<p>Sorry, by #5 I meant he was our fifth child to go to college. All the others’ are out however, so FA doesn’t look at that at all. His school does not report rank, but they can see from the school profile that they publish he is in the middle. Most large colleges know it’s a rigorous school with no grade inflation but some merit scholarships have strict gpa requirements. His 2220 is enough to get him a merit at many schools but his gpa is not. He was so excited to get his score, and even though he is studying much harder it is very hard to overcome a lackluster Fr & Soph year and the first half of Jr is over as well. He is looking at choosing a couple of harder classes next year but again not sure it will help. Nice time to decide that he’d like to go to a competitive college!</p>
<p>O–see my previous example. But nonetheless, there’s a reason why
is worth saying rather than a matter of course.</p>
<p>And now I’ll stop digressing this thread, as I left the race #N thread for good reason.</p>
<p>K - There is almost always a reason why. It didn’t occur to me that anyone thought these things occurred in a vacuum.</p>
<p>OK…final results for DS:</p>
<p>SAT: 2250
SATII: Math II 740, Spanish 800
GPA: 3.4 UW, 3.8 W
APs: AB Calc (4) AP Spanish (5), IB Math Studies(7), USGOV (4), IB Physics SL(6), AP English (4)
currently taking:
IB spanish native speaker, IB CompSci HL, IB Art HL, AP English Lit, AP Calc BC, </p>
<p>FULL DISCLOSURE HOOKS: Applying for BFA in Fine Arts with some regional and national awards and very good portfolio; URM ( both parents with college degrees and not eligible for FA). For most of the BFA programs, the portfolio is what gets you admitted but the grades/scores really help with $$$. </p>
<p>Accepted with scholarships: RIT, OSU (declined), VCU, SAIC (declined),
Accepted and awaiting awards (fingers crossed): UWMadison, MICA, CMU
Accepted and declined: WUSTL
Rejected: Yale</p>
<p>Still trying to decide. It will be driven by $$. Not being eligible for financial aid does not make one impervious to the educational value/cost tradeoff. </p>
<p>The only place that we think the URM made a difference was OSU and RIT that explicitly tied some scholarships to URM status.</p>
<p>The other positive results were explicitly (by conversations or correspondence from admissions officers) tied to his portfolio, scores and grades/coursework (unusual combination for art student) and in one case, his essay because it was so unusual and funny. Very selective schools (WUSTL, Yale, CMU) were far more interested in first generation URMs because it is recognized that they have had to overcome more barriers to educational opportunities. These schools have plenty of qualified URMs to choose from so they don’t bump much for just being a URM but have the luxury to look at the whole package. </p>
<p>State schools, on the other hand, really want to have numbers that reflect their state population and have trouble recruiting qualified URMs and so offer scholarships to top scoring URMs. The failure of the secondary school system to get more URM children to be college-ready is what drives the “bump” for URM qualified kids applying to state and moderately competitive schools.</p>
<p>^^^
Good work!
Financial considerations aside, does your son have a first choice?</p>
<p>Congrats to your S, fineartsmajormom.</p>
<p>DS strongly prefers CMU. Tied for second would be Wisc, VCU and MICA but they have very different benefits/costs. What we have learned is that it is almost impossible to double major or even minor with a BFA–so not the huge benefit of going to top ranked U as we would have thought. It is all about the art…</p>
<p>S1 just came back from Caltechs Prefrosh Weekend. The trip accomplished two things. First, he now can see himself succeed at Caltech. Caltech is not as bad as I had thought and it is the best in academics, were his words. It was a bit daunting after the speaker asked for valedictorians to stand up, most of the prefrosh students stood up. Second, his interview with a prominent lab director there went so well that he was promised an internship on the spot!</p>
<p>He will not be able to attend UChicago’s overnight program this week because of a schedule conflict, but still would like to see the school before making a decision. The full-ride NMF scholarship he received at UMass Amherst Commonwealth College this weekend threw a monkey wrench into the already complicated decision process.</p>
<p>In the meantime, he submitted an update package to MIT to continue his quest for an admission spot there.</p>
<p>POSTED: Obstinate: Of course subjective factors matter. Of course white/Asian students get into schools like Columbia with less than a 4.0. But from an objective POV, your chances as a URM were significantly higher than your chances as a white/Asian. </p>
<p>Almost every year, someone posts something like this and states that his/her child was not admitted while a “lesser” student was admitted because of URM issues. </p>
<p>Admissions is much more than a sterile review of numbers on black and white screens or sheets which depict little of the personality or character of the teenage applicant. And, too often people think the great score on an SAT elevates their child to ranks with the “best” even though acknowledging their child’s grades are “borderline great.” The numbers do not lie – for the slots available to the T20 – if numbers alone were the game – only those who had SAT scores in the 99th percentile would be admitted. Remember, slots are left open for the musicians, athletes, artists . . . so anyone who is not a virtuoso, future pro player or Picasso, the admission staff must send you into a pile where any of 10-20 similar students are equally good. But, 19 of the 20 must be bumped. So, the sifting involves something more – it may be really important, or totally irrelevant. But, that fact which separates the admitted from the rejected is evidence of a difference – and that difference (not the black and white sheet of numbers) determines admissions. </p>
<p>Now that we are in April, and I assume many of the people in this thread have received rejections, I hope the self esteem of 17-18 year olds survives. And remember, they were in a pool of 20 where literally 18 others received the same response. It was probably the toughest competition they ever entered, and may be the toughest they will ever enter. And, the rejection letter is not defeat. It is merely a reflection that their “quirk” or unique characteristic was not what rang a tune with the particular admissions counselor of their particular school on that particular day. And, to those who were admitted, consider it as much luck as talent. You easily could have been rejected. Few are slam dunks in the admissions arena of the T20.</p>
<p>And, in the end, think it was a lot more than URM that made that final decision. Was it fluky? Maybe. Was it arbitrary? Probably not. Was it fair? Probably yes. Was it worth the application? Absolutely.</p>
<p>Although your post is a general address, you began it by quoting me so I feel entitled to respond.</p>
<p>I am a student who will be attending my first-choice college, where I applied Early Decision; though I was rejected from an even more selective school, I do not think that my (Asian) ethnicity played ANY role in that particular decision. I will try to refrain from referencing my personal college decisions further, since I don’t “belong” on this thread and am here merely as an observer who is interested in educational theory.</p>
<p>The theory most relevant to this discussion is the idea of “crafting a class,” in which I wholeheartedly believe. My personal views on affirmative action are complex and not particularly relevant; suffice to say that I accept the status quo which grants particular consideration to URMs (as much was openly admitted by Stanford’s former admissions dean in the book 100,000 ADMISSIONS DECISIONS, written a decade ago but I’ve no reason to think that this policy would change).</p>
<p>
I agree with the above cited statement in principle. However, I would place the emphases differently: having URM status is a “hook” or “tip” granted by sheer luck. No one chooses the race or ethnicity they are born into; nor, unlike with talent, can they nurture this inborn characteristic.</p>
<p>And so, in the end, it would ABSOLUTELY be more than just URM status that led to an acceptance over a waitlist or rejection. But it is also disingenuous to assume that a given URM student would also have been admitted sans this special designation. For instance, at many schools, URMs are given special review by a URM admissions counselor; maybe that day, the student’s story touched a counselor whose eyes would never have read the file otherwise. Maybe that day, the ED admitted pool was low on a student’s particular subset of URM, and so that characteristic becomes vitally important. And maybe that day, they didn’t need any more URMs but liked a student so much that he would indeed have been accepted for other reasons (outstanding musicianship, perhaps, at a time when that constituency is in need of filling).</p>
<p>No one can know. We can only look at data and say, with regard to general probabilities, that if all things are equal (theoretically; practically, this is impossible), a URM student will be preferred over a non-URM student by virtue of simple demographics.</p>
<p>Well …drum roll…final decision made. After receiving incredibly generous offer from MICA, full tuition waiver at VCU, …son chose to go to CMU (minor merit aid and outside scholarship). It seems the best fit for him with his tech/art mix and his desire to be at a university not just an art school. Pittsburgh also was attractive but VCU-Richmond was a very, very nice surprise and will be on the top of our list for D in a few years. If he were doing pre-med it would be a slam dunk to go to VCU and if he were doing computer science,…cmu would be an obvious choice…art is not so straight forward–VCU has a great program–as good or better than CMU but he chose CMU for the stuff outside of art, the other students, and the city. We are proud of his thoughtful decision making and excited to be heading to Pittsburgh in August! And…sorry K…I stand by that URM status for upper middle class kid is just not relevant for very competitive schools. Luckily he was rejected from Yale and this has provided lots of joy for the other Hispanic kid who did get into Yale from his school as well as a good friend and very white bread girl from a different public high school in the same county. The two acceptees are great students with strong ECs and have earned exceptionally high grades through sustained academic effort. They had similar test scores and curriculum as my son–my son took half his classes with the hispanic Yale acceptee and is of the same national origin. Art portfolio mattered but not as much as at other schoools, so basically he had very similar stats except the GPA which is lower than their 3.9 or so UW. </p>
<p>I really feel for minority kids who hear this constant “collective wisdom” about the bump from URM and inside it eats away at their self confidence and whether they belong in the college of their choice. I remember friends at Duke who sat in the back because they always felt that if they sat in the front and asked a dumb question all the students behind them would have a look on their face behind that showed “that student is only here because he/she is black”…remember this as you start college and think what a burden this places on minorities at a competitive school…Son is proud to be a rejectee and provide at least one counterexample of the “general probabilities” that K and other students rely on to undermine the sense of worth of their classmates of color. I could pay a significant chunk of CMU tuition for all the insensitive people (white and of color) who told me that my son was a slam dunk at Yale because of his test scores and hispanic heritage. He wished he had tried for more Ivies just so he could have been rejected by more of them so his friends going to Princeton, Yale, and Harvard could see that hispanic doesn’t make admissions officers blind.</p>
<p>fineartsmajormom, congrats on the decision. My older son is a happy comp sci major at CMU. At one point on accepted students weekend I escaped his techie stuff and went to see what the artists were up to and liked what I saw very much. (The architecture critiques on the other hand gave me the heebie-jeebies - I remember those experiences all too well still!)</p>
<p>After seeing fineartsmajormom’s post, I just have to come out and give my 1000th post to this thread :). I’m actually afraid of what PCM may do if she knows I’m now a “Senior Member” on CC.</p>
<p>First of all, a big congrats on CMU! It’s a great college. You and your son’s hard work paid off. Be proud and celebrate!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This almost brought tears to my eyes. Nobody, let alone a young girl, should be subjected to study in this kind of nasty environment. This reminds me of the disdained looks from the audience before Susan Boyle sang for the first time on BGT. </p>
<p>I tell my kids to ask questions if it helps them understand better, and that’s what the teachers are there for. I tell them don’t be afraid to ask questions, only be afraid of conscious ignorance. I tell them to keep their eyes on the big prize and not to worry about what other people think, because quite frankly when you perform well, most people would like to see you fail. There are no dumb questions, only dumb posturing.</p>
<p>fineartsmajormom - I’m happy to agree to disagree. “General probabilities” are just that–generalizations. Congratulations to your S on CMU!</p>
<p>
I concur completely. But given that my opinions were formed disregarding emotional impact, I can’t bring myself to lie (I believe what I believe, so it is a lie for me) to make people feel better. All I can do is try to present a nuanced discussion of a controversial issue and assure my URM friends that yes, being URM possibly did help them get into college; no, being URM does not define them and is far from their only good attribute.</p>
<p>there is this thing called white lie that would grease your social life.
like, do you really honestly want to know how you look with the haircut or the prom dress in your friends’ eyes in some nuanced way?</p>
<p>" All I can do is try to present a nuanced discussion of a controversial issue and assure my URM friends that yes, being URM possibly did help them get into college; no, being URM does not define them and is far from their only good attribute." That’s nuanced? Sounds like a declaration of “I am here solely for my ability, but you may be here at college (along with the amazing luck to be my friend), at least in part, as a accident of birth” …thank goodness you reassure them that you still like them for their many other good qualities…</p>
<p>BandD is right…you may be hurting your “friendships” with such statements. As I said, the statements from friends and colleagues about my S’s URM status were “insensitive”…I didn’t say that they were liars…I am quite sure they felt as honest as you do but I do think that they were remarkably obtuse about the implications of their statements…</p>
<p>With few exceptions, the kids on this thread as well as most kids who apply to highly competitive colleges are where they are due to an accident of birth whether it be the luck of being born in or immigrated to the US, to white middle class parents, raised in a good school district, and/or to be surrounded by English and books from a young age, …We all like to think that we are “successful” because of our abilities and who we are, but, let’s face it we are in large part the fortunate inheritors of many individuals’ hard work that came before us. Similarly, these same fortunate kids all face hurdles and challenges to overcome that aren’t always appreciated or apparent to others who have a superficial knowledge of their lives. Humility starts by recognizing that you don’t know everything about everybody.</p>
<p>We celebrate the achievements of the kids on this thread but we should take a moment to recognize the role played by their schools, teachers, their parents, grandparents, their neighborhoods and also dumb luck as well as their own hard work that got them to this point.</p>
<p>After a surprisingly lengthy decision cycle, S1 chose to attend Caltech over the other wonderful schools. Time to focus on the detailed financial aspect of his education!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well said! I’ve also told my kids that no matter how good you think you are, the decision makers are not obligated to choose you over other people. And if they choose you, be thankful, because they really don’t have to. Besides our own abilities, our success depends heavily on the good will and fairness of people we interact with.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well said, Mom! I’ve been trying to impart this point of view for years on the AA threads. I do think it’s easier to see this with longer life experience, but there are plenty of young 'uns on CC who do understand this, so I have to wonder what kind of influences (parental, cultural, school) create such a sense of self-righteousness about Who Deserves What, Who Has “Earned” What, and just how much promise and ability any particular virtual stranger has relative to the person making these declarations.</p>
<p>Excellent follow-up by PCP, as well. Glad to see that there are many parents who do not impart a sense of entitlement to their offspring.</p>
<p>fineartsmajormom, please notice that I’ve refrained from personal attacks. I would appreciate that you do the same.</p>
<p>I have not gotten anywhere based solely on ability. Nor has anyone that I know. We all benefit from different types of luck, good and bad. And no, I don’t think that it’s insensitive or rude to acknowledge URM status as a type of good luck.</p>
<p>I think it’s time for me to leave this thread, as I have said all that I intend to say; to repeat it needlessly would be a waste of everyone’s time.</p>
<p>“URM status as a type of good luck”</p>
<p>LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!</p>
<p>sorry, but that was funny. </p>
<p>you couldn’t possibly be serious?!?!</p>
<p>god help you if u are!</p>