@HarrietMWelsch, I hear you! I feel so lucky UCLA has a unique program that’s a better fit for my D than Stanford, And even if she doesn’t get in right away, there is a viable path via community college.
While I have little love for standardized testing, I am a big fan of meritocracy, when kids who work hard (a category D doesn’t fall into) get rewarded for their effort. With standard testing, kids have at least some control, while holistic admissions look like a lottery
@socaldad2002 I would rather my kid dream of UCLA than dream of a school like Stanford. At least if she gets into UCLA, I can afford it. If she dreams of Stanford and by some chance wins the lottery, how do I pony up a quarter million dollars? This is the type of conversation that keeps coming up in our household.
@typiCAmom I would argue- and I’m biased here- that standardized testing is not either in their control or a meritocracy. My D works SO hard. She pushes herself constantly. Getting a higher score than she did would not happen without the accommodations recommended by her psych for her adhd, but as homeschoolers we just were not able to get those accommodations for her. If her scores matched the rest of her record we would all be a lot less stressed right now.
^^ agree, unfortunately the “perfect” college for D is probably USC (checks all the boxes for major, size, academics, location, school pride, D1 sports, alumni network, etc.) but is 2x the cost of a UC. Should she get accepted to UCLA & USC would be a tough decision for us.
We are only willing to be full pay for a private college if we felt it was a much better fit than a UC.
S20 is back from ACT testing. He said that at the end of the test he was asked if he’d take the test again if it were online as an experiment, and he said NO; then they asked if he’d take it again online if he could get his results back in 48 hours - and he said “yes” to that. ACT is moving towards online testing??
@milgymfam, I am sorry, I did not mean to imply that all the kids who do poorly on tests are slacking off. It is just sad to read so many accounts of kids who worked hard and sacrificed so much but still didn’t make the cut and then see accounts from kids who say “I was sure I won’t get in with such low stats, but I did. Believe in yourself and be yourself!” but then conveniently forget to mention they are either legacy or ethnic/geographical URM, or have some other hook that is not their achievement. I am realistic that if D miraculously gets into Stanford I would feel it’s a bit unfair to a brilliant programmer with lots of CS competition awards and a successful start-up experience who nevertheless is not a great writer. Somehow, humanities kids get a leg up over techie kids in admissions and even PSAT, but then I guess the trend reverses once they enter workforce.
@ShrimpBurrito , that is such a pain - it’s so frustrating when you are trying to make everything fit/work, and something totally out of your control happens.
@socaldad2002, I hope both our girls get into UCLA! D visited USC after UCLA and while it did feel like a smaller Stanford to me - sunshine, opportunities, student body happiness, D all but lost interest after she was told she couldn’t tour her intended major dept, that it was very small, etc. Of course, things would have played out better if we had visited USC before UCLA, where departmental visit simply couldn’t go better.
On the other hand, USC gives some excellent merit-based scholarships and they give half tuition for NMF’s, but even half tuition is still more than UCLA. I guess if D liked USC as much as UCLA, I would be stressing about PSAT’s; a silver lining, right?
I have been looking at the Stanford EA result pages too, We have a friend who is applying there EA and it is their “dream school”, we haven’t heard anything from them so we are guessing the kid didn’t get in. Just like most of the “rejected” kids on the thread, our friend’s child has stellar stats with near perfect test scores, yet no national awards (just from the small sample size of CC, these types of kids seem to be “dime a dozen”!). I don’t even like Stanford, yet it is so many kids’ dream school: seeing these kids labeling themselves with bright red letter R just does not seem right nor healthy. My random rant of the week. Lol.
“seeing these kids labeling themselves with bright red letter R just does not seem right nor healthy. My random rant of the week. Lol.”
I have a different take on it. I actually think it’s healthy for very high stat kids to ocassionally get rejected by some of the tippy top colleges. All their lives they were probably the top student, always getting that A and put on a pedestal in their little bubble. It’s humbling and healthy to not be the “best” at everything.
The brightest HS kid I know was outright rejected EA by Stanford which was a shock to her and her parents. She ended up getting into some other top colleges and is a freshman at Harvard this year.
That one little admission hiccup was maybe a wake up call that having perfect stats, ECs, and LORs isn’t a 100% guarantee to get to go anywhere you want. Maybe there is a life lessons here?
Good luck to the ACT takers today!!!
So far, today was spent on picking out and setup the tree, play more of the new game, and play more of the new game…
A summer program’s pre-application is due Monday and I see the blank form is still sitting on DS’ night stand…Should I remind… or should I remind…
:-w
@milgymfam I can relate completely. Our 22 yos is 2E. He is severely dyslexic but equally gifted. He didn’t read on grade level until 5th grade but completed his first alg course when he was 10. I would read him his math book. By 8th grade he was advanced across all areas. The only 2 areas he is still impacted are his reading speed and spelling. (his spelling is atrocious.) He is a slow reader. We messed up bc we didn’t seek accommodations early enough for testing.
To encourage you, his test scores did not reflect his abilities. Ironically, this kid completed 5 in-major physics courses before he graduated from high school but the SR was always his very lowest score b/c he had hit reading fatigue by the end of the test. He has never faced any problems with any other test other than the ACT. He made a very top PGRE score and even his GRE score wasn’t impacted to the same degree as the ACT.
The ACT rewards reading speed. I personally don’t have any value for the ACT or SAT. I would prefer to see exams that test deep levels of comprehension and ability (complex word problems in math, for example) vs. quick time performance oriented tests.
The time and length are my D’s problem as well. She’s got a 4.0 in 48 DE credits (some from two different CCs and some from a well respected four-year). It’s so frustrating how people think that if she can’t score higher on the ACT, she shouldn’t be able to score 100s on her college tests. That’s not really apples to apples at all though. This is a kid who genuinely works hard for that 100 when a 91 is the same A.
At the end of the day, she has the grades, the rigor, the ECs, the recommendations, and the accomplishments. Those were all within her control. She is also an URM and low income. Those weren’t her control. Then she has her test score. If, after everything, that’s the thing that makes a college say no way… well they’re focus on that one measure probably means they weren’t a good fit for her. It’s easier to say than to internalize though, if I’m being honest. Maybe it’s because we homeschool? That make it harder for me to not internalize that I should have done more, provided more- or put her back in public school where she could have at least stayed #1, which is where she was the whole time she went to school. I feel like homeschoolers test scores matter even more than usual. Sigh.
@milgymfam We are homeschoolers, as well.
You definitely understand then!
We homeschool, too! Dd is full-time DE at the community college this year, though. She tests very well so test scores aren’t an issue for us but I agree about the extra burden on homeschool students.
@socaldad2002 there was an article I remember seeing from Minnesota… I think it was during the 2017 admissions season but I could be off by a year in either direction. Anyway, local high school kid there with top stats had been REJECTED by Stanford and OMG how was this possible??? Did they not realize how wonderful this student was?? Clearly the school guidance counselor and the local newspaper crew were a little behind the curve on hearing how competitive college admissions has gotten.
@ebh87 we did the full time DE thing too! My D would have had her AA this semester but she decided to go to a semester school this semester and then, boom, she is basically done. I kinda went off on a tangent for my older D here. My D who graduates next year hasn’t even tested yet because she’s not into the whole stress thing. She’ll be perfectly content to let it all play out as it will.
@milgymfam @ebh87 We are pretty much the opposite of full-time DE homeschoolers are definitely more do our own thing. (My current college student’s transcript had many atypical high school courses.) I have been homeschooling since 1994 and our jr will be our 6th homeschool grad. She is totally laid back and refuses to get into any college hype. She has yet to take the ACT or the SAT (though she has passed several CLEP exams.)
FWIW, not a single one of our kids has faced any problem with college admissions.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek we have two kids and they’re having vastly different homeschool experiences to each other. My younger D (my 20) isn’t into DE any more than tests tbh, and she’d be perfectly happy to start at a CC if she weren’t interested in dancing in college. That said, she’s doing all I ask of her academically but her heart is in the dance studio. I guess we will see what happens there. She’s driving that bus.