How normal is it for parents to set up non profits, research, etc for kids to get into college?

[Anonymous]

I have a high school junior and I’m noticing many PARENTS doing much of the heavy lifting for their high school children, especially in setting up non profits, start ups and research. My kid does science Olympiad and several of the winners have parents do most of the building for the competitions.

DH works at a high profile job and also is associated with a top grad program. Be gets parents asking DH to write recommendations for kids he doesn’t know. The parents try to set up internships. The parents hire writing tutors to help write college essays.

I’m just wondering if this is normal and if colleges can tell when it is the parents or the kid.

[Anonymous]

Colleges claim they can tell if it is the kid or the parents, but I'm not sure they can.

How would colleges know if they got it wrong, and why would people keep doing it if they were always found out.

[Anonymous]

The colleges can tell, but reward this because it indicates the parents have connections/wealth/resources thus more likely than not to donate in the future.

Your kid does science Olympiad for their growth, not for winning the prize. Yes, the vast majority of Olympiad winners were curated beginning a very young age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a high school junior and I’m noticing many PARENTS doing much of the heavy lifting for their high school children, especially in setting up non profits, start ups and research. My kid does science Olympiad and several of the winners have parents do most of the building for the competitions.

DH works at a high profile job and also is associated with a top grad program. Be gets parents asking DH to write recommendations for kids he doesn’t know. The parents try to set up internships. The parents hire writing tutors to help write college essays.

I’m just wondering if this is normal and if colleges can tell when it is the parents or the kid.

Sadly, completely normal and it absolutely works to give those children a huge leg up on admissions. Especially in a "test optional" world.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you may know a few who do this and are adding “many” into your statements. How many parents are telling you that they hired people to write their kids’ essays.

[Anonymous]

The nonprofit establishment is pretty extreme, but internship/research acquisition help is normal if the parents have the connections and this continues during and after college. In fact at one of my dc's college orientations they told the parents to be ready to use their network to help their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you may know a few who do this and are adding “many” into your statements. How many parents are telling you that they hired people to write their kids’ essays.

Many meaning more 10, not a majority. I can think of at least ten kids whose moms are asking the community for donations for their kid’s nonprofit. The better ones with professional looking websites and big donors are definitely crafted by parents. My kid has been doing science Olympiad since elementary school and I saw the parents who would carry the build structures like it was theirs and be the ones to explain how it works. I’m not saying all or the majority has parent help. There is one kid in my kid’s grade whose dad definitely built and won first. My child also competed in the same event and placed top 5. We didn’t help at all besides buy him some supplies he requested.

Our child definitely grew up with privilege and also has advantages. It is obviously easier for a well established adult in their forties or fifties to set up a start up or nonprofit than a 15yo.

[Anonymous]

I don't know but I didn't do this for my kids. I have my own stuff to do and while I certainly helped with college tours, discussions and being annoying about getting stuff done for applications, I did not give any specific help or create anything for the kids. I think it's better for my kids to learn how to do stuff for themselves even if they end up in a different college. But both of my kids ended up at schools they loved and got good educations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you may know a few who do this and are adding “many” into your statements. How many parents are telling you that they hired people to write their kids’ essays.

Many meaning more 10, not a majority. I can think of at least ten kids whose moms are asking the community for donations for their kid’s nonprofit. The better ones with professional looking websites and big donors are definitely crafted by parents. My kid has been doing science Olympiad since elementary school and I saw the parents who would carry the build structures like it was theirs and be the ones to explain how it works. I’m not saying all or the majority has parent help. There is one kid in my kid’s grade whose dad definitely built and won first. My child also competed in the same event and placed top 5. We didn’t help at all besides buy him some supplies he requested.

Our child definitely grew up with privilege and also has advantages. It is obviously easier for a well established adult in their forties or fifties to set up a start up or nonprofit than a 15yo.

So you really have no proof. Just a suspicion which you state as fact since the real annoyance is for you is that kids who must be getting help (per you) are the ones beating your kid.

[Anonymous]

Totally happens but it doesn’t carry as much weight as it used to carry with admissions. So many patents and students have set up these nonprofits that are quickly abandoned once kids get into college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you may know a few who do this and are adding “many” into your statements. How many parents are telling you that they hired people to write their kids’ essays.

Many meaning more 10, not a majority. I can think of at least ten kids whose moms are asking the community for donations for their kid’s nonprofit. The better ones with professional looking websites and big donors are definitely crafted by parents. My kid has been doing science Olympiad since elementary school and I saw the parents who would carry the build structures like it was theirs and be the ones to explain how it works. I’m not saying all or the majority has parent help. There is one kid in my kid’s grade whose dad definitely built and won first. My child also competed in the same event and placed top 5. We didn’t help at all besides buy him some supplies he requested.

Our child definitely grew up with privilege and also has advantages. It is obviously easier for a well established adult in their forties or fifties to set up a start up or nonprofit than a 15yo.

So you really have no proof. Just a suspicion which you state as fact since the real annoyance is for you is that kids who must be getting help (per you) are the ones beating your kid.

I have a hilarious Science Olympiad story (and I’m totally outing my kid and embarrassing her but it was a long time ago). My kid and her partner did SO in elementary and did the Robotics section. They built their robot from scratch with the guidance of her partner’s fabulous mom. It was clearly a home made robot and it was both kids’ first competition. Imagine their shock when virtually every other team (or maybe every other, I don’t remember) had a Lego Mind storm and basically just had to build it from a kit with instructions and program it. Their robots were fast and efficient and blew our kids’ away. Our kids literally had a rock on theirs they were using as a ballast (because the mom asked them what they thought they needed to solve the problem of the robot tipping and what material they could find to use—instead of doing it for them). They lost (and some teams literally laughed at them), but I think they won. They got to know each other and had fun building it and they learned a ton. It was fascinating to see, though, how smug some parents were, how horrified others were and how amused/impressed some were. Clearly, they had done the work themselves. Not relevant for college, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you may know a few who do this and are adding “many” into your statements. How many parents are telling you that they hired people to write their kids’ essays.

Many meaning more 10, not a majority. I can think of at least ten kids whose moms are asking the community for donations for their kid’s nonprofit. The better ones with professional looking websites and big donors are definitely crafted by parents. My kid has been doing science Olympiad since elementary school and I saw the parents who would carry the build structures like it was theirs and be the ones to explain how it works. I’m not saying all or the majority has parent help. There is one kid in my kid’s grade whose dad definitely built and won first. My child also competed in the same event and placed top 5. We didn’t help at all besides buy him some supplies he requested.

Our child definitely grew up with privilege and also has advantages. It is obviously easier for a well established adult in their forties or fifties to set up a start up or nonprofit than a 15yo.

So you really have no proof. Just a suspicion which you state as fact since the real annoyance is for you is that kids who must be getting help (per you) are the ones beating your kid.

I don’t want to give too many details. The kid is off the team.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who did this . . . . she also wrote most of his essays for him. I'm not sure it did him many favors from a confidence perspective. He did well enough academically at Harvard, but he has floundered quite a bit with summer internships and the job market now that he's graduated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a high school junior and I’m noticing many PARENTS doing much of the heavy lifting for their high school children, especially in setting up non profits, start ups and research. My kid does science Olympiad and several of the winners have parents do most of the building for the competitions.

DH works at a high profile job and also is associated with a top grad program. Be gets parents asking DH to write recommendations for kids he doesn’t know. The parents try to set up internships. The parents hire writing tutors to help write college essays.

I’m just wondering if this is normal and if colleges can tell when it is the parents or the kid.

Sadly, completely normal and it absolutely works to give those children a huge leg up on admissions. Especially in a "test optional" world.

This isn’t really true. These contrived “super elite” ECs and educational prizes are really only the cost of doing business at the Ivy+ type places. It’s because everyone or the vast majority are 1500 plus that applicants are desperate to distinguish themselves in other ways. What you really hate is holistic admissions. Lower down on the top 25 national universities and all the top 25 SLACs, you just don’t have to play those games quite as much. Credentials have to be on point, obviously, but these manufactured research opportunities and non profits are not prerequisites for admissions at the vast majority of even highly selective schools. You want to continue to rail against TO because your kid tested well, have at it. But those types of ECs really only matter at a small number of TO schools like Duke and Princeton which I think are both still TO, or were last cycle. Pretty silly to have your heart set on Princeton (or the like). Also pretty silly to think you should have a materially better shot because of an SAT score. At best that should keep applicants out of the auto reject pile, assuming other objective data is together.

[Anonymous]

It may or may not be common, but it is definitely abnormal.