Is spike absolutely necessary for Stanford/Harvard/Ivys?

[hmls]

Agree that the ability to deal well with significant disappointment and rejection is so important. Valuable to have that experience already in high school rather than encounter it for the first time with college admissions.

[Aimlesscat1]

@Mwfan1921

IMO the issue is that so many parents think their kid is ‘high stats’ because they have straight A’s or a high test score. I’m not sure where things currently stand, but last I knew it ~50% of HS grads had straight A’s. And the vast majority of those students aren’t ‘high stats’ and wouldn’t be competitive for highly rejective schools.

Grade inflation is absolutely part of the problem especially when combined with the trend of not ranking. This is a problem in that students and parents don’t really understand where things really stand and we all tend to want to look at out child’s achievements in the best light possible. Grade inflation is also why confirming test scores are important in many places. Though not perfect they add good information.

@OITB1

Not all 4.0’s are created equal. A lot of people don’t even seem to acknowledge the distinction between finishing in the top 10% of the class with straight A’s at even very good public schools and finishing in the top 10% of the class with straight A’s at a college preparatory school with selective admissions.

There is some truth here but you need to be very careful of generalization. There are parts of the country where this absolutely does not hold (bay area, Northern Virginia, some MA suburbs, and more). My D went to a rigorous private with very selective admissions (~20%) but she would be quick to name multiple local publics which were just as rigorous academically.