<p>Andi, I agree, and think that your post (#37) is exactly right. </p>
<p>I also do not feel that there is frank conversation about cost, the aid process, and financial safeties. There are so many disappointed students that have gotten admitted, but find out that they cannot afford to attend the school.</p>
<p>Meganvirg, when I say 'adversarial", I mean in regards to student vs admissions rep. That’s what I don’t see. Some of the posts take a very pugnacious approach to adcoms and the schools they work for, and it makes me ask–why, given your distrust and expectations of bad faith, do you want to attend or see your child attend that s chool?</p>
<p>“HYP might be “interested” in rural schools - but I really haven’t seen that here. At all.”</p>
<p>“I’ve seen it here”</p>
<p>Well I live in a place that could be the dictionary definition of rural and I follow the trials and tribulations of our high school graduates and the schools into which they are accepted. Many years ago I wondered if we were doing our kids a disservice living in such an isolated place. Based on my knowledge of the situation there is little benefit to rural status at top universities although there are a number of benefits to rural life.</p>
<p>Momfromme:</p>
<p>There’s a huge difference between being wrong and being biased. The students are not accusing the adcoms of the former, but of the latter.</p>
<p>That adcoms can be wrong is attested every year by stories of students being expelled for various reasons, or failing academically. But that does not mean that when the adcoms admitted them, they were being biased.</p>
<p>So let’s not start WWIII here. :)</p>
<p>“As a result, the applicant is entering a ‘game’ where he is competing against many, under conditions established by AdComs that at best are uncertain and fluid.”</p>
<p>Kind of like life?</p>
<p>I can think of lots of job interviews I have had in a very competitive field. Who knows why one is picked over the other? And when it comes to job interviews, it’s even less about “stats” and more about who you are as a person and the experiences you’ve had, making it even more fluid. Admission to college is a good experience for high schoolers to have, whether disappointing or not - after years of quantitative evaluations (grades), it’s their first experience with the way the world really works. I would also argue that the experience of doing college applications is great practice for real life - just like in job applications, they are learning to portray themselves in the best possible manner.</p>
<p>Is college admissions a game? Yes, but no more so than the job market is a game. And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen no rants about that.</p>
<p>“Well I live in a place that could be the dictionary definition of rural” Well, I’ll assume the AK in your name means Alaska and grant the possibility that you “have me” but I am betting if you do it is not by THAT much. Especially if you live in town. 
Now if the groceries come once a week by float plane or parachute, you got me. </p>
<p>D’s ranch girl profile at Yale was specifically mentioned by the adcom as being a type of diversity they strived for and didn’t often get. Should we believe her? I did. I had no reason not to believe her. </p>
<p>Now, I will state that D presented her rural life as a significant influence in how she viewed the world, and I believe that came through in her entire application file. From EC’s, to jobs, to summer activities. We knew that a country address wasn’t going to separate her from the herd, but a country life would. </p>
<p>At a scholarship office of a top 10 uni D met with the coordinator and the coordinator spent a good deal of time talking about their commitment to all types of diversity. D looked at a photo on the wall and saw several kids of all ethnicities and the coordinator said “That’s last year’s crop of recipients.” D asked : “how many of them come from a farm or ranch, or even a farm or ranch community?” The coordinator thought and said "Well, this one’s from Peoria (a city of 100K+ easy, maybe 200K) but you make a very good point. None. "</p>
<p>Who knows? As it was presented, I think “Rural” helped my D.</p>
<p>"I think in many cases kids go to school in an environment where they are encouraged to get good grades and participate in ECs and then they will be successful in college admissions. They are not expecting to have to strategize to get an acceptance. "</p>
<p>They don’t have to strategize to get “an acceptance.” They certainly do, however, have to strategize to get an acceptance if their goal is to attend one of the country’s top universities.</p>
<p>This was true back in my day, and it’s even more true now. I honestly don’t mean to put anyone down, but it continues to surprise me that so many people are willing to pay up to $50,000 a year for their student to attend some top college without finding out the rules of getting into such a college.</p>
<p>It’s not like the information about admissions is secret. There are far more books, and publications about college admissions than there were back when many of us parents applied to college. I can remember that when I applied, virtually the only college application publication was the Peterson’s Guide, which I couldn’t even get in my home town. There certainly was no Internet or CC back then. Now, the the inner workings of college admissions are available all over the Internet as well as on magazine racks. This wide availability of information also has leveled the field far more than it was back in the old days when if one wasn’t in a town where one could buy the Peterson’s guide (I couldn’t get it in my small town) or if one didn’t have a very sophisticated GC or some kind of good friend or relative involved in college admissions, one was out of luck in learning about what exactly college admissions officers looked for.</p>
<p>First off, I don’t have a problem with the post, overall. But the tone was a bit offputting. I have served on admissions committees many times, and I can tell you straight out that we’re mostly guessing. The idea that we should just trust the “professionals,” some of whom are all of 22 years old and in their first jobs, is a little absurd. I’ve talked to many admissions officers who readily admit that they’re guessing and that they often get it wrong.</p>
<p>Northstarmom:</p>
<p>OK. If a kid gets sick and flunks out, I suppose that not necessarily a mistake, except that medical conditions rarely cause anyone to flunk out. Medical drops are allowed in most places. Still, if an admissions office admits a kid who just doesn’t do the work, or can’t do the work, it has to be a mistake on their part. I’m not, by ANY means, saying they have perfect information. And I’m not objecting to the content of the post except for its tone.</p>
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<p>Speaking from the perspective of an average working parent- I didn’t know what I didn’t know when I began to help my kids research college admissions. We listened to the GC, we went to college application meetings at our fairly sophisticated suburban school and we read basic guides. The school basically focused on SAT scores, deadlines etc. The basic guides addressed that as well as which schools excelled in which academic areas and the student life there. We never read anywhere about the fact that if your kid is very ‘similar’ to the type of kid who predominates at a given school his chances of getting in would be lower. Perhaps there is this information on the internet and in books out there but most busy working parents don’t have time to make a second career out of researching college admissions. And many of us can’t afford private college counselors.</p>
<p>I’m not in any way against colleges striving to boost diversity- quite the contrary. But I, personally, wish that the basic public school guidance offices would include this type of information in their meetings. I think it would help prevent a lot of the bitterness that arises when students learn about it after the fact.</p>
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<p>Actually, unless you’re a lot younger than I am, I disagree with this. Kids with the top grades and talents applied to the top schools and were generally accepted to a commensurate institution.</p>
<p>This thread should make converts to reader-response theory . . . and I thought the admission’s officer’s perspective was an explication of various preferential treatments in admissions :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>Well expertise certainly isn’t infallible, but if I come down with say diabetes, I’m going to a doctor for treatment rather than an accountant, engineer, or college adcom. There is something to be said for experience and specialized expertise, Tetlock’s book notwithstanding.</p>
<p>I’m with Andi. The year I applied to Harvard/Radcliffe 8 other girls in my class were also accepted. Nowadays there are one or two maximum. Part of that is that girls now attend Andover and Exeter, but part of it is that is harder to get into the top colleges. The bar is set a lot higher.</p>
<p>while I agree with andi that some (esp.) GC’s provide the most generic & broad-based (“process” and administrative) info, vs. individualized counseling & more targeted strategizing, refinement of lists, etc. – even when more particulars are offered, often families do not take advantage of the resources made available by the h.s.'s college counseling dept. But the more pervasive issue that we’ve seen, is a resistance to sensible planning & honest lists & individual soul-searching by students/parents – regardless of how helpful a GC is prepared to be. The dynamic that takes over at my own d’s highly competitive private is peer competition, peer awareness.</p>
<p>GC informs (the importance of the application content; methods for standing out; the critical need for a tiered list, etc). GC even “lectures” (quality vs. ranking). GC warns about difficulty of top-tier admissions. GC advises & encourages. And in our family’s case, GC has full support of parent, who begs for h.school to reinforce the importance of individual, independent decisions by students – regardless of which Star is applying from the class this yr, to which Star U. (More often, it seems that the strongest motivator is which “Enemy” – ie…, resented competitor – is applying to which U.) At that point, prudence goes out the window, & the student becomes governed by a combination of emotion, ego, & social pressure. </p>
<p>Having all the info is not enough. Deciding to accept & act on the info is a different step.</p>
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<p>Depending on when you applied, the bar for girls could have been a lot higher than it is today.</p>
<p>At the time of the Harvard-Radcliffe merger in the mid-70s, then President Bok (now interim President) insisted on a transitional enforced 2.5 to 1 ratio of men to women in admissions. </p>
<p>Even this 2.5 to 1 ratio was actually an improvement over the previous ratio of Harvard men and Radcliffe women. Prior to the mid70s, there were actually totally separate admissions committees and Radcliffe simply didn’t have the ability to admit very many women, because their endowment was much less, they had less dorm space, less money for financial aid, etc. Back in those days, the credentials of women admitted to Radcliffe were generally much stronger than the credentials of men admitted to Harvard. (And Harvard men weren’t happy about having a bunch of “Cliffies” in their classes, because they wrecked the curve.)</p>
<p>Eventually, things went to gender-blind admission and the current Harvard freshman class of 2010 is actually about 52% women.</p>
<p>But back in the 60s, I bet the bar for a woman to get into Harvard/Radcliffe was significantly higher than it is today. </p>
<p>After all, a number of other Ivy League schools were entirely closed to women then (Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton) and other Ivies and Ivy-calibre schools that admitted women felt no particular need to admit them on an equal basis with men. So there was just a very limited number of spaces for women overall at highly selective colleges. (E.g., even as late as the mid 70s, Stanford was still enforcing a 60-40 male-female quota in admission. It’s likely the co-ed Ivies were doing something similar. Certainly the coordinate Ivies of Brown/Pembroke and Columbia/Barnard had much bigger male undergrad colleges than female undergraduate colleges.) Back then Williams, Amherst, and a number of other strong LACs were all male. And the Seven Sisters collectively were were simply nowhere near as big as the Ivy League collectively. Caltech was still all male until 1970 and MIT in the mid60s was making no particular effort to recruit and admit women, so it was overwhelmingly male as well. There was no Title IX, so co-ed schools were free to have whatever gender quotas they liked. </p>
<p>In those days, the average woman who graduated from an elite college was a LOT stronger academically than the average male who graduated from an elite college.</p>
<p>“Actually, unless you’re a lot younger than I am, I disagree with this. Kids with the top grades and talents applied to the top schools and were generally accepted to a commensurate institution.”</p>
<p>That didn’t mean that if, for instance, they really wanted to go to Harvard, they were guaranteed to go there. They might have gotten into Brown or Cornell or perhaps U Penn. (which was a lot easier to get into back then), but not HPY.</p>
<p>I knew students with top grades, scores even back then who ended up going to their safeties – public universities. Good friend, was National Merit commended, excellent grades, wanted to major in the sciences, was rejected by Cornell and William and Mary (out of state) as well as some other schools. She was not accepted any place that she applied to. Ended up getting into Franklin and Marshall because it still had slots available in April.</p>
<p>Another friend, National Merit scholars, concert master of our orchestra, All State violinist, turned down by Harvard, and probably some others of the very top schools. Ended up at Oberlin (which, admittedly still is a great school, just not HPY).</p>
<p>I’m 55 and went to an excellent public school in Upstate NY that sent about 90% of its graduates to 4-year colleges, and typically had more than a dozen National Merit Scholars and also sent several students to Ivies each year. There still were students with excellent grades, scores, activities who weren’t able to get into Ivies and who then settled for places like NYU (which wasn’t as competitive or highly ranked as it is now) or one of the larger SUNY universities.</p>
<p>I remember a lot of strategizing, though, admittedly not at the level that occurs now. Even back then, I took my SATs twice, as did some of my friends.</p>
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<p>I’m not quite that old. I graduated the second year after (I think) that Yale and Princeton went co-ed. I think it actually may have briefly been easier for women in those years. I was just NM commended. B+/A- student with ECs that probably sounded better than they were. Very much the bright well rounded type. We all took the SATs twice. No one applied to more than four colleges that I can recall, though every once in a while there was some scrambling in the spring when someone didn’t get into their choices.</p>
<p>Well, back in the seventies, I just aspired to Middlebury, not Harvard, with “stats” higher than most kids getting into Harvard have NOW. (and unrecentered.) ANd got turned down. I’m not sure things were that easier then; certainly you had to know what you were doing. I hadn’t a clue, went into the process totally blind ( mom went to the CUNY campus around the corner.) And ended up at an awful safety school, which luckily I eventually transfered away from.</p>
<p>LOL
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<p>Well I’m a similar age and from the same state and what I remember is the top kids in the class ending up at the top colleges and the rest of us ending up at colleges that approximated our own class standing. I don’t ever remember anyone ‘strategizing.’ It seemed to be a quite straightforward process.</p>
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<p>epiphany that’s interesting --perhaps the difference between small private school and medium size public?-- totally not like that at our public HS. GCs didn’t touch on those concepts and students were so concerned with not competing with their peers that many of them didn’t discuss with their peers where they were applying. S didn’t know until afterward where many kids applied.</p>