Why is there such a difference in advice in this forum vs. tweens/teens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty clear that most parents posting here are well away of what it takes to get into even a T100 university these days: high unweighted GPA, great standardized test scores, leadership EC's, etc. But the prevailing feeling in the other forum seems to be, "Let your kids have fun and be themselves, and they'll land where they land." Is this just a self-selecting group of posters, or is something else going on?

Because tweens/early teens are in a different stage of life compared to those who are about to get into college.

Not according to this forum.

[Anonymous]

a lot of non-local people come just to this sub-forum to discuss college.

very different demographic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d say two things:

1. Yes, self-selecting forum. There is a core group of posters who are very focused (fixated?) on the top, top colleges and prestige. For some it is their hobby (special interest?)

2. Parents of 13 year olds may not be tuned in to how competitive current college admissions is. Once their kid is 16/17, they may shift a hit.

Bonus reason: current college students are part of a micro baby boom. Things like registration for preschool, summer camp, soccer team, Brownie troops, etc, have been super competitive (or at least first come, first serve = set your alarm and log in at 7:00am on the dot) their whole lives. So parents of 17-23 year olds are primed to feel scarcity.

Your third point is interesting, given there’s a prediction of a “baby bust” coming, as apparently a decrease in births occurred after the 2008 financial crisis. My ds is part of that cohort (he’s a 2010 baby), so we’ll see if there’s a shift for their class when college application time hits.

But is he a snowmageddon baby? Because I've experienced scarcity of spots locally because of that.

Ha! No, I was already pregnant when Snowmageddon hit. He’s an early 2010 kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d say two things:

1. Yes, self-selecting forum. There is a core group of posters who are very focused (fixated?) on the top, top colleges and prestige. For some it is their hobby (special interest?)

2. Parents of 13 year olds may not be tuned in to how competitive current college admissions is. Once their kid is 16/17, they may shift a hit.

Bonus reason: current college students are part of a micro baby boom. Things like registration for preschool, summer camp, soccer team, Brownie troops, etc, have been super competitive (or at least first come, first serve = set your alarm and log in at 7:00am on the dot) their whole lives. So parents of 17-23 year olds are primed to feel scarcity.

Your third point is interesting, given there’s a prediction of a “baby bust” coming, as apparently a decrease in births occurred after the 2008 financial crisis. My ds is part of that cohort (he’s a 2010 baby), so we’ll see if there’s a shift for their class when college application time hits.

Ooh, never heard of this. I hope you're right.

[Anonymous]

I post in this forum.

I think that in this forum, there are lots of posts by people who want their kid to go to Ivies, or Stanford, etc . . . If that's your goal, then in order to meet that goal, your kid will need a lot of EC's, and super high grades, and tons of rigor. But that doesn't mean that it's a good goal. Figuring yourself out, having a great high school experience, getting into the college that's a match for you, might be better goals.

Also, I think sometimes people catastrophize. There was a post. There was a post a while ago where someone said "my freshman isn't planning to do any activities" and people replied that he'd never get into a good college, and his future would be ruined.

In reality the most likely outcome is that the freshman will change his mind. Because that's what freshmen do. So, making college predictions in August before freshman year is pointless. Even if kid doesn't change his mind there are plenty of great potential outcomes. But he'll probably change his mind. And colleges are not going to reject him because he didn't decide to join clubs until November.

[Anonymous]

Parents of kids going to non-selective colleges or easy admits to places they can afford have better things to do with their time than obsess over it on a college application forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty clear that most parents posting here are well away of what it takes to get into even a T100 university these days: high unweighted GPA, great standardized test scores, leadership EC's, etc. But the prevailing feeling in the other forum seems to be, "Let your kids have fun and be themselves, and they'll land where they land." Is this just a self-selecting group of posters, or is something else going on?

Because tweens/early teens are in a different stage of life compared to those who are about to get into college.

Not according to this forum.

Yes, even in this forum. Very few posters here believe that kids need to be focused on college admissions in ES/MS; the ones who do are generally piled on without mercy.

People in this forum do say, however, that kids need to maximize rigor in HS and pursue meaningful ECs to be competitive for highly selective schools. I think that’s the majority view. A loud minority think kids need to have “national” awards and accomplishments to have a chance at these schools.

[Anonymous]

OP this forum is about "college and university" so its going to be academically focused from the off. Even when clueless people come here, its to ask advice about applications / college choices / do you really need 3 yrs of foreign language etc

the Teens and tweens forum is more socially focused, it can be about developmental questions as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d say two things:

1. Yes, self-selecting forum. There is a core group of posters who are very focused (fixated?) on the top, top colleges and prestige. For some it is their hobby (special interest?)

2. Parents of 13 year olds may not be tuned in to how competitive current college admissions is. Once their kid is 16/17, they may shift a hit.

Bonus reason: current college students are part of a micro baby boom. Things like registration for preschool, summer camp, soccer team, Brownie troops, etc, have been super competitive (or at least first come, first serve = set your alarm and log in at 7:00am on the dot) their whole lives. So parents of 17-23 year olds are primed to feel scarcity.

Your third point is interesting, given there’s a prediction of a “baby bust” coming, as apparently a decrease in births occurred after the 2008 financial crisis. My ds is part of that cohort (he’s a 2010 baby), so we’ll see if there’s a shift for their class when college application time hits.

Ooh, never heard of this. I hope you're right.

If you look past the T50 you'll find smaller colleges actively freaking out about it, because some of them are going to be folding in the next decade due to lack of applicants (thus making admissions harder again, of course).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d say two things:

1. Yes, self-selecting forum. There is a core group of posters who are very focused (fixated?) on the top, top colleges and prestige. For some it is their hobby (special interest?)

2. Parents of 13 year olds may not be tuned in to how competitive current college admissions is. Once their kid is 16/17, they may shift a hit.

Bonus reason: current college students are part of a micro baby boom. Things like registration for preschool, summer camp, soccer team, Brownie troops, etc, have been super competitive (or at least first come, first serve = set your alarm and log in at 7:00am on the dot) their whole lives. So parents of 17-23 year olds are primed to feel scarcity.

Your third point is interesting, given there’s a prediction of a “baby bust” coming, as apparently a decrease in births occurred after the 2008 financial crisis. My ds is part of that cohort (he’s a 2010 baby), so we’ll see if there’s a shift for their class when college application time hits.

Ooh, never heard of this. I hope you're right.

If you look past the T50 you'll find smaller colleges actively freaking out about it, because some of them are going to be folding in the next decade due to lack of applicants (thus making admissions harder again, of course).

Examples? I have a 2013 baby, and I'm curious how this enrollment cliff will pan out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty clear that most parents posting here are well away of what it takes to get into even a T100 university these days: high unweighted GPA, great standardized test scores, leadership EC's, etc. But the prevailing feeling in the other forum seems to be, "Let your kids have fun and be themselves, and they'll land where they land." Is this just a self-selecting group of posters, or is something else going on?

This is patently false as we happily found out last cycle. You don't need all of those factors.. maybe you do at T30ish and a small subset of schools below that. My kid did whatever he wanted, goofed off in high school, mediocre GPA (3.25/3.75) but had a high test score with minimal prep (did KA sample tests and scored above 1500), one non-academic EC, no sports and very minimal service hours. Got into several schools in the T40-75 range, Engineering, CS or Business programs, and a T30 LAC. Some of the private schools gave great merit too! I'm sure results would have been the same if the GPA was higher and test scores lower but the rest of the profile was the same. Maybe DC would have gotten into higher ranked schools if the target had been an easier major but who knows.. Not female, not URM, before someone asks.

So yeah.. let them have fun too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d say two things:

1. Yes, self-selecting forum. There is a core group of posters who are very focused (fixated?) on the top, top colleges and prestige. For some it is their hobby (special interest?)

2. Parents of 13 year olds may not be tuned in to how competitive current college admissions is. Once their kid is 16/17, they may shift a hit.

Bonus reason: current college students are part of a micro baby boom. Things like registration for preschool, summer camp, soccer team, Brownie troops, etc, have been super competitive (or at least first come, first serve = set your alarm and log in at 7:00am on the dot) their whole lives. So parents of 17-23 year olds are primed to feel scarcity.

Your third point is interesting, given there’s a prediction of a “baby bust” coming, as apparently a decrease in births occurred after the 2008 financial crisis. My ds is part of that cohort (he’s a 2010 baby), so we’ll see if there’s a shift for their class when college application time hits.

Ooh, never heard of this. I hope you're right.

If you look past the T50 you'll find smaller colleges actively freaking out about it, because some of them are going to be folding in the next decade due to lack of applicants (thus making admissions harder again, of course).

Examples? I have a 2013 baby, and I'm curious how this enrollment cliff will pan out.

Oh please, your kid is 11, the whole thing will have gone through at least 2 major cycles of change before it matters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where did you get Top 100? What it takes to get into Top 100 is a far cry different than what it takes to get to Top 20.

I was being generous based on the fact the tween/teen forum seems to be ok with no EC's and B averages.

Do Top 100s actually take kids with no ECs and B averages? The top half of VA public universities (UVA, VA Tech, WM, and even JMU now) pretty much require top grades and ECs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where did you get Top 100? What it takes to get into Top 100 is a far cry different than what it takes to get to Top 20.

I was being generous based on the fact the tween/teen forum seems to be ok with no EC's and B averages.

Do Top 100s actually take kids with no ECs and B averages? The top half of VA public universities (UVA, VA Tech, WM, and even JMU now) pretty much require top grades and ECs.

JMU requires top grades because of grade inflation in FCPS. It is really hard to get Bs if you are putting in a bit of effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty clear that most parents posting here are well away of what it takes to get into even a T100 university these days: high unweighted GPA, great standardized test scores, leadership EC's, etc. But the prevailing feeling in the other forum seems to be, "Let your kids have fun and be themselves, and they'll land where they land." Is this just a self-selecting group of posters, or is something else going on?

This is patently false as we happily found out last cycle. You don't need all of those factors.. maybe you do at T30ish and a small subset of schools below that. My kid did whatever he wanted, goofed off in high school, mediocre GPA (3.25/3.75) but had a high test score with minimal prep (did KA sample tests and scored above 1500), one non-academic EC, no sports and very minimal service hours. Got into several schools in the T40-75 range, Engineering, CS or Business programs, and a T30 LAC. Some of the private schools gave great merit too! I'm sure results would have been the same if the GPA was higher and test scores lower but the rest of the profile was the same. Maybe DC would have gotten into higher ranked schools if the target had been an easier major but who knows.. Not female, not URM, before someone asks.

So yeah.. let them have fun too!

Lot of good schools really need boys. I’ve even surprised at the list I am making for DC. Lots of schools are 40/60 vs closer to half and half.