Divorced family discrimination at college presentation

[Anonymous]

I would absolutely complain the admissions dept. It is an unnecessary, horrible thing to say.

Someone said on page 1, they wouldn't say being Black hurts your academic success and someone replied, you can't control that variable. KIDS CAN'T CONTROL if their parents are divorced FFS. And even if they could, that fact makes it okay to say something like this, to a room full of families?

It makes no damn sense. Would the person say "you have a much better chance of getting in if your parent is not incarcerated." What is the point of what was said? My spouse is an abusive nutjob but you know, I better stay with them so your admissions prospects are better. She's trying to keep people of near adults married? She's letting them know that a painful situation done with from the past is going to hurt their kid?

I am a single mom and my kids have done and will do great. They are so much better off, academically and otherwise, since their parents are divorced. That statistic make no sense, there are so many other factors and populations we are talking about here.

A hurtful statement about their family situation has no place at such a talk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the context?

This was a campus tour presentation and this was her observation on what matters among admitted families. According to her admitted students are more likely to come from intact homes.

Not test scores, nothing else apparently. Marital status...

Makes sense. Kids from
broken homes don’t do as well as kids who are from intact homes. Trauma matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, do you know how many times I’ve heard highly successful women tell other women at networking events during their presentations that the most important factor to being successful is having a supportive husband?

As a single mom I find that to be a pretty tone deaf statement as they are there to provide supportive guidance to all women - however it’s their truth and probably very accurate for many highly successful women.

I started a very successful business as a single Mom. I know lots of others like me. I've been to several women in business conferences and have never heard someone publicly say husbands are the key to success.

For me, I ditched the male business partners because they were holding me back.

i’ve never heard it either, but I probably wouldn’t be where I am without my DHs support. I certainly would be a mother. I’m a surgeon with a private practice that took years to build with an unbelievable sacrifice of time. My DH is the rock of our family life and now. FINALLY at age 50 I can sit back and relax and enjoy with my family the life the money I have made. My DH did absolutely everything to keep the household running. I could have never built my practice and worked those 24hr days without him.

[Anonymous]

It would be a problem if they admitted an equally deserving candidate only bc he came from a divorced home. I don't think that's what she was saying.
She was being brutally honest that the stronger candidates haven't had to deal with divorce. Sad but true.
Let it go. If your child's grades didn't suffer, more power to them.

[Anonymous]

The person showed poor judgement in saying this in that context. But it’s true and it’s not discrimination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would absolutely complain the admissions dept. It is an unnecessary, horrible thing to say.

Someone said on page 1, they wouldn't say being Black hurts your academic success and someone replied, you can't control that variable. KIDS CAN'T CONTROL if their parents are divorced FFS. And even if they could, that fact makes it okay to say something like this, to a room full of families?

It makes no damn sense. Would the person say "you have a much better chance of getting in if your parent is not incarcerated." What is the point of what was said? My spouse is an abusive nutjob but you know, I better stay with them so your admissions prospects are better. She's trying to keep people of near adults married? She's letting them know that a painful situation done with from the past is going to hurt their kid?

I am a single mom and my kids have done and will do great. They are so much better off, academically and otherwise, since their parents are divorced. That statistic make no sense, there are so many other factors and populations we are talking about here.

A hurtful statement about their family situation has no place at such a talk.

Agreed, At the point of college tours, it's a little late to put that genie back into the bottle. So what is the point. I'm fairly certain there aren't a lot of parents of newborns attending these events, that would be your target audience if there were one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone so quick to believe this really happened? I’m calling bs.

If John’s Hopkins was saying this, it would be all over DCUM and College Confidential.

Maybe. I’ve heard from really wacky things on college tours, especially at UVA.

And here we go, it always comes back to UVA for some of you people. Twisted.

I’ve been on these boards for awhile and have seen the UVA wars you’re referring to but I am not a part of it. Just someone from outside the DC area who had a very bad experience on a uva tour like OP did here.

Oh do tell, what was the bad experience? What was done that was "very bad?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was absolutely floored yesterday to hear this not only said aloud by the person presenting but repeated. I thought it was a joke until she repeated it.

The words were - "I tell parents the one thing that will get their kid into college is staying married"

So all these colleges are woke about everything else but it's still cool to throw shade at family status?

Statistics don’t lie

[Anonymous]

There’s zero chance this happened.

Colleges want people to apply. No AO would offend in a presentation and OP was clear that it was an admissions presentation, not a student tour guide. There’s just no way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s zero chance this happened.

Colleges want people to apply. No AO would offend in a presentation and OP was clear that it was an admissions presentation, not a student tour guide. There’s just no way.

Agree. It’s one of the numerous made up troll posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s zero chance this happened.

Colleges want people to apply. No AO would offend in a presentation and OP was clear that it was an admissions presentation, not a student tour guide. There’s just no way.

Agree. It’s one of the numerous made up troll posts.

It’s a weird topic for a troll to make up, but agreed, the whole thing sounds super-sketchy.

I figure it’s someone with a chip on their shoulder who picked up on an offhand comment and massively overinflated it to make a point about “woke” schools like JHU and how horrible they are.

Guessing they’re ultra-sensitive about being divorced, and immediately jumped to the worst possible interpretation of a weak, throwaway joke, something like: “Statistically, most of our admitted students come from two-parent households—so I guess the best thing you can do to boost your kid’s chances is to stay married, ha ha! But we do meet 100% of demonstrated need for accepted students…”.

Then they ran with it here, thinking they might get some good troll action out of it. Had to throw in the “woke” bit in the op, just to be sure the libs would bite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the context?

This was a campus tour presentation and this was her observation on what matters among admitted families. According to her admitted students are more likely to come from intact homes.

Not test scores, nothing else apparently. Marital status...

Makes sense. Kids from
broken homes don’t do as well as kids who are from intact homes. Trauma matters.

My son has never experienced trauma. Why do you assume kids from single parent homes have experienced trauma?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was absolutely floored yesterday to hear this not only said aloud by the person presenting but repeated. I thought it was a joke until she repeated it.

The words were - "I tell parents the one thing that will get their kid into college is staying married"

So all these colleges are woke about everything else but it's still cool to throw shade at family status?

It’s not discrimination but the fact that this presenter actually tells parents this and then tells everyone they tell parents this - wild.

[Anonymous]

That’s a totally inappropriate comment, and I would complain (anonymously!) to the admissions office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is relevant:

https://ol.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1g30miy/lawsuit_accuses_40_top_colleges_of_inflating/

Yeah this is 100% an issue. We wouldn't qualify on our incomes alone, but one step parent that literally just married into the situation makes more than all of us but that's her money and in no way is she financially obligated to pay for our child's college except that the CSS makes it so.