My daughter laments that after everything she is which is absolutely incredible that it isn’t enough for what she perceives to be the best colleges. . It is a sad day when a student who takes almost all AP courses just because of the depth they provide, pursues music at every opportunity because its a passion, never had anything but a great score on a standardized test and just pretty much always knocks it out the park. But this isn’t the kid who is student body president or wins robotics competitions and publishes research at age 15. There is plenty of time for those things later I tell her. No matter how logical her brain is, and how hard we drive the message she still feels that she isn’t good enough. My D will do fine in life and go to a great college and have a successful career. She is hard wired that way. But it kills me that she feels this way.
@Veryapparent - good post, here’s the thing though - even students that won robotics competitions don’t get into HYPS. A lot of students will get rejected for things they have no control over - their ethnicity, skin color, their parents going to college, their parents have good paying jobs, not being legacy. The other thing to convey to your daughter is that adcoms are human and so make mistakes, like lots of them. You shouldn’t let flawed individuals determine self worth.
Next - grad school has been found to be much higher correlated to success (however you want to define that) than undergrad. There is no evidence that going to a prestigious school for undergrad has more material benefits than a less prestigious one. For grad schools, that’s not the case, there’s a big difference between a top 20 grad school and say a top-50. And grad schools don’t have hooks, except for b-school, so if grad school is in her future, it’s much more important to attend a top school than undergrad and if she does well there, will totally change the dynamic wrt her undergrad peers at the best colleges.
There’s also the chip on the shoulder theory - students that get rejected from the top schools have a chip on their shoulder that says, even though I didn’t get in, I am as good if not better, and I will prove it.
Actually that is entirely wrong…about the undergrad. Study’s show that student who were ACCEPTED to prestigious schools do just as well as those who actually attended. So if you start with diamonds in the rough you get diamonds …and even then, top schools dominate the top grad school acceptances which of course is circular since those ACCEPTED to prestigious schools tend to do well…
I know about that study - it basically proves my point- it’s the student, not the school that matters. We have three MBAs from Harvard, two from Kellogg, in our group - four went to public schools undergrad, the fifth a military school. It’s anecdotal I know, but I’ve been in silicon valley a while, and haven’t run into too many ivy undergrads. I think they like to stay on the east coast where the university they attended matters more rather than what they can actually do.
@CU123 From my understanding, those studies also showed that students not accepted to prestigious schools but had equivalent stats as those that were accepted did just as well. That’s an important difference when top schools (and programs) are reporting acceptance rates at 5% or lower.
@Veryapparent: I would try to convince a kid like your D that if she stays driven, she will do well no matter where she goes for undergrad.
Honestly, I’m of the opinion that HS is the most formative time in terms of development. And yes, when it comes to JD and MBA programs, ranking/reputation matters a lot more.
Convincing her may be tough to do because teenagers are very short-term-focused, but I do believe in what I said.
Plus, all 30 schools I have as Ivy/equivalents only have enough slots for 1% of the US college population. And with holistic admissions, maybe half those slots are for hooked applicants while the other half may not be allocated in a “fair” manner (what they want may not be the same as what you have to offer).
Plus, schools abroad (like Oxbridge and other top unis in the UK/Canada/elsewhere) are much more focused on academic prowess in admissions. Something to keep in mind.
Finally, kids in the US may look down on some school that is about #25 in the US, but roughly half of the world’s top 50 are American.
A school like Cal or UMich is one of the top unis in the world an one that a ton of kids across the world want to attend and may even have the academic chops to attend but can not because of finances, so she really should count herself lucky as she’s already won the lottery simply by being given the opportunity to grow up in the US.
@shortnuke sorry here is a quote from the article is says accepted, and in my estimation it shows that the applicant is motivated enough to apply and get accepted, plenty of high stat kids who are not highly motivated (myself included when I was that age :-? )
“Here, however, is what was explosive: Dale and Krueger concluded that students, who were accepted into elite schools, but went to less selective institutions, earned salaries just as high as Ivy League grads. For instance, if a teenager gained entry to Harvard, but ended up attending Penn State, his or her salary prospects would be the same.”
@CU123 And plenty of motivated, high-stat kids apply to but get rejected by these schools even though they are indistinguishable from those that are accepted. Other takes on the Dale and Krueger study that I’ve come across don’t mention acceptance at all. For example:
“On the whole, the pair found that once you took into account where students applied to college, actually attending a more selective institution, measured by factors like their average SAT scores and guidebook rankings, didn’t increase their earnings after graduation. In other words, if a young woman was smart, hard-working, or plain-old ambitious enough to take a shot at Princeton, but ended up going to Wesleyan or Georgetown or Northwestern or Xavier instead, her income didn’t suffer.”
My kid was an average excellent kid in top 5%, and he got into Stanford REA. He realizes many students possess different, stronger talents than him. I think that quality of appreciation of others’ strengths made him stand out to admission reviewers. He basically told me he is not number one in anything in his school. He’s just trying to take advantage of opportunities around him to become the best version of himself. I hope he succeeds.
@shortnuke all those schools mentioned (e.g. Northwestern Wesleyan) are top private schools with very little differentiation from Princeton to begin with.
@websensation I find it hard to believe you have an average excellent student who was accepted REA to Stanford, you are either selling them way short in there accomplishments or they had some type of hook. JMHO
Average excellent students often get into HYPSM. That was my point. It’s in the eye of a beholder. If I was selling my kid short, I would not be sending my kid to Stanford on full pay, let alone apply there. Awesome excellent students are often unable to convince admission officers of HYPSM that they should be admitted. Being an average excellent student is nothing to sneeze at. My kid’s exceptional quality may be he is able to see and appreciate others’ strengths. You may not be impressed by his academic prowess but you will end up liking him after you spend some time with him imo. I don’t think I am under selling my kid at all; I think he had a good chance to get into Yale also had he applied there. I am sorry but I am telling you the truth that he was not among the best science, math, history or writers at his high school. But again, he had good inside and outside school ECs. But again some kids from his high school who breeze through every class with high As or A+s were all rejected from Stanford. That’s a fact. What can I say. Absolutely no hooks of any kind.
I have known a number of completely unhooked kids who have been accepted at top tier schools. I have known far more who have been rejected. There really is a lottery element. Sometimes things just click for an adcom, and a deserving - though not “extraordinary” kid gets accepted. So if you have the #s - give it a shot, but think if it as the slim chance it is
Since you hit on my soapbox, what the second Krueger study found was kids who applied to elite schools, did as well as the kids who went there. So the Harvard rejects should do just as well as the Harvard admits, who didn’t attend, or the Harvard grads.
@websensation clearly perfect stats are not what they are looking for as top schools have said that many times, I absolutely believe that the ECs you mention are what differentiated your son. Yes beauty is in the eye of the beholder but don’t sell your son short on academics.
@roethlisburger ok so I have a 22 ACT, and a 2.9 GPA, and I applied to Harvard. I’m going to do just as well as a Harvard grad… =;
@CU123 You read the article. You know the caveat was that the students evaluated had the stats to be competitive. Are you seriously going to argue now that a student with a 4.0 UW GPA and 1500 on the SAT that gets accepted to HYPS but decides to attend their state flagship has a statistically better chance of success than a 4.0 UW GPA and 1500 SAT score that gets rejected but attends the same state flagship?
@shortnuke Read what @roethlisburger wrote and tell me where he mentions high stats…
I absolutely agree that anyone accepted to HYPS has an equal chance of being “successful” (whatever that means) no matter what university they attend. I think I have been consistent on that.
@CU123 In referring to the Krueger study, I believe that @roethlisburger assumed that the high stats were understood. (in the same way that I assumed I didn’t have to copy an entire article that mentions many other good, but not top schools in #107).
You have been consistent regarding students that were accepted, and in doing so seem to imply that a student with similarly high stats that was rejected would not have an equal chance of success. The most selective schools simply can’t operate on that level. They have too many applicants and too high of a yield to be able to do so.
@shortnuke I don’t doubt that similarly high stat students that were rejected by all the top schools can/will do as well. It’s just that the study doesn’t really say/ prove that. It’s much easier to track all students accepted to these schools and see how they did, because they met a certain threshold. There are many students (fully half that apply that really aren’t competitive) and these you can’t account for in such a study. Really this is why you see ever increasing competition for these schools, because, if admitted, you have been “identified” as a top student, and that means something. The rest is up to the student.