<p>PizzaGirl,
Your “just don’t go there” argument is getting old. Just like “If you don’t like sitting in the back of a bus, walk.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But TheGFG, they don’t KNOW that, at least not at any of the schools they consider to be a great prize–because those schools ALL follow holistic admissions practices. As Pizzagirl says, these kids are welcome to not apply to schools where they face a high risk of rejection. They can, instead, choose options where their grades and/or test scores guarantee admission. But they don’t. Thus: no sympathy from me. This is a “first-world problem” story of the highest order. It’s no surprise the WSJ picked it up.</p>
<p>
Because rejection is fate.<br>
Acceptance is destiny.</p>
<p>Oh, sheesh. not going to HYPSM or whatever the flavor of the day is is not “the back of the bus”. Overblown rhetoric much?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I disagree tigerdad, we make decisions on where to spend our consumer dollars every day based on certain criteria that is important to US. I don’t patronize chick fil a because of their stance on LBGTQ issues. There are certain retail stores I also don’t go to because of their treatment of employee’s. PG is stating the same thing, although it is on a much bigger, usually $50k+ per year scale. If you don’t like the policies or practices of ANY business, take your money elsewhere. Trust me, you won’t hurt their feelings nor hurt their pocketbook.</p>
<p>To unicameral and others who doubt the need for busyness:</p>
<p>Maybe one doesn’t absolutely have to run ragged doing EC’s to get into Harvard et al., but the students they admit seem to be extremely busy, nonetheless. It’s possible that H really only cared about 2 out of an applicant’s 12 great EC’s and the student might still have been admitted just for being an Intel finalist and state assemblyman, without the 10 other clubs and leadership activities. However, no one gets detailed admissions feedback such that we know definitively what it was that most impressed the top schools. Since the kids who get into HYPS all have pretty massive resumes (see the CC decision threads), surely you can understand why other students think it was necessary to have had such a resume in order to get in that top school.</p>
<p>And read this: [Super-active</a> students are over-scheduled | Harvard Magazine Mar-Apr 2010](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/03/nonstop?page=all]Super-active”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/03/nonstop?page=all)<br>
A quote from the article:</p>
<p>" 'College here is like daring yourself to swim the length of a swimming pool without breathing. A lap is a semester. I want to do everything I possibly can.” She works on a 28-hour day, she says: some days sleeping 10 hours, others, two. She can describe different levels of exhaustion. One level, she explains, is a “goofy feeling, like feeling drunk all the time; you’re not quite sure what’s going on. Then there’s this extra level of exhaustion, where you feel dead behind your eyes. The last four weeks, that’s where I’ve been. I get sick a lot.”</p>
<p>Keeping Up with the Einsteins</p>
<p>Amazingly enough, Cooper is not unusual at Harvard College. Students today routinely sprint through jam-packed daily schedules, tackling big servings of academic work plus giant helpings of extracurricular activity in a frenetic tizzy of commitments." </p>
<p>The article states that students began this frenzied lifestyle well before they arrived on campus.</p>
<p>You can save your consumer dollar on bus and get a bike instead.</p>
<p>You can always take your ball (rugby or proper football) and head off to St. Andrews instead. The education is great, tuition is less than full-pay at US privates, they speak English (sort of), and admissions doesn’t give a toss about ECs or most of the other non-classroom stuff we obsess over. </p>
<p>Plus, there’s golf and haggis, at least one of which appeals to some people.</p>
<p>Really, tigerdad! Some of us do not care about playing the game, so we don’t. My son would have been a credible candidate at any number of “top” schools and was a legacy at several of them. But he was smart enough to know three things: a) he didn’t want to be in such a competitive atmosphere; b) his odds would have been low (like anyone else’s) anyway; and c) he can be successful in a much wider range of institutions than some of the paranoid elite-college chasers believe they can be.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly. But why?</p>
<p>The words are actually used to define each other, and yet, to some extent, they are almost antonyms. But not. It’s an interesting question, really.</p>
<p>I wonder what the origin of Fate is and what the origin of Destiny is.</p>
<p>Another example, If you don’t like the fact Masters exclude women, go play on other tournaments.</p>
<p>^
And you can save your consumer dollar by not sending in the $80? application fee to a college that you don’t agree with it’s policies. PLENTY of schools will be clammering for your dollars.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your analogies make no sense and are not relevant to the point you are trying to make.</p>
<p>poetgrl: you know who the Fates are, right? Spinning our destinies? Isn’t that how it works? </p>
<p>I’ll think about this. Right now it’s cocktail hour at Walden Pond.</p>
<p>tigerdad: I get it. I agree with your posts.</p>
<p>sally,</p>
<p>My analogies makes perfect sense and is relavent,
Some organizations which have huge amount of resources and media coverage, (or highly recruited by many companies) puts extra entry barrier on a group, when the people of that group complain they say “If you don’t like our rules, don’t apply. You have plenty of other options.”</p>
<p>You’d be surprised how much motivated kids can do- and have friends, fun and family closeness. Many are great time managers. And don’t juggle all balls simultaneously. There are great kids out there. And some not as great as they think.</p>
<p>
More like “If you don’t like sitting in the back of a bus, boycott the bus company.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How dare you introduce demonstrably correct data into this nest of unsubstantiated opinions!</p>
<p>Well, look who popped up???</p>
<p>I am honored that it was my comment that heralded the return of annasdad!</p>