<p>Maybe we’re missing each other to some extent, and thanks for the correction that NJSUe was not syaing average to above average.</p>
<p>I don’t think we’re necessarily telling them they won’t be fine. And I don’t think it’s inherently elitist or abnormal for kids/parents to strive for a “best school they can get in.” I mean, where should the “regular” high end ((I like that term) apply? Sure, there are instances when kids are not choosing the best school they got in for whatever reason (most often money), but I’m going take a wild leap and guess that most here have kids who are going to pick oone of the better schools they got in (not necessarily THE toughest, but within that range that seemed to fit the best).</p>
<p>Okay, and if your post #121 is entirely or mostly correct? So what?</p>
<p>I’m trying to “figure out” what the upset is, here.
</p>
<p>At the “best” school they can get into and afford.</p>
<p>There are quite a few concerns on CC, and sometimes people are seeking an affordable best option. All kids need a safety school they can afford and will gladly attend.</p>
<p>Given the single digit acceptance rates during RD rounds, a kid would do well to maximize the options in the EA, SCEA and ED rounds, if that is an affordable option for them.</p>
<p>The most important thing to remember in all of this, imho, is that the same percentage of kids are now graduating college as were graduating high school at the end of WWII. So, of course there is a great deal of “boat lifting” going on here, and many institutions are offering high quality “elite” level education for the “regular high end” kid.</p>
<p>If finances are a concern, however, which they increasingly are? Then, the first issue is the affordable safety.</p>
<p>^^^^Agree with all of that poetgrl. Certainly kids should apply to schools they can both get in and afford. I’m just saying I don’t think it’s “wrong” or inherently “elitist” for those kids to apply to high targets/reaches also. Just as a random example, if a kid with a 3.9, 2140, 7-9 APs, two sport captain, maybe some drama, and some decent ECs tells me she wants to apply to Colby or Oberlin or wherever, I’m going to say “by all means, go for it, but also apply to at least 2-3 you know you will definitely get and that your family likely can afford.” </p>
<p>I’m actually not always saying something controversial But maybe when I’m not I’m not supposed to post at all because it’s too mundane or too “so whatish”???</p>
<p>The kids I am talking about majored in things like psychology and biology. The majority of degrees awarded by Rutgers are in the liberal arts. I don’t think you can major in dental hygiene there (you have to go to UMDNJ for that). These kids worked hard in the summers and did not have unrealistic expectations. They were not like the history major from Colgate featured by the NYT a couple of years ago, who turned down a job selling insurance because it did not fit his plans to become a stockbroker or investment banker. At that time, he was unemployed and living with his parents. I hope his fortunes have improved.</p>
<p>We are paying full fare to send our D to a highly-ranked private LAC, but I don’t delude myself that her employment or iife outcomes are automatically better than if she went to The College of New Jersey instead.</p>
<p>Don’t feel bad poet, I got lost a long time ago in this thread. I’m quite unclear what the point is (or isn’t) but oh well. I keep reading hoping someone will elucidate.</p>
<p>This is what keeps confusing me:
</p>
<p>Everyone keeps saying they apply all over the place - from the fantastic publics in California, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Virginia and others to small LACs from coast to coast so I’m not clear what we are discussing.</p>
<p>NJSue, I appreciate your last paragraph in #126 because I think it is key. Yes, TCNJ might have or maybe even likely would have been just as good or produced results just as good…but you daughter yet and still is going to “a highly ranked private LAC.” So those two ideas are not mutually contradictory. But then there is also what is underneath what you said. Meaning, what is behind the decision to go to the “highly ranked school”? For me, trying to understand and expose the interest in going to elite schools doesn’t mean I therefore won’t still want to go to one. </p>
<p>And regarding the other question, it makes perfect sense to me that “regular” high end kids try to get in highly rated schools [which means they have to be very committed and push themselves if they hope to succeed], and if they don’t, or if they choose not to apply to those schools, then of course that’s OK.</p>
<p>I can tell you why my D wanted a highly ranked LAC. She believes she will be more likely to find peers who share her interests and love of learning. There are very few kids like that at her high school. She is looking forward to small classes, close interaction with professors, and being challenged to new heights in thinking. She does not want a school where sports are a major event, although she is an athlete. Sure she could be successful anywhere, but that is the environment she desires.</p>
<p>If money had been an issue, she would have taken a full tuition scholarship at her safety or the decent scholarship at a few other schools, and she would have been OK.</p>
<p>She is going there because she liked the environment and, probably, because I went there also and had a wonderful experience. The highly-ranked part is incidental because it’s a women’s college, which meant that her peers and some of my acquaintances could not understand why anyone would want to go to a college where there were no boys. So both she and I are used to people not validating our educational choices. We just don’t care, because we know what we’re getting. I think that is the proper attitude for anyone. </p>
<p>I loved my college. My sister, who makes far more money than I do and who has traveled the world with her career, loved her midwest 50-ish ranked LAC. My parents loved their state flagship. My father had an outstanding career in medicine and pharmaceuticals. Go Jayhawks.</p>
<p>I don’t understand either momof3. We all presumably went through a similar process. D was not intentionally pursuing a highly ranked school. The first filter is stats - so she went through and marked those colleges. Next she researched to find out a bit about the life on campus - and what other students say. Crossed off a bunch of schools that way. She went for some visits - and did not apply to several schools after visiting. Had to get the list down to 8 - 10 in order for her high school counselor to be happy. It was through objective analysis that she decided on the 8 schools to apply to that fit her - for various reasons. Elite was not a criteria.</p>
<p>Are you suggesting that students intentionally target only the “elite” schools disregarding other potential options because of societal or peer pressure? I am from the Midwest (since you seem to think that it matters) and based on personal experience with my S, D, and other kids in their school it is not the norm. </p>
<p>More importantly, more power to those you purposely pursue elite. Why do you care?</p>
<p>I have two kids. One I is not a regular high end kid - he really is very, very, very smart and I would have been disappointed for him not to be somewhere where I knew he was being pushed to do his best by his peers. He did not pick the top ranked school he got into, but the one that was tops in his interest. I think 90% of his class had been rejected by MIT, and most of them were probably well qualified to have gone to MIT. My younger son is one of those regular top students and he goes to one of those schools that I guess some kids are disappointed to have to settle for, but he was thrilled to get in. Like my older son he chose it because of its reputation in the field he thought would be his major, as well as providing a good all round education. He also happens to have turned down a higher ranked school. But both kids chose their schools over schools which were lower ranked as well.</p>
<p>Similar to mathmom, my D picked her school over higher ranked ones because of academic, social and cultural fit - and also turned down the state flagship because it would cost more to go there than any of her other choices!</p>
<p>I was too lazy to go back through the thread to find this statement, so I don’t know who to attribute it to. This is one of the BIGGEST elite-school myths. People look down on “vocational” majors that are offered at non-elite colleges. Yet somewhere between 25 and 50% of HYPP grads go directly into business/banking/finance jobs. Read this article from a wonderful, thoughtful Yale student who, sadly, was killed in a car accident a week after her graduation.</p>
<p>Haha, sally, I didn’t cheat. I didn’t mean “underneath” in some mysterious, psychological, unconscious sense…I meant the poster said we have a perfectly good school on one hand and a very elite school on the other hand, and we picked the elite one…and I was just asking for some articulation on the choice.</p>
<p>I seriously didn’t mean to make anyone defensive or get ticked off. I agree that I’m not even sure exactly where we are in thread at this point. It was NEVER my point to argue against elite choices. We made elite choices, or at least as elite as the acceptances allowed. Each kid maybe had one school others might consider more elite, but the one each picked was probably more “elite” than the other 8 or 9 they got in. </p>
<p>OK sally, maybe I am cheating a little. It is a little hard to see an incredibly impressive lists of destinations to the most elite schools in the United States and believe that quality, eliteness, selectivity, insert whatever word anyone wants to use, had NO bearing on the decisions. So I’ll speak for myself. I always hope that my kids would go the best schools they could get in that were a fit and that we could make work financially. Is that controversial or provocative?</p>
<p>Anyway, the reason I started the thread was to highlight the difficulty of getting in these schools (so, seriously, congrats, because it’s not easy even if some of your kids made it look easy) and what a kid has to do in terms of focus, motivation, staying on track, sacrifices, etc to make it happen. I was not critiquing at all the interest and desire to them. I was critiquing what has happened in terms of what is required to get there. That’s the linearity thing.</p>
<p>Sorry, but it’s almost as though some of you are saying we didn’t even know we were applying to elite schools…it was incidental…we found out after the fact…it wasn’t important to us. And yet, I’m guessing if many of you listed your whole apps lists, we’d see 8-12 top 35 universities and/or LACs. (Just like we did with a couple of safeties outside that range.) I assume many of you read guidebooks and knew which schools were described as outstanding, and had tough admit rates, and all the rest.</p>
<p>What people are saying is that they let their kids do what they wanted (most of the time). When it came to college application, their kids happened to have high stats, so it was natural for them to want to go to most rigorous college possible so their students could feel challenged.</p>
<p>What you are trying to twist it around is that most people had high ranking schools in their horizon, so they “groomed” their kids from K-12 in order to get into those high ranking schools.</p>
<p>The truth is some where in the middle. Our kids happened to have fairly high IQ, we had enough means to allow them to pursue many of their ECs (didn’t force them or groom them per se), they were very happy to be challenged and interested in their academic learning, we (parents) also knew that elite education could open many doors for them, so it wasn’t that surprising they applied to top tier colleges. </p>
<p>Of course people knew their kids were applying to top tier schools, but what did you expect when their kids had good enough qualification to apply to those schools, did you expect their kids to apply to less rigorous schools to just prove a point?</p>
<p>My kids were good ballet dancers. Do you think they would rather dance at some no name local company or ABT/SAB?</p>
<p>Well I had to make a deal with D2 to get her to go to college before culinary school, as some of you may recall. But that one likes to push my buttons. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Its because you just think people care about all this elite stuff - but they don’t. Not everyone is like you. Their are many, many reasons for picking a college…money, major, location, fit and on and on. For many of us “elite” status as you love to call it just is not a factor.</p>
<p>I’ve known people who buy a M-Benz because of the value - because they know it is a good buy when they consider they can drive it efficiently for like 20 years. Yet they are actually bothered by the status - that people will think they chose it to look elite. But they still purchase it because it makes sense. Of course they could buy a another car but they don’t see the value. </p>
<p>Schools are the same way. Think for yourself…maybe “elite” matters to you greatly…good for you. Stop putting that on everyone else, its getting old and boring.</p>
But maybe when I’m not I’m not supposed to post at all because it’s too mundane or too “so whatish”???</p>