<p>"You know what killed me as a mother…when ‘well meaning’ friends and relatives threw a big bucket of cold water on the euphoria of acceptance in April…</p>
<p>“Congrats on {DD or DS}'s acceptance to all those prestigious schools…it must be great getting to check the minority box”…"</p>
<p>What absolute jerks. Did you stare at them coldly and walk away?</p>
<p>Corinthian wrote:</p>
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<p>I nearly sprayed my lunch on my keyboard when I read this - too funny. Hopefully FIL uses the “unclaimed scholarships” line with all grandkids.</p>
<p>Maybe you could suggest to FIL that millions in unused coupons are wasted at grocery stores every year.</p>
<p>I received a packet in the mail a couple of years ago from the organization that sponsored my junior year abroad. They were shutting down their offices and, rather than tossing all their old files, were sending them to all the former participants they could locate. So, out of the blue, I received my entire application packet from 1974, including essays and teacher recommendations!</p>
<p>The recommendations, which I’d of course never laid eyes on before, were especially enlightening. One of my college professors expressed doubt about my ability to succeed in study abroad, given my “poor aptitude” for foreign languages. (He apparently never realized that I had placed into his 4th-year language class - the most advanced class offered at the college - after only 9 weeks of prior exposure to the language!)</p>
<p>I actually do remember my SAT scores (and they were quite adequate by 1970’s standards!), but now that I’ve seen this packet, I would love to see my college essays and recommendations. Since I did get into college, I have to imagine that my high schools teachers thought a bit more highly of me than my college language prof! I wonder how long they hold onto those old things . . . ???</p>
<p>I’m not buying the “I’d never get into my alma mater these days” except for a few that have changed considerably. Back in the day our parents didn’t run our lives. Many of us came from large families where we had to fend for ourselves. Our parents didnt sign us up for the right EC’s or even bother with our personal statements. They had several kids to educate and considered going " away" to college a privilege only for the rich. The middle class stayed within their means, there were few taking out large student/ parent loans.</p>
<p>It is absolutely true that h and I would not get into our alma maters today, which for h was a top ivy and for me was an “elite” university. The level of selectivity in colleges compared to what they used to be is the single issue we are having the most trouble wrapping our brains around. Well that and the fact that our oldest, a hs junior, is not as high an achiever as we were to begin with. So it’s kind of a double whammy: first we have to accept that he will be applying to the schools that the B/B+ kids get into rather than the A kids, then we have to accept that what were schools for the B/B+ kids back in our day are now schools for A kids. We’re now in foreign territory, exploring schools that we are not even slightly familiar with. I arrived at acceptance a while ago, probably because I’ve spoken to enough other parents , gone to enough college planning meetings, spent enough time on these message boards to grasp the reality of the situation. Also I have no particular affinity for my alma mater, and no particular agenda for my kids’ college choices other than to find them each a place where they will thrive and come out on the other side ready to be a productive member of society.</p>
<p>What about if family friends think that your kid is not smart enough for a given school? What would be your reaction?</p>
<p>Unless the “family friend” in question works in admissions at said school and has all the relevant information about your child, I can’t see how the opinion would even be valid. Have these people actually expressed the sentiment that your kid is not smart (hard to believe someone would be this socially inept), or have they just idly commented on how hard certain schools are for anyone to get into?</p>
<p>It’s true that many selective schools are hard to get into, but these institutions all concede that they reject many qualified applicants who could be quite successful. There simply just isn’t enough room to accept every suitable student.</p>
<p>A friend of mine stated that it would be harder to get into a selective school today than it was when we went to college. I did a little research, nothing formal, and came up with some interesting info.</p>
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<li><p>The SAT test scales were changed in 1996. A perfect 1600 on the new scale would have been only about a 1510 on the old scale. (Obviously before the writing section was added making a perfect score to be 2400 now).</p></li>
<li><p>The birth rates vary and go in cycles (baby boomers!!). The number of 18 year olds today is about the same as when I was applying to college.</p></li>
<li><p>The number of foreign students coming to study in the US is less these days, post 9/11. I believe this is due to the US government restrictions (but I could be wrong, didn’t research it a whole lot). {my college was about 40% foreign students in my day while it is about 10% today. At the same time the freshman class size has increased about 10%. So the number of admits for US students is much greater than it was in my day. Foreign students do have it much tougher.}</p></li>
<li><p>I applied to 2 schools, my dream school and a safety. My son applied to 6, my daughter 8.</p></li>
<li><p>Students are much more willing to attend a college far away while they tended to remain somewhat local in my day. This makes the pool of potential applications larger for a specific college.</p></li>
<li><p>There are many more opportunities to develop scholastically/academically today than there were in my day. {My HS offered NO AP classes, they were just starting to a few years after I graduated.} This makes even some average students look better today than the old days.</p></li>
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<p>So what does all this mean?</p>
<p>The low admit numbers are a result of the larger numbers of applications that each student puts out. It may be harder to stand out from the crowd but the top students will almost always stand out. Therefore, I believe it is no harder today to get into a good college.</p>
<p>How about parents who dumb down the expectations of their children? A teacher I know, highly educated with a masters degree, tells her own two children who are in junior high that they never have to move out, they can live at home as long as they like. Sounds to me like she’s conditioning them to lower their sights, and is letting everyone else know that she doesn’t have any big plans for them to do much after high school graduation.</p>
<p>Great story dodgersmom! That was very thoughtful of the organization to make the effort to track you down, rather than just pitch the files.</p>
<p>As for all the brouhaha about how much easier it was to get into college in the old days . . . all I can say is WE DID NOT HAVE SPELL CHECK! ;)</p>
<p>I wish there was a ‘like’ button for some of these comments. </p>
<p>My husband would be able to get into his alma mater now, but I doubt that I would. (I was surprised that I got accepted at the time.)</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that what got me in is my literary prowess: apparently I was the only applicant that did not list ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ as the favorite book. For the list of favorite authors I put Dr. Suess at the top where he belongs.</p>
<p>I certainly would have applied to more colleges - I applied to three Ivy League colleges :eek: - but I think I’d still have a decent chance. My scores were good then, and even better recentered. I had good grades from what was then considered a top prep school, I had interesting internships, good ECs, one impressive service project and was in four AP classes as a senior. </p>
<p>LOL about Jonathan Livingston Seagull - we wrote a PhD skit based on that book. I’m sure if I was asked I said The Lord of the Rings was my favorite book.</p>
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<p>In previous generations, fewer people wanted to go to college, so even if the number of high school seniors was the same, the number of students trying to get into colleges was smaller.</p>
<p>Admission thresholds are higher now than a generation ago. When I went to college, more than half of the frosh were placed into remedial English composition courses. Today (with the same placement standards), fewer than 10% of the frosh are placed into remedial English composition courses at the same school.</p>
<p>When I applied, the school was a safety for me for all divisions and majors, although I did not know that while in high school (found out a few years later how the admissions process worked then and what the thresholds were). Now, with my high school stats (adjusted for SAT rescaling), it would probably be a match to low reach, depending on division and major.</p>
<p>Hpuck35 said: “The low admit numbers are a result of the larger numbers of applications that each student puts out. It may be harder to stand out from the crowd but the top students will almost always stand out. Therefore, I believe it is no harder today to get into a good college.”</p>
<p>Which is why admissions results at an elite school, like, say, Brown, are so good for “top students”:</p>
<p>82% of Valedictorians are told no . . . as are 85% of Salutatorians, 82% with an 800 SAT CR, and 84% with an 800 Math</p>
<p>HPuck35 wrote:</p>
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<p>This is clearly flawed reasoning, unless the assertion is that no one today could have scored a 1600 on the old scale. A “‘perfect’ 1600 on the new scale” would mean a perfect 1600 on the old scale as well.</p>
<p>Perhaps HPuck meant either: a 1510 score on the old scale would be a 1600 on the new scale; or a 1600 on the new scale could be anywhere in the range of 1510-1600. In either case, a number of the arguments presented are based on sloppy reasoning.</p>
<p>More high school graduates apply to college now, even if the total number of graduates is the same. More graduates have focused on applying to college earlier in their career, resulting in more competitve applications from equally gifted kids. More colleges, especially highly selective universities, actively recruit applicants from around the world now - a practice that was unheard of twenty years ago. More international applicants now have the means to apply to and attend American universities, resulting in a surge of applications from abroad.</p>
<p>^It’s more complicated than that. The SAT math scores are about the same in the higher reaches, but verbal scores go up. A 730 is still a 730 in math, but in reading a 730 then is an 800 now. [SAT</a> I Individual Score Equivalents | Research and Development](<a href=“http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/sat/data/equivalence/sat-individual]SAT”>http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/sat/data/equivalence/sat-individual)</p>
<p>Who got where was sooooo irrelevant in D’s time, it did not drive anybody crazy, it did not occur to anyobdy to discuss/share…it is very strange to read all of this. Later, we heard that many geared towards Grad. school and very many who were wired to go to Med. Schools went to the cheapest places, especially true if a parent was an MD. MD parents did not want kids to have the same (this days much bigger) huge loans to deal with for the most of their lives, so they saved greatly, send kids to UGs on full Merit awards and in many cases free Med. Schools (if parent ahd a working relations there). Prestige seems to be outdated in D’s circle with good number of her friends currently in Med. Schools and other Grad. Schools, we know names of some place, do not know others, we never cared, they never cared either…</p>
<p>Great thread and something I’m dealing with my daughter right now. The problem is that she is the one that keeps doing the comparisons even though I try so hard to tell her how different it was ‘back in the day’. My well-meaning but misguided parents told her every single college I got accepted to - all schools that are out of her reach. Now she feels like she’s somehow not good enough and she’s having a major confidence crisis. The funny part is that while I did really well on SATs, my grades were just okay. The kicker for me at the time was going to a top boarding school - that was back in the day where that mean you were a shoo in.</p>
<p>My mother applied to just two colleges (Yale and W&M) and trying to explain the idea of reach/match/safety colleges to her has been strangely difficult! Although I will take it as a compliment she thinks I can get into Yale regardless :P</p>
<p>My husband’s parents, AND his grandparents, all went to USC. Along with his uncle and several cousins in the '70s. I doubt most of them could get in now. Maybe great grandpa, the dentist.</p>