<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. (10 characters)</p>
<p>That the top students at [the schools you want your kid to go to] are superior to the top students at [schools you don’t want your kid to go to].</p>
<p>That the opportunities for top students at [the schools you want your kid to go to] are superior to the opportunities for top students at [schools you don’t want your kid to go to].</p>
<p>If you call a school to ask a question, you will be considered insufficiently interested because you have not carefully examined their web site.</p>
<p>If you do not call a school to ask a question you will have not demonstrated sufficient interest to be admitted.</p>
<p>(ergo, in order to be admitted you must examine the website, come up with a question that is not answered there, and then call.)</p>
<p>Most Overrated Schools: Those that you (or your spouse) or your child did not attend, got rejected from, or otherwise had no interest in.</p>
<p>Most Underrated Schools: Those that you (or your spouse) attended, that your child attends or attended , or that your child applied to.</p>
<p>1sokkermom, LOL. Truer words were never spoken. Good one.</p>
<p>Y’all keep it going with the funnies. I have to start the drive north to the airport. The kid, she is coming home!!</p>
<ol>
<li> The “average man on the street” may only know about Harvard, Yale, his alma mater, and some schools with famous sports programs, but the “people who really matter” will respect your degree from that LAC 2,000 miles away.</li>
</ol>
<p>If I apply to 10 colleges that each have a 10% acceptance rate I can expect to get in to one of them! After all, elite admissions is a random process! </p>
<p>Expect to get a 3 or better on AP stat exam.</p>
<p>Curmudge, this one’s for you: In their never ending quest for geographic diversity, elite universities accept candidates from outlying states that are much inferior to rejected applicants from the over-represented states of New York and New Jersey. (Therefore, you can improve your admissions chances by moving to North Dakota, but it must be done before your freshman year of high school)</p>
<p>Theoretically, any AP score 3 or higher is passing, but on CC only a 5 is acceptable. A 4 is a blemish and a 3 is unspeakable.</p>
<p>Have fun cur! <em>image of cur waiting for daughter to come through security</em></p>
<ol>
<li><p>If your child attends a Top 25 school, they shouldn’t study abroad on the off-chance they miss a brilliant class. They can learn everything they need to know in the goold 'ole US of A.</p></li>
<li><p>CC is not a socialist bubble. If you have the money to pay for a private university education, you are a ruthless, uncharitable, suburban Republican who probably can’t read.</p></li>
<li><p>driver has no heart. FS and xiggi are parents in disguise.</p></li>
<li><p>Only an idiot would pay full freight for a school outside of the Top 25 and the LACs blessed by CC parents.</p></li>
<li><p>Mike Nifong should get the death penalty. </p></li>
<li><p>Every white American boy hires black strippers for entertainment, why should that invite harsh judgement?</p></li>
<li><p>You can only be number one in your field if you attended one of the top 25 schools. It is not possible to rise to the top of your profession without an Ivy degree.</p></li>
<li><p>In the job market, 6 semesters of MArch design studios = 13 semesters of BArch/March design studios. Prospective employers can’t tell the difference.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Being a little serious:</p>
<p>I’m glad I don’t live in the NY metropolitan area (especially including Long Island).</p>
<p>As anxious as I can be, there are other parents who make me look like a catatonic hippie.</p>
<p>It is possible to devote far, far more thought to every aspect of the college admissions process than I ever dreamed possible.</p>
<p>Marite is probably right.</p>
<p>X–If you can’t see that a degree in economics is worth more than a degree in finance you probably have never taken economics or finance.
Y- If you think your kids degree in Fine Arts will every result in a job you have clearly never taken economics or finance.
Z- my kid has so much talent that if you think I care that s/he may not find a job with a degree in the arts, you are a Philistine who thinks of nothing but econ and finance.</p>
<p>You should ask for help for an average student then define average as 1400 and 3.8.
The word passion is useful and meaningful.
Your child CAN and Should get in anywhere and nowhere.</p>
<p>LOL. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Slackers should be kept in the basement where they belong. Slackers will never turn out to be brilliant achievers in later life. Only child prodigies succeed in later life.</p></li>
<li><p>Professional college guidance counselors are ALWAYS a waste of money. You can learn everything you need to know on CC.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Re 105:</p>
<p>But only if you stay long enough on CC and use a filter.</p>
<p>The really successful applicants are the ones who realized they were genuinely “passionate” about Classics in the third grade.</p>
<p>…Or those smart enough to develop a passion for some obscure EC that no one else seems passionate about. Passion is in the eye (or heart) of the beholder.</p>
<h2>. The only students ever accepted to colleges who have SAT scores below that college’s reported median score level are URMs or recruited athletes.</h2>
<h2>. All Asians have SAT scores above 2300, plan to major in math or pre-med, play a musical instrument, have no other EC’s worth noting, and will apply only to HYPSM, because their parents will not allow anything else.</h2>
<h2>. It is absolutely essential to visit all colleges, preferably with an overnight stay, before applying.</h2>
<h2>. Observations made during a 1 hour tour and information session at a college are an accurate and dispositive way of determining whether the college is a good “fit” for the student. The most perceptive students can make such determination before getting out of their parent’s car while still in the parking lot in front of the college administration building.</h2>
<h2>. A parent who calls a school to ask a question or to schedule a visit is an overly-involved, “helicopter” parent, and such action will ruin their child’s chances of admission.</h2>
<h2>. After the child enrolls in college, if the student is unable to get into specific courses that are needed for a planned double major, the parent should call the college and insist that the student be placed in the desired class, because after all the parent is the one paying tuition and everyone knows school administrators will not pay attention to calls that come directly from the student.</h2>
<h2>It is worth $48,000 a year to attend Tisch for musical theater even if the student has to borrow every cent of that. Parents who are unwilling to cosign for loans in that amount are heartless and are denying their child the chance to pursue his/her dream. After all, how else can a person ever make it on Broadway?</h2>
<h2>It is definitely worth going into $200,000 debt to obtain a degree from Harvard, Stern or Wharton. All graduates from those schools automatically get high-paying jobs at the top brokerage firms and it is a cinch to pay back the money. Parents who refuse to co-sign for loans for that amount are heartless. (see ## above)</h2>
<p>“Catatonic hippie” - gets extra credit, that was good.
Wise vs addicted - Marite is always right.</p>
<h1>Whatever - BRWKs should just hang it up - unless they live in No Dak</h1>
<p>By the way, that EC would have to be the hammered dulcimer, body surfing champion, or how about a photo essay on bottle trees, tractor tire planters and other oddities of rural gardening.</p>
<p>“and other oddities of rural gardening.”</p>
<p>Or another one for Cur: something like goat herding or goat line dancing. :)</p>
<p>I can’t believe that we haven’t had a fight break out yet on this thread…</p>
<p>n+1) Every student in California wants to get into a UC. </p>
<p>n+2) Everyone else in the USA wants to come to New England.</p>
<p>n+3) Every international student is from India.</p>
<p>n+4) There are 10,000 ways to compute a GPA. They range from adding .5 for an honors course to multiplying by 10 for an honors course.</p>