<p>I agree with edad’s D’s approach. We did not want to share D’s application choices with others, not because we didn’t want to help them, but because the whole process and potential “rejection coping” seemed so personal. (Plus any kids smart enough to apply to top schools certainly must be smart enough to figure it all out themselves as we did.)</p>
<p>While I agree with letting your kid keep their list sort of private so that rejections aren’t known all over town, keep reminding yourself that none of the top schools have quotas for a particular school and that your kid isn’t competing against the 4 or 5 others from his school but the thousands of others from all over the country (or world).<br>
My older D applied ED to a top school and I was told by several parents how sad that was, because that was the same school the Val was applying to ED and now my D didn’t have a chance. I just gritted my teeth and made bland comments. Both got in, as did another kid from their school (first in several years for this college). Your son’s friends are a drop in the bucket in the application pool.</p>
<p>I agree with Dragonmom. Many of the top schools including the Ivies really do not have quotas from specific schools. That is a fallacy. </p>
<p>Applications are expensive. I’d think that most would apply to the schools they are truly interested in. </p>
<p>If your son’s friends are as academically talented as you say they are (and have the option of following to CTY programs, etc.) then they certainly know about the top schools. Whether one believes it worthwhile or not, all one has to do is look at US News to see a list of “top” schools.</p>
<p>My kids and their friends largely knew where one another were applying and were very supportive of one another. Even those in the class who were not close friends were rooting for one another. Most, however, did not discuss their scholarship applications. They were genuinely pleased for one another each time someone won one. It pretty much evened out in the end for the top kids who applied.</p>
<p>I do realize that it is easy to think that the adcoms will pick one over the other when the kids are “similar.” However, there really are differences in all kids that the adcoms do see. Their letters of reference won’t be the same and their test scores won’t be either. The adcoms in top schools are looking to fill certain spots in their classes.</p>
<p>You can just make yourself so crazy in this process. Why did my kid get accepted to Harvard and not Penn? Why did someone else we know get accepted to Cornell and not George Washington? There’s no rhyme or reason … pat your son on the back for his good attitude, take a breath, and be sure that he has some good safeties that he’d like to attend if that’s the way it plays out.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is not because top schools have put some unsaid quota on the number of acceptances from your school, but because there is rarely more than one that is qualified.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If he is intelligent, passionate, and hard-working, he will be competitive, regardless of who applies from his school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your son is a leader. He may be the first of his class to decide to participate in such programs as CTY, but he would not be the only one to benefit and enjoy them. Let others follow in the path he blazed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I threw up in my mouth a little here. Excuse me. Your sons schoolmates - his FRIENDS - are NOT holding him back. If he is so much more socially adept than these people, he should have no problem expanding his social group, despite what friends he already has. </p>
<p>The more I read, the more I am POSITIVE that you need to stop making judgements about your son’s choices and especially his classmates. Focus on cultivating your son’s strengths rather than cutting down others’ opportunities. That is what being petty and playing dirty is, no matter what you say to the contrary.</p>
<p>Since the kids you speak of are your S’s friends, I have to agree with doubleplay (#16.) Helping is probably a boon in more ways than one. My D shares info with her best friend, and is also trying to encourage her to stretch herself a bit. She also shares info with others she knows to be trustworthy–just not the types to use and deceive. My D is an empathetic sort, and has dropped some safeties from her list because they were friend’s first choice. Not exactly what I would insist upon, but what my D can live with.</p>
<p>FYI: I don’t think that you should be made to feel “petty.” No one has the right to tell you that your concerns as a parent are “petty.” Advice is one thing–criticism another. The fact is that on CC when people ask for advice, there is usually little to go on but the poster’s sketch. I cannot claim to tell you what you should do, because I don’t have all the information. What I can do is share my personal experiences and let you decide how they fit into the scheme of things.</p>
<p>Here’s an anecdote from the other side:</p>
<p>My D is a rising senior at a large public HS in an affluent neighborhood. The climate is competitive and sometimes cutthroat. My D will not share her list with just anyone and in her situation it is advisable. </p>
<p>After AP exams in May, during a relaxing day in my D’s English class, the conversation inevitably turned to college admissions. One girl asked her best friend in the class which schools she was looking at. The friend replied that her “dream” school was Georgetown and she would be applying EA. The girl’s response was that she hadn’t considered G’town, but would now put it on her list, too. Adding that she would never go there–it’s Harvard only for her, or Yale, as a last resort–but that it will be fun (like a game or a sport) to get all of those acceptance letters. My D said that the friend turned pale, looked visibly shaken, but remained silent. She turned to my D who sits next to her and asked the same question. My D’s response was Wellesley–not her first choice. The girl looked at her and said that she hadn’t even considered a LAC or a women’s college and that she’d have to think about it. She said she was already planning on applying to all of the Ivies and many of the top 25 on the USN&WR list. She’s bragged continually about her 105 weighted average, her 2400 (she had a 2370 the first time and retook) and six 800’s on SAT II’s, her NMS, the charity she established, her professional singing career, being president of 6 clubs senior year, etc. Her favorite pastime is making others feel inferior. (Funny thing is with all of that she’s not even the class Val.) After that nobody would tell this particular girl anything or talk openly about colleges. Can you blame them? Even though the class is large, most of the Ivies and other top schools like G’town have not historically doled out multiple acceptances at our HS. One boy in the class had the nerve to tell her that she might not get into Harvard. Her response was that if she didn’t it would be because some refugee from a genocide got the spot she deserved not him. (She’s a lovely girl.) It is certainly this girl’s prerogative to do as she wishes, but her outright lack of consideration for her friend and her overall obliviousness contribute to the environment of paranoia. There are some circumstances that might warrant keeping one’s business private.</p>
<p>I say follow your gut instinct as a parent, provide some guidance, but allow your son the freedom to decide how he ultimately wants to handle his future and his friendships. </p>
<p>Good luck to you and your son.</p>
<p>Your daughter’s classmate may be quite surprised. Harvard often passes over the Val for someone else in the class that has the “fit” they are looking for. I’ve seen this firsthand.</p>
<p>It is my personal theory, however, that Yale rarely does that. I’ve seen them take the Val or Sal often and pass over that #3, 4, 5 etc. kid that gets into Harvard or Princeton or Amherst, and so on.</p>
<p>Just an aside.</p>
<p>“(Funny thing is with all of that she’s not even the class Val.)”</p>
<p>The girl isn’t the Val (or even the Sal)–just imagine what those profiles look like…HAHA! She’s one of many over-achievers who are “overly” confident.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the Val or Sal may have taken the “right” weighted classes and boosted GPA up that much higher, but may not have the same standardized test scores.</p>
<p>A parent’s number one job is to prepare a child for the rest of his or her life - away from that parent. Is it better to produce a generous, sharing soul whom others look up to or a cynical, selfish one? It is time for your son to make the decision about what to share with his friends based on his comfort level and personality, not yours.</p>
<p>Not in this case. Though that has been true in other years. My D’s class is the most competitive in years, and all the top kids take all the same classes. The Val (a very nice girl) is just the cream of the crop-- tops at everything every year–has received every award the school offers, same SAT scores, plus already some substantial academic scholarships for research in the sciences. (Her older brother was the same.) </p>
<p>I don’t begrudge “the girl” anything. My D, in fact, feels slightly sorry for her, because no matter what she achieves, it’s never good enough for her parents. She has often cried on my D’s shoulder (and they’re not exactly good friends) because my D is the resident class therapist!</p>
<p>Sorry to hijack the thread with off-topic posts…</p>
<p>OP said: “I spend a great deal of effort looking into schools for my son as well as providing guidance to him on things he should consider doing. And yes, some of these are to make his “resume” look good to colleges.”</p>
<p>Wow, OP. I can’t imagine selecting colleges and activities for my kids. Where does your <em>son</em> want to go? What does he <em>like</em> doing that’s not directed by his parents? </p>
<p>It’s one thing to go rummaging through college websites looking for FA info, scholarships, etc. once a kid has some schools in mind and has asked you to do some legwork, but it’s another thing altogether to orchestrate the list. </p>
<p>DS and I talked about activites and college resumes a couple of years ago, and he said he saw no point in doing something he didn’t love. If doing something he didn’t like got him into a school with lots of people who DID like that activity, he thought he’d be pretty miserable. Couldn’t argue with that logic!</p>
<p>My “contribution” to his college resume is sticking certificates, etc. in a manila folder and keeping notes on other activities on the inside cover of said folder. Makes it easier to organize when it’s time to write resumes.</p>
<p>I’d encourage the OP to be generous in sharing information with her son’s friends, first of all because it’s just the decent thing to do and a good lesson in how to treat friends; second, because several adcoms’s have posted here and made it clear that there is no quota system for the # admitted from a single high school; and third, because if the top 7-8% of the class is truly top-tier material, that’s a <em>very</em> unusual school in the big picture–probably a school that the regional admissions officer is quite familiar with. The mean SAT score for the top 10% of graduating seniors nationally is under 1200.</p>
<p>Well, in one of my kids HS, there was an extremely competitive, very brilliant group of kids- one of the most likely to gain entry to top schools in years. The top three went Ivy, 2 to an HYP; this HYP school traditionally takes no more than 2 kids, one athlete in a particular (feeder type) sport and one plain brilliant, accomplished student. </p>
<p>Kid ranked #4, who might have been #1 in a different group, also got into an Ivy, but was furious that #2 took “the spot” at the HYP school…this was many years ago, kids are all out of UG, but #4 in grad school in the same city where #2 works still does not talk to #2 :eek:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think you left out a word.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter what mom wants…to control. </p>
<p>The school has a history of acceptances. That history is probably documented in scattergrams. If you studied those scattergrams you would understand the scope of his competition–over a period of five years say. (Check out the scattergrams for Bronx Science and you can see the microscopic differences and similarities <a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/s...hsid=bxscience[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/s...hsid=bxscience</a> ‘guest1’ ).</p>
<p>If his school has a history of applicants, your son will absolutely will be competing against his own schoolmates, past and present. One CTY class isn’t going to make or break his app. That’s okay. Split hair competition happens every day at schools where Ivies take multiple students. The kids get it and get over it.</p>
<p>He’ll survive and so will you.</p>
<p>I can understand the OPs frustration, her son being copied because others have no imagination</p>
<p>My D had a friend who did what she did, copied her, down to the clothes, finally, after 2 years the girl found her own way and is in fact a sweet girl, but my D hated starting something new, because, voila this girl was right there </p>
<p>My youngest has said she made a vow to herself not to share where she is applying with friends or classmates, if they ask, she is going to say just that, she likes having part of her life, her own</p>
<p>I think the game of “I called it first” is kind of irrelevant when it comes to college admissions. Just because your son might be more interested or you might know more about it now doesn’t make it ‘his’ or especially ‘yours.’ If 10 other kids apply and another of his classmates gets in and he doesn’t- then he wasn’t meant to get in. In our case (similar sized school, similar group of kids were son’s peers and friends) it was actually great to know where other kids were applying. If they were legacies with similar credentials to my son’s- he sometimes chose to not look at that school- this helped because the HS limited the number of applications. I think that sharing among parents actually made a difference in that the kids who were aiming pretty high all ended up doing really well, we found that honesty worked.</p>
<p>I think to focus too much on the ‘competition’ is a big mistake.</p>
<p>I’d like to also say that while these kids in the OP situation may be followers and appear to chat and want to follow OP’s child’s lead, hopefully they have parents at home who are more realistic and may actually already be guiding them to other schools or whatever their plan…</p>
<p>What kids do at school and chat about, maybe a completely different situation than what is going on in the homefront. OP, do you think these kids parents are involved in the college search???</p>
<p>It’s interesting to see that there are so many different ways of approaching things. But in my opinion, the idea needs to come from the kid. If OP’s son were asking, saying “I really don’t want to tell my friends where I’m applying”, I’d give advice on how to answer the questions. But this is not the case. This is a situation in which the parent doesn’t want the kid to talk about it, and wants advice on how to convince the kid. And this is the situation that I think is wrong. Let your kid do what’s comfortable for him. He sounds like a great kid; how do you think he’d feel if he ended up thinking that he screwed a friend by withholding information?</p>
<p>No one “owns” college admissions, and there are no secrets as to the rankings of various colleges and universities. From what I read and hear, people (kids and parents) would stomp on their own best friend to gain admission to an elite school.</p>
<p>I don’t see a problem with not talking about applications, or talking about them, if doing either/or is the student’s choice. But don’t for a minute think that by not talking a student is provided any sort of “edge” over his classmates.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t particularly have a problem with the OP trying to convince her son to participate in some ECs that might help him get into college. I remember my mom would sometimes suggest little things. She wouldn’t FORCE me to do anything I didn’t like, of course, but a simple suggestion like, “wouldn’t you like to do this summer program or get involved with a club at school” is just harmless advice. It was probably mom’s suggestion for S to do CTY and he, as she said, really enjoyed the opportunity.</p>
<p>The only real problem I see with the OPs attitude is the desire to cut down on other students’ chances rather than strictly focus on her son alone.</p>