? </p>
<p>Here is an alternative ‘hint’: Caltech and Juilliard and other ‘niche schools’ lack broad popular appeal because the broad public isn’t capable of the work.</p>
<p>"Sorry #pizzagirl but you can’t have it both ways. You put down Caltech as a niche school that doesn’t have broad popular appeal, with the “hint” that pure brains admissions criteria doesn’t make for an interesting class. Then when it is pointed out that the same can be said for a single sex institution, the niche school with the less than “interesting” class is all of a sudden just fine. "</p>
<p>I didn’t “put down” Caltech. It’s a fine school. I just think it’s a niche school, that’s all. Nothing wrong with a niche school, as evidenced by the fact that I send my daughter to another niche school which doesn’t have broad popular appeal. </p>
<p>But the people who are salivating over the thought of getting their kids into the Ivies, and who are devastated when the poor dear has to slum it at Vanderbilt or WashU or Tufts or U Chicago (does “full shut out” ring a bell?), aren’t devastated because they sought out the very-superior-est-of-the-superior brain power for their kids to pal around with. Otherwise, they’d be knocking down the doors of Caltech, which I agree of all elite schools <em>does</em> come closest to “pure academic smarts admission criterion.” They’re upset because they perceive that the Ivies open doors that are otherwise closed – not because of the superior brainpower to be found there necessarily, but because of social prestige that accrues to those schools.</p>
<p>"Not always due to the following factors:</p>
<p>The ones who are commonly seen as smart may seem that way because they’re much more better at putting on an appearance as such and/or more extroverted.</p>
<p>High school cultures where students have a strong incentive to front being the smart kid or front being the average/dumb kid to avoid being singled out for ridicule or bullying.</p>
<p>High school cultures where there are groups who enjoy fronting they’re smart, fronting they’re average/dumb, or didn’t care one way or another for their own respective sakes.</p>
<p>Rebellious students who enjoy getting a rise out of jerky self-proclaimed “smart students”, their parents, and teachers/admins inclined to openly judge students on such basis by taking any dismissive comments about their less than tippy-top GPA/SAT scores as compliments or better yet, openly berating them for being status-obsessed bootlickers and happily accepted being sent to the dean’s office repeatedly for it."</p>
<p>You know, cobrat, it’s not really critical in life to either go along with or rebel against one’s high school culture. One can just ignore it and go on one’s merry way. It is a concept you might consider one time instead of always blowing with the wind.</p>
<p>But in any case, you prove my point. Because of the posturing that can go on – whether it’s more flamboyant kids who are seen as bright when indeed there are quieter kids who are brighter but fly under the radar, or smart kis who downplay their own accomplishments for fear of coming across too nerdy – one really <em>doesn’t</em> know what other kids are doing or capable of, and therefore there’s really no one in a position to “judge” that Princeton was a fool. But, that won’t stop the town busybodies from proclaiming that they know better because after all, they always saw Betty Lou on the honor list and saw her cross the stage to get an award a few times!</p>
<p>In our state, there are summer Governor’s Schools for talented high school students in particular subjects. THere is a nominating process through the kid’s high school. Therefore, it’s pretty likely that our kids will be aware of who got to go to a Governor’s School and which one, they know who else was nominated. Even in a high school with upwards of 2000 students, it’s pretty easy to figure out which other kids are one your same trajectory and where they are in that trajectory. So when the five or six kids who have been accepted to the Governor’s School for math or technology don’t get into MIT and Cal Tech and someone else does, I don’t think it’s that strange that they might wonder why. I think it might be strange if they didn’t. Yes, it’s possible that the other child invented something really astounding in their garage in their free time, I suppose, but how likely is it really?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Or, alternatively, being so devastated by rejection to super-elite university that one’s self-image is irreparably “damaged.” </p>
<p>“Even in a high school with upwards of 2000 students, it’s pretty easy to figure out which other kids are one your same trajectory and where they are in that trajectory. So when the five or six kids who have been accepted to the Governor’s School for math or technology don’t get into MIT and Cal Tech and someone else does, I don’t think it’s that strange that they might wonder why. I think it might be strange if they didn’t.”</p>
<p>I think it’s very strange to “wonder why.” We’re talking about schools with 5%, 10% acceptance rates. </p>
<p>I don’t know your state so I don’t know anything about your school’s Governor’s School for M&T, but I’ll guess that there are presumably a couple hundred students per year who get admitted to this school from all over your state. Do you think there’s room at MIT or Caltech for all of those students (and now times it by all 50 states)?</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it be the height of arrogance to think that out of 30,000 high schools in the country, your school is special enough that 5 of its kids “should” be accepted to MIT, and if not, then, well, clearly someone on the adcom made a mistake? How would the math play out if <em>everyone</em> thought their high school should work that way?</p>
<p>And no, I don’t think “trajectories” are necessarily apparent, especially for kids in fields that don’t lend themselves to competitions a la math and science. My S is a history and politics nerd (said affectionately). That’s a passion area that doesn’t lend itself to “everyone in the school knows it” the way that winning a math competition would. </p>