@TheGFG What is the culture on those campuses? Would your dd thrive there even if admitted? Does the admission’s competitive atmosphere roll over into the campus dynamic? Just thinking out loud here bc my dd wants a collaborative environment, not a competitive, cut-throat one. She has been contemplating these issues a lot.
You misunderstand me. Parents don’t need special rights. They need to understand the culture of a school before their child applies. I don’t expect to have to conduct business for my college age children, but that’s a family decision and I don’t appreciate organizations that try to insert themselves into family decisions. I think people forget that colleges are businesses and If they don’t like the way a particular school does business, they don’t have to hire them. Blossom is on point. Nobody is making parents push their kids to get into these elite schools.
I agree. Organizations’ opinions on parental involvement also seem to be fluid and reflect whatever makes their lives easier at any given time. The parents leading local sports and Scouting groups actively push other parents away when the children are young (even though they’re heavily involved in all the activities their kids participate in) then bitterly complain later on because they have no help. The local school district wants parents on the PTA to run committees and raise money, but when it comes to direct involvement with their children’s education they want the parents to let the ‘experts’ handle it, even if that means a special ed kid isn’t getting his needs met or a gifted student has been inappropriately shut out of an honor’s class.
There’s a difference between being a facilitator and advocate for your child and being overbearing. I think it’s important that we don’t let others define us. If somebody labels me a “helicopter parent” should I change my parenting style to please them? Children need a solid rudder and parents who change with every new fad or as a result of outside pressure are going to have difficulty providing that. Other people are always going to have an opinion about how we’re raising our kids, from the kind of childbirth we choose (natural or medicated), to what we’re feeding them (breastmilk or formula) and for how long, to whether or not we send them to nursery school or day care or neither, right up to how many ECs they participate in and which classes they should or shouldn’t take in high school. I think parents need to tune out the noise and do what’s best for each of the children in our own families and let other families do the same.
^ It was possible for him at his school. The fact that it is not possible for another child at another school does not mean that that child or parent is obsessive or delusional or doing it all wrong. Seriously, as alh says, it’s not a personal problem when the above average kid is being shut out of the regional state schools. If you have money, there are options, but the privates with low acceptance rates in our area are expensive and give poor financial aid. Our state schools ended rolling admissions, started wait listing, and now track interest. It’s a different game now.
Like most of life, even for our children, where they choose to place their time and energy, comes at the detriment or the de-prioritizing of other activities. Sometimes, these decisions donʻt jive with the parents, and speaking personally, I had my own issues to reconcile with my oldest D—with her making not only making her own decision, but ultimately, the right decision.
As I have previously told this story, my eldest D was a fairly upper margin volleyball player–and going into the summer of her HS senior year she had already a group of D1 schools interested in her for a scholarship. However, that same summer she told my wife and I, begrudgingly, that she no longer wanted to play, and was not only not going to play in college, but was going to concentrate on school for her senior year and not play. (waaa they were defending state champions and nationally ranked??!) Being a former D1 scholarship player, I had a lot of my own agenda and objectives for her to continue. Not having sons, well, shortsighted as it was, she was going to be my “chip off the old block”. One of the primary reasons she provided was that volleyball was taking too much of her time. Indeed, it was more like a 10-11 month sport, and she played on many different junior leagues that not only traveled throughout the states, but also at times internationally. Having done this for about 10 years, the passion was gone—
The problem, (well, my problem, not hersʻ) was that some schools still offered her a scholarship despite not playing her senior year—oh–the costs savings went through my mind!!! In the end, she made the priorities that were right in her life, and not only did swimmingly in college, but is now in medical residency. So, sometimes, they have the answers–not us…
I’m curious, a lot of talk of hyper competitive state schools. Which ones are these? I’ve looked up the stats on a few of the schools mentioned recently in the thread such as CMU and Vandy, but these are not full of kids that aced everything. The numbers are high, sure, but not at the level of excess that seems to be driven here. My own kid got into UNC with 2 APs, good ACT, and 4 years of marching band. That’s it.
Man, am I glad we live in fly over country. There are kids (and parents) like those described on this thread here, but thankfully not a lot. One interesting (to me) thing I have noticed from my own experience about what I call “merit badge” kids. They are always running from one extra curricular to another. Leaving play practice early to go to music lessons, or missing an early morning mock trial meeting to prep for science olympiad. Rarely have I seen kids with buckets full of extra curriculars devote themselves fully to any one. I have always wondered if that hurt them in what would seem to be the ultimate goal of getting into a certain category of school.
The students from my own kids’ high schools who get into “lottery” schools are nothing at all like the sleep deprived, EC overloaded kids described on this thread. Maybe Yale admissions looks for something different in Northern Ohio than what they look for in Northern New Jersey.
Are you in-state for UNC? It is still accepting something like 80% instate students.
My understanding is that in-state residents in TX can run into problems, when they are in very competitive, high pressure school districts. I have been told that public colleges that used to be good alternatives to UT Austin, are shutting out some good students. One family I know saw no choice but private in the state.
I am lucky I guess. I live in a state with an ok flagship (but not Berkeley- students from overseas aren’t begging for admission) and have never heard of an academically oriented kid being rejected. Sometimes pushed off for January admissions- but never rejected. School barely considers EC’s by the way.
The state also has a wide range of directionals and branches of the State U. Again- nobody is learning to play the cello to get into Southern or Western or whatnot…
But I also have not seen the phenomenon of a kid with high stats (and not the rest) get rejected from Emory. I’d love to see evidence that the brainiac kids are now getting shut out of Vanderbilt. I’m not talking the B+ kid who preps multiple times to get 650 SAT scores. I’m talking about the kids you guys are talking about- ambitiously academic, high grades, high scores, but need enough sleep so that competing in Robotics or regional debate championship will push them over the edge.
The kids I know going to Vandy/Emory/Davidson fall into two buckets- super stats but not the rest, or good athletes with solid but not spectacular stats. So you’re telling me that the super stats kids without the three page activity resume isn’t getting into their own state colleges??? Which state (besides California- which I recognize has its own admissions rubric) is rejecting high stat kids who are residents???
Evidence?
You don’t have to be first cello. The colleges wouldn’t swoon over Susie, today, just because she was and dismiss QMP because she was further back. Holistic would like QMP’s commitment just as much, and then be looking at the rest of the story, for each.
If there’s a problem getting into the state schools, I agree it can be factors beyond your control.
But I think that, when you see getting into college as an Everest- this CC stuff about national level awards, first chair, maximum AP, maximum everything- one can lose sight of what is in their control.
Then we get the complaints about rejections, “But she was maximum everything.”
Which is…what?
What do you think the “Crackerjack prize” is?
@alh - yes, in state. But my point is that others here say they can’t get into their own instate school. I’m just curious what states these are.
@decidesomehow: UT-Austin - Is practically impossible for in-staters if you are outside the top 7% guaranteed admissions. So the kid at middle of nowhere Texas HS school with no AP’s available and is in the top 7% is guaranteed admission and the kid at highly competitive Suburban HS with higher stats than Nowhere TX HS but is in the top 15% is out of luck because UT is going to fill the few remaining non guaranteed slots with out of state kids who are willing and able to pay more out of pocket.
Those who have been paying more attention to this trend will have more and better cites.
I just have to say I am amazed by some of the stories on this thread regarding the quantity of work, summer classes to get into honors, and overall demands on kids. My daughter had short periods that were very demanding, and participated year round in a sport, but she could not survive going to sleep at 2AM every night.
Honestly, it seems like a very unhealthy environment to get only a few hours of sleep a night. I feel sorry for these kids. I don’t know that there is a solution for school districts that are operating like this. It makes me thankful my daughter could be in a less competitive region, where she could take her 9 AP’s, participate in her sport, do some volunteer work that she enjoyed, and still get a decent night’s sleep. She is very busy in her freshman year of college, but always prioritizes sleep! I guess she is not one of those ever-ready bunnies.
@blossom Here is an article from last year that overviews Vandy becoming much more selective in its admission process, see: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2014/04/18/vanderbilt-acceptance-rate-time-low/7892083/ I know adcom folks at Y, S and CAL and they all say, Vandy, through administrative conscription is becoming much more competitive.
It’s a bit unpleasant to mention this, but some people have to do a lot more work to reach a particular level of achievement than others. In order to be first chair violin, one kid might have to practice ten times as much as a more talented kid; a less-talented kid might have to practice more than either of them simply to maintain seventeenth-chair. The same is true for getting top grades in challenging subjects–some kids are able to sail through, others have to work extremely hard, and some won’t get those top grades no matter how hard they work.
The most selective colleges are well aware of this, and take this into account in making admissions decisions.
Sure, people succeed through varying proportions of work + talent. However, it seems to me that nowadays the kids getting in to the top schools are the very talented who have also maximized their input of hard work.
The texas law driving the 7% (or so, it does vary by year) acceptance rate is a desire to have 75% of the freshman class in state. Fine with me, it’s similar to the NC law of 78% in state. But the claims of can’t get in because the remaining 75% goes to out of state doesn’t hold water. 91% of the freshman class is instate, only 7% is out of state. And the out of state students have higher average scores than any of the TX admits. I’ll admit there is some weirdness going on when you get to the cutoff point, but this happens at every school - there will always be higher stat students not accepted.
This is not really my perception. I do agree that those who are most successful in getting in tend to have multiple activities, at least some of which may represent a lot of work–but I don’t think many of them are kids who had to work very, very hard to get good grades in high school. Kids like that don’t have the time to do the other activities. Among my kids’ peers who went to the most selective schools, I would not identify any of them are particularly hard workers. The hardest workers went to schools that were less selective.
175 That could be true, in some cases.
However, let’s imagine an advanced math class which requires “too many” homework problems every night. And the homework grade is a significant part of the final grade. Some students easily understand the material and could get 100% on the exam without doing the homework. Still, working out the homework problems and showing the work (neatly) takes so much time that 8 hours of sleep becomes impossible (when the student is doing similar homework in all classes) Let’s assume the homework situation is the same in any lower level option class.
The top students in the class complete the homework, at the expense of sleep, and set the standard for all the others.
The only options I see here are for parents to insist on lights out (if you can make your kids sleep, you have parenting powers I have never been able to acquire) skip the homework and take a lesser grade, opt out of the class for an on-line version, or self-study, and risk being called a helicopter parent because you challenge the system.
I think there are lots of issues going on here. One is that some feel lots of homework equals learning and that just isn’t always the case. Though, of course, some may need more homework problems than others to get to the same level of understanding.