The problem is that I don’t think they do know how much the odds are stacked against them. I think thats the problem. Around here on CC, we know because we see it and discuss it constantly. But in the real world, even well educated, well meaning families don’t know. I didn’t know with my first daughter. Heck, back then I still thought NYU was a safety school because it was in my day.
I know parents who think their kid had a great shot at Brown because her stats landed in the middle of their range and she is a “great” kid. I know parents who all of last year spent their time wondering whether their kid would fit better at Stanford or Harvard, assuming he would have that choice because of his “near” perfect stats.
When kids are well informed about the excruciatingly small chances for admission, they can make realistic choices about how to spend their time and application dollars. If they still decide to give it a shot, thats fine. But, @Trixy34 is absolutely right. It is unfair to get their hopes up.
@gallentjill "The problem is that I don’t think they do know how much the odds are stacked against them. I think thats the problem. Around here on CC, we know because we see it and discuss it constantly. "
But the advice is being offered on CC where we do talk about it constantly and people are informed. Preaching to the converted if you will. I suggested consulting GCs and parents who should be aware of suitability and likelihood of success. To be honest most people do know just how low odds are but either choose to willfully ignore them or place their kids on a pedestal and assume they will stand out. The information is out there readily available, it’s not the schools who are hiding it but parents and kids that don’t want to acknowledge it.
But accepting your assertion at face value…
It is indisputable that making uninformed decisions regarding important matters is a bad idea. I was however specifically responding to the advice to “Just don’t waste your time” applying unless you are a recruited athlete, URM or valedictorian. That type of generalization is just as uniformed as applying with substandard stats or not being aware of “the odds”. The devil is in the details not just as to the question of why apply but when considering not to apply. One person’s experience is valid but hardly universal.
For real, these high reaches shouldn’t be the main focus for absolutely anyone IMO. If you read the threads, even perfect stats legacy students who applied ED haven’t gotten accepted. That doesn’t mean less qualified students were accepted, but as frustrating as it is, IMO it means that
There is more that goes into defining qualified than base stats
Some less quantifiable measures may matter more than expected (or less) and
As has been said time and time again, there are more qualified students than space for them at selective colleges.
Sort of related story. My kids were coaches for a middle school EC this year. Of the 8 kids who studied for months, only 2 would get tongo to the competition. The head coach asked for information about each potential competitor. Of the 8, they reall ended up with 3 that stood out as the most likely to be successful. Of those 3, one was younger (so he had more years to try again) but above all, less of a team player. Before making their decision, they had all the kids grouped and doing a practice round of their event. During the event, kids were repeatedly reminded they are in teams of 2 and should work together. This kid ignored his team mate. He did his thing. In his reflection after ward, he wrote he was glad he didn’t listen to anyone else and he did so well because he knew what he was doing (paraphrasing here). His result was about the same as a group that did work together, possibly a fraction of a point higher but an insignificant amount. When they made their recommendations, it was that he not be a competitor, and he ended up being listed as an alternate. Apparently, his dad was mad that his son didn’t get to compete since “he was obviously the best”. Which, stats wise it was a close call but not impossible a claim, but there was more to being on a team than this kid was willing to do.
The kids that did compete did very well and worked well together.
Anyway, my point being, this experience was a great lesson to my kids in how sometimes unquantifiable qualities can really matter.
@trixy34 and @ninakatarina going through the same thing. My son is on FIVE waitlists (ND, UVA, MICH, Pitt, and Lehigh!!!) he does have three acceptances…one we have ruled out and just not sure how he feels about the other two(USouthCarolina and Purdue). giving him some time to settle. He applied to 11 schools…only two No’s (UCLA AND UC Berkley). I am just not sure what to say to him…early in the process he reminded me he would not be applying to schools he did not want to go to…but yet he is still disappointed and not ready to discuss committing. I am guessing that is natural and that over the next week or two he will embrace one of the schools that also chose him and we can all move on. I know he will do great at either spot and look forward to supporting him on that journey. I think the hardest part about the wait lists is that its signals that he was qualified but missing something and its just too late to plug what was missing back into the equation. I think @swimmingdad is correct. Its all so overwhelming…so many choices for every kid out there…gap, trades, colleges…god bless them all. They are braver than they know!!!
Folks, I know plenty of public school kids who have been accepted to sub 10% acceptance rate colleges who were unhooked and not an URM. Let the kids apply to wherever they want, but be realistic, 10% is a one in 10 chance. Agree that acceptance is often NOT about stats and often less quantifiable measure are used. For the top colleges, lots of other factors are in play. Almost all of the unhooked students that I know at these colleges are not just your “average” high stats kids. They are leaders, fighters, and willing to take lots of chances. They have great stories and done amazing things outside the classroom. Most are middle class.
I have know very few kids who have applied to the top colleges and have not been accepted at their first, or second choice. The ones I know applied to too many colleges and spread themselves too thin during this process.
[ul][]College admissions isn’t a purely meritocratic process
[]There is effectively no measurable benefit to undergraduate attendance at a hyperselective college*[/ul]
*Insert caveats for a very limited number of fields, such as law (graduation from a hyperselective institution correlates strongly with admission to T14 law schools) and investment banking (where corporate recruitment is directed almost solely at such institutions).
I think your experience is unusual. I know many kids who applied to top schools and were not accepted by their first or second choice. No one here is saying that unhooked kids can’t get into top schools. They can. But the odds are dismal and we just want people to understand that. Also, its not just Harvard and the like, its also schools like Lehigh and Skidmore. It is getting more and more difficult. Some times these discussions turn into speculation about why some kids get in and others don’t and people suggest that mayby those kids were lacking something – ie: Maybe they didn’t show leadership, or teamwork or some other unknowable quality. Or maybe they spread themselves to thin or didn’t show interest. I think that is completely unfair and possibly hurtful to kids and parents going through this.There are not enough seats for all the qualified students at the top schools. Thats it. We will never know why one student got in and not another. But we can’t assume that the students who were shut out lacked something. It just isn’t right.
@Nocreativity1 - I don’t have a lot of time here to pen an involved response. But in the real world, families are busy. They are being aggressively marketed to by highly selective/desirable schools. A lot of these people are naive - they don’t realize how much the admissions landscape has changed over the past 20-30, even the past 5 years. I have a friend - really smart guy and attorney, who was very excited to get marketing materials from Harvard because that meant his daughter was on their radar. Yeah, she and how many tens of thousands of other kids? Not everybody has time to be here on CC endlessly combing threads for information. Not everybody has access to great guidance counselors. Even if people are informed of the odds, they still want to take a chance - that’s why so many people buy lottery tickets. It’s a racket that makes millions every year for the most selective/sought after schools at the expense of hopeful families, and to me, that’s wrong.
Of course if you’re an unhooked kid and have done something fabulous to make you stand out in some way, or there’s some reason why a particular tippy top school is the best place for you, or if it’s your only chance at financial aid, or if it’s your DREAM school and you will be forever wondering “what if”, then sure - apply. Maybe there’s a shot. But for the vast majority of kids to whom I’m directing my advice, it’s not going to be worth it. To the contrary, in this admissions cycle a poorly placed ED application could possibly backfire and leave you completely out in the cold.
I’m really happy for you that everything worked out for your kid. Perhaps you could share with us what you think the secret recipe was. But the bottom line is, there are only so many spots at HYPB et al for qualified but unhooked kids, and the vast majority of them aren’t going to be getting in.
Beautifully said! If there is a special, compelling reason why a certain elite school makes sense, then take the shot, but the vast majority of one’s effort, hopes and dreams should be placed elsewhere.
@AP2018 - so who are these kids? I’d bet they are kids with a lot of support. From a highly ranked high school? Are their parents able to pay full sticker price? Because I know a lot of kids who didn’t get into their first, second, or even third choice schools this year. Really, really smart kids who just weren’t savvy enough to know they needed to be very strategic in going about applying to schools where they could get financial aid.
@dfbdfb - Couldn’t agree more. Just really hoping my kid doesn’t want to go into investment banking. Not that he doesn’t have an acceptance to a school that could get him there - he does. But we don’t want to pay the tuition if he has no intention of going down that path! I hope he doesn’t change his mind in 3 years! (Then again, there’s always transfer)
I agree times a million that a kid who didn’t get an acceptance could easily be very well qualified in every way as a random kid who did get accepted.
Even more so (agree two million) that a waitlisted kid would be just as much an asset, success and fit to the school as an admitted student.
I agree that speculating otherwise isn’t very helpful or kind and has no evidence to back it up, so it’s unnecessary. I also think speculating that URMs, athletes, full pay, legacies, first gen or other students are less likely to be an asset, success or fit than the kids who for whatever reason were either not accepted or were waitlisted is just as unhelpful, unkind, lacking in evidence and unnecessary. Unless they were either using the Loughlin approach to admissions or bragging that they are better than anyone else, admitted kids don’t deserve to be knocked down to make others feel better.
@mom2twogirls Completely agree. The reality is that top schools have their pick of kids so they are trying to assemble a class that is diverse…backgrounds, interests, etc. Kids that get in for whatever reason…awesome. Kids who don’t and find a different college…awesome. Kids who choose an entirely different path…awesome. This intense parent competition is a bit tiresome.
@Trixy34 “I’m really happy for you that everything worked out for your kid. Perhaps you could share with us what you think the secret recipe was.”
I would only be speculating on secret recipe and this is not about my kid or yours. I only mentioned mine in response to your anecdotal use of yours to draw broad conclusions.
The point once again is that your advice to not waste your time unless URM, Val or recruited athlete is a gross generalization when you have no substantive knowledge of the individual circumstances or qualifications of those to whom your directing the advice.
If you want to suggest people should be informed that the odds stink…I fully agree. But when you say “in the real world families are busy”, spare me. When investing $300k (or whatever the amount) and impacting your kids future, shame on the parent that doesn’t do their homework and make informed decisions. We would call someone who buys a house in today’s market based on the assumptions of a purchase made 30 years ago a fool.
Your comment " Even if people are informed of the odds, they still want to take a chance - that’s why so many people buy lottery tickets. It’s a racket that makes millions every year for the most selective/sought after schools at the expense of hopeful families, and to me, that’s wrong," is closer to the real world. You acknowledge people know the realities and willfully participate (just as you did). It’s only when the results don’t go their way that it’s not fair and we shouldn’t have played to begin with.
I understand your disappointment but please don’t deflect accountability away from parents, GCs, and the students themselves who either should have researched or knowingly participated in a system they only now disparage based on their individual results falling short of their expectations.
I don’t think anyone is knocking down admitted kids - are they? There’s been enough drama on this page, let’s not go trying to start something that isn’t even there.
The question was, what can the parents of undecided kids share? In our case, the ED to Brown should have been used at Vanderbilt instead (or maybe Cornell, but I talked too much about the suicides in the Glen and that turned the kid off). But my kid hadn’t been invested enough in the process early on and had to make a split second decision after visiting Vandy the weekend before ED applications were due. Now he’s in at neither place, and since he’s looking for financial aid, probably won’t get off the wait-list at Vandy. So start early, and be strategic with those ED applications!
Oh, and don’t hem and haw and hedge your bets waiting to see where a girlfriend or boyfriend are going to end up either. That’s a recipe for disaster.
what @SwimmingDad said!! we need our kids to be different and to apply to all the schools!!! whatever path they get on - even those that don’t choose college…they are still AWESOME and brave!!!
@Trixy34 You may have hit upon something “my kid hadn’t been invested enough in the process early on” From reading this thread it seems that many parents have been way more invested in the college process than their kid was (especially early on). Read too many posts where the parents researched the colleges for their children and did a lot more. For some this looks like it has created a lot of stress all throughout the process for both the kid and the parents. Maybe kids need to take more ownership of this process, especially early on and parents need to just get out of the way and let what happens, happen.
@Trixy34 why should your son have used his one ED on a school that wasn’t his number 1? One that he didn’t really want to attend? Had he been accepted, wouldn’t he have immediately regretted it? Always wondered if he could have gotten into a school he loved? Tried to find a loophole to get out of the ED agreement?
He played the ED exactly the way he should have. It just didn’t work and now he shall choose another great school and thrive. Sometimes no one does anything wrong, but things still don’t go the way we wish they did. But at least he gave it his best shot.
@Trixy34 I agree with your general proposition that applying to the T15 or so is a waste of time in the broadest sense. I’m not saying kids shouldn’t do it; of course there are kids who will be admitted without the hook, URM etc…However, those children are few and far between. No matter how you slice it approx 90%-95% of the kids who apply will not be accepted. I don’t know many other activities people undertake where the known success rate is so low. I didn’t prevent my D from applying where she wanted but I cautioned her that she was extremely unlikely to be admitted (even with legacy at two of them and one applied to ED). It is exactly like playing the lottery…as long as you recognize the odds and you don’t mind the time and energy it takes to write the essays… go for it.
I also think we live in the same area and having read so many of these threads in the last few weeks, it seems that NE and mid atlantic states were particularly hard hit by WL and rejections. The areas are so densely populated and on average fairly affluent resulting in thousands and thousands of highly qualified applicants. In addition, the use of ED used to be more rare either because people didn’t know about or they were worried about the FA component but with FA being expanded to meets full need (such as the Brown Promise) more kids are applying and it just increases the competition. Lastly, geographic diversity is real and it could be that posters stating they have more kids in their schools being accepted to elite schools are hailing from other parts of the country…just speculation.