I agree with this.
There were many parents saying UF Business school was heavily online during the early years.
But others pushed back and said it’s not true.
Maybe rather than listening to kids - it’s best to check schedules.
My daughter has one online class this semester - it’s actually asynchronous. First one I recall her having.
But she didn’t have to take it that way. She chose to in order to balance her workload and schedule which is heavy on two days. .
S21 Definitely had the opportunity to take many classes virtually at UT Austin. None were in his major, and he actively looked for asynchronous classes because that was his preference for subjects he didn’t care as much about. Admittedly, nearly every class outside his major fell into that category. So depending on the student, it may or may not be an issue. But if you child is looking for a broad set of classes across many subjects, it would be hard to avoid online classes at UT.
I don’t think there are true “safeties” for high stat kids where they won’t be accepted. All too often “safety” to these kids means a school a notch or two down on the exclusivity scale from T20s (Case Western is an example). Some of these schools yield protect and assume a super high stats kid is using them as a back up and either defer or waitlist them. My one caveat is if a kid is looking for CS - definitely not as many safe choices if that is the desired major.
Not Really for California Kids. Most of the top kids want Berkeley or UCLA and the acceptance rate instate are 9 to 12% range. So they are equally hard for instate.
If kids are ok with UC santa cruz or Riverside things get more predictable but these kids may not want to go there. This is one reason you see so many kids go to out of state flagships from some high schools like ours.
Good grief. Poor stellar students. Better to be part of the unwashed masses, eh?
When I graduated from high school in NC, a very long time ago, it was fairly laid back. Sometimes it came down to do you want to study x near a beach or near the mountains - cause we had both options in NC. The number of options, relatively affordable tuition, and the OOS enrollment caps IMO made it a very attractive option to stay in-state.
Yes, at least around here, I think the parents who stick around are mostly outside the box thinkers about “good” colleges, and we end up being in the uncomfortable position of trying to counter-program with our kids against a lot of what they get from peers.
But I do think there are other sorts of parents, parents who have a very fixed idea of “good” colleges such that their kids sometimes end up struggling to get their parents to be more open-minded, rather than the other way around.
I will finally note that in my view, it is not like high numbers kids usually end up at a “bad” college. Is it always the best possible college for them? Are they always excited by it, particularly initially? No. And so to the extent more kids could be excited about where they are enrolling, that would be good. But usually where they are enrolling is very likely going to be fine anyway, they just don’t know it yet.
That simply means kids and their parents don’t understand how to build a selection list.
There are safeties for every high stat kid and really every kid - some of which may be community colleges.
You can also search for “course offering” or even registration - (registrar’s page may have the link.)
I have found it helpful to see the course availability, actual course sizes, and if there are waitlists - like “seats/available” (but, I am in higher ed so more attuned to what the day to day concerns would be for my kid.)
A lot of it is peer pressure.
Some kids, even teachers at our school probably wondered why our D24 ED to Rice when she could have “better” options.
If we lived in Texas, I’m sure the reactions would be much different since they’re more familiar with the school.
Kenyon does. They also mention the student’s essay and what they liked about it. Very nice, personal touch.
This issue is built into how our HS addresses likelies, indeed even into our preference for the term “likelies”. “Safeties” seems to connote to many people a college where their numbers are way above the normal range and the overall acceptance rate is not too low. And that in fact might be a likely–but maybe not. Our HS tries to keep track of which colleges seem happy to just admit our kids like that and accept a low yield, and which have more of a track record of anomalous decisions.
Again, I realize I am describing the sort of high-end school counseling support that is a very meaningful form of privilege. But I also think this conceptual framework can be used even by parents and kids without such school counseling. It just takes some work.
And in fact, parents here will share valuable insights about which colleges do more of what looks like yield protecting, which seem to just admit all the high numbers applicants and fight for them with merit, and so on. So the information is here and other places, but you do have to know it exists, seek it out, and accept the implications.
Good luck- don’t you have a cameo in this production??
I think there are some schools that send notes about the essay. We’ve read stories on here about this exact thing - I believe it’s part of the marketing to give the student the warm and fuzzies.
UAH, with the Honors acceptance, wrote a note to my son about his essay - which was - what is your favorite word and why.
I have no doubt, that as individuals, people are caring.
But in general, I believe, this is just marketing…to put the school in the best light for hopes of being chosen.
I mean, CS is an extremely popular major these days, and many colleges have started offering it to try to ride the wave.
Of course if you want to do CS at one of the generally most selective privates, generally most selective OOS publics, or one of the prominent engineering publics that admits by major for CS . . . that’s a tough nut to crack.
But if you are willing to do CS at a college that does not admit by major and is not that selective overall, or are willing to look far enough down the ladder of publics even if they do admit by major . . . not as hard.
I agree with you. I think any kid with a stellar academic record can find multiple colleges that would love to have them - some with significant merit. The issue is often that those same kids don’t want to attend those particular schools. That was the challenge in our house - at the end of the day S24 finally identified two very likely schools that he’d be happy to attend as well as 3 matches (one where I think he has an excellent chance) but it wasn’t easy.
The type of counseling that is in private, feeder schools are privy to information and connections that no matter how much a parent or student scours the forums, reddit and internet cannot compete with personal phone calls and emails directly. These counselors are on a first name basis with many AOs from top colleges. I lived in Cambridge, MA for 12 years, I witnessed first hand the friendly relationships that were built over years between feeder HS counselors and the AOs. That type of network has access to insider info that others don’t, it is another way low-income, underrepresented schools get shut out. They just don’t have the same guidance. And that group doesn’t have the time to be online for hours and hours, they are often working to help support their families.
I do feel like I’m in an entirely different application world here in CA. Pretty much every college educated person I know went to a CSU or UC for undergrad so I had no idea what everyone else had to go through to find schools and apply out of state.
I’m not sure if there is less pressure about safeties though, most high achieving kids want the same 4 UCs and 2-3 CSUs with <30% admission rates. I will say having a strong community college system with guaranteed transfer paths takes a lot of stress off kids, many (including my own kids) use that very good option as their main safety.
We are fortunate to have multiple amazing state schools. My average public schools has a great track record getting kids into UCLA and Berkeley, but the few kids who apply there tend to be very highly qualified.
This! My son felt (perceived) pressure to apply ED to an ivy because he said his teachers and classmates “expected” him to (which he only confessed to me afterwards). After he and other top students were rejected ED, it was sort of freeing. He realized that HE personally liked other schools better, and decided against applying to other ivies in RD. While I wish he hadn’t spent so much time working on the ED app (and running out of time to apply EA to schools that are better fits), I’m so happy he came to this decision himself. He had a pretty stress-free December.
To be a little understanding, part of what has definitely happened is just a big shift in what colleges fit into what categories.
For example, high numbers engineering kids used to have high admit rates at the public engineering powerhouses (Cal, Michigan, Purdue, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Texas, and so on). So, if you lived in one of those states, you could apply to like that college as your “safety”, then some selection of MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Cornell, CMU, or whatever. Even if you didn’t live in such a state, with high enough numbers you could still often treat them as likelies or soft targets, maybe with your flagship engineering university as your safety, which you rarely ended up needing.
OK, well, now OOS, and sometimes in-state, admissions to various majors and sometimes whole engineering schools at those public engineering powerhouses has shifted more into the harder target or indeed reach territory for high numbers kids. And adjusting to the fact they might not actually get admitted to ANY of those colleges is proving hard for some of those kids, and/or their parents.
But of course there are still many more places you can get a very good engineering education. It is just hard sometimes for kids and/or parents to accept that they may end up at a different college today than they would have in a prior era of engineering admissions.