Turning the Tide- Rethinking College Admissions- a new report endorsed by many top Universities

Parents Forum
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@californiaaa “All humans are bound to suffer. I believe that certain amount of pressure is important for any human being, especially for adolescents. Athletics, academia, dating, peer pressure - this is all part of being a human. Ancient kings, pampered, sheltered from all pressure - they lived short and unhappy lives .”

I agree; I think some judicious tempering is good for kids. The hard part is figuring out what to protect them from and what to let them suffer through. It’s painful as a parent and for most of us our first instinct is to ferociously protect them against any and all threats. It’s such an anti-instinctual thing to do, but oh so necessary.

@compmom “I do think it is sad to read that some parents and kids don’t consider Ivies or selective schools because of the notion that they are stressful places with anxious accomplished robot kids.”

I’ll admit; the ivies really scare me-one of my friends got in to Harvard in the late 80s and she cracked up after freshman year. She was the prototypical Zoe: valedictorian of our class, worked twice as hard as anyone else, was incredibly stressed about doing everything perfectly. Couple that with Malcom Gladwell’s “David & Goliath” book where he talks about kids who pursue STEM at the ivies are 30% less likely to graduate with a stem degree because they feel “stupid” compared to their peers, and wow, it has both of us really leery of even considering the Ivies for our older daughter (a Chloe with some Flooey tendencies).

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I don’t know why you-all talk about the Ivies as though they are some special subset of the word of elite schools. They’re just a subset that happen to be linked together in an athletic conference. I wanted my kids to go to really excellent schools, which by my lights would be ~ top 30 or so on the two USNWR lists (and nothing drastic happens at #31). Ivies happen to be on those lists, but there’s nothing magical about them compared to the others. Oh gee, they’re better linked to Wall Street - yawn, irrelevant.

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My concern is not so much with the natural born Zoes. I know some of those (usually girls in my experience). Even if they choose to go to a college that does not require them to continue to be Zoes, they persist in their perfectionist ways and end up doing very well. My concern is with kids who are pushed to be Zoes because the school environment or parental expectations.

Lets add in a Moe. Moe is a bright, hard working kid, not necessarily aiming for Harvard but who wants to go to a Tufts or BC. She takes a rigorous curriculum, but does not take Kumon, or get tutored and spends her summer at Theater Camp, babysitting and traveling with her family, not taking summer enrichment classes. She was always top of the class and is friends with the Does and Zoes and even with Chloes. She gets to honors Chem and feels like she is immediately behind. She asks Zoe how she knows all this already and Zoe clues her in on the summer class most of the rest of the students took that summer. Similar happenings in some of her other classes. She now is pushed to be more of a Zoe and spend much more time on these courses. She knows that even getting into Tufts will not be possible if she doesn’t stay near the top of the class. So now she is pushed into tutoring or outside classes.

In my experience, most people recognize the Does and are happy for them when they get into a tippy top school. Just like they are happy for the super athlete who goes on to play in a D1 college. But I also think there are Zoes that present like Does - spinning that they never have to study. That seems to be the goal - be the top student but only study for ten minutes for any test. Not sure that is possible at a HS full of high achievers, for all but the very rare super Doe.

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Mother of Dragons, I think it depends on personality. Your daughter might be immune to the pressures once on campus at a selective school. If her temperament led her to be more relaxed during high school, the same would be true at college. I think these colleges are missing out on centered, grounded kids like yours because of the fear element. PM’ed you

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So many interesting ideas percolating up here. A couple really stick out…

  1. Is the goal of the elites to educate (or cultivate, or perhaps simply curate) the Does? (And by this, I mean not simply the really smart kids, but the freaks of nature -- the ones who win international math/chess/piano competitions.) Or is it to educate the Zoes, who are very bright but not geniuses, who have the drive and ability to make use of a good education and network of peers? Or the Chloes, who will probably succeed but on their own terms. Before you can really look at how admissions should be changed, you need to figure out what the goal is.
  2. Meaningful ECs mean something to the applicant, not necessarily to the world. Many people I know who work in higher ed, including admissions, have commented on how few kids have had jobs. And while flipping burgers is easy to demean, the kids who have had this kind of job have had to work with adults -- in many cases, ones unlike the ones they normally encounter (DS spent a fair amount of time with undocumented workers at his hourly job), serve customers the way their boss wants them served, adhere to a schedule that's not their own, prioritize tasks, be responsible, etc. These are real world skills, and one of the downfalls of the hyper-competitive set-up we have now, is that there's little time or means to garner/improve these. I'd argue that while smarts and drive are key to success, one of the biggest differentiators in many fields is people skills/emotional IQ (whatever you want to call it), and this is something that isn't developed in a classroom.

@compmom, I think it’s fine that families/kids don’t consider Ivies if they feel it’s not right for them because of the environment. Some kids do better when they’re at the top of the heap and may realize that this won’t be the case for them there. I think the “Excellent Sheep” concern is a real one for a lot of kids. There are so many other good academic options (including the honors colleges at publics), and factors – such as Greek life (or absence of it), geography, etc. – are important to some.

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I know those on cc are not a fan of hers, but Michelle is spot-on.

All of this report is window dressing. None of HYPSM et al will unilateral disarm from GPA/rank/test scores. (and quite frankly, I’m not sure that they should.)

The UCs love essays that overcome adversity, and quite frankly, its easy to make stuff up (which is unverifiable). Why would private schools want to go down that road?

momofmusician: yes, self-studying two disparate languages will get noticed. (But, I gotta say, there is something wrong with the way your HS weights GPA.)

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“And while flipping burgers is easy to demean, the kids who have had this kind of job have had to work with adults – in many cases, ones unlike the ones they normally encounter (DS spent a fair amount of time with undocumented workers at his hourly job), serve customers the way their boss wants them served, adhere to a schedule that’s not their own, prioritize tasks, be responsible, etc. These are real world skills, and one of the downfalls of the hyper-competitive set-up we have now, is that there’s little time or means to garner/improve these. I’d argue that while smarts and drive are key to success”

Ironically, thinking of those parents who are running mom-and-pop drycleaners, live above the store, and push their kids to study for hours on end every evening and weekend – their kids might have a more compelling “in” if they put down the cramming books and actually worked in the front lines of the drycleaner.

However, re the overpushed kid – you still have to lay tons of blame at the parents who think that only a handful of schools are worthwhile, simply won’t listen to any information about schools they hadn’t ever heard of, and engage in the pathetic nonsense that (say) Tufts or WashU is a “comedown” compared to Harvard.

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While the colleges no doubt have idealistic goals and honestly believe what they say, I don’t think many people believe them because their experience with who gets admitted from their high schools tells them not to. I have seen Chloes get admitted to Brown and Stanford, but only Zoes to HYPCM. Besides, there will always be the kid with 12 AP’s who takes care of her sick grandma after school whom they can accept over the kid with 6 AP’s who took care of grandma.

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Perhaps, but because it is all non-verifiable, it will be discounted by adcoms. There is no other way.

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“I have seen Chloes get admitted to Brown and Stanford, but only Zoes to HYPCM.”

HYPCM, Brown and Stanford are the SAME THING, TheGFG.

Why are you drawing distinctions between the two, as if the Chloes got into second-tier but only Zoes got into first-tier?
That mentality - that there is some kind of meaningful distinction or tiering - is as bad as the mentality of the Asian-American parents you are decrying.

Why on earth would you put HYPCM on some plane “above” Brown and Stanford? It’s really very odd.

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Getting into Harvard, or getting As at Harvard, or getting a great job, or getting a great promotion, it is all a matter of al lot of hard work and focus and planning (including figuring out how the game is played, and doing what it takes). So while Does are fascinating creatures, without a great work ethic, they will not necessarily succeed (beyond the 10 or 20% of people who do not live up to their potential, due to real issues out of their control or sometimes a realization that THEY don’t want to run a lifelong rat race).

The kid with 12 APS, those exist … and they should take their 12 APs and other snowflakes should pursue athletics + academics, or athletics to recruited level, or founding a charity, or doing medical research in 9th grade.

I do think the number of people who can combine 12 vigorous AP classes with time consuming ECs, including the 2-3 hour athletic practices, are way limited, so some choices need to be made and you need to pick one or possibly two “hooks”, not pursue everything for every child.

I think it is part of parenthood to go to your kids rooms at midnight and just turn out the lights and the computer and make them go to bed. Sure, if there is a big project, they can stay up late … with a later talk on time-management, and there can be negotiated late bed times … but well, midnight is late, 10pm is even better. There are myriad of statistics to show that lack of sleep causes poor performance and is deterimental to physical and mental health, so why would you allow this behavior … especially once stress is obviously noticeable to an engaged parent.

OK, so you pare down the AP classes or the ECs or the texting … and then you see where your kid lies in the scheme of things (and life is not always predictable or fair, in a really good year, some schools have 20+ Does and the next year they have 5, and HYPS+ will probably not accept all 20s). So you build a strategy of reaches, matches, safeties, merit scholarships, etc.

There are things much worse in life than getting a merit scholarship to your state’s flagship or even school #2 or 3 in your state or some private schools and doing really, really well because you have a bank of AP credits and a good understanding of subjects, good work ethic, good work habits. That 20 page essay or the 3x a week essay, check, will make college liberal arts classes easy, make you write better emails, better reports, better presentations, better proposals. That BC calc class, check, get through engineering or deep STEM early classes with a 4.0 and through the engineering classes with high grades because the math is just a tool, not a challenge. That EC you founded or chaired, that is a good start to running a business or a department at your employer. Sports may be the weakest one, but maybe you can lead your companies division to a softball championship.

I think job counting as an EC is fair, although unlikely to really improve odds of your special snowflake from high SES and high performing school … and many people would rather have their kids do something interesting or even fun than earn 8 an hour … if their parents are making 10x that, it is not that important (although if jobs=EC, some people could start out their college financing in better position).

I also wanted to point out that getting a great financial aid package so that you can avoid the flagship public cost, well, that is a big deal, could be worth 100K or more. So special snowflake may have to have some tutoring, etc, it is a good investment. Harvard without huge loans … unbelievable deal … should be competitive.

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“While the colleges no doubt have idealistic goals and honestly believe what they say, I don’t think many people believe them because their experience with who gets admitted from their high schools tells them not to.”

That kind of “experience” can only be had in affluent suburban high school districts and elite privates in the first place where there is enough of a base to draw any kind of conclusion about who gets admitted to elite schools. This probably represents fewer than 1,000 schools out of the 30,000+ high schools in the US. So, no, “most people” don’t have this kind of basis of experience. Only those parents whose kids are already on third base to begin with.

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“think it is part of parenthood to go to your kids rooms at midnight and just turn out the lights and the computer and make them go to bed. Sure, if there is a big project, they can stay up late … with a later talk on time-management, and there can be negotiated late bed times … but well, midnight is late, 10pm is even better. There are myriad of statistics to show that lack of sleep causes poor performance and is deterimental to physical and mental health, so why would you allow this behavior … especially once stress is obviously noticeable to an engaged parent.”

Completely agree. There’s this gnashing of teeth - oh my kid has to be on the treadmill. Really? No, you can make your kid step off the treadmill. Nothing stops a parent. NOTHING. Well, except maybe the parent’s ego being too wrapped up in where the kid goes, or being the kind of parent who worries about what the neighbors will think. Blech.

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Someone please translate Zoe and Chloe and whoever. Out of the loop here.

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Yawn. The report does seem to be window dressing. It would if have been much more interesting to see a consortium of elite schools perhaps agree to:

Stop reporting to USNWR (like Reed College)

Drop the Common App (like Georgetown)

Increase transparency by publishing redacted annotated admission files and returning annotated admission files to the applicants.

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PG, you misunderstood. I was not separating the schools into tiers. Besides, Stanford has been tying H for #1 in the rankings the last few years.

I meant that I think those 2 schools look for different qualities in kids that enables them to pick more Chloes. Stanford likes to see risk-taking and an entrepreneurial spirit, so they accept failure and leaving the beaten path better–like a bad grade or two, or that lower level but interesting-to-the-kid class. Brown, with its open curriculum really likes kids like the self-studying Japanese and French CC parent’s D.

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Epiphany: Go back to Post #80 with Zoe and Chloe and grew from there.

arwaw: No way the schools will ever return annotated files to students. What is in it for them? Or for the student who either dispute the interpretation, be crushed to find out their file was considered unoriginal, or be upset because they were in the OK to admit pile, but their adcom didn’t push enough for them to actually get admitted.

Why does dropping the Common App help all that much? Because kids would have to fill out a multitude of forms with the same basic information? Not that hard to copy from one to another with a computer. And the general essay would be the same. Most of the top colleges already require supplemental essays.

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@Pizzagirl I think we all can see by now that for the Zoe parents, “Ivies” means HYPS and sometimes MIT. Anything else is a disappontment:(.

@epiphany in short, Zoe is the over scheduled packaged kid who must go to an Ivy. Chloe does nearly as well acedemically but focuses on what she likes. Doe is a mix of the two, or a natural that does what they want, scores are tops, and all the schools will want her.

If schools gave a hoot about the quality of service, they would require a rec from it. My kids do one thing: food pantry. Each year i go to the holiday party their coodinator throws. They are the only teens there. The adults rave about how consistent they are, how hard they work, and what great kids they are…and how most teens come infrequently and spend the whole time texting, The coordinator wrote S1 a supplemnetal rec, which I presume said something like that. Very few schools even WANT that rec…but they do want 2 teachers recs?

Lip service is all this is. If they cared to find out, the schools could.

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Aren’t these in direct conflict? (Hint: nearly all of the info that USNews needs is on the Common Data Set, which most folks around here think should be made public in the interest of greater transparency.)

Again, that only hurts the poor and kids who are first gen. (Hint: any connection as to why Georgetown has a lot of full pays? First it was requiring 3 subject tests, and now a separate app…hmmmmm))

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@Pizzagirl and @PickOne1 have hit on what is one of the hugest challenges of parenthood – letting your kid be who he/she is and wanting the best for them. Yes, you can give them help on time management. You can give them the lecture on why their grades will matter when they apply to college (but that high school doesn’t simply exist as a big test for college but as an experience in and of itself). If the choices that they make are okay put perhaps not the ones you would have liked and the result is options they don’t love, well that’s a really tough life lesson. As someone who is living a version of this story now with a senior, I can tell you that the process of reconciling myself to this truth has been, and continues to be, long and difficult. I’ve provided good counsel and support throughout, and I hope that DS knows that I’ll always be there for him with that, but that he is the one who has to manage himself.