What has surprised you - as your kid comes to the end of this process

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pleasantly surprised that there are plenty of T50 schools that accept strong, well rounded applicants. DD got in everywhere she applied with a good GPA, solid (but not exceptional) SAT scores, varsity sports, leadership and service.

Because she is a female. C'mon, your should know that.

Nope. Being a female hurts these days, since they are over-represented at nearly every college. Male applicants have a small advantage now.

Depends on the school. DS's college explicitly favors women.

Can you share which ones?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pleasantly surprised that there are plenty of T50 schools that accept strong, well rounded applicants. DD got in everywhere she applied with a good GPA, solid (but not exceptional) SAT scores, varsity sports, leadership and service.

Because she is a female. C'mon, your should know that.

Nope. Being a female hurts these days, since they are over-represented at nearly every college. Male applicants have a small advantage now.

Depends on the school. DS's college explicitly favors women.

The Tech schools, yes. But that's a very small minority.

[Anonymous]

Depends widely on the Texas suburb though.

[Anonymous]

None of the above has surprised me.

[Anonymous]

How Trump and Vance are intent on destroying our educational institutions and financial services to pay for them. It upends all the work our kids are doing!

I feel dumb that I didn't see this coming and missed VP JD Vance’s 2021 speech “The Universities are the Enemy”.

Side note: It's so hypocritical since Vance himself came out of poverty by attending OSU and being a DEI admit as a veteran to get into Yale. Without Yale, he would never have met Thiel and made millions in Private Equity by working for him nor would he have published his hillbilly book without the connection of his Yale prof and mentor Amy Chua.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pleasantly surprised that there are plenty of T50 schools that accept strong, well rounded applicants. DD got in everywhere she applied with a good GPA, solid (but not exceptional) SAT scores, varsity sports, leadership and service.

Because she is a female. C'mon, your should know that.

Nope. Being a female hurts these days, since they are over-represented at nearly every college. Male applicants have a small advantage now.

Depends on the school. DS's college explicitly favors women.

Can you share which ones?

Coast Guard Academy. The past few classes have come close to 50%, which frankly insane (not in a good or bad way, just really surprising). I'm sure quite a few engineering colleges admit more women as well, but I haven't specifically read anything. A PP said MIT, and I would believe that.

[Anonymous]

Normal teenage summer jobs like scooping ice cream, waiting tables, bagging groceries have taken a backseat to formal summer programs, summer research, pre-professional internships, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised how mean and judgmental people can be about other people’s kids. Adult snark is one thing, mocking teenagers quite another. Regardless of the anonymous nature of this forum, I don’t understand why anyone feels the need to belittle a high schooler’s character, intellect, or choice of ECs, college, major, etc.

I admit anonymously to being overly harsh about a few kids who appear to have waltzed into tippy top schools to play sports but have not done anything close to the academic work my kid and friends have done (many of whom are still waiting for decisions).

Until I had a kid with tippy top athletic ability and saw the amount of work that goes into "waltzing" into any school . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pleasantly surprised that there are plenty of T50 schools that accept strong, well rounded applicants. DD got in everywhere she applied with a good GPA, solid (but not exceptional) SAT scores, varsity sports, leadership and service.

Because she is a female. C'mon, your should know that.

Nope. Being a female hurts these days, since they are over-represented at nearly every college. Male applicants have a small advantage now.

Depends on the school. DS's college explicitly favors women.

The Tech schools, yes. But that's a very small minority.

His is not a tech school. But I would argue that those are not a small minority (even public schools like Michigan, Purdue, Texas A&M, etc. have STEM reps) and are very popular, anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How Trump and Vance are intent on destroying our educational institutions and financial services to pay for them. It upends all the work our kids are doing!

I feel dumb that I didn't see this coming and missed VP JD Vance’s 2021 speech “The Universities are the Enemy”.

The Republicans have correctly regarded the universities as Left-dominated since at least the 1980s, but the Democrats have never thought the Republicans would actually do anything about it. And that's on them.

If the Democrats had given the Right some stake in academia - some chips on the table - then the Republicans would not have the incentive they currently have to burn the whole thing down.

[Anonymous]

Don’t waste your money on a college counselor, instead save your money and find a smart college student to review essays . At the school you’re applying. Works wonders they know about the programs. And how to make the why my school stand out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What has surprised you - that you were clueless about?

Fake virtue signaling and faux activism are highly valued in the process by the liberal arts majors that are the AOs at these schools. Tough road for great, but not elite, scholar-athletes and brilliant, but introverted kids.

T20 AO want kids who will get out of their dorms and be active on campus. Contribute. Be both joiners and leaders. In a wide variety of activities - not just robotics.
After you meet the baseline for stats, they then need to be able to imagine what you will do on campus. How exactly are you contributing? How productive are you in the day-to-day life of the campus? The best indicator of what you will do on a college campus will come from your ECs and your LORs.
LOR are a stealth area of "points" in this process.
Make sure you understand the AO scoring process for the reach schools. Review your application with that rubric in mind.

THIS!
They are looking for diversity in activities. And they want interesting (often sociable) people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That it's really easy to get into college if you're a good student with pretty good scores but not top scores (in this case a 1400). My ds got in everywhere he applied but one college as a normal kid who picked easier APs and enjoyed his life without stress. I was so worried and thought it would be a lot harder than it was.

Oh please. It’s easy to get into college if you have a 1000 SAT and no APs. It’s a matter of choosing the colleges that are right for the student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t waste your money on a college counselor, instead save your money and find a smart college student to review essays . At the school you’re applying. Works wonders they know about the programs. And how to make the why my school stand out

I’d actually qualify this as “Don’t waste your money on JUST ANY college counselor.” I found DC’s to be invaluable - she had far more insider knowledge than a college student who has only their own data point to offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t waste your money on a college counselor, instead save your money and find a smart college student to review essays . At the school you’re applying. Works wonders they know about the programs. And how to make the why my school stand out

I’d actually qualify this as “Don’t waste your money on JUST ANY college counselor.” I found DC’s to be invaluable - she had far more insider knowledge than a college student who has only their own data point to offer.

can you share name? no one will accuse you of dropping names here.