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<p>This is a reason to include a state school from your home state on your list. State schools don’t reject in-state applicants because they’re overqualified. Rejecting those students would be inconsistent with the mission of state schools. </p>
<p>Admittedly, this does not make life easier for kids who prefer small schools, since most state schools are large.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t understand this thought process. </p>
<p>This thread is turning into a similar one where people ended up debating just how many truly brilliant kids existed, whose needs could only be met by a very few colleges. MIT was the school being discussed in that thread.</p>
<p>There are very few of those people.</p>
<p>The rest of the brilliant people really do need to be able to live in the world. </p>
<p>So why is it so very difficult a concept to enjoy your safety, in the honors dorm, or in the special interest dorm, taking already advanced classes because of your AP classes?</p>
<p>How exactly is it harmful rubbing shoulders with the rest of the student population in the dining halls, on the paths, in the library?</p>
<p>Is it really so difficult to have to suffer through the questions or lack of participation of the less brilliant?</p>
<p>College isn’t high school. I have never personally heard of a college kid being held back by the rest of the wide student body, because those other kids have absolutely nothing to do with the classes Jane Brilliant can take, the research Jane can get involved in, the extra curriculars she can participate in.</p>
<p>I understand that the honors program in a state school scenario might not be a first choice, but how is it such a bad choice that it becomes not a true safety? (I’m not talking about those kids who really don’t have a safety for reasons mentioned above… Run in with the law, bad grades, health issues, money issues, etc.)</p>
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This.
If a student is that picky, they need to be prepared to take a gap year, and to decided that a gap year is better than one ya at a “lesser” school, where they could then try to transfer “up”.</p>
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<p>Part of the problem is that some participants in the thread use a definition of “safety” that requires the student to be happy to attend the school but others use a definition that doesn’t include that criterion.</p>
<p>As a result, people are talking in two different conversations.</p>
<p>Perhaps someone could post a link to this speech, which was given this spring at the University of Maryland English Department commencement. I was there, my oldest graduated and we listened to this wonderful speech given by a fellow graduate. It was later written up in the Washington Post.</p>
<p>“I Once Thought Maryland was Below Me” Washington Post</p>
<p>I think you are right, Marian. Most of us get that the level of excitement for a kid who has prepared himself for Yale his whole life is not going to be matched by his enthusiasm over University of Nebraska. We are essentially just talking about insurance here. Plan B. Worst-case scenario. Just in case.</p>
<p>The other thing that seems to have derailed the conversation is the description of the hypothetical student as “picky” and above sharing air space with partying frat boys who only got a 25 on their ACT and barely say a word in class, which predictably led people into two camps (“he will be dispirited! he can’t possibly survive such an environment” versus “being a baggo-playing bro is not contagious, plus there will be plenty of other interesting, smart kids to associate with”).</p>
<p>I’m just curious …</p>
<p>Once the “picky” student graduates from that mythical university where everyone is both brilliant and average (?), what then?</p>
<p>Newhope, not sure I follow…not all at any school are average and brilliant. Some are one, and some are the other. I would imagine that said graduate will enter the workforce and begin yet another stage of his/her life.</p>
<p>^ From the OP: “suppose a high achieving student would be dispirited by attending a school with … lower achieving students.”</p>
<p>In a school with no “lower achieving students” all remaining students would be of the same achievement level.</p>
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<p>Agreed. We aren’t talking about the pretentious snottiness of “OMG, I didn’t get into MIT, how will I ever handle the lesser minds at Carnegie-Mellon or Tufts or Brandeis.” Please. Such people need to get over themselves, and quick.</p>
<p>We are talking about people who cast their nets reasonably wide, who believe that smart students can be found at a lot of different schools far below the top 20 lists (or as Hunt says, “there are about 100 schools in the top 20”) and craft their lists accordingly, but who also happen to have not-so-outstanding state flagships that do attract a lot of moderately-academically-inclined students, and where the social milieu isn’t going to be favorable to the kid who is serious about his studies. Honors colleges are a way around that, and I think it’s great that they have evolved in so many places – but the fact that honors colleges evolved shows that the “problem” was there in the first place – that the academically-minded kids couldn’t always find “their tribe” immediately, esp in a larger state school.</p>
<p>And one’s state flagship has a LOT to do with this discussion. I feel completely differently about my kids’ state flagship (U of Illinois) as a “safety school” compared to my own state flagship (which was Mizzou). U of I is nobody’s safety these days. Mizzou admits by the numbers - ACT 24 and you’re in, and you can be in with a lot less if you have a certain class rank. Of course that will color perceptions. </p>
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<p>No one is saying it is HARMFUL (as in - you’ll get dumb cooties and wind up drooling). We’re saying it may not be as PREFERABLE / ENJOYABLE as the environment in which many / most are more academically inclined.</p>
<p>You know, the same way smart kids like honors classes and CTY-style programs. Because it’s nice to be around people who have the same level of interest in academics as you do.</p>
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Well my picky top 1% narrow interests kid ended up at Google surrounded by people with interests just like him. Would he have coped at a state university? - sure - though the SUNYs seemed particularly unsuited for his interests, but he was ever so much happier in a place where the population of geeky, games playing nerds was thick. He had two or three friends in high school and not one of them knew how to program a computer - so his greatest interest was something he couldn’t talk to anyone about. High school was lonely place even though there were 3000+ kids. </p>
<p>Luckily for him there are lots of tech schools to choose as safety schools and I was confident he’d be happy enough at any one of them. But being surround by tippy top comp sci kids was important to him, I’m glad he had the opportunity. And BTW U. of Md. is another place he’d probably have been fine by all accounts - and back in 2007 might even have been a safety.</p>
<p>My other kid has much broader interests and has always had friends who were more and less academic. He actually enjoyed not being in honors or AP English senior year so he could see more of them!</p>
<p>^ mathmom - I’d be willing to bet that he didn’t spend his college years whining how “all those 30 ACT classmates were bringing him down.”</p>
<p>Google? This is silly. </p>
<p>My friend’s daughter also is at Google. She graduated from a state flagship. She also had a summer internship at Google, and was offered a permanent position long before she graduated.</p>
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<p>But we are not talking about all those other kids bringing someone DOWN academically. We are talking about how our hypothetical kid here is going to make friends and feel at home in a milieu where everyone is all about the next football game or frat party and it’s-not-cool-to-get-excited-about-your-studies. </p>
<p>And we’re not talking about 30 ACT classmates either. Again, that’s a get-over-yourself type of thing. </p>
<p>But what if we’re talking a lot lower? is there no level at which we’re allowed to say – that isn’t my tribe?</p>
<p>The 30 ACT classmates were all in drama, art and architecture classes. I actually don’t think too many were in comp sci classes with him. I don’t think he would have been happy at all at a school where fun revolves around the next football game, but there are lots of other kinds of colleges and universities out there. My point about Google is that he has managed to put himself in a milieu as a grown up that is very similar to what he chose for himself in college. He’s about the polar opposite from me. One of the things I love about being an architect is the variety of people I get to know. I love hanging out with carpenters and plumbers, I love finding out what my clients do (I’m working on a restaurant, a gym and a daycare center right now.) Some kids are pointier than others - it’s nice if they can feel at home somewhere too. My son’s so much happier now than he ever was before college.</p>
<p>
Apologies if this is too far off-topic. Are OOS students also somewhat less likely to get rejected for “yield protecting” reasons? For any number of reasons, UMichigan would be preferable to Rutgers in our case.</p>
<p>In my first week in college, back when dinosaurs roamed the quads, I met six girls who had all graduated from the Bronx High School of Science – the best of the NYC exam schools available to girls in that era, when Stuyvesant was still all-male.</p>
<p>Most of the six were not particularly enthusiastic about science, and they planned to major in non-scientific subjects in college. </p>
<p>So why did they go to Bronx Science? To be with their tribe – other high-achieving, academic students. To be in an atmosphere where you were not teased or ostracized for caring about your studies. They went to Bronx Science even though, for many of them, it meant spending two or three hours every day on the subway, and it meant taking a lot of science courses that they didn’t care about. Being with their peers, in an atmosphere where they were accepted and considered normal, was important enough to offset these disadvantages. </p>
<p>If we can understand these girls – and I think we can – why do we have difficulty understanding students who have the same sort of feelings when they’re four years older?</p>
<p>Why is there still a debate here?
The answer is pretty obvious: Generally having one ore two non selective safety schools is a good insurance policy. If you cant handle the possibility of going to one of these schools then don’t apply, but be ready to take a gap year just in case you don’t get into your choice Ivy league school.</p>
<p>“But we are not talking about all those other kids bringing someone DOWN academically. We are talking about how our hypothetical kid here is going to make friends and feel at home …”</p>
<p>We’re drifting here. If a kid’s brilliant and has no money for school (from any source) go to Cooper Union. True, it’s not MIT or Harvard, but the kids there are pretty smart. If the kid’s only “really smart” there’s no reason the state flagship should be a barrier to the student’s social and intellectual development … especially today where flagships only take the top 20%.</p>
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Yes?</p>
<p>I asked my daughter about this issue. She graduated from a high school magnet program which graduates about 100 students each year. It’s academically selective, and all the kids in it are smart. But she says that there are smart kids and “really smart” kids. There are also motivated and less motivated kids. The kids who are “really smart” and also motivated tend to go to highly selective colleges. Not all of them, but a majority. Lots of kids go to the flagship, which is (as I said above) a good school with a robust honors program. But it doesn’t get many of the very most able kids from this particular high school.</p>
<p>I also asked her whether the quality of class discussions was much different at the magnet high school and at the selective college she attends now. According to her, the difference is substantial. Nobody has to believe her, of course.</p>
<p>Top athletes want to train and compete with the best athletes in their sport. Why should academically focused kids be any different?</p>