I have 2 sons. Only one was a legit contender for the most selective universities. He is currently a senior at a US News Top 10 school. I was just addressing the person who said that the only people who think the system is flawed are parents of kids who didn’t have things work out the way they wanted.
My youngest son was a high stats kid with some unique ECs that I think carried him to where he wanted to be. Still, I think society would be better off if we removed the mysterious whims & biases of unknown selectors from the process.
You’re an Associate at a professional services firm with the highest number of billable hours in your cohort. Your colleague gets promoted ahead of you. Why? Holistic. The firm needs someone for their Beijing office, and your colleague is fluent in Mandarin and lived in Beijing for a few years teaching English after college and before grad school. Holistic.
You’re coming out of a two year management rotation program at a large industrial company and virtually everyone has the same assignments ranked in the same order for the first “permanent” role. It’s holistic- everyone can’t be based in Paris or London. Someone is going to Dayton OH or Tulsa OK. How does management decide who gets their first choice and who gets their last? It’s holistic. All those soft skills, all those training programs about giving feedback and taking feedback, all those modules about customer relationships… that’s what decides, not the “numbers”.
Yep, when I was at a boutique consulting firm we’d get literally over a thousand resumes (most from top 50 graduates) for what would be maybe 50 interview slots for 5 positions.
No doubt we screened out what would have been many high performers before even speaking with them.
Kind reminder that debate is against ToS, and CC strives to be a friendly and welcoming site. If you find yourself in a back and forth with another poster, especially an off-topic conversation, please take it to PM or start a new thread… or simply walk away. Posts deleted. Thank you for your understanding.
OP, how is your son doing? I hope he’s okay with being deferred and looking forward to acceptances to other schools. That’s really all he/you can do at this point.
It doesn’t seem any new information is being shared so I’m closing the thread. If the OP would like to post updates or additional questions they can flag this post and request the thread be reopened.
I wish the OP and their student well as they navigate application season.