My niece is a high school junior who lives in Washington state and is bright and driven as they come. When she informed her high school counselor of her desire to attend Stanford, she was told to forget it and not waste her time. It was my opinion that counselors are there to help students wherever they wish to apply. she understands that its a long shot but now she doesn’t even want to apply to any reach schools and will just apply to the University of Washington. That is a great school and would be an excellent choice but how do you know about the others unless you apply. Don’t misinform them of their chances of course but to discourage them is incorrect in my opinion. Is this an isolated event or is this the new order of counselors today?
I mean… Are her GPA and test scores low?
Counselors walk a fine line between trying to offer honest feedback regarding competitive chances while supporting the students. If she has near perfect scores and GPA, and outstanding state-level or national level extracurriculars, with no other hooks, then she may have up to around a 2 in 100 chance of admission. With those odds, some are willing to go ahead and pay the application fee and do the work to apply; others may choose differently.
It’s hard to comment on your niece’s situation without knowing the details. The reality is that fewer than 5% of the kids who apply get in. But then again, 5% DO get in! If your niece has good stats, then by all means, she should apply. But even if she walks on water, she should have a number of other (easier to get into) schools on her list. And as bright and driven as she is, she should know that applying to tippy top schools requires some resilience. Some people just don’t have the stomach for that. But she should make up her own mind about it!
A friend just took a long multi-day road trip to visit a school with her child, and it’s one of the ones that has single digit admissions. Her child is delightful, but has about a 3.4 GPA and hasn’t taken the most rigorous classes. Board scores are truly middling. No hook. My friend believes that a good essay can trump this because in the info session, she heard that they read all the essays. Honestly, I am dismayed that their GC hasn’t steered them toward some more reasonable options. In this senior’s case, a GC’s desire to preserve her dreams may do her a real disservice.
As a relative who cares, help her get the facts about her odds, and help her figure out if she’s up for applying. And help her work through her other options as well. U Dub might be a great place for her, but there may be some other places she should be considering as well.
No very well in fact . 35 ACT and 3.9uw GPA plus on the swim team and involvement with church charities. She could have stronger EC’s I think. She told me that this counselor knows an interviewer for Stanford for that area who interviewed 10-15 kids last year with 6 of them being valedictorians and none of them got in even though some had perfect SAT scores. That is what she is basing her reasoning on.
It’s hard to weigh in without knowing the girl’s GPA and scores. I only know two people who got into Stanford–one a phenomenal scholar-athlete (heavily recruited with a near perfect SAT), and the other was the kid who skipped a grade and had to walk over to the high school for advanced math classes while he was still in 7th grade. Is that what you mean by “as bright and driven as they come?”
Are her swim times competitive enough for her to be on the team at Stanford? If not, the swim team thing isn’t going to carry much weight at Stanford.
Oh sorry, I didn’t see your last post when I posted. Look back through Naviance and see when the last time someone from her school got in… remember, she’s competing with the brightest kids from all over the WORLD.
She sounds like a lovely young lady who would contribute greatly to many colleges. Nevertheless, for swim team Stanford is looking for those currently on the US national team, or the state champions in a few highly populated states (CA, FL, and TX). 
More than 90% of those Stanford applicants with perfect grades are denied admission. The competitive numbers are just tough, but there are many wonderful universities out there.
Whites are the largest demographic at Stanford by far. I hate when people use this excuse.
Odds are low for everyone, even “perfect” students, and she should know that. Her GC is right to set expectations but I don’t love the way s/he is doing it.
I don’t mean to come off as rude, but the person in question is a teenager, so they could have always been dramatizing the way the counselor told them not to apply.
My counselor told me not to apply to Brown for transfer because it is a waste of time compared to applying to an easier school to get into. I’m still going to apply though because it’s a dream school and I can stomach the application fee.
No harm in applying. It’s possible that the GC is expressing his/her frustration with Stanford as well. As in, “if those kids can’t get in, who does?” I know that at the school DS attended, there were a handful of schools that for some reason, the kids could almost never crack. It seemed irrational because they’d get into comparable peers. In any case, the GC’s bedside manner could use improvement!
“It was my opinion that counselors are there to help students wherever they wish to apply.”
No. It is a GC’s job to give sound advice. Preferably in a nicer way. But not to enable whatever a teen or her parents desire. Your niece sounds like a wonderful person. The GC evidently does not see anything that would make her stand out from the thousands of others with similar qualifications who would love to go to Stanford.
For the record, I know at least three white middle class girls going to Stanford right now, and none of them had a “hook.” However, I know many, many more kids who were rejected.
The problem is that Stanford is almost impossible to get into even for the very top students, because they get about 40,000 applications every year from the best qualified students in the entire world for 1700 spots in the class. It has very little to do with being a white middle class girl.
IMO the guidance counselor is appropriate to give her realistic feedback on her chances to get into Stanford given her academic/EC profile (which are slim, like most everyone else). However making a blanket statement about a “white middle class girl” having no shot at Stanford is inappropriate.
If your niece wants to give Stanford a shot as a real reach school she should.
Because we are now into at least third hand information it is particularly important to be careful in reading into the GCs (alleged) comments.
Obviously, a GC should not tell a student that “a white middle class girl has no shot at Stanford”. But whatever the GC’s exact words were, it is true that…
…an applicant applying to a university that accepts ~5% of its applicant has to understand what that means statistically.
…one of the hard parts for GCs is helping students- and their parents/families- be realistic about their odds of admission, especially if the student is an otherwise unhooked ORM applicant.
…even if your niece has a 4.0 UW GPA with a very rigorous curriculum and a 36 ACT and is class president, that only makes her reasonably typical applicant (average GPA of admitted students is 3.95UW).
Obviously, none of us here on CC have any idea whether your niece is a realistic candidate for Stanford, and most of us know at least a few students who have gotten into schools that we never imagined they would get into. So, nobody here can say, ‘yeah, the GC is completely right about your nieces odds at Stanford’.
But, if she is not a realistic candidate for Stanford, imo the GC should be able to say 'realistically, Stanford is not likely to happen for you; of course you can apply, but you also need to apply to colleges such as a & b, which are still a reach but more likely to admit you, and some like c & d where you are more of a match, and some such as e & f, where you are likely to get offers.
One more thing: your description of the situation reads as if your niece has taken to the news that her GC thinks that she has no chance at Stanford by simply giving up and saying ‘fine, I’ll just take my (very good) instate flagship and not try for anything more competitive’. If that is the case, imo she is not actually “as driven as they come”.
Collegemom hits the nail on the head.
Every single person I know who was admitted to Stanford had something special to offer or had gone through a lot. There’s a million “driven” applicants.
One was born and raised in Tunisia and had an incredibly interesting and crazy upbringing. One had done a lot to overcome her anxiety and depression issues from childhood. One was a straight up genius (absolutely insane but of course they didn’t know that).
I can kind-of understand what the college counselor is saying though. If she’s just your average middle class white girl then she probably isn’t that special of an applicant for Stanford. Look at it this way, this is the Stanford common data set for 2015-2016
http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2015#GeneralInformation
In the United States, the percentage of “white” people is above 60%
According to the Stanford CDS the percent of white people admitted to Stanford for freshman year was about 37% (2614/6994)
I know this isn’t a perfect analysis, but I’m just trying to say that I understand what the GC was trying to get at.
There’s totally a chance she can get in, but to tell her that she has a good shot would be lying to her unless she’s got an ace up her sleeve you’re not mentioning. I don’t think college admissions particularly values church charities above any other volunteer work, especially if any part of that church charity was just proselytizing.
I agree with @gardenstategal that the niece may have been misinterpreting what the counselor said. So “you don’t have a hook” gets turned into “you can’t get in because you’re white middle class”.
It’s also possible that a not-very-skilled counselor (or indulgent parents, friends, etc) may create this ultimately toxic mindset while trying to find a way to soften their kids’ pain.
When race is considered a hook, this sort of sentiment is to be expected especially since some schools are accepting white kids at a lower rate than the general population, and schools that accept whiles at a rate higher than the general population are attacked for lacking “diversity.”
My D had the same high stats (2300 SAT, 3.98 UW GPA, interesting ECs but not “Wow” level, and not a minority) and didn’t get accepted to Stanford. She did apply as her “dream school” but only as a “hail mary” and because the application was free. She had zero expectations of being accepted and therefore wasn’t disappointed. I don’t think kids should be discouraged from applying to Stanford, but even if they have great stats they should look at it with the same degree of expectation as buying a ticket for the lottery, and shouldn’t be hoping for anything. Focus on schools they have a decent shot at and then if Stanford calls, then “Well, Hallelujah!”