I don’t see anything wrong with applying to a dream school or two for ED and EA. I do see something wrong with telling your son “you can do much better” before you find out if he really can.
You don’t know he can do the work at an Ivy League or other tippity top school. You just know that you paid more than enough money that he should get a chance to go to a Ivy or near school.
Rethink your strategy. ROI is not what you should have been targetting when sending your child to a private school.
“While there have been some helpful responses here, I had wrongly assumed this was a supportive community - I not looking for criticism from **** who know virtually nothing about our family.”
Then don’t post to an online anonymous forum.
If “you not” looking for criticism from expletives who know nothing about your family, why not talk to your son instead, or his guidance counselor, or your friends, or your clergy, or hire a college admissions expert?
“It’s not fair” is the mantra of the unhappy. There are many ways to skin a cat, and if he would do well at an Ivy, he will do well enough at a sub-Ivy to be able to transfer to an Ivy.
If you don’t want a hard truth, don’t read this. The hard truth is that it very much appears that you will be embarrassed to wear a WPI sweatshirt or put a “Proud WPI Parent” bumper sticker on your car.
Your family doesn’t get you into an Ivy unless you are a Rockefeller or an Obama.
In a few months, you’ll know where he got in and where he didn’t, and then you can go from there. But I don’t think it is your son driving you crazy, it is you driving you crazy.
“We are telling him he could do much better but he doesn’t want to listen to us and I don’t know what to do!”
Replying to month-old comments isn’t all that productive, and several posters have already addressed that particular post.
This forum can be useful at times, but there can be a tendency to pile on when an uninformed poster happens along, and I don’t necessarily feel that’s very helpful.
Has anyone suggested Rose-Hulman?
It’s a great school and often overlooked by people coastally oriented. It also has rolling admissions, which can put your mind at east.
^^^^^^ In any case, it appears the OP has ghosted. She hasn’t been back.
I worked in college admissions for ten years many years ago. This frustrated parent needs help!
Your son has not yet achieved his Nobel prize. So far, the evidence is that he has promise. As you have a background in science, you might try applying some of the more scientific methodologies to this difficult situation.
His success will, most likely, not be determined by the social status of his selected university. The academics as measured by students and faculty are not lacking at WPI and MANY other very high quality, national universities. You will also find that these schools do very well with job and GS placement. Ask around you lab or office.
For years, many studies have shown that a variance in board test scores (above a certain range) do not explain very well the variance in freshman college grades. In the second year, their predictive ability drops. By the third year, they tell us nothing. Weighted HS GPA do a better job of predicting performance, but also fade over time. When combined, the bulk of the college grade variance is still “unexplained” by the secondary school record.
At an engineering college, another study plotted professional awards and US patents (proxies for professional engineering achievement) against college RIC upon graduation. There was no statistically significant relationship between RIC and the success proxies across the rang of the relationships although the bottom 10% and top 10% of the class RICs mirrored each other. This was unnerving to the faculty who had designed to test and awarded the grades.
What is going on here? How can we assure this promising student will reach his potential?
Do you want bragging rights or do you want your son to succeed?
A modest suggestion:
Help your son find an environment that will fire his imagination, grow his world view and expand his understanding through the many facets that are needed to motivate his curiosity and to fire his discovery. It is not you, but your son who needs to continue the work!
My niece recently graduated with honors and a double major from MIT. For her, it was not a good experience so she advised her younger sister to go elsewhere. Her love of science was so diminished that she decided to become a lawyer and is now studying at BC Law. Many other MIT graduates have Nobel prizes in science and economics (they are not given in engineering).
Watch the proud Uncle brag!