<p>Curmudgeon, I know that guy. He was looking for his dream car. His favorite cousin has a Corolla and loves it. That guy tried but he couldn’t get the two dream cars he saw on TV, and then he remembered how happy his cousin is with the Corolla. He looked at the Corolla and he liked it just fine; there were a lot of nice things about the Corolla and it was way more fun and cool than the old bicycle that provided his transportation before.</p>
<p>He’s getting the Corolla and driving it for a year or so. If the Corolla really does not work out, he will try a different car. He feels comfortable with his decision.</p>
<p>I’ll bit, mini. Dallas Baptist does not belong on that girl’s list. Yes, it’s in the neighborhood (literally), but in my 28 years of living in Dallas I never met a single high schooler who was going to apply there for undergraduate school. People in Dallas tend to do some graduate work there. Obviously, they DO have undergraduates, but not people who are also looking at Harvard and Rice. This is a real shame. I bet that girl could have gotten big bucks from SMU or Baylor, at the very least.</p>
<p>Zoosermom- LOL. That was my IMMEDIATE reaction (re: Wisteria Lane). Where’s Carlos?</p>
<p>I hope someone seeks her out and gives her some decent advice…maybe she can get in somewhere else this year or transfer next year. Her list was initially amusing to me, but then it’s sad to think that she’s a 1st gen student who did not get good advice. (I mean, my kid’s GC is just as bad, but he has a mom who lives on CC!)</p>
<p>Is it possible that Gabrielle Solis had more schools on her list and that the journalist picked her absolute safety for … shocking purposes? Rejected by Harvard and hoping for admissions at DBU? That is a sure way to get the attention of readers. </p>
<p>People familiar with Dallas will notice that there were no real examples from Highland Park or St Mark’s but only generalities. It would have been nice to read about how well those last two schools fared in the past five or ten years and compare their performance. Seeing the difference between a school that relies heavily on ranking its students and one that does not would have been a lot more instructive. Of course, nobody wants to ruin the dreams and illusions of the proud residents of the Dallas Shangri-La aka 75205. See [Most</a> Expensive Zip Codes: 75205, Estate of the Day - Luxist](<a href=“http://www.luxist.com/2008/04/04/most-expensive-zip-codes-75205-estate-of-the-day/]Most”>http://www.luxist.com/2008/04/04/most-expensive-zip-codes-75205-estate-of-the-day/) for a little FYI.</p>
<p>Newspapers have to package and sell sensational news. Converying valuable information is not necessarily high on the list of priorities.</p>
<p>PS Duncanville is a suburb of Dallas and is hardly comparable to a gang-infested inner-city zone.</p>
<p>An observation not realated to Dallas Baptist. The skipping 2 grades may have hurt. There is a maturity issue for schools. Being 16 vs 18 is a big difference at this time of life as opposed to 35 vs 37, and schools rarely like to accept people who are too young. The exceptions of course are true prodigies like a 10 year old who has worked his or her way through Tensor Calculus, one who writed symphonies.</p>
<p>Even if her list did include more schools than Harvard, Rice and Dallas Baptist, this student was still poorly advised. In the entire applicant pool, there is not one student for whom a denial by Harvard should come as “a shocker.” And skipping two grades as a hook, in and of itself? C’mon. If no one disabused Ms. Solis of either of these notions, she was poorly advised. And this high school is in a high-income community, I gather. Wow.</p>
<p>Still, it’s no great mystery that getting into Harvard is very, very difficult. Might a denial come as a disappointment? Sure. But a shocker? No. It doesn’t set the bar very high to expect a high school counseling office to have the expertise to transmit that simple piece of information.</p>
<p>Wjb, unfortunately, as thousands of stories would confirm, guidance counselor in one heck of a misnomer. The quicker people realize that the GC is the weakest link in the entire application process the wiser they’ll be. </p>
<p>It’s a fair assumption that between today and Christmas, most valedictorians at the 30,000 high schools in the country will be told about being a shoo-in at Harvard, half of them told they’d go to Harvard for free because of the new plans, and a substantial number that they’d get MERIT aid. </p>
<p>Of course, it does not have to stop at valedictorian … throw the same advice at your top 10% and pretty soon you have a few hundred thousand shoo-ins that will be shocked by the rejection. </p>
<p>However, all of them will leave high school with a high self-esteem and stories for their children of how they almost made it at an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>I happen to believe that any guidance counselor- public or private school- who isn’t reading this forum every day is negligent. (I am serious) I don’t think there is a better way to keep up with information about admissions and the culture at the various schools. Granted, it is skewed towards the upper 150 or so schools, but information can be requested about others. There is a certain amount of cr#p to sort through, but really not much compared to many other internet forums (thanks, Mods).</p>
<p>“However, if guidance counselors did post here, then we wouldn’t need to be here.”</p>
<p>Would we not have to be here to help them understand the process and show them the right way? It’s takes one heck of an assumption to think their posts would contain the correct information. It’s good to remember that most of the knowledge of GC is truly local and regional. They know how it works for students at Waxahachie High looking at UT Austin or Baylor. Tulane or ASU might very well be on another planet.</p>
<p>There are also counseling issues for those not bound for a CC or traditional 4 year college. I know some folks whose son was interested in a technical school. The parents were really leery since some of those places advertise on TV, etc. The counselor was no help in trying to sort out the reputable places from the others.</p>
<p>I’m laughing xig, but I should be crying. I really like my D’s GC but she was the single most overwhelmed person I’ve ever met. She needed a staff of three. She had one. With the work pushed on a Texas public GC they have zero time to spend keeping updated on the college needs of 3-20-50 kids a year. Weakest link maybe, but it’s not always their fault. Something has got to give . At D’s school it was OOS and/or private admissions (other than 2-3 relatively local privates) that were by necessity unstudied. I would have had to do the same. We were thankful for the time she did give us (which was more than anyone else received).</p>
<p>Most public school guidance counselors are trying to meet the needs of 400, 500, maybe more kids. Their first job is keeping kids in school, passing classes, graduating and out of trouble. Yes, they ought to be reading this site but they’re probably at their own kid’s soccer game right now or scrubbing the bathroom or studying for the final in their grad class.</p>
<p>dragonmom, I know how many kids they have. That was why I posted. My point was that the GC may have 500 kids, but she only has 3 (20-50) that could go to ________(fill in the prestigious school of your choice).</p>
<p>Please do not bash guidance counselors. They cannot replace parents. They should never be expected to know what you do about your child. Most of them have too large and diverse a load to be knowledgeable about half the information you have studied on behalf of your child, much less wasting time sifting through tons of irrelevent CC posts. Consider the duties of GCs- meetings with students of every ability level to steer them to post HS life, meeting with students to plan their HS schedule, needing to have the pulse of their school and community- teachers, courses, classes, students… I’m sure any GC could come up with more than I know of.</p>
<p>How do they calculate the “top 10%” in Texas? Is it a formulaic combination of standardized tests and GPA?" Straight administered standardized state tests or some combination? Are the GPAs all unweighted or all the GPAs weighted by APs? Is it top 10% or top 10? You could have kids in one district in the top decile but they might be in the second or third decile in a different district. I’m really curious exactly how they calculate it since all districts are very different (at least in my state). The idea of this is intriguing as some people would like the concept of a numerically driven acceptance program but I cannot imagine how it is fairly equalized across an entire state and administered.</p>
<p>my son is top 10% and going to UT-Austin. In his case it is based on the GPA and ranking used by our school… A weighted GPA . That I know.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that it is simply the top 10% class ranking of every HS, withour regard to SAT etc… however each HS is relatively free to choose how they rank ( I believe).</p>
<p>I dont know what is donr if a school doesnt rank, though I am not aware of any.</p>