Too Many Choices????

crazed
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:09:53 +0000

DadII-
There are no guarantees. Top students are competing for spots with kids just like them. It helps to be a minority, in my opinion, and that is not just race, but location as well. We were told from the start that being a white jewish male from Long Island would hurt my son. Stats: Valedictorian, 1/400, 4.0 unweighted GPA, 13 AP’s (plus honors and 1 college class), interesting recs with leadership in all. Let it be told- great stats, great kid, but nothing to make him stand out from the other smart kids).
Son did not get in to Harvard (nasty interviewer that berated him for not applying to Columbia), JHU-no, UWSTL-waitlisted, Brown-Weightlisted (with excellent interview and by the way, the kid with lesser but close stats-non-jewish white kid from our school, got accepted which they both deserved, Stanford-no. All this and we did not need or qualify for financial aid. (Good acceptances- Berkeley, UVa, UNC, UMiami, MSU, BU, Tulane, Brandeis)
For your interest if money is a factor- UCB no merit, UVa no merit but was a Jefferson Scholar finalist, UNC no merit, BU no merit-even though he more than met qualifications listed on their website for great $, Miami- full ride (see web for specifics and qualifications), Tulane-22K, Brandeis 15K. (By the way, our school does the minimum to help the kids.) May have forgotten other schools to list. 14 in all.
Learned more for round 2 with next son from all this and the CC forum although it will not be as easy. I’ll likely list my quest for suggestions soon.
Good luck. Be careful of those “reach” schools that you think are a match. There is no such thing. Too many unknown factors. You’ll find kids on all these sites who were rejected from match and safeties. Location is big so use that for your advantage.