@harvestMoon1 “And did you track the acceptance rate to MIT for participants of WTP? It is very high.”
The counselor considered it as just like any other summer program and as just the type of thing every parent says.
In contrast, adcoms have very good experience with girls from WTP, they are strong academically, serious about their interest in STEM fields, tend to like hands on work over book learning, and switch out of STEM fields at a much lower rate than other applicants (~90% graduate in STEM).
Again, there are some terrific GCs out there, but they have a lot to do besides focus on your kid. There is no substitute for involved parents in the process. The student and parents will pay the price if the student makes poor college decisions, not the counselor.
You have to dig for it but they publish where the WTP participants end up each year. Large percentage at MIT and those that are not are at peer institutions. Sounds like your involvement made all the difference - glad you worked it out.
Okay, today I have destroyed the dreams of 3 students here on CC by telling them that the UC’s do not give financial aid to OOS students. I also told a student that Harvard and Caltech are reaches for everyone, despite his protests that they are matches for him (He asked to be chanced).
LOL, @TomSrOfBoston ! Me too. I was chastised on another thread for telling a kid he should stick to his ED agreement to attend Syracuse after they gave him almost a full ride. Kid, with a 3.4, thinks IN MAY, that he can call a “more reach-y” LAC and get admitted with better FA for this fall.
OP,
So, if one is asking for the honest opinion of his chances, posters here MUST ASSUME, that in fact he is NOT asking for the honest opinion, but rather is looking for reassurances that he can get into ANY school that he wishes. This is the summary of your original post as far as I understood it. And again, you may be asking for our reassurances and not the honest opinions about it. I tend to skip all the mush. If one needs the mush instead of honest opinion, I agree with you 100% that they need to look for it somewhere else and not at CC.
An example…
OP says…
I have a 3.7 and got a 32 ACT. But I have killer ECs and my essays and recs are stellar. I’m a legacy bc my unlcke’s brother went to H. I am applying to:
Reaches:
HYP
Stanford
Matches:
Cornell
CMU
Georgetown
Safety:
UC-Berkley (I’m in state)
This is a realist…
“Your list has no real safety, as UCB is a reach for you, and your matches are actually high reaches for your stats. I suggest you retool your list using Common data set data. Adding more matches, a safety, and reducing reaches. The time you spend on your reach apps could better be used on finding a realistic list.”
This is a rude person…
“UCB is your safety? What a loser. You won’t even get in there!”
There is then a reply about how awesome the OP is sure they are, and how their GC says they’ll get in. You just don’t “get it” how great OP actually is. The rude person is long gone, but the realist then tries to explain how they are not so special to overcome the odds, and they need to understand they could get shut out. But OPs not hearing that…and so forth.
You perceive someone trying to keep a kid from a shutout as ridiculous negativity? Wait till they get all those rejection letters! Ridiculous negativity is a pile of rejects and no acceptances.
I don’t think anyone would argue with the “realist” approach - they are making suggestions that will assist the OP and are doing so in a reasonable manner. The OP has compiled an unrealistic list that could land him nowhere at the end of the day. And for whatever reason his own college counselor and/or parents have not helped him out, Those sorts of responses are valuable.
It is the second sort of “rude” response or something close to it that I personally object to. Just not necessary or helpful.
@MiamiDAP and @HRSMom , you guys just really don’t read, do you? You use sarcasm thinking it will “get” me, the OP, and make me rethink my opinion. Funny anecdote here that might surprise you; I had a fellow student start talking about college choice the other day to me, and he said he was really looking at Harvard, Princeton, and G. Tech, and he seemed quite confident he would get into all. I asked him his stats (solid GPA but low ACT score for those schools’ standards) and knowing that he was not involved in many things outside of academics, I strongly advised him to apply to safeties and in-state schools also, as his stats were not up to the level of the schools he was applying to. That’s a realist approach. However, I am not going to tell him, “Just give up your dream… your stats are too low… apply to the local community college and move on with your life.” On a separate note, I would wholeheartedly agree @HRSMom with your realist approach in your most recent post… had you read my initial argument you would have understood that. But after explaining myself in the original post and 3-4 comments thereafter, I am still not understood by the ones who think my post was aimed at them.
@doschicos Not having been on the chances thread in months, I can’t point you to any specific examples at the time and don’t care to sift through hundreds of comments to find one. But I have encountered my fair share over the past two years… I’m sure others have specific examples… they’re definitely out there.
@tigerrocks13, if you’re going to paint CC as being overwhelmingly negative, you need to do your homework and hunt through comments to post examples. “They’re definitely out there” doesn’t do it.
I just gave advice along these lines today – to someone who had done poorly the only year he had gone to HS and now wants to go to Harvard. I suggested that to get into any highly ranked college, he would benefit from proving his ability in the classroom at a CC or lower ranked college. But it surely would have done a disservice to say that Harvard is in any way realistic for him.
“There are times to be curt, and there are times where you see, “hey this kid looks like they probably have a decent chance… let me encourage them today.” There is a MAJOR difference between being realistic and being helpful. These kids KNOW the acceptance numbers…”
Like your friend, no, they often don’t know the #s. My point is by defining this as ridiculous negativity, you lose ppl, bc there is plenty of actual ridiculous negativity, pointless argumentativeness, rudeness on here…Sometimes realism is the most helpful thing you can offer.
Maybe the “negative” respondents are just calling BS when they read it. Like the student boasting 1500 hours of community service during one summer, not realizing that that works out to 120 hours/week (17 hours/day working all 7 days a week).
Classic example today. Does anyone think this student has a good shot at Harvard? Does this student sound like they want to hear any ideas about how to successfully complete their education?
