College Counselor Sick of Reading about Golden Kids Getting into Harvard

Parents Forum
341

I’m another vote for the absurdity of @MiamiDAP 's statement (“some doors will be shut down for you FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, if you do not achieve high college GPA, even if you graduate from MIT.”)

I graduated with a 3.0 from Yale. The 3.0 never hurt me at all. Only my first employers even saw the GPA (yet I received four strong job offers from top firms in my field, engineering.) Moreover, my choice to attend Yale inspired and helped me in enormous ways for my life and career.

For my children: I push them hard to get good grades in high school. But once accepted to a ‘good’ college, I tell them I am no longer fixated on grades – better they explore, and take advantage of all the college has to offer, and find courses & activities that excite them.

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@MiamiDAP, if the rigor or reputation of a particular institution is of no moment when selecting a college, why do you find it important to note that your daughter graduated at the top of her class at an elite high school? Do you draw some distinction between the benefits of the institution at the high school as opposed to undergrad level?

@pickpocket, very good post. We have tried to take a similar tack with our son, telling him that one of the advantages of attending where he is attending is that he should allow himself to stretch out, take some risks and also take some classes just for the heck of it. Because he is that kind of kid, he seems to have taken that advice to heart so far. Hope he continues to do so. Maybe I am nuts, but everything I think I know tells me that the name on his degree will afford him some leeway down the line.

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“@TheGFG I agree with your last post. The main area of disagreement I have had is the assertion that top schools are affordable bc they have great FA (not implied by @Ohiodad51, but another poster) and that income alone is a good indicator of economic situation.”

@Mom2aphysicsgeek , that would be me, though I don’t remember the income indicator part, so you may be thinking of another poster yet. Two things to offer:

  1. I acknowledge I'm not FA expert and so I gracefully bowed out of that debate.
  2. I also know, anecdotally, that there are a lot of kids who attend great schools on the generosity of the stakeholders of those schools who help create and maintain large enough endowments to make aid available for as many kids as possible. Wesleyan is about to conclude on a large and successful campaign drive to address the issues they've faced with endowment the last several years (note Wes was once the wealthiest LAC in the country, bar none). The overwhelming majority of the $400 to $500 million raised this round is going toward the financial aid wing of the endowment.

Sometimes, I think we forget that a top notch education has not yet evolved into an inalienable right. A position I’ve taken, based in part on my life experience, is that sometimes it makes sense to borrow a little $$ to attend a given school, depending on what one intends to do with that education.

I have no problem with Columbia putting out there their “no loans” policy and promising that they will give you (GIVE YOU - it’s not yours; it’s a gift) $$ based on their analysis of what you need. I also have no problem with them determining that you need to make some degree of sacrifice on your end if you can. After all, it’s their money you want for free - it is entirely appropriate that they decide what you have to do for it on your end.

If you can’t swing what they expect for you to contribute, don’t go.

But anyone in this thread who doesn’t think that Harvard, Columbia, Williams, Middlebury, Stanford and Yale and others in their endowment club don’t educate a lot of students who can’t pay are simply uninformed.

If you’re not “poor enough” for the full free ride at these schools, here’s an idea: be happy you’re not that poor. It’s a good problem to have relative to the people who are that poor. If you can’t or won’t make the sacrifices they ask, which they see as reasonable, then, again, that’s your choice. It doesn’t make those schools any less generous or any less diverse socio-economically. It just means you don’t want to do your part, as defined for you, for that school. Fine, don’t do it.

What any of this has to do with whether Columbia is a better school than UMass I’ll never understand.

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@MiamiDAP said, " Certainly, if superiority manifests itself in some career pursuits, it does not do it in others. I know several Ivy’s graduates who did not feel at all that they achieve any superior status, they feel that they had no advantages whatsoever over others who graduated from in-state publics." Well, great. I know a bunch of Harvard grads who work out here in LA in the television business, and it’s like a club that keeps adding to itself with more recent grads. USC and UCLA are probably the other top feeders, but those are all top schools as well and that Hollywood connection is in part location-based. A top school has post-grad benefits for those without grad school aspirations as well. I can’t remember who said it now but someone mentioned graduating with a 3.0 from Yale. I don’t have numbers to back this up, but I’d wager that a 3.0 from Yale opens more doors than a 3.0 from a mediocre school.

My kids aren’t Ivy-bound, I didn’t go to a Top 20 school; I have no vested interest in defending the benefits and usefulness of a college education at an elite school. But to say the benefits are minimal is a spurious claim at best.

345

Since my name was at the beginning of this part of your post, I wanted to point out that 1-I have never once posted on this forum in a way that even begins to suggest that a top notch education is an inalienable right and 2-I have never complained that our kids cannot afford to attend a top school.

I have posted that my kids know that they have to forge their own path and they rise to the challenge at the schools they do attend.

346

JenJenJenJen,
After “graduating with a 3.0 from Yale”, the one who is inspired to attend the USA SOM, will have to forget about his/her dreams and try to focus on some other career. He will have no chance at any American Med. School. Now, do not know anything about Law school and other Grad. schools. To have any reasonable expectations for acceptance to ANYr American Med. School, including the lowest ranked, one must have college GPA 3.6+ with decent MCAT score, whole range of medical ECs and somewhat social personality in this sequence of importance. I am not aware about threshold for DO schools, but the stats could be lower for DO schools. Overcoming the low GPA of 3.0 is possible but will take several additional years of whatever school, I am not sure, undergrad or Grad. But some people are applying many times, we knew one who finally got in after applying for 6 years. He was in fact very very smart and nice and very proficient in Anatomy as he had a MS in Anatomy and was very helpful for medical students, ironically while not being accepted yet. Apparently, something did not match up in his application as everything has to be absolutely top notch, that is everything with the exception of the name of the college, which is pretty much irrelevant.

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@MiamiDAP …or they could just run for POTUS. :wink:

348

These tables use the old MCAT scores, but one can see that one is not doomed to a life of failure with a GPA of 3.0
https://www.aamc.org/download/321518/data/factstablea24-4.pdf (caucasian)

https://www.aamc.org/download/321520/data/factstablea24-5.pdf (URMs)

https://www.aamc.org/download/321516/data/factstablea24-3.pdf (asian)

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^^^
I love it when posters take the time to introduce actual facts into these threads.

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@jym626 You’re doomed unless you knock the MCAT out of the park. And I’d bet if they allowed, those with low GPA and sky high MCATs are largely at elite colleges.

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“The main area of disagreement I have had is the assertion that top schools are affordable bc they have great FA”

@Mom2aphysicsgeek , no need to defend yourself. You were referring to a poster and I just pointed out I was the one who started that branch of the debates on this thread.

I made the general point further in the post because of the tone some posters take when talking about the relative affordability of attending some of these schools. Some people honestly can’t do it, I get that, while others don’t want to do without other things, like family trips, newer cars, etc. It’s their choice. I don’t really care either way, but when we delve into the “my Johnny is receiving just as good an education at Kentucky or Alabama, and darn it, I just can’t afford Dartmouth,” there is an unspoken attitude in some of those responses. As if the world isn’t fair because Johnny should be able to go to Dartmouth but can’t because of money. Well, that response is more palatable for most people listening to it, I suspect (certainly for me), if Johnny’s parents really and trully can’t swing it without making unreasonable sacrifices. But when that’s not really the case, and it’s more of a convenience and short-term sacrifice issue, it comes off more as whining.

I just think we tend to, perhaps not forget, but ignore a little, the fact that what the schools do give is a gift, and that for many a top flight education will involve some sacrifice, but at least there is some help there. If you don’t want to make the sacrifice or legitimately can’t, so be it. But when we get into these discussions, and someone is getting their nose bent out of shape because everyone isn’t going along with the “he’s just as well off at Bama as he would be at Dartmouth” rationalization, which is exactly what it is, they’ll have to deal with it. If you honestly can’t do it, then you’re probably resigned to your reality and you’re not going to care what some poster says about your kid’s school. It’s the best you can do and you’re probably proud you can do that much. Good for those people. Sincerely, good for them. But if you could drive the Volvo a few more years, defer a few trips to where you go on vacation, or whatever it is that arguably isn’t that big of sacrifice, then you get what you bargained for, and the rationalization is a bit harder to take.

This issue clearly hits the middle class (not even sure I know what that means anymore) the hardest. People who are living comfortably and perhaps don’t see the reason to alter that comfort level so that Johnny can go to a better school. Ok, fine. But IT IS A BETTER SCHOOL, and if hurts someone’s feelings to hear that, maybe they need to look in the mirror and remind themselves why it is that Johnny isn’t at that better school. IF they’re good with that, then we’re all happy and we’re not here arguing about it, because I doubt they’d be here whining about it.

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“After “graduating with a 3.0 from Yale”, the one who is inspired to attend the USA SOM, will have to forget about his/her dreams and try to focus on some other career. He will have no chance at any American Med. School. Now, do not know anything about Law school and other Grad. schools. To have any reasonable expectations for acceptance to ANYr American Med. School, including the lowest ranked, one must have college GPA 3.6+ with decent MCAT score …”

Again, are you sure you’ve got a good command of this subject?

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I am under the impression the GPA reflected is undergrad. Many attend post bac programs, get an MS or do other things to improve their GPA if they are applying to medical schools.

They also show acceptance at MCAT score of 15-17. Someone explained to me onetime that it might be people who were required to take the test but did not need a minimum to move onto medical school.

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" But IT IS A BETTER SCHOOL, and if hurts someone’s feelings to hear that,"- “feelings” are soooo irrelevant to this discusiion, but “hurting of the wallet” is not, at least not in our family. We do not belong in the same financial category as Gates, Trump, Clinton. But even if we did, we do not have an Ivy within 4 hours of driving from us, so we took what we had and it worked perfectly.
I have nothing against anybody in a world attending at ivy’s, kudos to them for leaving behind lots of Merit scholarships for others. Not sure about other people feelings, but I am very thankful to all of you who sent your kids to Ivy’s and my wallet is also very thankful and my kid is the most happy of us all as she is among 16% who graduated from the medical school without any debt. Huge THANK YOU!

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“Again, are you sure you’ve got a good command of this subject?” - YES.

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" But IT IS A BETTER SCHOOL, and if hurts someone’s feelings to hear that,"- “feelings” are soooo irrelevant to this discusiion, but “hurting of the wallet” is not, at least not in our family. We do not belong in the same financial category as Gates, Trump, Clinton. But even if we did, we do not have an Ivy within 4 hours of driving from us, so we took what we had and it worked perfectly. I have nothing against anybody in a world attending at ivy’s, kudos to them for leaving behind lots of Merit scholarships for others. Not sure about other people feelings, but I am very thankful to all of you who sent your kids to Ivy’s and my wallet is also very thankful and my kid is the most happy of us all as she is among 16% who graduated from the medical school without any debt. Huge THANK YOU!"

No offense meant here @MiamiDAP , but I often struggle to track your arguments.

My response in the post from which you’re quoting relates to a side argument in what has now become a marathon thread. But your confusion does demonstrate a point I’ve been making: that what one can or wants to afford is one subject, and whether a kid is as well off at one school or another is another subject and, finally, whether one school is “better” than another is yet a third subject. Sometimes, they get conflated here.

But I will say that hyperbole seems to accompany much of your content. Clearly, one needn’t be in the same financial category is Bill Gates to send their kid to a private college, and the Clintons, fwiw, really don’t belong on a list of wealth with Bill.

Also, most people don’t make the decision to attend or not attend an Ivy League (or comparable) school based on a 4 hour drive test. That’s a new one for me.

Are you sarcastically thanking those “other people” who sent their kids to elite schools because if they hadn’t tehir kids would have been where your daughter attended pushed her out of the way for merit scholarships? Is that what you’re saying? Because that’s what they kind of means. LOL. Re-read your post man.

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““Again, are you sure you’ve got a good command of this subject?” - YES.”

ok. Just checking.

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If you look at school specific stats, rather than overall stats for all colleges; a good portion of <3.0 undergrad GPA applicants from HYPSM… type colleges do attend medical school. For example, WUSTL publishes acceptances rates by GPA and MCAT score. First time applicants with a 2.8-2.99 GPA have a 33% acceptance rate. Re-applicants have a 46% acceptance rate. The original post mentioned needing a 3.6. First time applicants from WUSTL with a 3.4-3.59 have 78% acceptance rate. However, those who are accepted with a sub 3.0 GPA undergrad usually are not a typical applicants and instead often fall in one or more of the groups below:

  1. Did a post-bacc or other advanced degree after undergrad, where they achieved a near 4.0 GPA
  2. Are part of underrepresented group, including both URMs and those with special life experiences
  3. Achieved an exceptional MCAT score

As an example, the MD Applicants member at https://www.mdapplicants.com/profile/605/user-605?id=605&refname=Search%20Results&refuri=search,search_undergraduate:Stanford%20University,psr:0,orderby:OverallGPA,order:asc had a 2.8 science GPA at Stanford and 2.9 overall GPA. After graduating he did a post-bacc where he had a 3.9 GPA, did well on the MCAT (although much below average for Stanford students), and had great life experience with 7+ years as a U.S. Army Medical Service Corps Officer. He received 4 acceptances before he started withdrawing applications.

Law and other grad schools are a different story. All med schools in the US are selective, such that there are many kids who get shut out every year. However, there are law schools and grad schools in nearly every field that are not especially selective. For example, I live near Thomas Jefferson Law School and know many people who have attended. They have an 84% acceptance rate and median undergrad GPA of 2.7. They offer guaranteed scholarships for applicants with a 2.0 GPA and 140 LSAT. It is obviously not difficult to get accepted with a sub 3.0 GPA. Of course, there are other law schools, that are far more selective and have different expectations among applicants.

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"I just posted a link to this article that highlights “colleges that are probably better than Harvard.” Thank you for posting this story and hopefully the article below can offer some perspective about other fine institutions for students.

http://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/blogs/college-transitions/colleges-that-are-probably-better-than-harvard/article_13bc1558-f548-5298-a9dd-eec483fef53d.html"

What I think this article shows, albeit with a catchy title, is that there is a strong argument that the elite LACs do a better job with undergrad instruction and offer an overall better experience for the undergrad. Not a new thought.

In fact, I’d venture to say there are a lot of Ivy League, Chicago and Stanford grads who might agree there’s something there (although even Harvard grads insist that graduating from “the college” is the functional equivalent of attending a LAC).

With all that said, the examples cited by the article have four things in common: they’re small LACs, they’re private, they’re expensive and … drum roll … they’re highly, highly selective.

People who don’t understand this should: kids who get into Pomona, Wesleyan, Amherst, CMC, Swarthmore, etc. are kids who tend to have access to the Ivy League and comparable schools. I know, for example, that there is a big overlap in admissions between Brown and Wesleyan, between Dartmouth and Tufts, etc. etc.

I’m sorry … I didn’t learn anything from that article, other than perhaps that undergrads sometimes teach courses at Harvard.

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@OldFashioned1 - well, of course if someone has a low GPA, they’d better counterbalance it with other things, the least of which is a high MCAT (as is indicated in the tables I linked). A quick look at those linked acceptances tables suggest that the MCAT is probably more important than the GPA. I do not think that the low GPA/High MCAT scores are necessarily at the elites. There can be many reasons for those disparities.

Separate but interesting factoid: Don’t know the test scores or GPAs. but Xavier in New Orleans has historically been quite successful in their students’ acceptances to medical, dental, veterinary, optometry, podiatry, etc. school. It is a HSBC Roman catholic school. http://www.xula.edu/premed/

And here is the table of the AA applicants acceptances for med school https://www.aamc.org/download/321514/data/factstablea24-2.pdf High MCAT seems to trump GPA.