Hello all. I am fascinated with what I am seeing so far on this website. A lot of posts are just like this: “Hi, I’m totally freaking out because I don’t know what to do! I have a 4.4 GPA and my SAT score was only 1560. I play the violin in my local youth orchestra, and teach Excel to inner-city youth on the weekends. I wrote my first novel this summer! In my free time, I play chess. I should also note that I will be traveling to Flint, Michigan this spring break to help solve the water crisis. I’m pretty sure I want to go to Princeton, but PLEASE CHANCE ME for Yale!” Question: Are there any non-Superman students or parents on this site? I am struggling to find resources for B and/or “average” students. It seems that only the overachievers are here. If this is what is happening in the college admissions rat race…Wow.
@AgouraLiz Parents of HS 2019 - 3.0-3 4. Great group!
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21763579#Comment_21763579
Thank you, EENYMum!
@AgouraLiz: You can also look back at the same threads for the Classes of 2017 and 2018. @eandesmom started the first one (2017) back in 2016, I believe. Those will give you the whole picture as far as the end results for the kids of the parents posting on those threads. Enjoy!
@AgouraLiz No problem. Hubby and I both got a chuckle from your post. Mostly because it’s true ?
LOL - hilarious post because it’s true. Thank you for the laugh. 
This is CC there are no B students 
You have checked, “OMG I only scored a 1560 Im so dumb.”
You can also start a thread in the College Search and Selection page and ask for suggestions. Include your academic stats, financial needs (if any), academic interests, state, any restrictions you may have (ex. geographic) and anything else important to you in your search (ex. Greek life, sports etc.).
Just do a search for threads about B students. There are a lot. There is a long-running thread called colleges for the Jewish B student, but it’s got colleges for everyone. Stay away from chance threads because that’s where you will see a lot of posts such as you describe.
You can also create a thread in the search and selection forum. List your child stats, financial requirements, desired location, size, majors, etc…and you will get helpful suggestions.
You forgot a few things about your fantasy student! They created a new cheaper fuel additive in California that costs less and reduce emissions by 20%. They professionally whistle in their spare time having won 27 US competitions and 18 world competitions. They have only taken 8 AP tests but still have 6 more to go (with 5’s on all of them). Languages spoken include: Tagalog, Farsi, Japanese, Russian, and 5 African tribal languages. They also are working on a written system for the Ethiopian language which has only been verbal to this point.
I am rolling at the answers on this thread!!! keep it coming!
and here’s what i began to realize after i’d been here for awhile…the hypothetical student you described in your original letter (and what a guy!) likely won’t get into Yale or Princeton. And that’s how nuts the whole thing has become…
Ah yes and forget it if you have an A student that wants to study at a state school in a fly-over state that isn’t in the top 100 or so. Those schools are all sub-par and you can’t get a good education there and have no chance of becoming CEO and changing the world. Sigh. Go look at the threads listed above and check out the link below where you can search for colleges and read college visit reports.
https://www.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/report_search_form.html
it’s funny to joke about it- but the truth is, I learned SO MUCH from other parents here.
I suggested American to a kid who is now a happy senior. That college just wasn’t on my radar.
I suggested Muhlenberg to a neighbor who loved music, wasn’t good enough for a conservatory but wanted/needed solid (but not uber competitive academics) AND lots of opportunities to perform.
I was able to help a colleague’s kid come up with a list which was NOT “the 10 most popular schools that kids from my HS apply to”-- which is hard (as most of you know) for a solid B student. He was likely not getting in to 8 out of the ten on his original list…
there’s a lot more on CC than just “I’ve taken the SAT 14 times, will the fifteenth make me look like a grade grubber?”
Thank you everyone for the kind suggestions. I will research the “B” schools and all of the threads you mentioned here. Appreciate the help. I’m still trying to figure out when college admissions became so crazy. I don’t remember it being like this 30 years ago when I applied. Maybe it was and I was just clueless.
No OP, it wasn’t like this 30 years ago. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling that your child must apply to twenty colleges because every one else is. Kids have the Common App now, which we didn’t have. It’s super easy to just add more colleges. If your child has a balanced and well thought out list, there’s no reason to apply to a bunch of schools.
^ very true, with one caveat: if you’re looking for merit aid or need a lot for financial aid (ie’, your EFC is zero to 5,000) and unless you live in a lucky state (NYS, FL, CA, GA), you may have to apply to an insane number of schools just to be able to afford college. That’s another huge difference compared to our times, when, if push came to shove, a student could afford to attend their public flagship by working Summers and part time during the year.
And even if you find that not everyone around here is SuperKid, don’t be lulled into thinking everyone is a B student either. There are plenty of people in the world not on CC at all. My oldest was super honors kid and CC was immensely helpful, but my second received grades optimistically referred to as a Gentleman’s C. He could have gone to Directional State, but he chose trade school and is going to out-earn a bunch of these honors kids for the next decade. (He’ll probably hit a wall in ten years, but by then parenting is over and it’ll be his problem. He’s aware of this.) Anyway, know your kid and be sure to look in all directions to find what to prioritize to find a good fit.
Hi again. So, we live in California. It is madness here. Very difficult to get admitted to the UC schools if you are not a superstar, it would seem. Would love for the daughter to apply to some Arizona schools, but she wont touch them with a 10 foot pole. Probably because that’s where I went to school!! Oh well.