My second child is a junior in HS. His best friend is touring schools that are way out of his reach. No possible way he can be admitted. The family is taking these tours very seriously and devoting a lot of time and resources to travel to them. I can’t imagine what their thought process is. The parents are both successful lawyers. They are highly competent people. The student (their oldest child) is wonderful, kind, funny, and smart. But he is not even close to being competitive for Vanderbilt, UNC, Northwestern, Georgetown, Duke, Tufts, WashU, and Wesleyan. These are the schools they’re looking at. Every single one of those is out of his reach—by a lot.
I know his scores, GPA, and course program. University of Maryland at College Park (OOS) would be a high target.
What the … ? I know I shouldn’t say anything. Or should I?
I suppose that if you have a quiet moment with his parents you could ask what they are thinking of as a safety.
Otherwise, I don’t think that I would say anything. In my experience, when people are doing dumb things there is rarely anything to be gained by pointing this out to them. There is for example a danger that they will think that you are insulting their son. They are going to figure this out eventually, even if it takes a painful spring next year plus a gap year.
Maybe recommend CC and let the posters here tell them? Honestly, I wouldn’t say anything unless asked for advice. This is a touchy subject and you’re more likely to ruin your friendships than have any impact on their actions. I have made very general comments to friends about how much admissions have changed in the past generation, the need for safeties, etc, and in my experience, my very educated friends really just don’t want to hear it.
You might suggest a third party service like College Kickstart that helps kids balance their reach, match, and safety schools. Tell them you’re concerned about visiting too many elite schools but let them figure out their chances on their own.
I mentioned to a friend that my older daughter was rejected from 2 schools they were touring. She was surprised and asked my daughter’s stats. I gave her GPA and SAT. (Same high school) She was shocked and said “Oh, that’s a lot better than A. And your daughter did 2 sports and lots of volunteering with Girl Scouts and had a job?” “Yes” “Oh”
They still went, but I think they tempered their expectations.
Since they didn’t ask you, you can not criticize the schools he is visiting. You can offer that you have found that it is smart to diversify the school list, just like they most likely have diversified their investments and retirement accounts. If you get a positive response to that comment, then tell them what additional colleges you suggest they add. Definitely don’t put their student down.
Just a thought - when I visited colleges with my girls I went to several schools (Brown, Princeton) that I knew they’d be super long-shots for, mostly because I wanted them to see what an “Ivy” was like. They didn’t like them, lol. But they felt good having seen the campuses and knowing they weren’t missing out on anything by not applying. I learned with my first daughter that knowing what the kids respond at a school to is key with picking a variety of “match” colleges so if they fall in love with a school with large, beautiful grounds vs a school in a vibrant city it tells you what school locations to keep on your list. The family will get a wake-up sooner or later about where their kid can get in. In the meantime, I would let them look without saying anything.
Never give advice unless asked except to your own children you’re still parenting. If you’re chatting about it you could ask if they’ve looked or applied to any safety schools.
It really is shocking, how much college admissions have changed since I was a kid. University of Maryland CP was my safety, and my GPA was… not high, although I had very good test scores. Nowadays I might get laughed out of the office.
If they’re doing the full informational tour it’s possible that they’ll see one of those slides with a ‘freshman class profile’ where the school brags on their average SAT for the incoming class?
You have time before application season truly begins. Maybe talk to them after the first trip for their reactions.
Two attorneys should be able to tour where they want without breaking any budget.
You don’t REALLY know…they could be swinging by public Us (or even local CC) on their way to the colleges you heard about.
Ah – you hit upon something. See, the mid 50th percentile at Tufts, for example, is 31-34, and they’ll think, “well, he’s in the range with a 31, so he has a chance,” while not considering that his program is not the most rigorous or that his grades are an even mix of As and Bs. Nothing at all wrong with it! But it’s not competitive for those schools.
I was thinking that. Kind of late, though. There’s just this semester and next. And his schedule has already been decided for next year. Not rigorous enough.
I would not say anything if I were you. You never know 100% if their kid will not get in. The only thing you should say is “Just in case you don’t get into so and so, try to include a few safeties.” In my kid’s HS, there were two kids who got into UCLA, and no one thought they would get into UCLA.
It is a tough call. We all know someone who had a kid that applied to too many high reach schools then only had one choice usually the state school (of course not a bad option but always good to have a choice) or no options. I agree with the posters who mentioned asking parents what safety schools they were considering. There is another thread right now about a student who only applied to reach schools and is now having to take a gap year.
If a student came on CC asking to be “chanced” for those colleges with a 31 ACT, a 3.6 UW-GPA, no ECs, no leadership, and rigor of, say, 7 on a scale of 10, what would you say?
I wouldn’t say anything. They are grown adults and competent ones at that. They can read the stats and steer their kids wherever they want.
I would instead make suggestions “hey, we were looking at blank school and it has a great blank department. We are looking for safety schools and that seemed a good match for our son.”
Perhaps your kid could mention to the friend that he is checking the admissions stats on the college websites to decide if it’s worth applying, or to determine reach/match/safety. Or you could mention to the parents that you’ve been meaning to pull up the Naviance scattergrams to gauge your own kid’s chances for schools on your own kid’s list. In other words, mention the tools that are out there.
Presumably at some point the parents will be speaking with a high school counselor that might set them straight.
Don’t the tours themselves sometimes mention stats and low acceptance rates in the info sessions?
I might also wonder whether the kid’s stats are actually as low as he apparently told your son. If the parents were both quite academically successful, as would not be unusual for a pair of lawyers, the apple might not fall far from the tree.
I would say “how do you know?” You say you know things, but how? I know we have been very understated about the kid’s grades, scores, class rank, etc.
And there is no harm in visiting those schools – we went to a few ourselves. How do you know they are not considering other schools? How do you know this is not the first run and they plan on other schools over the summer? How do you know?