NY Times high school student blogger rejected by 11 schools

Parents Forum
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<p>Anne Paik of LA was accepted by UC Irvine honors, UCLA, UCSD and rejected by schools that included Berkeley, Northwestern, Stanford, Pomona, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale. She writes:</p>

<p>"However, despite my troubled introspection and psychological confusion, I’ve realized that I still believe in myself, and even more strongly now that I’ve been rejected. Nothing in life will ever be handed to me on a silver platter; I have to earn every inch of my progress. Obstacles will be placed in my path, and I will stumble a lot, that’s guaranteed. But I will never give up. College rejections will not discourage me from substantiating all my fantastic dreams into reality.
That’s what really matters, anyway.</p>

<p>So to all those seniors out there who are wondering if there’s something wrong with them, please stop. There’s nothing wrong with you. It simply wasn’t meant to be. Rejection hurts, and it hurts a lot, but it isn’t the end of the world. Get up, dust yourself off, and start figuring out the rest of your life. Keep moving forward, I say."</p>

<p>[A</a> Sheaf of Rejections, But Still ‘Fabulous’ - The Choice Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/envelope-paik-3/]A”>A Sheaf of Rejections, But Still 'Fabulous' - The New York Times)</p>

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<p>I think there’s already a thread for this somewhere. </p>

<p>Anyways, I found this interesting since she applied to very few/no safeties.</p>

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<p>I read that. Seems she had the in-state safeties and then a bunch of reaches with nothing in between.</p>

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<p>Do you think her blogging had negative implications on her application? She’s going to be OK though. :)</p>

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<p>I’ve run a writing program for high school students journalists at a major urban newspaper, and post from the perspective of having worked with high school student who later became award-winning professional journalists. In fact, sports lovers here probably are familiar with a TV sport journalist whom I discovered when she was in high school. </p>

<p>I found Anne’s her blog post about her acceptances and rejections to be cliched, trite, and reflective of superficial thinking skills. Based on that, her rejections didn’t surprise me. I figured that she probably had the stats to get into some of her well regarded in-state publics, but didn’t have the depth to get into top privates.</p>

<p>However, since I knew that she was writing under the stress of having to write about so many disappointments, I checked out her previous blog posts to see if they were better. This post by her confirmed my impression about her personality.</p>

<p>"But as much as I want to smile and announce that my college selection process was nothing short of thoughtful and meditated, I can’t. The truth is that I am a sucker for brand-name colleges…</p>

<p>“Please understand: I was desperate, frightened and impulsive. I reached out to well-known institutions because I rationalized that they would be worthy of their reputations, or they wouldn’t have them in the first place. Looking back, I wish that I could have narrowed my list to six or seven instead of 15. I would have saved myself from a lot of heartache.”</p>

<p>[Awash</a> in Nervous Anticipation - The Choice Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/envelope-paik-1/]Awash”>Awash in Nervous Anticipation - The New York Times)</p>

<p>That being said, I don’t think that her blogging for the NYT hurt her. In fact, it should have helped her. However, I think that her relatively weak writing and critical thinking skills (compared to the top students who apply to such schools. Remember, more than likely her blog has been edited by professional editors) may have hurt her chances of getting in. I imagine that her essays were not particularly strong.</p>

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<p>

This is very common in California. My daughter chose that route as well, and while I was frustrated at first, I soon recognized the logic of that. </p>

<p>It’s simple economics. If admission is virtually guaranteed at a school of the caliber of, say, UC Irvine – where the student will be paying in-state tuition rates – why bother applying to any private college unless you perceive it as substantially better than the UC’s?</p>

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<p>^^ I agree. Both of my kids applied to UCs as backups and both applied to their top choice ED schools. Luckily for them, both made it to their top choices. Had they been rejected, I would have had a hard time justifying paying full fares to colleges deem academics peers or lower to UCs. And I prefer UCs to colleges ranked lower even with merit aid.</p>

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<p>I’d also add that many California students do not do much in the way of research of out-of-state schools. At least in the public high schools, the guidance counselors tend to focus mostly on preparing their students for UC and the CSU’s. So the kids (and their parents) tend not to have much awareness of any but the big name schools. </p>

<p>Finally, with respect to the blogger in the NY Times - many kids unfortunately do not really understand the whole admission process or accurately assess their likelihood of admission. We don’t know anything about her school performance or accomplishments. I would assume that every year that a huge number of bright, capable, but otherwise unremarkable A students with reasonably good test scores send apps off to the Ivies, encouraged by their families – without ever realizing the intensity of the competition.</p>

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<p>I didn’t think her strategy was wrong, as long as she was happy with attending a UC. My younger son applied to one safety and six reaches. But he loved the safety and while not a state school we knew that merit aid was a real possibility.</p>

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<p>Rejected from USC? Ouch. </p>

<p>Does anyone know how NYTimes picked these students?</p>

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<p>You “parents” do realize that someone, a child, btw, blogging for the NYT’s is probably reading CC? This is just fantastic. A bunch of grown ups sitting around publicly dissecting her writing ability AFTER she just got slaughtered in the admissions game? Come on already. I would ask a moderator to remove this thread. IT’s tone is just really nasty, imho.</p>

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<p>If the state school is financially doable, academically sound and the student would be happy to attend, then I don’t have a problem with making the rest of the list reachier. This assumes the student is truly a likely admit at the flagship, of course. Both my kids felt they could be happy with the flagship and created their lists accordingly from there.</p>

<p>Did the series ever discuss how the students made their choices and what kind of guidance they received? I’ve read installments over the year but don’t recall every detail, and probably missed a number of posts. I think it takes guts to put oneself out on the NYT for all the world to see.</p>

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<p>Banmaisen, the USC forum had a number of applicants rejected there but accepted at Cal +/or UCLA. I think the waitlist at Pitzer would be more problematic.</p>

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<p>poetgrl: I am inclined to agree with you.</p>

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<p>I feel really bad for her. :-/ But, it happens. Her attitude is very easy to relate to.</p>

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<p>I didn’t even notice the quality of her writing, and maybe I’m just cold hearted, but… surely if someone’s ‘child’ is allowed, encouraged even, to do a NYT’s blog, surely then they can and should expect all kinds of feedback. Such is the nature of blogs I’m afraid. And if this is a tender time for her, surely she can choose NOT to read what others happen to write in response to her blog. Not to mention, I would think such feedback would actually be USEFUL, even if it’s painful. </p>

<p>I actually found the writing quality of another much more ‘successful’ blogger in this set to be cringe worthy. It truly made me wonder how that student had such phenomenal success in the process.</p>

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<p>

She didn’t get admitted to the “flagship” but I don’t think that matters. Most people in California are perfectly content to sent their kids off to Davis, Irvine, San Diego or Santa Barbara. My kids both were admitted to Berkeley & Santa Cruz (among others). Although each kid in turn chose an out-of-state college (with need based financial aid) – I would have strongly urged my son to choose Santa Cruz over Berkeley – and while I would have preferred Berkeley for my daughter, she would have chosen either Santa Cruz or Santa Barbara over Berkeley. (My preference for my d. was based simply on offerings in her anticipated major - her feelings were based on campus environment). </p>

<p>And it would have been hard for me to justify paying more to send either of my kids to any large private university that was not among the top or near-topped ranked on the US News list. I had a more flexible attitude for LAC’s – my son applied to several that were not as highly ranked at the time – but he clearly wanted the LAC environment, which is something that the UC’s could not offer. (And might give you some insight as to why I would have encouraged him to opt for Santa Cruz over Berkeley if his choices had been so limited).</p>

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<p>Northstarmom - knowing that the blogs could have been heavily edited should make us wary of making judgements about her writing and critical thinking skills based on them.</p>

<p>Though they could have easily been edited IN her favor, it could have gone the other way, too ;). Newspapers frequently “dumb down” content for a mass audience or cut entire sections out of too-long columns or articles. Or sometimes the editor is just rushed, and the high schooler’s 13" on the college selection process isn’t the most important thing on his list. You must know this…</p>

<p>Also, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary about “gravitating towards schools with good reputations, because if they have a reputation they must deserve them, etc.” Most students I know who went to Harvard chose Harvard largely because of the name and the reputation, not because they sat in on 10 classes at Harvard and 10 classes at another school in their given major and then did an analysis of where they’d get the better education. </p>

<p>Harvard’s “supposed” to have better teachers, more opportunities, it’s supposed to look better on a resume, the kids there are supposed to be smarter, Boston is supposed to be cool - you get the idea.</p>

<p>UChicago markets itself as “quirky” and “intellectual.” Yet a large number of kids apply to UChicago without being able to actually fly to Chicago and see the campus, much less sit in on enough classes to make a real decision about that, and shouldn’t that be ok? Or should we really spend 100s on plane tickets for every college we’re interested in?</p>

<p>Many, many colleges and universities can be a fit for a kid - kid may be happy at a rural school, city school, big school, small school, kid knows he/she is fickle and may change majors, kid knows many majors are great prep for the same career. The only way to narrow down the playing field is to make superficial judgements based on the hype the school itself produces (websites, letters) and the hype other people produce (oh, UChicago is SO intellectual, oh, Harvard is SUCH a great opportunity). </p>

<p>Everyone’s college choices are impacted in large part on assumptions based on brand-name and reputation, and I think acknowledging so was pretty introspective, and not indicative of a poor attitude.</p>

<p>Maybe “saying it like it is” irked the high and mighty admissions committees ;).</p>

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<p>“I found Anne’s her blog post about her acceptances and rejections to be cliched, trite, and reflective of superficial thinking skills.”</p>

<hr>

<p>"However, since I knew that she was writing under the stress of having to write about so many disappointments, I checked out her previous blog posts to see if they were better. This post by her confirmed my impression about her personality.</p>

<p>“‘But as much as I want to smile and announce that my college selection process was nothing short of thoughtful and meditated, I can’t. The truth is that I am a sucker for brand-name colleges…’”</p>

<hr>

<p>“Remember, more than likely her blog has been edited by professional editors.”</p>

<p>Northstarmon: I think you’re being a bit harsh. </p>

<p>Re your impression about her personality: She’s an adolescent, as all 18-year-olds are. I’m a writer–published in the NY Times as well as a number of other high-falutin places, and a book author–and all my submissions have been edited by “professional editors,” as has everyone else’s. So what’s your point?</p>

<p>Her writing is typical of what you see on a daily basis in any major newspaper, nothing about which to draw definitive critical conclusions.</p>

<p>Rejection for writers–and college applicants–is daily bread. To do both at the same time is a double whammy. I give her credit for putting herself out there so openly. It takes guts, and I’d put her on top of my hiring list for that alone.</p>

<p>Who knows what these admission officers are thinking? This has been one of the most competitive applicant classes in history, and we see nothing of her grades or SATs (although I haven’t read back in the blog).</p>

<p>Kicking people when they’re down–schadenfreude–is a temptation for any fellow artist, and you might be guilty of this. I know I’m guilty of this in what I’m saying about you.</p>

<p>And as long as we’re on the topic of literary criticism.</p>

<p>“However, I think that her relatively weak writing and critical thinking skills (compared to the top students who apply to such schools.”</p>

<p>Points off for an incomplete sentence. (I’m sure you could find something to mark me down for in my post.)</p>

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<p>My only “safety” was UCSD. With the points system they use, I was virtually guaranteed to get in, so there was no real reason to apply to a “lesser” school. If somehow I hadn’t been accepted there (and anywhere else), I would rather have gone CC–>UCLA than somewhere else. That’s another option CA students have that makes safeties less important.</p>

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<p>Especially when you consider the fact that she may not be a native English speaker.</p>