Do you ever wonder where YOU would be admitted if YOU were applying to college?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Do you ever think back on your own high school GPA, test scores and ECs and think about what schools would accept YOU if you were applying to schools in this day and age? Would you still be admitted to your undergrad with today’s heavy competition? Would you get into a more selective school or less selective school than your kids?</p>

<p>I had a great GPA (better than my kids), great ECs (a lot more than my kids-from the era where we did a bunch of stuff for fun, never thinking about how it would look on college aps), decent test scores (which could have been improved with any degree of prep at all). But I probably still would have ended up going the same place…state U. I had a full tuition scholarship but no further aid because we were “middle class” (but pretty darned poor when I think of how little my dad really made.) My folks were doing all they could to pay my room and board. Had I gone out of state, they couldn’t have paid my plane fare to come home for holidays.</p>

<p>Would things be different for you in today’s environment?</p>

2

<p>I have thought of this since joining CC. As a female, first-generation URM with a great GPA, I know I could have done much better. I rcv’d every scholarship for which I applied, so I think I could have done very well if I had pursued more.</p>

3

<p>I wonder if there are more or fewer first generations now than when we were applying. My dad actually went to college, but of his family of 6 and my mom’s family of 7, only a total of 2 went to college. My husband’s dad left school at 16. It was very common among our parents’ generation.</p>

4

<p>No way would I have been admitted where my daughter is getting admitted. I was pretty lazy and erratic – and still am!</p>

5

<p>I didn’t take as many APs as my son and I can’t believe I only took two years of science in high school, they didn’t even let us take a science course as a freshman :eek:, but grades, SAT scores and ECs were all very good. However the year I graduated from high school we sent 6 girls to Harvard, 4 to Yale and 2 to Princeton, now that the NE boys boarding schools are all co-ed the same school sends hardly anyone to HYP.</p>

6

<p>recentered SAT Scores,
test prep beyond seeing it for the first time that May morning taking it only once? who knows
A neighbor of mine is a Princeton Grad, he said no way in heck would he be admitted now, even with recentered scores. Think he said had a 1250 back in the 80’s</p>

7

<p>Didn’t take “as many” APs? I had never HEARD of AP classes until my kids were in school. We all took the CLEP tests, however. I think I got 30 hours that way!</p>

<p>I would love to see what WAS required of us in high school…almost nothing, I believe…only one year of math, one of science, US history and either a year of 9th grade Civics or a semester of 12th grade government…oh, yeah, and THREE years of PE!</p>

8

<p>It’s more competitive now. I think most of us, faced with the same situation our kids now, would have taken the AP classes, SAT prep classes, etc.</p>

9

<p>We had to do 4 YEARS of PE, 4 of English.
11th grade ended the requirements, 3 years of core subjects Math/Science/Social Studies.
Majority of seniors were done after 2nd period for the day 9:15, after homeroom. They went home to drink and came back for gym class. Yep it was RAMPANT, stumbling their way thru gym class</p>

10

<p>True dat, missypie. I don’t remember what was required of us at all, but it wasn’t much. I remember taking trig and that it wasn’t required. And that only two years of language were required. I didn’t have “ECs” – I had fun things I did, like section editor of the newspaper, Spanish Club, Spirit Club. And my parents couldn’t even tell you my principal’s name, that’s how detached they were.</p>

11

<p>Pretty funny, CBK.</p>

<p>You’re right, youdon’tsay. My parents knew what my orchestra and theatre teachers looked like, because they came for performances…other than that, they never saw any of the other teachers, the principal, etc. No open houses, no mini-school, no curriculum nights.</p>

12

<p>No AP’s at my HS – in fact, I’m not sure they even existed! High GPA, not such high SAT’s (took them once, no prep), athletics, EC’s, etc. etc. I’d like to think I’d still get in to Colby, but who knows? I remember filling out a bunch of applications (by hand, of course), mailing them off, waiting for April, picking Colby, and, voila – done.</p>

<p>For me, a more interesting question would be, if I had it to over again at Colby, would I have done anything differently? From my perspective on life now, the answer is a resounding “Yes.”</p>

13

<p>What’s funny about the PE requirement is that our kids only have to have 3 semesters, plus health, and they STILL have a hard time getting it in…for other reasons. This year, my son was able to fit in AP Psych instead of PE, so he’ll be a Senior in gym class. He won’t be alone. </p>

<p>My son keeps having these conversations with a top of the class friend of his who wants to sign up for both AP Calc and AP Stats…my son keeps saying, “If you take AP Stats instead of PE, you won’t graduate!” Funny to have kids at risk of not graduating because they took too many AP classes!</p>

14

<p>PE wrecked my otherwise perfect GPA due to that President’s Fitness Test! :frowning: Luckily I got one semester of A per year for being in drill team. There was not much else for girls in competitive sports at the time at my high school…not that I would have made any of the teams! </p>

<p>Didn’t study for SAT, loved AP History and AP English. Thought about Stanford, but counselor told me not to even try. To this day I resent that! College apps were (all 2 of them) done in pen and I did them with no help from parents. Who knew they were supposed to help?!</p>

15

<p>I think that I wouldn’t even come close to getting into the schools my kids have gotten in to. I probably would’ve still gone to a state school. I was discussing this with my husband the other day and we concluded that the expectations that our guidance counselors put forth were far lower than that of our kid’s generation.
I couldn’t have done well with the classes that they have had to take in hs either. This generation is more competitive than mine was.</p>

<p>My brother in law came on a couple of college tours with us ( BU and BC ) He is a BC alum and he says he never would’ve gotten in with his stats then, compared to now.</p>

16

<p>I don’t know if the outcome would have been different – kids like me still get admitted to HYP, as far as I can tell – but the experience would have been vastly different. I really don’t remember any significant anxiety applying to college. I was the clear best student at a school that reliably sent 3-4 kids to each of Harvard and Yale (and Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn) every year (more to places like Williams, Amherst, Hamilton, and a smattering to Princeton, MIT, and Brown). </p>

<p>I only applied to two colleges, at one of which I had twenty-something family members to whom I was close who were alumni or current students, something that mattered then. My school sent my transcript to a third college, which sent me the equivalent of a “likely” letter and told me I didn’t have to bother writing any essays but I did have to sign an application. My best friend only applied to two colleges, too, and he wasn’t close to the best student, just the best “student-athlete” – something much admired then, although he was nowhere near good enough to get recruited at an Ivy level. Anyway, based on geography and other considerations, there were only three colleges my parents were willing to let me consider, and in their hearts there was really only one. The little anxiety I had came from having to convince them and my other relatives that the OTHER one, my choice, was really OK.</p>

<p>Although, like mathmom, I only had two years of science in high school, and we had no “AP” courses (I did take some of the exams, all but one long after the admission season was over), I had generally done a lot of the things that smart kids do today to stand out: lots of academic challenge, travel, ECs, one college course in 11th grade, wrote and produced a play, gotten good test scores . . . All of which would have meant that, like my kids, I would have been sweating through some strategic portfolio of applications and ED/EA dilemmas.</p>

<p>I would get into some colleges and get rejected (maybe “waitlisted”) at others. I would cross my fingers and hope that one of my “reaches” came through for me. Maybe it would.</p>

17

<p>Starting with this year’s freshman class, our state now requires 4 years of math and 4 of science. That certainly would have wrecked my almost perfect GPA!</p>

18

<p>The college landscape has changed tremendously since the dark ages when I was in high school. The biggest change from my daughter’s perspective was the opening up to women of what were, until the 1960s and 70s, men-only schools. Three of the colleges my daughter has applied to – Wesleyan, Kenyon and Lafayette – would have been closed to her in “my day.”</p>

<p>As for me, I wanted to attend a co-educational LAC, and there were far fewer choices in the 60s. Places like the schools my daughter has applied to – not that I would have been admitted – held no interest to me. What’s done is done. I’m just glad my daughters live in more enlightened times (well, different times anyway).</p>

19

<p>I would be admitted to many more places than I was back in the old days. Back in the old days, many of the “prestige” colleges had 1) Jewish quotas; and 2) limited admissions from my high school (because it was 90% Jewish, and the number one public high school in the country.) Today they don’t have overt Jewish quotas, and I’m a Quaker!</p>

20

<p>Mini, if you weren’t from a HS known to be majority Jewish, did they just try to figure out the Jewish kids by last name? (They weren’t so bold as to have Religion boxes to check, were they?)</p>