Qualified, but cut, what now?

Parents Forum
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<p>You’re right lderochi, I should have said for admissions to many of the selective schools as many of the public schools are a straight numbers process with very few “soft” factors taken into consideration while some schools will grant you an automatic admissions with a certain set of numbers. </p>

<p>My bad because most of the times these debates never come up unless they are talking about admissions to selective/elite schools so I just assumed that’s where the discussion was going as OP and son felt bad about not getting in U of Chicago (but hey, on the other thread a kid got a fullride to Duke and is stillbeing picked apart so you can’t make everybody happy).</p>

<p>In selective admissions, your numbers can take you to committee, but the discussions will be about what is behind the numbers.</p>

<p>I would recommend that OP watches the video- The Best and the Brightest about what goes on in the admissions process at Amherst</p>

<p><a href=“http://pbs-newshour.virage.com/cgi-bin/visearch?user=pbs-newshour&template=template.html&squery=%2BVideoAsset:pbsnh062204[/url]”>http://pbs-newshour.virage.com/cgi-bin/visearch?user=pbs-newshour&template=template.html&squery=%2BVideoAsset:pbsnh062204&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In addition, I would also recommend she read the Recipe for Success</p>

<p>5,822 extremely qualified applicants. 540 places in the Class of 2009.
11 admission officers (at Williams) balancing scores of priorities from the campus community.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.williams.edu/alumni/alumnireview/fall05/recipe.pdf[/url]”>http://www.williams.edu/alumni/alumnireview/fall05/recipe.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>There are no “points” given. These things are tip factors which are taken into consideration with other things. Many selective schools do take a holstic approach to admissions…<<</p>

<p>I’ll show you one. UC Davis:</p>

<p><a href=“http://admissions.ucdavis.edu/admissions/fr_selection_process.cfm[/url]”>http://admissions.ucdavis.edu/admissions/fr_selection_process.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>They use points. And you can score extra points for things like being a first generation college student. UCSD does also (although different from UCD’s system), and if denied, students can even call UCSD admissions and ask and will be told how may points they scored and how far short that was of the admit cut-off. I’m sure other schools use points too but aren’t quite so open about it as the UCs.</p>

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<p>I know that we are getting into semantics, but we both know when the OP was talking about a point system, she was not referring to the UC (which are pretty straight forward with letting people know the rubric they use for admissions) and I believe you also knew what I was talking about when I responded to her post. And even with the UC point system, her son would more likely to be in a position to score more “points” than the groups that she believes are getting points at other schools.</p>

<p>So I guess I should modify my question again, to show me a selective private top USNWR 25 College or university (specifically the schools that OP says her son did not make the cut for) that uses a point system which gives extra points to students who URMs, first generation students and some other things too?</p>

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<p>can’t remember what book, but the admissions person who wrote it talks about the selectives schools point system</p>

<p>552345, that kind of thing</p>

<p>ponts for scores, points for essays, etc</p>

<p>the points may not be “official”, but they are usedm otherwise why even ask race, parents education if they don’t count</p>

<p>as I said, maybe no official #, but it is there</p>

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<p>Like Sybbie, I don’t believe that the most selective colleges use a point system. I don’t agree with Peege04 that “…the colleges add points for no college grads, URM, probably some other things too.” As I’ve said before, the kids I’ve met at a couple of different Ivy schools/MIT are all remarkable, regardless of ethnic background or gender. I do believe that colleges take a student’s background into consideration – so a student from an inner city HS is not expected to have quite the same board scores as one from an east coast Prep school. Isn’t that fair? There’s that old saying, “To whom much is given, much is expected.”</p>

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<p>Points are often used for assessing grades/class rank, difficulty of courses, teachers/counselor recs, ecs, essay&other parts of the app, and test scores in many top schools. They are not used for things like legacy, URM status, geographics, development connections, celebrity status, athletes. Those apps are usually tagged and examined for how those factors can enhance the college community. There are other things that can get an app pulled and assessed in that same light. Those apps have qualities the college wants or needs for that particular year. It may be that the classics chairman is screaming for more students because his department is dying. The physics or math program may need a lift. A professor might send a note about some student’s special interest or skill. The music program may need a bassoon or they may be terribly short on violins that year.<br>
I am surprised that the UCs still use points for URM status. I thought that the Supreme Court decision regarding the UMICH law school specifically prohibited a point or quota system for URM status.</p>

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<p>The colleges don’t add points as such, but there are tip factors as well as hooks.<br>
Legacy status may be more of a hook at some colleges than others and perhaps only in ED, not RD; child of big donor can also be a hook; local kid is tip at Harvard but not MIT. Faculty kid is definitely a hook at most schools. URM status is a hook; first-generation college goer, a student from an under-represented part of the country, etc…, someone with an unusual talent, recruited athlete, all these have advantages over the student who is briight and well-rounded but not otherwise outstanding.</p>

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<p>I just checked the UC site for that point system. There are no points for URMs, or for any race or nationality. There are points for hardship, economics, first generation in college, but not for URMs.</p>

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<p>Interesting, Marite, that being local is a tip at Harvard. Why do you think that is? I never heard that before.</p>

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<p>It’s not that unusual for local kids to have some advantage at colleges; it’s a way for colleges to keep in the good graces of the community. Harvard’s relations with Cambridge has always been fairly delicate, to put it mildly. I also think that lots of local students take classes at the Harvard Extension School, so they become somewhat of a known quantity to the adcoms, insofar as their Extension School transcripts show they can do the work.</p>

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<p>Being from Cambridge is a tip at Harvard because Harvard is located in Cambridge and wants to be viewed as serving its local community. That also may help assuage some of the town-gown friction that has long existed between Cambridge and Harvard.</p>

<p>Being from Boston and its suburbs is not a tip because Harvard is flooded with outstanding applicants from that area including alum’ and prof’s kids. In fact, it’s probably harder to get into Harvard from Boston than from most other areas of the country.</p>

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Peege04, I think you kind of miss the point. My daughter, who doesn’t test well - so didn’t even bother to take the PSAT – did get accepted to Chicago this year. It makes me kind of sad to know that she turned Chicago down for another college, when your son would have wanted that space; given the circumstances, your son is clearly more deserving. But I’m posting now just to try to clarify that it isn’t necessarily a matter of what parents can give to their kids. About all I ever gave to my daughter was the funding to support her passions.</p>

<p>I don’t know what Chicago was thinking or why Chicago and other even reachier schools admitted my daughter over kids with much higher test scores and more impressive academic records, but I do know what set my daughter apart. She studied Russian in high school amd spent 5 months living in Russia while she was in high school. Russia is not a common destination for American foreign exchange students, and very few high schools offer Russian language – so there would not be too many Russian scholars applying to colleges.</p>

<p>My daughter is also a dancer coming from an arts magnet high school, and she submitted a dance resume showing her training and experience going back to age 4, along with a DVD of some of her choreography. Chicago doesn’t have a dance program so it probably couldn’t care less whether its students know how to dance, but the dance angle probably did add some sort of interest to the application. </p>

<p>Now I have 2 left feet and my only exposure to dance is that I love to watch it and I took two beginner-level adult classes in tap and ballet at one of my daughter’s studios - my daughter was the teacher’s helper in one, so she was teaching me. I am incompetent when it comes to learning foreign languages, and the only one I ever studied was Spanish – I don’t speak a word of Russian, nor does anyone in our family. So it isn’t a matter of parental direction or advantage. </p>

<p>Again: the mistake your son made, if any, was simply in overestimating his chances at highly selective colleges. I am sure that your son is much more qualified academically than my daughter, but Chicago may have been looking at him in the context of other prospective physics majors and there are probably a lot of science-oriented kids who have done very impressive things, with or without parental prodding or support. </p>

<p>Please don’t continue to try to second guess. You cannot possibly understand the reasons one kid gets in over another unless you can be part of the committee making the admissions decisions. It isn’t about your kid as an individual. It is about the college making a selection of the kids who will comprise a class from very qualified and impressive group of applicants. From the outside it is always going to look capricious. I’m sure that from the inside it makes perfect sense. Your son was good enough, but he didn’t stand out from the pack enough.</p>

<p>I think the best advice I picked up from cc was that my daughter’s chances of admissions would be best if she could be summed up with two adjectives, or a short phrase with 2 key concepts. The idea is that everyone on the admissions committed is sitting around a table, and they come to my kid’s file, announce her name and add, “this is the dancer that went to Russia”… everyone remembers who she is. “This is the kid from Minnesota who wants to major in physics” just might not ring as many bells. </p>

<p>So this gives a clue as to the <em>why</em> of it for a kid like my daughter, but it is important to know that none of this started as part of a plan to get into college. I honestly thought that my daughter could be tossing her prospects of a good college away when she decided to go gallavanting off to Russia intead of staying home and filling her schedule with AP courses. It hurt her GPA, it hurt her test scores, and it left her with significant gaps in her coursework. I would never advise another family to follow suit. The two adjectives aren’t things we developed for a college application, they are just the two things that happened to occupy the bulk of my daughter’s time while she was in high school. </p>

<p>And the irony is that I think the college knows it. I think all the gaps in my daughter’s record make it clear that this is not the result of clever packaging… way too much is missing for that. They have more of a sense that with my kid, what you see is what you get. Some colleges weren’t impressed; others were. My daughter got lucky, mostly because she was successful in picking the colleges who would be impressed with her intriguing but lopsided profile. </p>

<p>I think the best advice I would give to anyone is: let your kid follow his or her inclinations and interests in high school. Try to keep the grades up, but don’t do anything simply for the sake of looking good to colleges. Midway through junior year, take stock of who the kid is and what he or she wants out of life, and try to develop a good list of potential colleges that are a good fit for the kid’s interests and goals. The list should include some colleges that the kid will be happy to attend and to which admission is almost certain. Don’t get stuck on prestige or rankings, and don’t get your heart set on any colleges which are reaches.</p>

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<p>Add the Midwest Talent Search (Northwestern U) to te 4th-8th grade list-even for kids who don’t score at the top there is a wealth of information to guide parents in helping their gifted kids. Regarding the Reach, Match, & Safety schools- for some (eg my son) the top schools are Match schools- unfortunately there are too many top students for the spaces, as many admissions officers have stated in various media. The next tier private schools often are either LACs or have a student body with no better , or worse academic parameters than the top state U’s for many of us. Why bother paying more for a less challenging atmosphere/student body than the public U’s Honors Program, unless one has other reasons for picking several private schools as safeties. Hence the try for the elite schools followed by the flagship state U as the backup. I know of kids who do apply to many schools, we could not get our son to apply to more; probably because part of him wanted the elite science school but the other part of him wanted UW (despite it being my alma mater and partly because it is a liberal campus good for running). At 16 he may have found more agemates at the elite schools, at UW he’ll have the common database advantage. As parents we privately wrestled with the pros and cons of each school for our son. Peege04’s son’s main objection to U of M was probably its being the state school, therefore nothing special, he would have chosen UW or another safety if he really disliked MN. From Peege04’s posts, he’s understandably disappointed at not getting into a dream school, but adjusting well. We know of two recent local high school/ UW-Madison grads who are now at MIT-one in physics; people do get into the top grad schools from the midwest flagship schools, as others have posted. I, for one, am curious to see where our son does end up in the next five years, all I know is that HE’LL decide, not his parents.</p>

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<p>Of course not. It would be illegal for them to do so. California outlawed racial preferences in public college admissions with the passage of Prop. 209 in 1996. Prior to that being a URM got you lots of extra points. After that the schools had to develop affirmative action surrogates: economic hardship, facing “life challenges,” etc. Colleges in other states are still free to give all the points they want to URMs</p>

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<p>I’d like to add one more comment. My son had high test scores, was an NM finalist, and had strong academics and excellent grades. All his teachers thought he was “Ivy material” and encouraged him to apply to Ivies. This was back in the year 2000, when the competition was less stiff than it is today.</p>

<p>We picked up a book called “A is for Admission” by Michele Hernandez. My son read that book and concluded he didn’t have much of a chance of getting into an Ivy – it was obvious that it would take more than tests scores and near-perfect GPA to get in. I think he decided then that it simply wasn’t worth the effort to try to get into a school which was really looking for more distinguished students; he also realized that he would be happier in a somewhat less competitive environment. Hence he chose to target LACs like Macalester and Reed. </p>

<p>We also picked up two other books – “Colleges that Change Lives” by Loren Pope, and “You’re Going to Love this College Book” by Marty Nemko. Both books made it clear that there was a lot more to choosing a college than focusing on prestige, and though neither book ultimately played much of a role in college choice, they did give rise to more self-directed approach to choosing a college. My son didn’t look at rankings or reputation or prestige. Instead he thought about what he wanted in a college, and set out to find a college that matched his criteria. He decided he wanted a small liberal arts college with small classes and a lot of opportunity for interaction with faculty. We used the US News list to resort the college list their faculty/student ratio and percentage of small classes – the smaller the better. </p>

<p>Later, with my daughter, the college search began with a hunt for Russian departments. I spent a lot of time helping by simply researching the number of faculty and courses at any given college. Chicago was one that came out on top because it offers advanced level (5th year) Russian, and because it gives credit by exam for student who place into higher levels. Prestige really wasn’t a factor-- it just turned out that the only private colleges that are able to sustain strong programs in her chosen field tended to be top-ranked schools - so unfortunately, her safeties also tended to be much weaker in the area she wanted to study. </p>

<p>There are probably a lot of hidden gem colleges with great physics departments and good opportunities for undergraduate research. I don’t know what they are, but I think that a kid who started the college search from that angle would end up with some interesting match or safety schools. For example, a little Googling took me to an article in Physics Today - (Why Many Undergraduate Physics Programs Are Good but Few Are Great, <a href=“http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-56/iss-9/p38.html[/url]”>http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-56/iss-9/p38.html&lt;/a&gt; ) and in turn to the American Association of Physics Teachers web site and a rather eclectic list of 21 colleges selected for case studies of their particularly-strong physics programs. See <a href=“http://www.aapt.org/Projects/ntfup/casestudies.cfm[/url]”>http://www.aapt.org/Projects/ntfup/casestudies.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Harvard is on the list, but so is SUNY Geneseo. What distinguishes these schools? I learned that Lawrence University has an extremely rigorous physics major and goes all out to recruit prospective physics majors. I learned that Whitman College has 3/2 programs for combined physics/engineering degrees with major universities like Columbia, and that it has excellent opportunities for dual or combined physics majors (such as physics/astronomy) on its own campus. </p>

<p>I have no clue as to whether these are the best programs around, but I do know that I found a good resource site for learning more, and it certainly could be used to structure a search based on “fit” and “match” rather than prestige. Certainly a kid who didn’t make it into dream schools might be more happy if one or more of the safeties also happened to offer something special in an area of interest … as I think that part of your son’s dissatisfaction is with a perception that the physics department at his safety isn’t so hot. So perhaps, in hindsight, he would have been happier if one of his safeties had offered something special, like a physics mentorship program or special opportunities for undergraduate research.</p>

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<p>Cptofthehouse post #226 seems to explain the admissions process best to me. Sorry if the use of the word “points” is a no no. </p>

<p>My son and I went to campus today to take care of some other things. His mood has definitely improved from the day I started this post and from his sulky, summer. </p>

<p>That said, I really need to get back to other things that I’m working on, so I won’t be checking this site for a while. So many of you have been very helpful to me. I can just feel the sincerity and support jumping across the fiber optics to me. Thank you for all the advice, tips, links, and messages of understanding, encouragement and edification.</p>

<p>It has also been fun hearing about some of your children. They sound exciting, challenging, delightful, obstinate and brilliant in varying degrees and combinations. One thing is apparent. They have parents who dearly, dearly love them. </p>

<p>I hope I’ll get a chance to pop back in here and see what’s up after school starts. I already feel like many of you would be great friends to have coffee with if we lived closer. If people who are applying this year have questions that I could turn around and help with, I’d love to do that.</p>

<p>This site has definitely been a treasure trove of information and I will recommend it to others. Again thank you so much for all your help.</p>

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<p>Hope its not too late to post a perspective from someone heavily involved in graduate education (in genetics). Fact is, graduate schools are tripping over themselves to enroll qualified US-educated students. A key to this is to have the appropriate credentials, i.e. decent GPA (does NOT need to be 4.0), relevant courses, and relevant non-coursework experience (usually research). A good hook for a particular school is to have spent some time there (generally a summer experience). A U of M mentor is also key, for academic (and otherwise) counseling, for networking, and for recommendations (probably the most important part of the graduate school application). I can promise you that if he is really interested in graduate school, and has prepared appropriately, he can be competitive for the best schools in the country.</p>

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One of our S’s two off-campus summer research institutions flat-out told the students that they are “all but” guaranteed grad admission. There may be a few reasons for this. The summer apps are comprehensive, allowing the prospective school to look the applicant over closely as one among a competitive pool. For the student, it’s an opportunity to look over the prospective grad school; consequently, the school usually goes out of its way to provide the prospie with a good experience. Kind of a “grad school with training wheels.” </p>

<p>Another way applying for summer research is beneficial to students: Every app includes at least one “mini statement of purpose”-type essay. Over the UG years, as a student applies for summer research and gains experience, when the time rolls around to complete the grad school apps, the all-important Statement of (research) Purpose tends to be more focused and detailed than it would have been otherwise. In addition, summer research PIs can serve as excellent recs for grad school; they can attest that a student has what it takes, in terms of knowledge and work ethic, to be plunked down in an unfamiliar environment and still be successful.</p>

<p>Aside from all of that, a good summer research experience has the potential to enrich a student’s life in so many intangible ways by taking that student outside the personal comfort zone and expanding his/her worldview in unexpected ways. Students may have only one road to travel for the four years of college, but summers afford them the chance – no matter how much they love that familiar highway – to explore any number of enticing byways. :)</p>

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<p>Calmom’s point about summing up an applicant with a short phrase is a great one. As someone who has served on law firm recruiting committes and sat around a table reviewing resumes from hundreds of qualified law school applicants for a small number of summer associate positions, I can tell you that calmom’s method is often used in such situations, and it would seem very appropriate for use in college admissions as well.</p>

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<p>Hi there,</p>

<p>I’m a small LAC grad (from back in the dark ages) and a PhD physical scientist (big whoop, it’s just that it is relevant to what I want to tell you here). Used to be, and I’ll be it’s still true, that a disproportionate number of science PhD’s in the US graduated from small LAC’s. They do a tremendous job of preparing their students for graduate school. Classes can be extremely tough (PChem at my college was rated much harder than PChem at Harvard, by someone who taught at Harvard).</p>

<p>So I really wouldn’t discount the Macalesters and St Olafs.</p>

<p>Another thought: the folks who are telling your son to take advantage of the Honors College and research opportunities are absolutely right. If your son goes the science route, research (not going to classes) will be what he will be doing most of his working life. Learn how to do it early, and learn whether you like it early. My guess is that working in an academic lab at a large research U will be very different from the work that he did in HS.</p>

<p>Yet another thought: there were some grads of large state U’s (much less competitive for undergrads than my LAC) in my graduate program. These folks were extremely well prepared and did very well (particularly one guy who had taken advantage of some fantastic undergraduate research opportunities …)</p>

<p>Good luck to your son.</p>