Mistakes you made in the admissions process...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just barfed at the word unhooked

Why?

Bc you are too caught up in all the bs.

I am? My first post was “why?”.

my point is when terms like "unhooked" become a fixture in your vocabulary you are too caught up in all of this. Things will work out, they always do.

Probably should have said that then. I’m not caught up in anything. But I do have twins who are HS juniors and one is a lacrosse player. Use whatever word you like (or avoid them if you must) but she is seeing doors open that her brother, a non-athlete) is not.

Yes, I agree that things do work out. But having a differentiator amongst so many great students does matter, and I’d prefer my kids have an opportunity to go where they prefer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just barfed at the word unhooked

Why?

Bc you are too caught up in all the bs.

I am? My first post was “why?”.

my point is when terms like "unhooked" become a fixture in your vocabulary you are too caught up in all of this. Things will work out, they always do.

Probably should have said that then. I’m not caught up in anything. But I do have twins who are HS juniors and one is a lacrosse player. Use whatever word you like (or avoid them if you must) but she is seeing doors open that her brother, a non-athlete) is not.

Yes, I agree that things do work out. But having a differentiator amongst so many great students does matter, and I’d prefer my kids have an opportunity to go where they prefer.

I was actually talking to the barfed poster who i completely agree with. People who use those terms sound stupid and desperate. You are like thousands of other parents who wish the same for their kids. Their kids being very similar to their peers. Its fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just barfed at the word unhooked

Why?

Bc you are too caught up in all the bs.

I am? My first post was “why?”.

my point is when terms like "unhooked" become a fixture in your vocabulary you are too caught up in all of this. Things will work out, they always do.

It seems ironic that someone who becomes physically ill at the use of fairly standard admissions vernacular posts again and again about it and then says others are "too caught up in all of this".

There's really only one person in the thread that is dramatically affected by the word, and it is you, PP. Look in the mirror.

[Anonymous]

Our mistake was giving any weight whatsoever to the “chances calculators” (Prepscholar is one) that gave our first false hope at some schools that were frankly out of his league. Don’t even bother with those. They are worthless and misleading. Go to the common data sets of schools of interest. Note in particular the percentage from the top decile/quarter/half of high school class and in each band of SAT score. If the kid isn’t in the top ten percent of HS class and 85% of enrolled students are, then (absent a special talent or appeal) it’s a longshot. We did that analysis after the fact and it became immediately clear that my first had overshot, essentially applying to all, or nearly all, reaches. (He ended up at a mid 20’s SLAC and a great match, so no great calamity. But it was a rough couple of weeks plowing through the ‘we regret...’ emails.)

As for cost, the CDS also has number of students receiving merit aid and average amount. If you need merit aid that will tell the tale. Many technically offer merit aid but a quick look reveals that it’s offered to only one or two students. Ooh lookie, Bowdoin DOES offer merit aid...to 8 students...a thousand bucks each. Cool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paying cash for UVA when our DS qualified for Univ. of Alabama's 100% full ride out-of-state scholarship.

Unless something is going wrong, that’s not a mistake (if UVA is in state). Alabama’s ranking is awful.

Mouth your kid can watch football in a really nice stadium...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our mistake was giving any weight whatsoever to the “chances calculators” (Prepscholar is one) that gave our first false hope at some schools that were frankly out of his league. Don’t even bother with those. They are worthless and misleading. Go to the common data sets of schools of interest. Note in particular the percentage from the top decile/quarter/half of high school class and in each band of SAT score. If the kid isn’t in the top ten percent of HS class and 85% of enrolled students are, then (absent a special talent or appeal) it’s a longshot. We did that analysis after the fact and it became immediately clear that my first had overshot, essentially applying to all, or nearly all, reaches. (He ended up at a mid 20’s SLAC and a great match, so no great calamity. But it was a rough couple of weeks plowing through the ‘we regret...’ emails.)

As for cost, the CDS also has number of students receiving merit aid and average amount. If you need merit aid that will tell the tale. Many technically offer merit aid but a quick look reveals that it’s offered to only one or two students. Ooh lookie, Bowdoin DOES offer merit aid...to 8 students...a thousand bucks each. Cool.

Doesn't your school have Naviance? That was very accurate for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paying cash for UVA when our DS qualified for Univ. of Alabama's 100% full ride out-of-state scholarship.

Unless something is going wrong, that’s not a mistake (if UVA is in state). Alabama’s ranking is awful.

Mouth your kid can watch football in a really nice stadium...

Students who get that scholarship are in the U of Alabama honors program. It's plenty rigorous.

[Anonymous]

For my D, mistake was probably applying to too many colleges. She applied to 12 (4 safeties, 4 matches, 4 reaches). In the end, there were a bunch of filler colleges in there due to indecision about what she wanted. I think a lot of kids do this because of the fear of not getting in anywhere. Naviance turned out to be very accurate - largish high school with many kids gunning for STEM. There were 3 that made the cut that she chose from (1 super reach, 1 low reach/high match, and 1 safety).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our mistake was giving any weight whatsoever to the “chances calculators” (Prepscholar is one) that gave our first false hope at some schools that were frankly out of his league. Don’t even bother with those. They are worthless and misleading. Go to the common data sets of schools of interest. Note in particular the percentage from the top decile/quarter/half of high school class and in each band of SAT score. If the kid isn’t in the top ten percent of HS class and 85% of enrolled students are, then (absent a special talent or appeal) it’s a longshot. We did that analysis after the fact and it became immediately clear that my first had overshot, essentially applying to all, or nearly all, reaches. (He ended up at a mid 20’s SLAC and a great match, so no great calamity. But it was a rough couple of weeks plowing through the ‘we regret...’ emails.)

As for cost, the CDS also has number of students receiving merit aid and average amount. If you need merit aid that will tell the tale. Many technically offer merit aid but a quick look reveals that it’s offered to only one or two students. Ooh lookie, Bowdoin DOES offer merit aid...to 8 students...a thousand bucks each. Cool.

Doesn't your school have Naviance? That was very accurate for us.

It does and was for schools where we have enough applicants to demonstrate real correlation. But for distant slacs with a handful or no applicants it didn’t have any value.

[Anonymous]

My kid got into a ‘reach’ with acceptance rates so low it’s basically a reach for everyone. She is doing well there and likes it.
These days you have to consider more than ‘naviance’ data as some schools have new agendas - like letting in most of the class early
(attention whores!!).
Naviance is also only data based on test scores and GPA’s. It doesn’t detail a special work project your kid might have done or playing in a national orchestra or anything does it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just barfed at the word unhooked

Why?

Bc you are too caught up in all the bs.

I am? My first post was “why?”.

my point is when terms like "unhooked" become a fixture in your vocabulary you are too caught up in all of this. Things will work out, they always do.

It seems ironic that someone who becomes physically ill at the use of fairly standard admissions vernacular posts again and again about it and then says others are "too caught up in all of this".

There's really only one person in the thread that is dramatically affected by the word, and it is you, PP. Look in the mirror.

The poster responding is just someone who agreed when I wrote the the word makes me hard

It's lame that you guys are so into this stuff that you invented a new word to save yourself the extra seconds of just saying students with a special hook or advantage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just barfed at the word unhooked

Why?

Bc you are too caught up in all the bs.

I am? My first post was “why?”.

my point is when terms like "unhooked" become a fixture in your vocabulary you are too caught up in all of this. Things will work out, they always do.

It seems ironic that someone who becomes physically ill at the use of fairly standard admissions vernacular posts again and again about it and then says others are "too caught up in all of this".

There's really only one person in the thread that is dramatically affected by the word, and it is you, PP. Look in the mirror.

The poster responding is just someone who agreed when I wrote the the word makes me hard

It's lame that you guys are so into this stuff that you invented a new word to save yourself the extra seconds of just saying students with a special hook or advantage

Nobody on this board invented that word.

It's been part of admissions vernacular for many years. And it means students without a special hook, hence un-hooked.

Also very, very odd you have no problem with the work "hook" but get ill at "unhooked". Very very odd.

[Anonymous]

Also love my typo. Things that make me barf do not usually make me hard

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also love my typo. Things that make me barf do not usually make me hard

Ok, this is hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our mistake was giving any weight whatsoever to the “chances calculators” (Prepscholar is one) that gave our first false hope at some schools that were frankly out of his league. Don’t even bother with those. They are worthless and misleading. Go to the common data sets of schools of interest. Note in particular the percentage from the top decile/quarter/half of high school class and in each band of SAT score. If the kid isn’t in the top ten percent of HS class and 85% of enrolled students are, then (absent a special talent or appeal) it’s a longshot. We did that analysis after the fact and it became immediately clear that my first had overshot, essentially applying to all, or nearly all, reaches. (He ended up at a mid 20’s SLAC and a great match, so no great calamity. But it was a rough couple of weeks plowing through the ‘we regret...’ emails.)

As for cost, the CDS also has number of students receiving merit aid and average amount. If you need merit aid that will tell the tale. Many technically offer merit aid but a quick look reveals that it’s offered to only one or two students. Ooh lookie, Bowdoin DOES offer merit aid...to 8 students...a thousand bucks each. Cool.

Yep, did some of that ourselves. Digging into the CDS is the way to go, cross-reference by Naviance where possible. (For ours, helpful on the state flagship and satellites, not so much anywhere else.)