NYT: "Peak College Admissions Insanity"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the ED finance calculators, if it is just suggesting merit b/c you don't qualify for need-based aid, if they don't give merit, are you still on the hook? If merit is shown on the calculator, is it pretty definite that you will get that?

You can withdraw from ED if the offer doesn't line up with whatever the finance calculator says.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the so-called elite employers think they're doing well recruiting from a certain set of schools, what incentive do they have to spend more time/money looking elsewhere for (in their mind) marginal value?

None which is why the insanity will continue. The name of the school does not matter for some degrees, and I think most people understand it, but the name on the degree is the only thing that matters for certain professions as much as people insist otherwise. For all of the Barista jokes, who has a better shot at a hedge fund job- a lax player with an english degree from Princeton or someone with a 4.0 in business from Towson?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our family is just getting started in the college process, so forgive me if I’m totally wrong here, but this article has me confused. I thought for ED, you could use the college’s aid calculation tool to get a sense of what aid you might get and then if accepted ED, you could wait until the aid information was received before pulling your other applications, and reject the ED offer if it wasn’t in the ballpark of what the school calculator had indicated. This article seems to say that if you apply ED but also apply for FA and get in, you are obligated to pull your other applications before knowing your FA result and have committed to go regardless of FA result—although the article does indicate colleges would not be able to force a student to attend a school they couldn’t attend.

So which is correct as far as ED if you need FA?

Yeah, he hangs a lot of his argument on this misconception. Even with an NPC, the ED process is intimidating for folks with financial limitations—and it does prevent the applicant from shopping around for even better offers, which is a big limitation—but it’s demonstrably not true that a student is required to attend a school ED if the school does not meet their financial need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the so-called elite employers think they're doing well recruiting from a certain set of schools, what incentive do they have to spend more time/money looking elsewhere for (in their mind) marginal value?

None which is why the insanity will continue. The name of the school does not matter for some degrees, and I think most people understand it, but the name on the degree is the only thing that matters for certain professions as much as people insist otherwise. For all of the Barista jokes, who has a better shot at a hedge fund job- a lax player with an english degree from Princeton or someone with a 4.0 in business from Towson?

Trick question. They both have low odds. Hedge funds are hiring the lax player's classmate majoring in something more suitable for the job.

[Anonymous]

High school seniors think this is checkers, but the schools know it’s chess. This has all become frankly terrifying for students, who are first-time players in a game their opponents invented.

This has 100% been our experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the so-called elite employers think they're doing well recruiting from a certain set of schools, what incentive do they have to spend more time/money looking elsewhere for (in their mind) marginal value?

None which is why the insanity will continue. The name of the school does not matter for some degrees, and I think most people understand it, but the name on the degree is the only thing that matters for certain professions as much as people insist otherwise. For all of the Barista jokes, who has a better shot at a hedge fund job- a lax player with an english degree from Princeton or someone with a 4.0 in business from Towson?

Trick question. They both have low odds. Hedge funds are hiring the lax player's classmate majoring in something more suitable for the job.

NESAC schools are heavily recruited by wall street, what relevant majors do they offer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They expect the college admissions process to find the exceptions.

Bingo. If college admissions officers are already doing the front-end vetting for you, why bother reinventing the wheel? As the saying goes, work smarter not harder.

[Anonymous]

My Senior is in a major where the school matters—sigh. So we are forking over the $86k/yr over in-state. My sophomore is in my major where it really doesn’t matter- just a solid state school is fine.

The cost of higher education is ridiculous. Everyone should be angry at the industry that escalated prices so high—Fed govt loan industry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the so-called elite employers think they're doing well recruiting from a certain set of schools, what incentive do they have to spend more time/money looking elsewhere for (in their mind) marginal value?

None which is why the insanity will continue. The name of the school does not matter for some degrees, and I think most people understand it, but the name on the degree is the only thing that matters for certain professions as much as people insist otherwise. For all of the Barista jokes, who has a better shot at a hedge fund job- a lax player with an english degree from Princeton or someone with a 4.0 in business from Towson?

Trick question. They both have low odds. Hedge funds are hiring the lax player's classmate majoring in something more suitable for the job.

NESAC schools are heavily recruited by wall street, what relevant majors do they offer?

I don't understand the question. Hedge funds tend to look for quantitative backgrounds and plenty of majors offer that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the so-called elite employers think they're doing well recruiting from a certain set of schools, what incentive do they have to spend more time/money looking elsewhere for (in their mind) marginal value?

None which is why the insanity will continue. The name of the school does not matter for some degrees, and I think most people understand it, but the name on the degree is the only thing that matters for certain professions as much as people insist otherwise. For all of the Barista jokes, who has a better shot at a hedge fund job- a lax player with an english degree from Princeton or someone with a 4.0 in business from Towson?

Trick question. They both have low odds. Hedge funds are hiring the lax player's classmate majoring in something more suitable for the job.

They may hire them both...the classmate will be a quant while the LAX bro will wine-and-dine pension funds and other folks that actually fork over the money.

[Anonymous]

The quant will be getting paid way more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

High school seniors think this is checkers, but the schools know it’s chess. This has all become frankly terrifying for students, who are first-time players in a game their opponents invented.

This has 100% been our experience.

Ugh, that article made me feel sick. We all know it's true ... but it's spelled out quite well here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My Senior is in a major where the school matters—sigh. So we are forking over the $86k/yr over in-state. My sophomore is in my major where it really doesn’t matter- just a solid state school is fine.

The cost of higher education is ridiculous. Everyone should be angry at the industry that escalated prices so high—Fed govt loan industry.

Could you kindly expand on this? For what majors do you think the school doesn't matter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was good and covered all bases, except one, that I continue to rant about.

Part of the reason there is so much competition for the top schools is because so-called elite employers only recruit from them. We need companies to see that there are tons of bright students everywhere. Just look at the girl profiled in the article who is clearly smart and likely has a ton of grit. She's going to Hunter College where no investment bank or MBB would ever look to hire from. Until that mindset is broken, things will not change.

Until the mindset of “only elite employers for my kid” mindset changes, things will not change.

That’s because of income inequality. If there wasn’t an insane income advantage to getting into certain companies/ professions, people wouldn’t care so much about the college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The quant will be getting paid way more.

The quant will have pedigree--plenty of Princeton physics PhDs, etc. The resume has to fit the narrative.