That even if a humanities oriented kid who got a 32 ACT goes to an underfunded school where the average ACT is 19, he will be challenged in every class and subsequently admitted into the best grad schools in the country.
On that note, honors colleges are extremely separate from the broader culture of the university.
– that we all, at all times, have something valuable to say and, by gummy, why hold ourselves back? Ha.
There’s really an awfully wide variety of views on CC, even if you ignore the kids and limit yourself to people over 21 who actually have some experience of higher education. It’s not too difficult to find someone who “romanticizes” just about anything, but that doesn’t mean that everything “is romanticized” on CC. In general, I find that positions with which I disagree are romanticized, and positions with which I agree are dealt with in a straightforward, realistic manner. But I assume that’s everyone’s experience.
It’s hard to find things that are universally romanticized, or nearly so. The most important ones are that it matters whether you go to college, and that it matters which college you go to. Seriously, who would spend more than 10 minutes on this site if they didn’t believe one or both of those?
But JHS, there are always shoes! And MOG/MOB dresses! 
A few other things that are widely, but not universally, romanticized:
– “Merit” as something human beings can assess in one another without knowing each other well.
– My child’s sobriety and chastity, in contrast to everyone else’s children.
– The efficacy of test prep.
Sometimes I feel that the power of nude fishnet hosiery is romanticized 
Nude fishnet hosiery? Not an oxymoron? Or two?
Until this very moment, nude fishnet hosiery has never entered my consciousness, much less been romanticized there. It’s having a hard time getting a perch.
Everyone reads a different board…
Only because of this board, I have considered the possible usefulness of nude fishnets. And wolford tights.
Expensive High Schools
Expensive Summer Programs
Expensive Test Prep
Expensive College Counselors
…and after all of that insisting that top schools are completely overrated and unnecessary and that only fools pay for their children to go to expensive colleges…
The idea that what the college is really looking for is what happens to be strong in my application, and that they don’t care all that much for the things that are weak in my application.
I think the power of essays, in particular, is romanticized.
That’s very interesting. I actually think the essays are make-or-break because there’s only so many times one can see high SAT scores, student council positions, tennis team captains, etc. before one’s eyes glaze over. I think they are the modes of differentiation, because colleges are admitting people, not numbers.
I think essays are frequently the tiebreaker, but a lot of kids are deluding themselves about whether they have the measurables and ECs to get to the tiebreaker.
What I’ve heard Adcoms say when they came to our high school is that perhaps 10% of the essays are so awful they keep a kid out, 10% are so wonderful and really show something that is above and beyond the rest of the application and the vast majority don’t make a big difference - as the personality and achievements of the student has already come through on the rest of the application.
I believe that the essays may well have made a difference for my younger son. He didn’t have perfect grades or scores, and while I believe his teachers said nice things about him, I think his essays showed his creativity, sense of humor and potential intellectual gifts better than the rest of his application. My older son I think wrote a pretty good for an engineer essay, I doubt it made much difference.
As for what CC romanticizes it seems to be a very contradictory list. But perhaps we all romanticize the notion that the college years are VERY important.
Essays can be make or break, but if a kid is in the lower rungs statistically of a competitive college without any other “compelling” elements to the application, a good essay isn’t likely to catapult the kid over the line.
My two cents. And parents often over-estimate the quality of the essay in my experience- they’ve read a dozen such essays in total in their lives. Ask any tenured admissions person to discuss the 20,000+ essays that have crossed their desk in the last couple of years and they will tell you about “we lost the soccer match but won our self-respect” (a good 20% have athletic themes); “My grandpa never made it past third grade but he will always be my hero” (another 20% involve a dead grandparent/role model); “although it was hard adjusting to life in the little village in Haiti where I helped build a school, I learned that inside we are all similar” (etc.).
Yes- an essay can be make or break. One in five hundred can compensate for weaknesses in the application. A bad essay on an otherwise solid application can get your kid rejected.
But CC romanticizes the power of little Susie’s cross-cultural observations to get her into XYZ school when her application otherwise is sub-par.
All fraternities are evil
And the power of a hard luck essay.
I disagree with the second part of the OP, although I do very much agree with the first part. I think there’s a lot of merit to living the on-campus college life. It’s an experience that is cherished by many people for the rest of their lives. I think there are certainly aspects of “the college life” that are rather romanticized by a lot of high school students that have not yet actually had the college experience. Some people seem to go in expecting to be Van Wilder or something like that, which clearly isn’t the norm…lol Everybody wants something a little different out of college. The beautiful thing about it is that it exposes people to thousands of other people from different backgrounds and with different interests.
I said I agree with the first part, and I do to an extent. Many people place an almost ridiculous amount of importance on perfect test scores, perfect GPAs, ECs that are akin to curing cancer, etc. However, there are a lot of people here on CC that also recognize that these things are nowhere near as important as many people perceive them to be. As others have mentioned, the lower post count people tend to be the ones posting threads asking if any top school will accept them with a 3.9 GPA and a 35/2300 ACT/SAT. The people that have been around here for a while tend to be the ones assuring them that yes, plenty of top schools will accept them. This topic falls right in line with the “elite school” point, which falls into a similar pattern. Many new posters here come in with the mindset that the only good schools to choose from are HYPSM and HYPSM ‘equivalents’. Many of these people end up discovering many other schools that are ultimately a better fit for them. Some of them get even more obsessed with HYPSM. One could gather either side of this scenario here depending on the thread that they’re reading. There are topics going on about how important it is to go to an elite school at the same time as several other discussions about how the perceived importance of going to ‘elite schools’ is drastically overstated.
All fraternities/sororities do charitable/good works and any negative actions on the part of a chapter/individuals is an aberration and/or an effort to tar their otherwise sterling reputations.
Those with strong social skills and enjoy partying enjoy much more success later in life as opposed to their more studious counterparts.
Nerds and academic grinds are to be disdained and accomplishments dismissed out of hand.
Lower SES and URM students are taking away elite/respectable college places which “rightfully” belong to my/my upper/upper middle-class suburban neighbors.
HS GPAs/SATs trump all for college admissions.
GPAs/SATs are practically irrelevant for college admissions…or should be for my wonderful snowflake.
Considering oneself to be middle class or even “poor” despite owning a million dollar+ home, 2+ cars, and having a combined income of $250k+.
Creativity excuses lackluster or the complete lack of academic achievements or anything else.
4.0+/2400 == automatic admission to elite college of choice…or at least SHOULD.
That the brass ring is acceptance into a college one picks…highly romanticized. What I fantasize about are the graduations! Love the college graduations! I’m two for three, I have a couple years left to fantasize about the last one.
What is romanticized is the belief that if one gets into their dream school but the FA isn’t good enough and its unaffordable, that money will magically fall out of the sky to let them attend. Well, for one of my clients that happened today!! A relative is paying the difference for all 4 years!! Yay for romanticizing on cc!! Sometimes dreams really DO come true!!