<p>I see a difference between playing the cards you have (which might include athletic ability, legacy, having a connection through a GC, etc.) and expecting there to be a “formula” so you can color in a la paint by numbers.</p>
<p>I suppose. Although I guess I’d count getting into the right school district or private school as part of the “formula” many people buy into when their kids are young. People with means DO have control over that in the same way they have control over providing their kids the support and encouragement they need to get good grades and test scores and achieve at the highest possible level in their ECs (particularly sports, music, dance…activities that require a serious financial commitment).</p>
<p>The battle rages.</p>
<p>I am a believer in the process. I understand the random feel of it. I know that great kids get rejected or wait listed all the time. I know that some kids end up in places they don’t belong. </p>
<p>It’s just like life. The human element is alive and well. Admitting that there really is no possible way to objectively assess who deserves admission and who doesn’t is important. Is there a parent out there who can objectively look at their kid with 2100 SAT, 3.95 GPA, years of ECs, and many hours of community service and tell them they don’t belong at an Ivy League school. Parents leave it up to the schools to make those calls. Schools have limited space and no matter how special your kid is, they are not the only special kid out there.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, hard cuts are made. People’s lives go on and things work themselves out. What seems so important today won’t be 10 years from now.</p>
<p>Is it a crapshoot? In my opinion, its the most human aspect of the admissions process. So much planning, strategizing, networking and calculating is done when kids are as youg as 10 yo is not natural. People just getting to know a kid through a process that gets them as close as they can to strangers and making intuitive decisions based on feel, instinct, experience and objective criteria is exciting.</p>
<p>@Madaboutx: Increasingly, though, starting early is important. Starting your big ECs in high school just doesn’t cut it anymore when so many applicants have been doing theirs since they were 10 or younger and still only a small portion of them are accepted.</p>
<p>Let’s call a spade a spade and acknowledge that there are some factors out of the applicant’s control that will affect where s/he gets in.</p>
<p>That Native American ancestor from a few generations ago may well be the tiebreaker between two equally competitive applicants. Has the one with that ancestor really had to work any harder for success? Does either one deserve to get in more than the other?</p>
<p>Pick two students of equal academic prowess from different areas of the country. One’s from a private school in Connecticut, and one’s from Mississippi. The latter one has the advantage not only of being from an underrepresented state but of having an easier time getting a high class rank. Does either one deserve to get in more than the other?</p>
<p>Uncontrollable factors like these - as well as controllable factors whose likability is still difficult to predict, like essays - are getting more and more important as applicants are getting more and more qualified in the other areas and selectivity rates are getting higher and higher. Having a 4.0 or a 2300+ in and of itself just doesn’t put you in the top of the applicant pool like it used to.</p>
<p>I think high marks still put you in the top of the applicant pool but the pool itself is about 10 times larger than available spots at elite universities.</p>
<p>The challenge is in the questions you asked @Emberjed.</p>
<p>Did the grandchild of the Native American with similar stats really work harder or not?</p>
<p>That’s really hard to tell. People are no longer just looking at how high a person has climbed but now are looking out the depth from which they had to climb as well as the available support apparatus one had or did not have to get to a certain height.</p>
<p>You’re right. Some factors are outside of a persons control. A person born into an upper middle class home with every opportunity like elite private education, Ivy League coaching, global travel, education support and tutors and charitable opportunities is not at fault for those opportunities handed to him. </p>
<p>A kid from a poor neighborhood, poor schools and bad guidance who achieves high stats may not have worked harder but maybe had to overcome more.</p>
<p>Some kids have built in challenges to overcome which make for great essays. Other kids do very well but maybe it was all well within their comfort zone. Even the most advantaged kids need to seek out challenges, face them and overcome if they are going to have great, interesting and compelling stories to tell.</p>
<p>The descendant of a Native American or the kid from Mississippi may just have far more interesting stories besides bringing diverse backgrounds into the mix.</p>
<p>^ Well said.</p>
<p>I’d feel a lot better if those of you so violently defending the system, and using the “life’s not fair, deal with it” argument would just admit that it is indeed a crapshoot within the higher scoring GPA’s tests, and valid EC’s. It IS a crapshoot. If a kid does everything that their counselors and the school and “the system” tells them to do…but you say no, you have to do more, you have to go find Van Buskirk in order to truly “game” the system…then I say it’s a crapshoot. The kid should probably try…but they should also know it’s a crapshoot. It’s called going in eyes-open. I’m not giving up and neither is my offspring. and it’s not due to sour grapes because my eldest got into her dream school. I’m simply calling it like I see it. And I agree with the young woman who wrote the article that started this thread. She may be a whiner…but factually she’s pretty much spot on.</p>
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<p>Old-timers on CC know full well what my kid’s “story” is, and I’ve posted enough for anyone to get the sense of how it played into the college selection process. The point is NOT that her essays were good. They were, but for a different reason. D. has a good sense of humor and wrote genuinely funny essays. If you can get someone laughing (or at least smiling), that person is much more likely to say “yes” rather than “no”. That applies in any context, not just college admissions. But obviously, attempts at humor can backfire and a funny essay isn’t going to work unless there are also objective reasons to admit the applicant – and a funny essay can be attention grabbing as well. (I think a person who is deluged with paperwork is also more likely to continue reading and read more closely if the writing is genuinely entertaining and funny.)</p>
<p>I put “story” in quotes because while I agree that it’s most effective if the presentation forms a cohesive narrative, it is not something that is made up. One thing the college counselor at my d’s high school did was to send a brief questionnaire to three of my d’s high school teachers who were not writing recs for her, and ask them to provide 3 adjectives to describe my d. The counselor had a paragraph in his recommendation that summarized what he got back (hard to remember right now, but I think teachers used words like “ambitious” and “assertive”). Even a kid who on the surface hasn’t done anything unusual has a story to tell – and that sort of exercise is one way to begin to draw it out.</p>
<p>Parents: there is no one on the planet who knows more about your own child than you. Your kid IS special and different than all the others, although not necessarily in ways that would appeal to colleges. (My son had a high school teacher who told him that son was the “laziest genius” he had ever met. A lot of truth to that, but not the story that we wanted to tell the colleges, who are not all that fond of underachievers.) But don’t sell your kids short – and at the same time, you need to understand that the kids who are getting into Ivies are those who are managing to get their “story” across in their application packages. There are just too many well qualified applicants for too few spaces for anyone to expect to get accepted based on stats alone.</p>
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<p>You find the opportunities where you are. My kids attended public high schools. We live in a “low wealth” school district. D attended an arts magnet public high in a neighboring district. None of their schools were academic powerhouses. </p>
<p>I never bought into the idea of focusing on high end academics in childhood. I wanted my kids to be able to relax and enjoy life. I figured they were pretty smart and that intense academics could wait.</p>
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<p>That is exactly the opposite of my approach – I was the parent always holding back and resisting the pressure on “winning” for my kid. My kid was the very talented promising gymnast who quit at age 8 because she didn’t want to compete. (She continued coming to open gym and enrolled in acrobatic dance classes instead). My d. studied dance from age 4 and was in a pre-professional ballet program at age 11 – but I was the difficult parent who refused to allow my daughter to attend however many days a week the studio directors wanted. I’d dig in my heels and they’d relent or even change their schedule around because they wanted to keep my daughter on board. </p>
<p>You don’t have to achieve at the “highest possible level”. Obviously there is benefit to those who do – but if my daughter’s goal had been to achieve at that level, then she would not have been looking at elite colleges, which is not where the best college dance programs are.</p>
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<p>Anybody who starts their kid in an activity at age 10 or younger as a way to build up credentials for college is nuts. You start your kids young as way to enrich their lives. If it happens that your kid in Little League loves the game and is the best player on his team – or if your boy scout wants to continue through to Eagle Scout level – or if your daughter actually seems to enjoy playing her cello 6 hours a day – great, you encourage that. And yes the Little Leaguer and the cellist are going to be able to do things in high school that the kid who take up a new sport or begin music lessons in high school will never achieve. But there are all sorts of other high school activities that do not require a history.</p>
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<p>We’re not “defending” the system, we’re explaining it. We’ve figured it out well enough that we are reasonably able to predict outcomes for our own kids and others.</p>
<p>The young lady who wrote the essay in the WSJ did not provide any compelling reasons for an Ivy League college to accept her. She seemed to believe that if she had the qualifications to make it past the first cut, that she would be accepted. That’s not how it works in a competitive arena. She needed to do a better job of selling herself.</p>
<p>Because the process is competitive, even those who have the goods and do a great job of selling themselves are not all going to be accepted. But they can and do improve their chances. </p>
<p>I’ve been on CC for as long as the board has existed. I’ve learned a lot over the years. I’ve followed people through the admissions seasons. I’ve rarely been surprised by results. I think that it is human nature for a person to misjudge how they stand up in relation to those they are competing against. </p>
<p>My d. got into schools that on paper were huge reaches. I was fully prepared to see her waitlisted or turned down, but I did not think those schools were “reaches” – I thought they were “matches” because I thought they were the types of schools that would like what she offered. A “match” school is not one where acceptance is guaranteed – but its one where the odds are closer to 50/50 than 20% or 10% or 5%. </p>
<p>I figure that any kid who gets waitlisted was probably a “match” for the particular school, and they can take that waitlist notice as confirmation that they targeted correctly. A kid who ends up with a pile of rejections from all schools with a shared degree of selectivity probably aimed too high. One or two rejections is not enough data to draw conclusions from. </p>
<p>But there are a very large number of students who do not stand a chance of Ivy admissions, and their apps are part of what drives the statistics. If you are ballpark for Ivy, you probably have more than the 7% chance that the statistics would indicate – perhaps your odds are 20% or above – but that still is a 4 out of 5 chance of not getting in. Those who do their research may be able to increase those odds. </p>
<p>I don’t call that a crapshoot. I call that poker. You are stuck with the cards you are dealt (unless you cheat) – but a skilled poker player knows when to hold and when to fold, and they certainly know who to improve their chances of winning when they have the right cards in their hand.</p>
<p>I don’t know why semantics are so important to people here but I would say YES, getting into colleges with acceptance rates under 10% is a “crapshoot.” It still makes sense (as calmom has pointed out) to communicate a point of difference in the student’s application (which the whiny girl in the article did not do). But most of all I think making sure our kids know we believe in them and their potential REGARDLESS of where they go to college is what will allow them the freedom to explore their interests and come into their own as adults.</p>
<p>I will add this about ECs–some DO have to be started early for a student to achieve a level of proficiency to be able to pursue their interests at an advanced level. Dance (especially for girls) is one; music is another. My daughter started ballet at age 4 and loved it right away. I didn’t encourage her because I thought she might someday dance in college or professionally, but because she loved it and wanted to get better every year–which she has. The side benefit is that she now is in a position to pursue it in college if she wants.</p>
<p>“How did you pick your spouse or best friends? Did you have a set of objective criteria? Or did you go with who attracted you, at levels that can’t be quantified?”</p>
<p>Perfect example, how I end up with my close friends is clearly a process of chance. We make friends among people who just happen to live close to us at one point in life. It’s a mere exposure effect. </p>
<p>If college admission is as such, then it’s clearly more of a crap shoot than it is. Then I’m bemused as to why some people, especially when they or their kids happen to be admitted, argue otherwise, as though they’ve mastered an art that all the rejected were too ignorant to figure out.</p>
<p>“Then they’ll go to a different, non-Ivy college, and excel there. The problem …?”</p>
<p>There’re real, tangible factors that make certain schools attractive. A top school’s good FA translates to up to $200,000 in savings over four years for the average U.S. household. For a less well informed family led to believe that their kids have a legitimate chance because of the opaqueness of college sale pitch, the loss of a desired spot has financial consequences.</p>
<p>Schools can be attractive because of good marching band, English department, geographic proximity to home, good employer recruitment in the student’s area of interest, or just about anything. Of course kids can go on to excel in other places, but what determines who gets access to resources, even for private institutions, is always going to be a natural concern to anyone involved.</p>
<p>Calmom, thanks for taking the time to write out those explanations. If admission to certain colleges merely comes down to crafting a good “story” out of 16 years of limited life experience, then I worry for the vast majority of students who will never gain such savvy-ness in time for their college apps. They certainly haven’t been on CC for as long as the board existed.</p>
<p>I like your poker analogy. But selling oneself at that poker level, so to speak, is not a skill one can be expected to pick up in high school, nor is it a good determinant for who will be successful in college and in their careers.</p>
<p>Or perhaps should we say, alas life is not fair, too bad for all you kids who happen to lack calmom’s knowing guidance.</p>
<p>I refuse to believe its a crapshoot. I thought it was at one time but as @Calmom says, I’ve learned a lot about the process to the point where I can see some order amidst the chaos.</p>
<p>When we went through the process, the hardest part was choosing a list of plan B schools that my D could be just as happy attending as her first choice. That took the most time and research.</p>
<p>Unlike my Ds friend who was Harvard or bust, my D had a diversified portfolio of colleges she would be happy to attend.</p>
<p>It’s no crapshoot though. Our D was very human and very normal. She chose her ECs, her courses and her subject tests. She got a B in an astronomy elective but it was a summer course she took online. She satisfied her curiosity and took a risk doing it. She has wins and losses in her record. An impressive record of success because she took some big risks. She has some big failures but always came back strong. That’s part of her story and personality.</p>
<p>She didn’t craft a high school record. She just swung for the fences every time up at bat. She knocked some way out of the ball park and struck out a few times. I think schools appreciated her stellar but less than perfect record.</p>
<p>CalMom. Pretty decent explanation. And yes…the odds for poker are higher than they are for craps. But they are still extremely low which is why most card players either quit, go broke, or go into crime. I think we may be talking past each other with regard to semantics. We may agree more than we disagree…but the opaqueness and low odds are indeed frustrating. and as HazelCapri astutely points out…99% of the kids applying for college, and their parents haven’t spent years studying the process (which we now agree has the odds of winning poker), and quite honestly…they should not be expected to.</p>
<p>@Mitch, you have a great point about most parents not studying the process or system. Elite school admissions is rife with false wisdom, cliches and stereotypes.</p>
<p>I can’t say how many times people gave bad advice unsolicited. I happened to attend an info session at Princeton because my D and I were bored one day. She was a freshman. I learned so much I didn’t know that I got really into research. That knowledge probably increased the odds for us.</p>
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<p>Please. The overwhelming majority of people applying to top schools are not doing so because they think they will get a free ride or close to one. They are applying for the perceived prestige and are willing to pay for it. There are many, many schools that come out at a reasonable cost for kids at the top of the stats range for the admitted-students set. The Ivies et al. are not Santa Claus. And there are numerous paths to a happy and successful life as an adult. When will people stop buying into the myth that they can only be happy with an “elite” education?</p>
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<p>No, I never said the odds are the same!! (Although I don’t know many poker players who don’t win a hand at least once in awhile). </p>
<p>I said the process is the same.</p>
<p>The odds are actually much better than most competitive endeavors. </p>
<p>When my daughter was a high school junior, she looked for a summer job. All she got was a lot of experience in job-hunting – she submitted more than 40 job apps, no go. One of those employers called her when they had an opening in October - she took a part-time job and worked a few months but quit when it started interfering with her studies. The next spring, she went job hunting again. She got hired at the first place she applied, which was a highly coveted position for a youngster. (Low skill job but paid well above minimum wage). She later learned that there had been 300 apps for the position she was given. </p>
<p>What are the odds of that? 300:1? Or perhaps d’s experience in job hunting and honing down her resume and interview skills helped just a smidgen? </p>
<p>My d’s first job after college also had 300 other apps for the same position. I have no idea how many other people applied for the job she now has (probably a lot, based on where she works). </p>
<p>300:1 is a whole lot longer odds than a kid with a strong GPA and test scores faces in applying to Harvard. </p>
<p>One of the things my d. does in her spare time is help other job hunters improve their resumes. It’s just something she likes to do. Word has gotten around, and people who were not getting any responses before have gotten call backs and good jobs after she’s helped them clean up the way they present themselves. (One big lesson: you would be amazed how many bright and accomplished people are sending out terrible resumes and cover letters. It’s not that my d. has an amazing talent, it’s that a lot of people really, truly need serious coaching to get that simple first step right). </p>
<p>So that’s the real world: people apply for jobs where there are hundreds of applicants vying for one opening. Typically a small handful of the applicants will be called in for interviews. </p>
<p>If you are looking for work and sending out resumes and never get a call back, but you have friends who you know have weaker objective qualifications than yours – and they are getting hired – you can whine and call it a “crapshoot”. Or you can do what my daughter did in college and take advantage of all the workshops and mentoring offered by your career center, and look for ways that you can improve your job-hunting skills. </p>
<p>As tough as it is, I think that college admissions is only mildly competitive compared to much of what is faced outside of school.</p>
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<p>Semantics, perhaps, but the problem I have with the people who insist on calling the process a “crapshoot” is one of definition. Some might refer to crapshoot as a “event” that carries very low odds of success. And that is fine! But when the expression is used to express a sense of randomness, all bets are off because there is little to no randomness in the process. Randomness in the game of craps comes from everyone having to play a game with the same dice, unless one decides to rely on loaded dice. The amount of required “skills” is close to zilch, with the notable exception of perhaps knowing the rules. As far as throwing the dice, there are no skills nor intelligence required. A monkey could do is just as well, if not better, than humans. </p>
<p>The application process is entirely different from a game of the new crapaud. The higher the reach and the lower the odds are not exactly the same as being random. To be random, each applicant should send a blank envelope. The moment there are more than a few letters on the application, it ceases to be random.</p>
<p>So here you have it. Call it crapshoot all you want. If you want to describe the poor odds, so be it. But if you want to claim it random, that is simply dead wrong on every count. And, if you do not really believe me, take a look at the high predictability of the admissions and enrollment. Different students for sure, but the patterns are hardly changing, and when they do, it is a the speed of escargots. To stay with the theme of crapaud versus craps!</p>