So Ivies and top colleges are ALWAYS REACH?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Basically, there are too many qualified kids for each top school spot.

So that means that a bunch of energetic, accomplished, intelligent, creative students will be going to other schools, which makes those schools pretty darn great too - maybe even "top". Not only will those students be able to do well pretty much wherever they go, it turns out that they will be surrounded by lots of great peers, which will help them even more.

No, the truth is that they will stand out but they won't be surrounded by a majority of the same academic peers. That doesn't mean the schools won't be great experiences. Students like these are not a dime a dozen. Too many to fit into a handful of schools but not so many they are mainstream elsewhere.

They may not be a dime a dozen, but there are a LOT Of them. The ACT range for Harvard and Yale are both 32-35 for the 25%-75%. The range for Washington University is 32-34. The range for University of Chicago is 32-35. The range for Vanderbilt is 30-35. The range for USC is 30-33. The range for Davidson is 30-33. The range for University of Virginia is 31-34.

Kids who go to school outside of the Ivy League will have great peer groups and arguably better peer groups, because the diversity will be greater.

Add Notre Dame to this list at 33-35.

That 34 is a median percentile, so half of the top 25% of the class has an ACT higher than a 34.

These numbers represent the middle 50%. Therefore, 50% had 34 or higher, not 25%.

I can't tell which college you are referring to, can you clarify? I may be mistaken but I do not think this is correct.

Hi I am the PP, and frankly, I am not sure I am correct, so please advise! I was referring to the Notre Dame numbers of 33-35, which is from the 2018-19 common data set. https://www3.nd.edu/~instres/CDS/2018-2019/CDS_2018-2019.pdf

I do know that 25% had higher than 35%. Just not sure if that means 50% had more than 34%...probably not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I do know that 25% had higher than 35%. Just not sure if that means 50% had more than 34%...probably not?

25% had equal or higher. You can't tell unless there is a mean score given, which not all colleges provide. A mid-50 of 33-35 indicates that the middle 50% of students were in that range. It's not possible to tell more without more data; for instance, (while unlikely) it is mathematically possible that the 35 was the last student and all the rest above had 36, or it is possible that ND had no 36s, or it is possible that every student below the 35 was a 33... However it gives you a good snapshot of the cohort of students, and a "high and tight" mid-50 of 33-35 is very impressive indeed.

[Anonymous]

OP did not prepare his child for college admission and instead had a sole focus on doing well on testing, school and primarily local activities. It seems OP was completely ignorant of the American educational system and did very little or no research. Now OP’s expectations and dreams have been built up over years based on accolades in a very small fish bowl. OP goes to college counseling and explodes. He finds out that other applicants may have advantages his child does not and decides to blame everyone but himself or his child. All of the standards for elite schools have been the same for more than a generation and every year there are a ton of articles about the system. If this was the primary goal of educating your son (not just getting a quality education or creating an honorable adult) OP should have done some homework like all of the white, URM, legacy and athletie parents who put a lot of skin in the game to help their kid get in... doing the travel
Sport curcuit is a family investment, moving or paying for a high school elite enough to be on the admit list is a family investment URMs make (many schools in minority communities don’t have the excellence for the kids to get in...this is a family issue)...people move to remote areas all the time or pay for
Distinguishing activities for their future applicant.

Finally OP really paid no attention to what the applicant pool looked like and admission standards. Instead he was certain that success at one of the many STEM schools populated with a lot of student like his son would cause his son to be in the 5 percent accepted to An Ivy coming from one of the hardest areas in the country to get into college.

[Anonymous]

Wow the above is harsh. OP doesn't even know yet if reaches will happen or not. Not all Ivies are HYP in terms of hooked majorities. Using the early card, his kid has a decent shot at Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth and Ivy equivalents such as MIT, Caltech and UChicago. Harvey Mudd and CMU CS are also highly respected. A 4.0 unweighted at a STEM magnet is a time intensive, tough accomplishment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Basically, there are too many qualified kids for each top school spot.

So that means that a bunch of energetic, accomplished, intelligent, creative students will be going to other schools, which makes those schools pretty darn great too - maybe even "top". Not only will those students be able to do well pretty much wherever they go, it turns out that they will be surrounded by lots of great peers, which will help them even more.

No, the truth is that they will stand out but they won't be surrounded by a majority of the same academic peers. That doesn't mean the schools won't be great experiences. Students like these are not a dime a dozen. Too many to fit into a handful of schools but not so many they are mainstream elsewhere.

They may not be a dime a dozen, but there are a LOT Of them. The ACT range for Harvard and Yale are both 32-35 for the 25%-75%. The range for Washington University is 32-34. The range for University of Chicago is 32-35. The range for Vanderbilt is 30-35. The range for USC is 30-33. The range for Davidson is 30-33. The range for University of Virginia is 31-34.

Kids who go to school outside of the Ivy League will have great peer groups and arguably better peer groups, because the diversity will be greater.

Forget the lower part of the range 25%. That's for the hooked. The high academic kid is 35-36/1500-1600. Diversity of talent is a good thing. It teaches you how to get along in the world. But the point that was made was that they would be surrounded by a mass of their academic peers for classroom challenge. That's not the case.

You’re arguing that the student will not be surrounded by academic peers if she/he ends up at WashU or Vandy? Uh ok.

You could swap the entire first year class at Wash U with the entire first year class at any Ivy and not see an appreciable difference in experience or outcomes for that class. Vanderbilt, the same way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP did not prepare his child for college admission and instead had a sole focus on doing well on testing, school and primarily local activities. It seems OP was completely ignorant of the American educational system and did very little or no research. Now OP’s expectations and dreams have been built up over years based on accolades in a very small fish bowl. OP goes to college counseling and explodes. He finds out that other applicants may have advantages his child does not and decides to blame everyone but himself or his child. All of the standards for elite schools have been the same for more than a generation and every year there are a ton of articles about the system. If this was the primary goal of educating your son (not just getting a quality education or creating an honorable adult) OP should have done some homework like all of the white, URM, legacy and athletie parents who put a lot of skin in the game to help their kid get in... doing the travel
Sport curcuit is a family investment, moving or paying for a high school elite enough to be on the admit list is a family investment URMs make (many schools in minority communities don’t have the excellence for the kids to get in...this is a family issue)...people move to remote areas all the time or pay for
Distinguishing activities for their future applicant.

Finally OP really paid no attention to what the applicant pool looked like and admission standards. Instead he was certain that success at one of the many STEM schools populated with a lot of student like his son would cause his son to be in the 5 percent accepted to An Ivy coming from one of the hardest areas in the country to get into college.

OMG! Who are you? Lori Loughlin?
So what should the OP's child had done more? I mean besides changing their race?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP did not prepare his child for college admission and instead had a sole focus on doing well on testing, school and primarily local activities. It seems OP was completely ignorant of the American educational system and did very little or no research. Now OP’s expectations and dreams have been built up over years based on accolades in a very small fish bowl. OP goes to college counseling and explodes. He finds out that other applicants may have advantages his child does not and decides to blame everyone but himself or his child. All of the standards for elite schools have been the same for more than a generation and every year there are a ton of articles about the system. If this was the primary goal of educating your son (not just getting a quality education or creating an honorable adult) OP should have done some homework like all of the white, URM, legacy and athletie parents who put a lot of skin in the game to help their kid get in... doing the travel
Sport curcuit is a family investment, moving or paying for a high school elite enough to be on the admit list is a family investment URMs make (many schools in minority communities don’t have the excellence for the kids to get in...this is a family issue)...people move to remote areas all the time or pay for
Distinguishing activities for their future applicant.

Finally OP really paid no attention to what the applicant pool looked like and admission standards. Instead he was certain that success at one of the many STEM schools populated with a lot of student like his son would cause his son to be in the 5 percent accepted to An Ivy coming from one of the hardest areas in the country to get into college.

And if OP's child could throw a ball into a hoop or kick a ball into a net that makes the child "special"?
I agree that no student is entitled to an education at a particular college. It is frustrating however that academic ability and academic achievements are nearly treated with disdain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am getting pissed now. High achieving Asian-American male student in magnet STEM program. 4.0 GPA, NMF, 10 APs, 1 state level EC, hundreds of hours of community service, member of a number of honor societies, started two clubs, research experience....and Ivies are just reach for him? FU%K IT!!!!!!!

Yep. Parent of a white daughter here who was as high achieving as your son. She didn't apply to Ivys because it wasn't her goal and she was rejected from Rice, Vandy, Tufts...even BC waitlisted her. It was ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am getting pissed now. High achieving Asian-American male student in magnet STEM program. 4.0 GPA, NMF, 10 APs, 1 state level EC, hundreds of hours of community service, member of a number of honor societies, started two clubs, research experience....and Ivies are just reach for him? FU%K IT!!!!!!!

Yep. Parent of a white daughter here who was as high achieving as your son. She didn't apply to Ivys because it wasn't her goal and she was rejected from Rice, Vandy, Tufts...even BC waitlisted her. It was ridiculous.

All of you people who feel it necessary to mention your race (Asian or white) as if that's the reason your kid didn't get in to Rice (37% white, 24% Asian), Vandy (57% white and 15% Asian), Tufts (56% white, 13% Asian) are probably the same people who dismiss blacks who claim bias when they aren't treated well. Bit hypocritical, don't you think?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP did not prepare his child for college admission and instead had a sole focus on doing well on testing, school and primarily local activities. It seems OP was completely ignorant of the American educational system and did very little or no research. Now OP’s expectations and dreams have been built up over years based on accolades in a very small fish bowl. OP goes to college counseling and explodes. He finds out that other applicants may have advantages his child does not and decides to blame everyone but himself or his child. All of the standards for elite schools have been the same for more than a generation and every year there are a ton of articles about the system. If this was the primary goal of educating your son (not just getting a quality education or creating an honorable adult) OP should have done some homework like all of the white, URM, legacy and athletie parents who put a lot of skin in the game to help their kid get in... doing the travel
Sport curcuit is a family investment, moving or paying for a high school elite enough to be on the admit list is a family investment URMs make (many schools in minority communities don’t have the excellence for the kids to get in...this is a family issue)...people move to remote areas all the time or pay for
Distinguishing activities for their future applicant.

Finally OP really paid no attention to what the applicant pool looked like and admission standards. Instead he was certain that success at one of the many STEM schools populated with a lot of student like his son would cause his son to be in the 5 percent accepted to An Ivy coming from one of the hardest areas in the country to get into college.

OMG! Who are you? Lori Loughlin?
So what should the OP's child had done more? I mean besides changing their race?

OP Prepared His kid for a top state school and a chance at an ivy. People stategize to go to ivies unless they are formerly homeless or overcoming horrible. circumstances. He has a regular high achieving kid and that is not anyone’s fault his own

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP did not prepare his child for college admission and instead had a sole focus on doing well on testing, school and primarily local activities. It seems OP was completely ignorant of the American educational system and did very little or no research. Now OP’s expectations and dreams have been built up over years based on accolades in a very small fish bowl. OP goes to college counseling and explodes. He finds out that other applicants may have advantages his child does not and decides to blame everyone but himself or his child. All of the standards for elite schools have been the same for more than a generation and every year there are a ton of articles about the system. If this was the primary goal of educating your son (not just getting a quality education or creating an honorable adult) OP should have done some homework like all of the white, URM, legacy and athletie parents who put a lot of skin in the game to help their kid get in... doing the travel
Sport curcuit is a family investment, moving or paying for a high school elite enough to be on the admit list is a family investment URMs make (many schools in minority communities don’t have the excellence for the kids to get in...this is a family issue)...people move to remote areas all the time or pay for
Distinguishing activities for their future applicant.

Finally OP really paid no attention to what the applicant pool looked like and admission standards. Instead he was certain that success at one of the many STEM schools populated with a lot of student like his son would cause his son to be in the 5 percent accepted to An Ivy coming from one of the hardest areas in the country to get into college.

And if OP's child could throw a ball into a hoop or kick a ball into a net that makes the child "special"?
I agree that no student is entitled to an education at a particular college. It is frustrating however that academic ability and academic achievements are nearly treated with disdain.

It’s a contribution to the school the OPs kid cannot more. There is nothing distinguishing about OPs kid so it’s a reach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow the above is harsh. OP doesn't even know yet if reaches will happen or not. Not all Ivies are HYP in terms of hooked majorities. Using the early card, his kid has a decent shot at Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth and Ivy equivalents such as MIT, Caltech and UChicago. Harvey Mudd and CMU CS are also highly respected. A 4.0 unweighted at a STEM magnet is a time intensive, tough accomplishment.

A 4.0 will not get you into most state flagships, certainly not UVA. Since OP didn't mention whether the 4.0 is weighted or not BUT mentions AP classes but fails to mention test scores, I am assuming that the 4.0 is weighted and that son didn't do so well in those AP courses, which is also why she doesn't mention test scores. UVA's scores run from 4.10 to 4.47 for top 25% median.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am getting pissed now. High achieving Asian-American male student in magnet STEM program. 4.0 GPA, NMF, 10 APs, 1 state level EC, hundreds of hours of community service, member of a number of honor societies, started two clubs, research experience....and Ivies are just reach for him? FU%K IT!!!!!!!

I've been a Harvard interviewer for decades. In this area, a high GPA in the school's most rigorous courseload, several 5's on APs taken as a junior with several more in progress as a senior, and 1500 plus M+V SAT's, gets you into the top 30-40 percent of the applicant pool. The school has freshman dorm space for 4.5 percent of the applicant pool. So that top group still has to be reduced by 80%.

Once you have established that a student is academically prepared, what the universities like to see is that a student is getting off the sofa and doing things. They would rather have a 1500 SAT scorer who gets things done, than a 1600 whose hasn't contributed much. The 1500 who gets things done is far more likely to be successful, and either give a wad o' cash to the university, or make the university look good by creating something.

With a state level EC, lots of community service, and starting clubs, your son has demonstrated that he is proactive. If the research was designed by him and yielded some results that he wrote up, he will demonstrate original/scientific thinking (We see kids at the STEM magnets publishing in scientific journals every year). He will get in somewhere good. Can he count on a particular Ivy? No. This country has 330 million people. At this moment, a kid on Bainbridge Island off of Seattle with 1600 SATS is observing wildlife for the 330th day in a row, and is writing up the results or recording them for a research team at UW. A kid in the Berkshires is composing a concerto. A kid in Minnesota will be written up in the local rag for taking the most APs of anyone in the county. All of this is really good for us as a nation. It means we have a lot of centers of academic excellence around the country. Meeting these kids gives me hope, They, their scientific training, and their motivation will outlive Trump and his pile of old angry white guys.

Bottom line: be a competitive athlete too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Basically, there are too many qualified kids for each top school spot.

So that means that a bunch of energetic, accomplished, intelligent, creative students will be going to other schools, which makes those schools pretty darn great too - maybe even "top". Not only will those students be able to do well pretty much wherever they go, it turns out that they will be surrounded by lots of great peers, which will help them even more.

No, the truth is that they will stand out but they won't be surrounded by a majority of the same academic peers. That doesn't mean the schools won't be great experiences. Students like these are not a dime a dozen. Too many to fit into a handful of schools but not so many they are mainstream elsewhere.

They may not be a dime a dozen, but there are a LOT Of them. The ACT range for Harvard and Yale are both 32-35 for the 25%-75%. The range for Washington University is 32-34. The range for University of Chicago is 32-35. The range for Vanderbilt is 30-35. The range for USC is 30-33. The range for Davidson is 30-33. The range for University of Virginia is 31-34.

Kids who go to school outside of the Ivy League will have great peer groups and arguably better peer groups, because the diversity will be greater.

Forget the lower part of the range 25%. That's for the hooked. The high academic kid is 35-36/1500-1600. Diversity of talent is a good thing. It teaches you how to get along in the world. But the point that was made was that they would be surrounded by a mass of their academic peers for classroom challenge. That's not the case.

You’re arguing that the student will not be surrounded by academic peers if she/he ends up at WashU or Vandy? Uh ok.

You could swap the entire first year class at Wash U with the entire first year class at any Ivy and not see an appreciable difference in experience or outcomes for that class. Vanderbilt, the same way.

If that’s what you need to tell yourself well, ok then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow the above is harsh. OP doesn't even know yet if reaches will happen or not. Not all Ivies are HYP in terms of hooked majorities. Using the early card, his kid has a decent shot at Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth and Ivy equivalents such as MIT, Caltech and UChicago. Harvey Mudd and CMU CS are also highly respected. A 4.0 unweighted at a STEM magnet is a time intensive, tough accomplishment.

A 4.0 will not get you into most state flagships, certainly not UVA. Since OP didn't mention whether the 4.0 is weighted or not BUT mentions AP classes but fails to mention test scores, I am assuming that the 4.0 is weighted and that son didn't do so well in those AP courses, which is also why she doesn't mention test scores. UVA's scores run from 4.10 to 4.47 for top 25% median.

OP here. The GPA is unweighted. Many of the courses are magnet courses as part of the magnet pathway and more rigorous than the usual AP offerings. Students will take APs and SAT subject tests easily in STEM subjects after taking the magnet courses - even though not all magnet classes is listed as an AP class. Got 5 in all AP exams by Collegeboard and got straight As in every single course. I do not believe that this is a common stat for most students. The fact that my son comes from a middle class Asian-American family is the reason that we have an issue.

We all are watching how people get their kids into colleges now, don't we? The story about lack of seats for qualified students is BS.