<p>I have to agree with you Bel. Some of these colleges really are not so amazingly special, that it makes it very difficult to come up with something to make them think you think they are.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This:
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. ^ Students sound like marketing brochures, and speak in the 3rd person. :eek: Harvard/UPenn/CMU is a place where…(blah/blah) </p>
<p>No! They know their marketing materials far better than you do. They also are not looking for flattery. They are looking for personalization.</p>
<p>I will add that they best Why Uss? are answered by those who have visited the bleepin campus. Im turned off by parents who are willing to pay the full 4-year tuition but are too cheap to allow their students to go to either visits during app season or Hosting Days. Its a hell of a decision.</p>
<p>What I’ve noticed in my small sample is that a degree from an Ivy League school opens doors. My daughter graduated with an English degree from Dartmouth and is now working for Google. Would an English degree from another school land her there? Almost without exception every one of her coworkers has a degree from an Ivy. And my son who graduated from Brown last year with a CS degree was working a week after graduation at a start up company in Boston. I can’t help but think that these schools opened doors for them.</p>
<p>Beliavsky, it’s not ingratiation…it’s sincerity. It was not hard at all for my son to write “why X?” essays on his applications, because he had carefully chosen each school for the attributes he was seeking in his college education. He was honest and humble. In fact, going through this process led him to drop a couple of schools from the list because he couldn’t come up with a good reason to apply. It requires a certain discipline to go through the exercise of finding the answer, but this is a really basic strategy that people should apply in many areas of life, IMO.</p>
<p>His best friend, on the other hand–a kid whose essays I read–couldn’t answer the question for ANY of his schools. They were just Big Names in Elite Colleges. Even his parents couldn’t say why they appealed to him or them, apart from “the name has cachet and he will make good connections there.” It was no surprise to me that he got rejected or waitlisted from every single one of his top choices (meaning, 12 or so schools). And now, as he looks to leave his consolation-prize school, he can’t answer why about the one school he wants to transfer to (not surprisingly, it’s an Ivy).</p>
<p>Beliavsky- In few other countries do top universities depend on alumni contributions to grow their substantial endowments. U.S. schools do indeed value loyalty and generosity of their alumni. </p>
<p>Be taking the temperature of an applicants “interest” in the school, the adcoms begin the task of encouraging future financial benevolence. The system of donations is a basic tenet of the private colleges, and if they had not grown their endowments in the last century, they would not be able to offer amazingly generous financial aid to needy foreign and domestic students. </p>
<p>The schools are offering you incredible resources for future success, is it any wonder they in turn will ask for your support when you have succeeded financially, to ensure the future liquidity of the college?</p>
<p>There’s a lot of forgiving that happens in reviews. That’s the good part of holistic. </p>
<p>The Why Us? Is simply to see what the kid knows about the school or values or liked on his visit. How he envisions himself there. Personalize it. </p>
<p>I do think the name of your college can open a door. But as some poster once said, it’s up to you to then get thru that door.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This pretty much encapsulates the problem: In a poor economy where fewer new jobs are being created, a fresh graduate’s best chance at being noticed is to attend a school where companies are actively targeting college seniors. Sure, you might go elsewhere and be a great student, but your resume will be read by software and evaluated based on whether or not you managed to guess the exact keywords desired.</p>
<p>This perceived elite-school advantage, in turn, drives acceptance rates to continued new lows. Which only makes the job candidates all the more attractive, since they have been pre-selected under daunting competition.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think she had too many reaches on her list, thus the multiple rejections. I’m wondering who was telling her to apply to that many reaches with a 2160 and no hooks.</p>
<p>Well, then, if these colleges aren’t so amazingly special that you can’t figure out what makes them unique from the college one up or one down on the USNWR, why are you applying there in the first place?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because they are safeties. And no, they were not amazingly special. They had the attributes my S could have lived with if he hadhad no other options, but I don’t think that is what the colleges wanted to hear. “You are my last choice, I hope I get in somewhere else, but if I end up with just you, I can manage it.” That would have been his honest response to “why us?”</p>
<p>GA2012MOM:
</p>
<p>Her parents, very simply. </p>
<p>For example, one of my students, when her composite score increased to 2150 (mediocre e.c.'s, terrible writer with no imagination, one of top students at very mediocre public), immediately added Stanford to her already unrealistic list. I have not checked her results, because I have no doubt she was rejected by Stanford. Oh, and she hails from an overrepresented region for Stanford and all the other Elites.</p>
<p>Far too many parents are not in touch with reality, but particularly – sorry to be un-PC – immigrant parents from a certain region.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So, feel free to send your kids to those countries if you prefer those processes, Beliavsky. No one is forcing you at gunpoint to apply to US elite colleges. If you don’t want to be part of it, then don’t and godspeed!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>When I look at the salaries numbers by school at [PayScale</a> College Salary Report 2012-13](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/full-list-of-schools]PayScale”>http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/full-list-of-schools) , I am surprised at how little they vary . The average Harvard mid-career salary is $111K, and that for Boston College is $102K, and I’d bet that much of that difference is explained by Harvard grads being smarter on average, rather than the Harvard degree opening doors. Initial salaries are also closely bunched. For a mercenary IQ determinist, this means that the stakes are lower than people think :). Is there reason to believe PayScale understates earnings variation across schools? Maybe people making zillions as hedge fund managers or tech entrepreneurs don’t get counted by PayScale?</p>
<p>Too funny. You want a Duke or Chi and mind having to say why? That’s not a flaw in holistic.
That’s back to “you should want me. No questions asked. I sent you my stats.”</p>
<p>Almost every kid I know that just went through the process (my son is a senior) was stunned at how they fared in the admissions process. They all had many, many reaches on their list. Their parents did, in fact, encourage these students to apply to schools that they almost had no shot of getting in. In my average town no one that I know reads CC. They had no idea the competition was so tough.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If he couldn’t picture himself there, it was not a viable safety. By definition, one has to be able to identify redeeming features in order to envision oneself there.</p>
<p>So an honest response could have been, “I know I will feel comfortable on a campus with so many resources /such a friendly student body/ so many options for me in terms of majors and activities/so many opportunities for on-campus and off-campus leadership. I am so well-acquainted with this campus [having grown up so very near here, if relevant] that when driving/walking by I have often felt fortunate to be its neighbor.”</p>
<p>That’s ^ obviously for a local school.</p>
<p>For a distant, the student should be able to speak to many of the other above aspects, including possibly location as it relates to a major or a personal interest (music, art, local sports, some hobby).</p>
<p>A student I know got off the waitlist of a prestigious school by talking about how second-nature the campus was to her, so much so that it was a second home. (Not all she said, but a big part of the statement.)</p>
<p>Everybody has an imagination, Bay, but some people are too proud to discover it and to use it. Call me cold; I don’t have a lot of patience with them. It’s their next 4 years, NOT their parents’.</p>
<p>PG,
When you are paying $55K per year for a BA degree, it can be difficult to feel “privileged” to be able to go there, and ingratiate the college for allowing you the opportunity. </p>
<p>I know I am free to send my kid to cc or online college or whatever so that I don’t have to pay that amount. I’m saying that I am willing to pay it, but I don’t like it that the colleges might treat applicants as though they need to kiss *ss in order to get in. If ingratiation is not what they are looking for, then I am glad.</p>
<p>Is the “Why Us?” formula really that hard?</p>
<p>1) Here’s what I’d like to do academically in college.
2) College features X, Y, & Z would help me achieve these goals. (Try to make sure at least Z on this list is something somewhat unique to this school or something it takes particular pride in.)<br>
3) Outside the classroom, I like to do A, B, and C.
4) College has a really good group for [A, B, or C], and I can envision myself joining it and becoming an active participant on campus. Or maybe you even note that you’d like to start a group that does [A, B, or C] if your interests are unusual and not well represented on campus.
5) Closing paragraph to emphasize why I felt at home when on campus or some particular connection to place or program. </p>
<p>Now, obviously, you don’t want it to look rote, but that gives the adcom an idea of what this student would look like on his or her campus and how the student would contribute to the overall class they are trying to build. And you should be able to do that with a basic “Why Us?” framework and a couple of hours of research per school and some good campus visit notes.</p>
<p>epiphany,
I didn’t say my son could not picture himself there. He could. He just didn’t think it was any more special than most mediocre colleges. His response was along the lines of your example. I thought some were saying that was not the correct response.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This statement is flat-out false for the majority of businesses in this country. First of all, thousands of companies don’t “target college seniors” because they don’t have to. They either a) don’t have training programs that depend on a stable of recent graduates (a la Wall Street firms) or b) they get high-quality applicants without having to sell themselves at campus career fairs. And, as has been demonstrated ad nauseum on this site, a lot of hiring is REGIONAL, and even the golden glow of an Ivy pedigree does little or nothing for prospective candidates in most parts of the country. In my area, the state flagship has the most positive brand equity–my elite-university degree hasn’t helped me at all (nor has it hurt). The biggest and fastest-growing employer here, a tech company that hires a ton of entry-level recent college graduates, seems to prefer smart kids from LACs…maybe because the billionaire founder attended one (and not an especially “prestigious” one) herself?</p>
<p>The hysteria over “OMG, my kid has to get into an elite college or he will be living in our basement forever” is completely unfounded, and only serves to ratchet up the arms race. We are not talking about the difference between Harvard and Liberty University. We are talking about Harvard versus Lehigh or University of Florida or Occidental. Kids from all “levels” of schools (from Ivies all the way down to those which Bay would call “mediocre”) are getting jobs, and not.</p>