It’s a whole different animal now- I agree- but the trope that “just good grades” got you into the mega competitive colleges back in the day, whereas now it’s a dog-eat-dog world gets tiresome. People love to trot out George Bush (an indifferent HS student who got into Yale) and John Kennedy Jr (less indifferent but not an outstanding student) who got into Brown as evidence that any old Joe could get into an Ivy League U back in the day.
Bush was not any old Joe. JFK junior did NOT get into Harvard (his older sister did- was admitted to Radcliffe back when Harvard was not co-ed) which sort of proves the point that even being rich and handsome and famous wasn’t enough at Harvard even in the 1970’s. Carolyn was reputed to be a stellar HS student and was accepted to Radcliffe; John was reputed to be charming and bright but NOT a stellar student and he did not get in to Harvard (being a legacy didn’t help, being the son of a former president didn’t help, being from a very generous and philanthropic family didn’t help).
It wasn’t easy then and it’s not easy now.
I think rankings are a symptom and not the problem btw. We live in a world where people can’t enjoy their lunch until they go on Yelp and see that the restaurant is highly ranked, and that other people noticed the lime floating in the water pitcher and the jasmine soap in the ladies room. Parents won’t buy a stroller until they read 50 online reviews complete with rankings (I went to Sears and bought the cheapest one they had when my kids were born).
Ranking colleges didn’t create the problem. People now don’t want to do ANYTHING without knowing the pecking order whether it’s a fish taco, a piece of baby equipment, or a college. I don’t blame the stroller manufacturers and I don’t blame the college ranking folks. The enemy is us.
JFK Jr. would have applied to college in 1979, which was technically "the 70s" but a long time after George W. Bush's admission to Yale in the early 60s. In terms of admissions and almost everything else, the world at Harvard and Yale was radically different in 1979 than it had been in 1964.
Is it clear that JFK Jr. was rejected by Harvard? I thought he didn't apply. He may well have been encouraged not to apply, or he may have decided on his own not to apply. It is interesting if Harvard turned down JFK Jr. in 1979, but I'm not sure that happened.
When Caroline Kennedy went to college, Harvard was co-ed. Radcliffe still technically existed, but Harvard and Radcliffe operated as a single, completely coextensive coeducational college. The Radcliffe dorms had already been integrated into the Harvard house system, and women were members of and lived in all of the Harvard houses.
I had two friends who got into MIT and one friend who couldn’t get into any college until his friend’s dad pulled some strings and talked to the President of certain college somewhere. One of MIT friends got into Early to all top schools including HYP and MIT. This guy was so nonchalant that he only told us “Yeah, I got into all of them” when we pressed him for an answer. It was obvious he was talented in math and engineering, and he ended up getting almost all As at MIT. Kids back then who got into top schools were smart without doing prep courses and too much ECs. No one set up a non-profit and raised money to get into HYPSM; they just studied hard, got good score on SAT and did a few ECs. In fact, one girl who I did not think were that smart – she was smart but not MIT smart – got into MIT just because back then not many girls applied to MIT, so I would say even among kids who got into MIT, there was a substantial variation of brilliance in engineering fields.
For really smart kids, SAT does not measure the level of smartness. For example, I got 790 in math but compared to my MIT friend who got 800, there was a HUGE gap in math ability. When I told him my SAT score was very close to his, he said “Yeah, the difference is you barely finished all SAT math questions in 30 minutes, whereas I finished it in 12 minutes and checked all my answers twice to make sure they were all correct.” When he told me at MIT there were kids who were a lot smarter than him, it blew me away.
“Again, these colleges are need blind and how do you know he had “all it took.” It’s not just stats and ECs. A lot has to do with how you come across in your app/supp.” How many of these schools are need blind? It’s strange how people make a fetish out of the admission process on this thread. There are several sudents who were rejected by these so-called reach schools but got into lesser known schools and are doing excellently well in life. The hype is too much, with people defending them to the hilt. After all the AO’s are mortals like us and are not perfect.
“John was reputed to be charming and bright but NOT a stellar student and he did not get in to Harvard (being a legacy didn’t help, being the son of a former president didn’t help, being from a very generous and philanthropic family didn’t help)”
However, being the president’s son may have helped him get into an ivy (Brown). Remember, it took him three tries before he passed the NY bar exam. .
Well, it may drive blossom nuts, but truth is, it’s far more competitive for top colleges today. The number of applicants, number of APs, proliferation of hs internships, the Common App that allows a long string of apps etc. Even this notion of reaches vs matches encourages some sense of better vs good. Add a seemingly endless supply of 4.0 kids. It doesn’t matter if it was easier in the 70s through 2000. This is now, kids applying now have to learn what’s valued now.
OK. With some encouragement, I decided to post a question about Naviance.
Our school provides scattergrams for the applications and admits for the last 2-3 years. My question is really the average on the scattergram, where the GPA and Test score axis meet. Is that avg grade based on the students’ final grade (ie the one that they get at the end of the senior year) or do they reflect grades taken when the students apply (possibly end of junior year, or senior year first sem grades). Its frustrating that our counselor also doesnt seem to know…we are preparing a list of reach/match schools based on these averages and I am wondering if we are low-balling him since he has an entire year to add to his GPA?
lookingforward is right that it takes more than GPA and scores. However, I think that Naviance can still be surprisingly useful for admission to some top holistic colleges. It seems to reflect something else that is not apparent at surface level. For example, some schools make their Naviance data publicly available. I found that New Trier was rather successful in having the students in the top right corner of the Naviance scatter plot admitted to Stanford. They were much more successful than other schools, for students in the same position on the plots. This could be partly because grading at New Trier is more stringent, so the GPA means more than from some other schools. On the other hand, since the objective statistics don’t tell the story, really, for top schools, I suspect that the top students at New Trier were better clued in than students with similar statistics elsewhere. This may be due to advice from the GC’s, from the parents, or from other students, to develop a profile that is meaningful and that appeals to Stanford. This is the only case that I specifically remember. I don’t recall whether New Trier students in the upper right corner of the Naviance plot were more successful at HYP than the similarly positioned students elsewhere, but I would not be at all surprised. Whether they were more successful at MIT is an open question.
If your son’s guidance counselor doesn’t know what GPA goes into the scatter plot, you can probably rule out having a “clued in” guidance counselor, when it comes to advice on developing a profile that will be appealing to top colleges. CC is actually a pretty good resource for this, if you can get past the bragging and complaining.
I find the Naviance plots helpful for giving us a general idea in order to develop realistic expectations. I have no idea which GPA is used to calculate it at our school either. However, I don’t think that level of precision is generally necessary since this is such an imprecise process. Naviance also can’t tell us how many of the acceptances were legacies, athletes, URM, etc. But it can tell us if she is generally in the ball park where most of the students were accepted. It also has some interesting clues about which colleges seem to have a good impression of our school. We get a surprisingly high number of acceptances from Cornell, far greater then to any other school with a similar admit rate.
Using Naviance, we have developed a reasonable list of matches and safeties. However, Naviance was only the beginning of the search. We narrowed it down to schools where she “fit.” These are not only schools where she would feel comfortable, but where I think they are actively searching for kids like her. We narrowed it further to schools where she is likely to get good merit aid. We will be showing the same amount of interest and attention to detail at every school on the list including the safeties.
Ran into a friend at the grocery store who has a S18. They are so disappointed. Son applied to Notre Dame, Northwestern, Chicago, Rice, and Illinois. 1580 SAT but a 3.5 uw gpa. Granted he had all honors and AP classes but they should have known that with that uw gpa, he was only getting into Illinois. I can’t believe kids are still applying to a list of uber-reach schools and one safety that the student does not like.
CC is a bubble of mostly knowledgeable people and those who want to learn about the college admissions landscape. Outside of CC, the world is filled with clueless people and lots of misinformation. Don’t believe me? Just hop on G&F on FB for a small taste. It is mind boggling.
@homerdog I agree. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the parent’s expectations have not altered with the seismic shift in the college landscape. When I was in high school very, very few kids had nearly straight A’s. Also, all those schools on your friend’s list were safeties back in the day. If you aren’t versed in Naviance or this website and you have a compete lack of guidance, it wouldn’t be too hard to fall into the trap.
The biggest mistake is applying to a safety you don’t like. The luckiest thing that happened to us with D1 was that she loved the safety.
@gallentjill The thing is that I came home right after I bumped into my friend and looked those schools up on our Naviance. It was plain and clear that the only kids getting into those schools had uw gpas above 3.9. That’s where all of the green checks were. I think the family must have thought the 1580 would carry more weight than it did. And, yes, love your safety! At the very least, get to know it well enough to find things to like about it and make sure, as parents, that we don’t disparage that choice. Sometimes I think the student would be just fine if the parents weren’t acting all disappointed.
This is what happens when people have unrealistic expectations… lots of kids with perfect scores just don;t get in into these ultra competitive schools which could also include those ranked 20 to 40 (USA news). With so many variables, nothing is ever a given.
A couple of kids from my school with close to perfect scores and perfect profiles applied to a bunch of schools and DID NOT GET IN… IN addition, they also applied to OOS schools such as Texas, Maryland, and Michigan with the idea that they would get in AND get an incredible amount of merit money. It did not happen. They got in ok, but none of the schools offered any merit. They are now scrambling and trying to come to terms with the idea that they are not going to be going where they wanted to go… Basically POOR PLANING. This happens every year.
Everyone should have safeties (academic and financial) where they would want to attend. This applies to whatever the profile a student has. If you find yourself in a bind, SHAME ON YOU!!! There is so much information out there and a little common sense goes a long ways.
Also, you cant just rely on Naviance. It is indeed a great tool to use along with the other information. But there is so much information that is missing from these numbers that you cant just assume.
Good point! The more I read, the more I realize how lucky we got in our first search. Some of that luck had to do with accidentally finding CC. I loved D1’s safety from the start. I always thought it was a great place for her. When she got the acceptance we celebrated and when we saw the merit aid, we really celebrated.
@Setter4life I like that. Poor planning is definitely the culprit.
Gosh, I don’t want to judge but how could anyone let their kids work so hard and then fail to get informed about the current landscape of college admissions? At the end of this, I would hate to have to say to S19 that I was sorry that I didn’t do more to give him every advantage and to make sure we found him options that really work. He’s doing his part by getting good grades and I feel like it’s our part as parents to help him navigate this process.
