For all the parents complaining that the admissions process is rigged against their kids--

[Anonymous]

(And everyone who projects bitterness about the outcomes)--

Here's a good piece by the Atlantic's Lori Gottlieb:

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/02/im-worried-my-son-wont-get-good-college/582979/

[Anonymous]

Even at the highest-performing local public high schools, 50% of the graduating class has under roughly a 1330 on the SAT (which is just over 90th percentile nationally). Being at these high schools, although they offer great college preparation compared to worse high schools, can seriously skew one’s perception.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even at the highest-performing local public high schools, 50% of the graduating class has under roughly a 1330 on the SAT (which is just over 90th percentile nationally). Being at these high schools, although they offer great college preparation compared to worse high schools, can seriously skew one’s perception.

Wow that seems really high. I can’t imagine at my kids very large MCPS (not W) school 50% have a 1330 or higher!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even at the highest-performing local public high schools, 50% of the graduating class has under roughly a 1330 on the SAT (which is just over 90th percentile nationally). Being at these high schools, although they offer great college preparation compared to worse high schools, can seriously skew one’s perception.

That number is way too high, even at excellent public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even at the highest-performing local public high schools, 50% of the graduating class has under roughly a 1330 on the SAT (which is just over 90th percentile nationally). Being at these high schools, although they offer great college preparation compared to worse high schools, can seriously skew one’s perception.

That number is way too high, even at excellent public schools.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04427.pdf

Whitman was at that in 2020.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(And everyone who projects bitterness about the outcomes)--

Here's a good piece by the Atlantic's Lori Gottlieb:

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/02/im-worried-my-son-wont-get-good-college/582979/

Great article!!!

[Anonymous]

This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

Go for it! The DC Examiner will snatch it up in a heart beat!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

Holy entitled brat! Maybe they just picked up on these kids messed up superiority complexes and said no thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

Holy entitled brat! Maybe they just picked up on these kids messed up superiority complexes and said no thanks.

That you get "entitled brat" out of the perspective that performance should be rewarded without regard to skin color, religion or socioeconomic status is exactly why we have a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

Holy entitled brat! Maybe they just picked up on these kids messed up superiority complexes and said no thanks.

That you get "entitled brat" out of the perspective that performance should be rewarded without regard to skin color, religion or socioeconomic status is exactly why we have a problem.

Performance is subjective. Your superstar is great but so are others. Your think the "performance" of your genius is superior and others have a different opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

Holy entitled brat! Maybe they just picked up on these kids messed up superiority complexes and said no thanks.

That you get "entitled brat" out of the perspective that performance should be rewarded without regard to skin color, religion or socioeconomic status is exactly why we have a problem.

Performance is subjective. Your superstar is great but so are others. Your think the "performance" of your genius is superior and others have a different opinion.

+1

[Anonymous]

We're tackling this with our DCs at an odd time.

Covid massively messed with grading, and any sense of the playing field in education. There are anecdotes (I have seen a few) of public schools simply handing out grades for submitting papers consisting of the same sentence repeated. A good portion of kids are unable to learn remotely. Many teachers have quit, and others have been fired.

College fairs haven't really happened and visits have been hampered, and so kids I think have less of a sense of the schools they want, and things like rankings loom larger in their minds (though these are of course deeply flawed themselves). The combination of test optional and the common app makes it much more straightforward to simply aim for dozens of schools. And then there's all the deferrals and everyone suddenly coming back, and new algorithms on yield.

Colleges are trying in a very rapidly changing environment to build their brands, and in many cases working to undo the injustices of the past. That's a swing of the pendulum, and suddenly places like Brown go for admissions skewed heavily towards URMs, athletes and others (read the thread on Sidwell). Is this wrong? Meh. Maybe. Unfair? sure, but the process has always been unfair because it's so loosely tied to the idea of actual merit. But this is where we are, and their brand-building matters more to them (based on whatever prioritization they may have of their own strategy) than does our older perceptions of merit.

I think the reason this is upsetting people so much is that the game changed and we weren't really aware of it, and there's not a lot we can do. We used to buy into some vague idea of merit: work hard, put your kid in the best school you can (based on their capabilities and yours, including money), kid gets grades and a few banner ECs and success (alas a narrow definition) will ensue. But that's falling apart, and we feel like we've let down our kids who aren't in the currently preferred categories used to social engineer college brands to be closer to what their strategy tells them they want.

Yes, it's insane. Yes, it hurts the kids who suddenly feel the game changed on them and it stings, because what they were counting on suddenly isn't available in the same way. They've worked hard, and we've worked to keep them focused.

As for DC, so far a few admits and waiting on several. Two good schools, and one great have said yes. Others -- maybe better, maybe not -- will follow in the next week. It'll be ok. And we draw solace in knowing DC is well prepared for college and for life, and to see all of this as some insanity which they survived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're tackling this with our DCs at an odd time.

Covid massively messed with grading, and any sense of the playing field in education. There are anecdotes (I have seen a few) of public schools simply handing out grades for submitting papers consisting of the same sentence repeated. A good portion of kids are unable to learn remotely. Many teachers have quit, and others have been fired.

College fairs haven't really happened and visits have been hampered, and so kids I think have less of a sense of the schools they want, and things like rankings loom larger in their minds (though these are of course deeply flawed themselves). The combination of test optional and the common app makes it much more straightforward to simply aim for dozens of schools. And then there's all the deferrals and everyone suddenly coming back, and new algorithms on yield.

Colleges are trying in a very rapidly changing environment to build their brands, and in many cases working to undo the injustices of the past. That's a swing of the pendulum, and suddenly places like Brown go for admissions skewed heavily towards URMs, athletes and others (read the thread on Sidwell). Is this wrong? Meh. Maybe. Unfair? sure, but the process has always been unfair because it's so loosely tied to the idea of actual merit. But this is where we are, and their brand-building matters more to them (based on whatever prioritization they may have of their own strategy) than does our older perceptions of merit.

I think the reason this is upsetting people so much is that the game changed and we weren't really aware of it, and there's not a lot we can do. We used to buy into some vague idea of merit: work hard, put your kid in the best school you can (based on their capabilities and yours, including money), kid gets grades and a few banner ECs and success (alas a narrow definition) will ensue. But that's falling apart, and we feel like we've let down our kids who aren't in the currently preferred categories used to social engineer college brands to be closer to what their strategy tells them they want.

Yes, it's insane. Yes, it hurts the kids who suddenly feel the game changed on them and it stings, because what they were counting on suddenly isn't available in the same way. They've worked hard, and we've worked to keep them focused.

As for DC, so far a few admits and waiting on several. Two good schools, and one great have said yes. Others -- maybe better, maybe not -- will follow in the next week. It'll be ok. And we draw solace in knowing DC is well prepared for college and for life, and to see all of this as some insanity which they survived.

Your poor private school kid. How will they go on.

[Anonymous]

If your kid is white and has parents who graduated college, they are already unfathomably privileged. Of course, they don't realize that, because they have been privileged by it their entire lives.