Many underestimate their odds because they don’t understand how few slots are actually in play. At Rice this season, for example (and no, I don’t have anyone applying to Rice or any other college this year), during ED 381 applicants were accepted. Rice disclosed that 51 acceptances were Questbridge slots. Rice is also a division 1 school with a football team, so a minimum of 180 additional slots went to recruited athletes. That left 150 slots. Of those, one would expect more than half would go to legacy, to maintain a bare minimum of 8% legacy representation in the class. So really, there were fewer than 75 slots in play for unhooked applicants. I don’t necessarily have any objection to any of these carve-outs, but transparency would help both the applicants and their families better understand their odds of acceptance.
I think the issue is not teaching resilience and gratitude. The ability to move on from a failure is key.
I think there are plenty of B students that could thrive an an elite school, simply because they know how to take a punch, learn from it and move forward. They rarely get the chance so they are just as willing to attend a 2nd/3rd tier school because they know they can “make it work”.
If kids are in an environment where they are not exposed to failure (be it academic/economic/social) then you have to teach them an added dose of gratitude/humility to compensate and to see the bigger picture.
Really Rickle. Ruining a generation? Except for the OP, I don’t know of any participation trophies given to HS kids. And most know the difference between participating and being a winner. The current generation is subject to much more intense pressure and less easy participation then when many of us were kids. Now kids are forced to specialize by 6th grade at the latest and the sports are all season commitments. With very few exceptions, HS athletes at schools with competitive teams, participate in “club” or other outside teams in their sport.
I find it so frustrating when people decide that an entire generation is somehow “ruined”. I see kids that have a lot more pressure and work incredibly hard in school, in sports, and in ECs, especially those aiming for top colleges.
The problem with chasing prestige and wanting elite college under your name is that it really robs you of pursuing your own talents. Chasing awards or just being handed awards doesn’t confer you’re special and you might not find that out until too late in your life. We all need to do a better job at not equating ivy and HYPS with stamp of approval and “best.”
That said, I’m sure ChoatieMom trophy or not is right up near the top.
It’s not really the “pathway to colleges,” just the most ridiculously competitive. I often liken it to the Olympics: there’s doing a sport for pleasure, growth, the team experience, the lessons in wins and in losses and more. But if you want to be an Olympian (a goal I never got, so I’m not advocating it,) you need to be one who runs faster, jumps higher, etc.
Holistic isn’t a wrench. It’s an expansion of the criteria. And for colleges that want and expect a level of thinking skills, as well, default, hearsay, and assumptions won’t show well. I disagree with applying because “you can.” Know how those apps can go over? Or not?
@Twoin18 I think there are something like 100 universities in the UK, where you go depends on your academic achievement and you self select… If you are a top student you apply to the top 5 schools in your discipline you will receive offers from most, the only schools you are not an automatic admit in anything is Oxbridge/LSE and medicine/veterinary. Wealthy UK students may choose US schools as they ‘trade up’ , just like international students may find entry standards in the UK less rigorous than the holistic system in the US. Wealth works. The academic curve is the same both sides of the pond, if you can afford it wealth allows you to shift it in your favour.
I also don’t blame the participation trophies, but the parents for instilling this sense of entitlement. So many parents really believe that their child is gifted in some area and destined to play Division 1 or go to an elite college, only to set their child up for disappointment. They have not researched the competition outside their own little pond, and any attempt to widen their perspective falls on deaf ears.
Just one example - I have a close friend who fell for the U of Chicago mail trap, hired a college advisor, then was surprised when her daughter who did have good stats and ECs didn’t even get into USC (which was way down her list). I shared my son’s college app experiences with her, but that was him, and her daughter, of course, was special. I think it’s wonderful to shoot for some reach schools, but it really is astounding how deluded some people can be.
It is what has been pounded in their little heads for so many years. I would agree holistic is a welcome expansion. If your kid has the desire and the stats to at least be in the running. They should at least try. We toured a few ivies while traveling for other tours and one resonated, it made the list.
@mom2and Kid is 7. I hope you are right that this will slow down with age.
@OHMomof2 You may be right. To me it was a revelation and I am interested in what others here think.
Im not really sure that I understand the point of this thread, that many students feel ‘entitled’ to go to Ivies? Not where I am from. I have a kid at Yale and he was as surprised as anyone that he got in, he certainly didnt feel entitled to that slot. If any kids feel entitled to an Ivy that is on the parents and the communities ignorance on what that requires, not on a stupid participation trophy.
However, any student who experiences significant failure is not likely to be admitted to a super selective college.
In this case, isn’t it the college advisor who failed? If I spend money on a college advisor, in addition to polishing my very long shot application to tippy tops, I would think they would arrange for a good range of schools.
Overall, I do think the landscape has become much more complicated, with EA/ED1/ED2, holistic admissions, yield protection, escalating costs, … so it seems to me more likely that a highly qualified val ends up in a different place than they expected compared to years ago.
^^ College advisors can only advise. Students and parents may not heed their advice. Also, many successful parents don’t understand how dramatically college admissions have changed since they applied.
In the case of China, at least, you go where your test scores AND your geographic location say you should wind up.
The universities’ province quotas make it much harder for rural kids.
In my neck of the woods, I’m not aware of any high school kids who feel they’re “Ivy entitled,” not once during my 5 years as a former Ivy interviewer. Because some folks have a misguided notion of the real currency of their Val status, they might place some hope of an Ivy placement, the degree of hope all depending on where the previous Vals have ended up. Even right here in CC, it’s very rare to come across a post from an Ivy entitled that expresses the shock of not placing oneself in one of the Ivy’s. Of those I have, they tend to be from Asian-American students with 4.0 GPA, 1600 SATI, 800’s in four subject tests with a long list of accomplishments and other outstanding EC’s. But I’d describe them more accurately as “Ivy expected” as opposed to Ivy entitled.
@TiggerDad Please get my son into Princeton! He has perfect scores (ok a 35 ACT) and perfect grades, great ECs and no shot at Princeton. We know that, he knows that and that is the way things are. Now…I could donate a small cobblestone or something…please help!
@ccprofandmomof2 @ucbalumnus I don’t think this is xenophobia at all. In fact in my experience many of the people with the biggest objections to the US admissions system are immigrants from Europe and Asia, who typically thrived in a highly competitive (and pretty transparent) academically focused system (or they wouldn’t have got here). They assumed that the US was a meritocratic system (after all they were told “anyone” can be president) and didn’t realize that holistic admissions make it unpredictable (and therefore can be perceived to be unfair). And they didn’t understand that their kid might benefit more from rowing crew or playing lacrosse as opposed to dancing or playing the piano.
Its easy to find kids that might not be the absolute smartest in the class getting into top colleges because they have some hook (legacy, VIP, parent employment, donor, sports, URM, etc.) while the smartest kids get shut out. Its certainly happening at my kids school. That generally doesn’t happen in the system those parents grew up in. My go to example: Tony Blair’s son was being interviewed at the same Oxford college as my son in December. I know the outcome had nothing to do with who their respective fathers were, since 2 of Blair’s 3 older children were rejected by Oxford.
I’ll forward your case to Princeton’s Dean of Admission since I had nothing to do with my own son’s case. 
@Twoin18 is that b/c of tony Blair is lamer than a lame duck politically or b/c GB has true meritocracy in college admission? The cynicism in me somehow thinks it is the former.
Wouldn’t the history of US presidents go against using them as an example of meritocracy? E.g. James Buchanan, Warren Harding, Andrew Johnson, etc… (more recent examples are probably easy to find also)