Not if they withdrew the app;)
Quick sidebar on the K-12 level. A family in my town successfully sued the school district and got a taxi to pick up and drop their kid off, since the kidâs alleged asthma meant he couldnât handle the stairs to the school bus.
A few years later they threatened a lawsuit because the kid didnât make the JV team for whichever sport had âunfair and discriminatoryâ tryouts. I guess itâs unfair for a team to require a minimum level of athletic ability? Anyway, the school DID allow the kid to try out again, this time the kid handed in a much stronger performance and made the team and all was well until neighbors with long memories pointed out that if the kid could handle a jump shot on an after school team, he might be finally ready to use the school bus like everyone elseâŠ
You really canât make this stuff up.
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But I am pretty sure every single system has anxiety and uncertainty. It just varies as to when that uncertainty and anxiety are felt. For the one time high stakes exams, the angst is felt during the two years of preparation leading up to the test. Or, for, say, Texas with itâs top 6% â the uncertainty and anxiety are felt through the high school years until one is certain theyâve made the cut off.
Every single system has some combination of uncertainty and anxiety. Itâs just a question of pick your poison.
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I promise, the US system has more stress and uncertainty than most. Not as bad as some, but worse than most.
Texas publics announce June 1 of junior year who made the top 6%. And informs students every quarter how they rank-the only real anxiety is among those ranking maybe 6-9%. There isnt that much movement otherwise.
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I donât disagree. I think there is a difference between public and private. A school like UF is still going to get way more applicants than spots. Even if they donât admit by major, they need to make sure they have the resources for the incoming class. UF isnât the only state flagship. FSU isnât the only other one. Academically qualified students will get a spot at a state university, they are just not entitled to the ONE they think is the most prestigious.
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We are better than most of Asia, half of Europe. Not as stress free as Israel. I donât understand high school culture enough in the rest of the world to comment. But my cousins in Europe and the UK have the pressure cooker throughout middle school and HS, AND the stress of dealing with âmy lifeâs path has been determined for meâ at age 18.
Iâll take the âLand of Second Chancesâ, i.e. the USA any day!
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This is absolutely not the case for the vast majority of colleges and universities in the US. For most schools you have a pretty good understanding of your admissions decisions before you even apply.
For rejective schools with admissions rates in the 30-50% range of course there is some doubt for kids in the middle of that range; how can there not be since there are significantly more applicants than seats. For stats at or above the 75% it might not always be yes but it is yes far more often that the range implies. For applicants with access to good information (Navience, SCOIR, Maia) a more realistic understanding of chance can often be inferred based on the results from their school.
For the highly rejectives which we all know are the focus of this conversation unpredictability is unavoidable (with some exceptions) for the general population of applicants. The application numbers dictate it with 10-20 applicants for every spot available.
Because it isnât about us, it is about the priorities of long established institutions and how they see their role in society, not how we see it. Some get on CC or other forums and whine and complain about the âunfairnessâ of it all. Others chime in and explain or opine on why it is so or why it might be so but in the end we have such a system because it aligns with the priorities of the institutions themselves and they do not have to answer to us.
If people find it to offensive to their sense of âhow it should beâ they can opt out and go somewhere with a system aligned to their thinking.
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With many of those applicants at the ceilings of stat ranges, so that differences are only in the more subjectively graded aspects that are not transparent (including essays and recommendations).
So even if a highly rejective college were admitting purely based on academic achievement / merit / potential (i.e. without any of the usual other factors including unearned hooks that are considered), it would still need to go beyond stats to determine whom it admits.
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Beyond stats- yes. When Meryl Streep doesnât get cast for a role, it isnât because someone who is a âbetter actorâ gets the part. Itâs because the director and casting team have decided- for better or for worse- that they need a âJulia Robertsâ or a âJulia Louis Dreyfusâ or some other âtypeâ which Meryl- as talented as she is- just doesnât fill.
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But they didnât have a 5% chance of admission and you know it. You had your worries but for kids with their awards the rate wasnât 5%.
Itâs more challenging at the T20 level but kids like yours know they have a much better shot than they typical applicant.
And using tools like Naviance, SCOIR, Maia kids can also get a better idea of what admissions look like for them at the typically hard but outside the T15 type of schools.
I took a quick look at our school:
Northeastern isnât considered a hard admit at my kids school. It isnât easy but it is 50-70% each year for the past 5 years so nothing like the posted admissions rate.
Same for CWRU at 66%-70%
or USC at 33%. Information in the context of their environment is better information.
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And who is to say some valedictorian of some public high school who has great stats, but nothing in the realm of national awards or recognitions, doesnât have the right to shoot their shot? I have had a few students who know the odds are against them, but want to try.
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It is interesting because my older kids all have international friends from various countries who wanted to attend boarding schools in the United States because their families disliked the exam culture in their local school system. The parents worried that the educational system in their home countries encouraged rote learning and rigid curricula over flexibility, creativity, and or exploration. I donât think that is the entire story. I am sure some just wanted their kids to get an early leg up in US college admissions, but I do buy that a desire to not have their kids defined by a handful of exams each year was a motivating factor as well. So sometimes, the grass just seems greener to everyone and maybe for every American parent who wishes the US did more high stakes K-12 testing, there is a parent in another country that wishes their schools did less.
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Itâs also possible that Rice and GeorgiaTech have different admission systems than MIT/Caltech that emphasize different criteria, such that they are expected to have different admission decisions from one another for the same student.
For example, the earlier post emphasized Putnam. MIT kids were all over the list, a completely different order of magnitude than all other colleges, including ones that were comparably selective. This might suggest that MIT gives a greater boost for having a high AMC/AIME type score than others, such as Rice or GeorgiaTech.
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Not only do they wish their schools did LESS high stakes testing- they wish it was done at different points on the developmental chart.
It is very, very tough to be a âlate bloomerâ in many parts of the world from an academic perspective. Iâll bet we all know kids who didnât even hit their stride until junior year of HSâŠ
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Oy, I didnât hit my stride until freshman year of college!
Graduated something like #165 out of 600 in high school, went on to a T3 law school.
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Yes there are ones that are a lot worse than the US in the pressure on kids to get into the right program. They must feel a LOT of pressure
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Again with the stereotypes of top students being âbotsâ. Is it really that hard to imagine that top academically excelling students can also be interesting and personable? Just because a school admits quantitatively doesnât mean that they will end up with a campus full of unimaginative and dull drones slaving away in their rooms or the library 24/7.
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I agree 100%. This is one of the strangest biases on this website.
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Iâm saying that admissions shouldnât be purely quantitative. Not that all top students are bots. But nice reading comprehension. Many of my friends are amazing and some of the top students. Some classmates are total dorks with 0 people skills or lives. I donât dislike them but my friends do call them âbotsâ. The invisible kids. Which would you choose as an admissions person? Are they interchangeable? Who would you want to go to college with?
Do parents really think there is a big difference between most elite students here beyond different strengths and weaknesses and personalities.
Defining us by small test score and GPA differences is stupid. Thatâs often more about test prep and discipline than one kid being clearly superior. Other than a very small handful of geniuses most top students at my school are just in the mix. Some use their life as college resumes. Some donât. Some are intellectual. Some arenât. Some are great writers, but maybe not at math. Some are math kids. Some are depressed. Over half of my friends have not for profits! I donât. Wow, what a great idea rich parent geniuses. Your son that had a 29 ACT and now has a 35/36 after extensive prep and tutoring is now a genius and deserves that spot based on test score and GPA over everyone else. Yep. Obvs. I have a friend that spent an entire summer test prepping full time as only a small portion of total years of prep. Great job parents and admissions people. Now sheâs a genius. Great system.
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