affirmative action! if a person is qualified, he/she should be accepted into the school. race shouldn’t be a factor in anything. if one wants to get into a good school, one should work hard to do so.
@velvetteddy lots of people already talked about AA way before you so don’t bring it up again if you want this thread open,
(I’m conflicted on AA but anyone can drop by my inbox to discuss!)
I hate explaining my ‘special circumstances’. It’s emotionally exhausting. Having to figure out a way to eloquently & effectively explain an event that pretty much kept me distracted from school for 1.5 years isn’t fun.
Other smaller things:
-Not being able to visit schools
-Having to manually put in my parents’ education on CA (Foreign-born struggle)
-Being a twin. I’m blessed & feel super lucky that at least one of my parents has had a job this year, but having two gals entering school at the same time… $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
-Being an Asian-American and being kinda scared of only having friends who are International Asians. Like, I love my people, but also want to mix it up. You know?
Freezycool…I appreciate all your issues.
@freezycool my school is 2% Asian population, most of them being foreign students like me but I had no problem with mingling with students of different races(white black hispanic, pick anyone). I m pretty sure you won’t have problems too.
Crikey! “W” was admitted to Yale more than 50 years ago-- dinosaurs were still roaming the earth. Get over it.
@StewyGriffin thanks? 
@paul2752 I hope so haha!
@velvetteddy I hate when people with lower stats than me complain about affirmative action, but whatever, maybe it’s just my race getting me through. :)>-
Anyway I have an issue with shotgunning, it’s weird to me when I see kids applying to 15+ schools when the time it takes to put together a good app may not be available to them.
I hate more than anything the amount of misinformation that is handed out to low income students.
I am part of a CBO that told us that our income is so low (we’re talking below 12k here) that if we could get into an Ivy league type university that we wouldn’t have to worry about paying for it. They didn’t tell us about things like summer contribution and work study contribution, which can be very significant.
I hate that even if you have been living on your own and paying your own bills for years you are still considered “dependent” and will be penalized if you can’t get info from your parents.
I hate that colleges consider it a “moral” responsibility of parents to contribute regardless of whether or not your parents are going to so much as buy you a single 99 cent pack of pens.
I hate that colleges preach need blind, while an Ivy league admissions counselor let slip to me their frustration with the fact that so many spaces are already spoken for because of Full pay…
What a mess this is that we’re all walking towards… and even those who are so graced to come out of it all on top in the elite schools are still going to have to come up with the money and the resolve not to burn out after a lifetime of preparation. Talk about a high capitol investment…
@mischkad123 , if what you say is truly representative of elite colleges, then, these “holistic” reviews are a joke. I am so sorry that you had to face this type of treatment. I do not have any solution or proper words beyond that I am sorry to hear this.
@cd2015 It was really awkward too, they heard it as soon as they said it, and then tried to backtrack and say that full pay isn’t really that big of a factor and then corrected themselves again and said that it wasn’t a factor at all… Yeah being full pay definitely gives you an edge, at least there. Needless to say I won’t be applying to that school…
“Needs blind” is a farce if the admission application has a box that you must check if you are applying for financial aid. If the university’s admission decisions were truly needs blind, then that question would be irrelevant and wouldn’t appear on the application… Think about it. It’s hard to imagine that any university would actually want to absorb the financial impact of every single admitted student needing financial aid. So, they really care about your ability to pay, even when they claim to be “needs blind.”
cleoforshort you made me laugh out loud and since I am knee deep in this process it was a much needed respite. 
I think the same people that raise their hands in those college visit meetings are the same ones in my law school that just loved to hear themselves talk at 4:45 pm on a Friday. I liked the short shorts and heels comment. I have all boys and their eyes bugged out of their head and when I took my niece around in February, she caused a bike wreck. I kept asking her if she needed a jacket because her tiny tank top was driving me bonkers. lol
Zekesima, I think he should claim both. There may be discussions about this on both sides but if the benefit is there I think you should use it. My son has neither. The school where he is a legacy will not consider it and he is white and male. I am not offended by either one. I wish the apps did not ask gender or race but they do.
I found it rather frustrating that my son’s moderately high GPA at a rigorous private school is weighted the same as a GPA at any other public school. I know it’s difficult to assess the difficulty levels of each individual high school, but it just doesn’t make sense that my sons has to work extra hard in his courses to get the same GPA another student didn’t have to work too hard on. My son could have easily had above a 4.0 at our local public high school.
Anyway, enough with my ranting. I know that he got into the schools he wanted to and is well-prepared for college due to his high school curriculum.
Your son doesn’t have to go to private school though. And moreover, the right private school confers some benefits on said students during admissions.
The inconsistency in grading scales throughout the country makes it difficult to fairly compare grades. In our state, you have to get a 93 to get an A, where in other states a 90 will earn you an A.
@carolinamom2boys colleges do take that in account though.
Because GPA fluctuates so much from school to school, colleges use other metrics such as AP scores, SAT II, SAT/ACT, Class Rank to figure out where the ability of a student academically.
If you get A’s and 1’s on AP tests and 600’s on SAT II’s, then your school is probably not very rigorous, whereas if you get B’s consistently but are in the top 10% of your class, get good scores on standardized testing, then your school will be perceived as very harsh on their grading.
If it’s hard to get an A (93 vs 90), then it’ll be hard for everyone to get an A. That means perhaps having a 3.7 can still put you at a good class rank while in some schools, one B can drop you dozens of spots down because the grading is so easy.
GPA by itself is a pointless number. You need context for it to make sense.
@natajacobson74 The short term problem now though will more than pay off in his level of preparedness for college. So many top students in high school are college washouts because they never had to work or study for their grades, even in so called “AP classes”. Your son will likely have an edge if he is used to really working for his education as opposed to sailing a breezy sea of A’s in high school. That won’t fly in college. If you’re not already used to studying your college GPA is going to nose dive.