Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask the counselors for copies of the recs and send them in yourself.

No, not workable for many reasons. Certain items must come from the school -- the school transcript, the counselor forms. The teacher recommendations now for most schools are processed electronically, often through a Naviance account. Even if you don't agree with the recommendations, your child can still go ahead and apply and the high schools won't stand in the way of that. Look at all the examples on this thread -- "the school said my child shouldn't apply to Ivy X and s/he did and now they're at Ivy X" -- the high schools are not black-balling applications or throwing the forms into the trash.

The child should say politely, "thank you, Mr. Doe, but my parents and I have talked and we would like to go ahead and add [Harvard/Stanford/Duke/MIT] on my list as well as my other schools."

The counselor will most likely say, "Okay, that's fine." They might also say "That's fine but I would still like to talk to you about the rest of your list."

Duh. But they cannot refuse to send them.

[Anonymous]

Look if the counselor can talk even one highly qualified student out of applying -- that is one less to compete with. I would definitely take it with a grain of salt. However, "top" means top, not B+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask the counselors for copies of the recs and send them in yourself.

No, not workable for many reasons. Certain items must come from the school -- the school transcript, the counselor forms. The teacher recommendations now for most schools are processed electronically, often through a Naviance account. Even if you don't agree with the recommendations, your child can still go ahead and apply and the high schools won't stand in the way of that. Look at all the examples on this thread -- "the school said my child shouldn't apply to Ivy X and s/he did and now they're at Ivy X" -- the high schools are not black-balling applications or throwing the forms into the trash.

The child should say politely, "thank you, Mr. Doe, but my parents and I have talked and we would like to go ahead and add [Harvard/Stanford/Duke/MIT] on my list as well as my other schools."

The counselor will most likely say, "Okay, that's fine." They might also say "That's fine but I would still like to talk to you about the rest of your list."

Duh. But they cannot refuse to send them.

Right you are, Reverend Reading Comprehension! The original post advised a parent to send in recommendations on their own. It doesn't work that way. As the second quoted post made clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my school a large donors child did not get into an ivy ED and it was discovered that the recs were negative. The recs were pulled and the head wrote a glowing rec instead. This info came from the donor parent involved.

LOL. How can you “pull” recs after the college has already seen them? The head can write an additional rec, but Adcoms put a lot more weight on those from teachers.

[Anonymous]

Since a thread from 2014 has been resurrected...so, OP, how did it all turn out?

[Anonymous]

I am curious too! How did it turn out, OP?

[Anonymous]

It turned out with the SFS college counselor quitting because of all the constant parental griping by parents who insist on sending their kids to the school with the highest USNWR ranking, as opposed to the one where they'll enjoy themselves and thrive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am reaching out for genuine, sincerely needed advice. My husband and I were both educated abroad and are dealing with the college application process in the US for the first time. I apologize in advance for the length--my blood is boiling right now.

We are a working class family (in the true, sociological sense) who send our DC to a "big 3" school in the district, receiving a significant amount of financial aid. Our child is the first in our family to attend a highly-ranked private school and it is relatively well known among faculty and staff that our child is a scholarship student. We live in the suburbs, far away from the school campus and social bubble, limiting how much my husband and I can contribute to the school and belong to the general community. In sum, our DC is a student yet we (parents) are outsiders. Although fellow parents have been nothing but kind to us, it is clear to us [and has been made clear by others] that we do not fit the "typical" profile of this school.

We are currently in the process of short-listing what colleges to apply to yet it seems that the college counselor at DC's school is being extremely conservative if not plainly discouraging in commandeering the college application process and dictating what schools my DC should and should not apply to. After a recent conversation, my concern is that the college counselor is not acting in DC's best interest, but rather, is strategically manipulating the college application process at DC's school to favor legacy students and high-profile parents who operate under the implicit assumption that little Timmy or Bobby will, like his parents and grandparents, go to a school like Yale.

Paranoia or not?

Our child has a highly competitive GPA with an upward trend and is among the top 5-10 students in the school's class (school does not give precise rankings). DC has an SAT score of +/-2200 which is likely to increase, has participated in varsity athletics for all four years of high school, has excellent recommendations and has pursued various research opportunities. That being said, DC does not have a particularly unique narrative or "story" and, without knowing our family background and circumstances, would just appear like a regular, privileged independent school child on paper. It doesn't help that DC is shy.

The college adviser has marked schools like Princeton, Williams and Stanford as "highly unlikely reaches" and has pushed DC to apply to lesser-ranked private colleges (think no. 15-25 USNWR and smaller LACs) and strongly pressured DC to pursue a binding early decision scholarship at a state school (not UMD but not Berkeley or UVA either). I am not clueless and understand that college admissions are incredibly competitive today. Indeed, even students with perfect SATs and NIH-funded research projects are often denied admission. Yet, I cannot help but wonder if I should be more assertive with the college counselor and ask what specific criteria has been used to steer students towards so-called "match" or "fit" schools?

My query and concern is the following: knowing the profile of parents who send their kids to DC's school, is it possible that the college counselor may be working overtime advocating for some students and not others? A fellow parent has told me that typically, Ivies and other highly-ranked schools only accept 2-3 students (max) per DC independent school. Is it possible that my son is being steered away from HYPSM and other top schools where DC meets, if not even exceeds the median criteria for admission in order to ensure that full-paying students who have a history with the school are more likely to be admitted?

I understand how social reproduction works; I knew what we were getting into when my DC began attending this school yet I worry that DC has become objectified due to his [comparative] lack of cultural and symbolic capital. That being said, I can also play devil's advocate. To be honest, if I were a parent paying full tuition for K-12 at this school, I would expect to yield a return on my investment in my child's education. If you had two Yale or Columbia-educated law partners sending their kid to a Big-3, where do you think they would be gunning for their kids to go to?

All being said and done, what can I do? Aside from the logistics of actually applying to colleges--at the end of the day, we can apply wherever we want, regardless of what the school tells us--my deepest concern is that DC's college counselor has made DC feel unfit or inadequate, implying that he is not academically competent or will simply not "fit in" at a traditional HYPSM type school. This has had a significant impact on DC's sense of self-worth, only confirming DC's sense of alienation, and reinforcing the "I don't belong here" mindset that his school has bred.

Finally, to be explicitly clear: I understand that one can get a rigorous education at many schools. At the end of the day, DC is very industrious and will make do with what he has. I am not pressuring DC to attend a HYPSM school. Rather, it is always DC who has been very-self motivated and forward-looking. The idea to apply to Big-3 schools (which I had no idea about) was entirely his own. When DC entered this school, I worried that the level of material influence would impact his ability to fit in. I thought we had gotten over that, but it seems that even within a supposed "meritocracy" this is not the case. Excuse me for going on ad nauseam. I'm a mother. I can't help but worry about my child.

This reeks of neurotic striver living through their kid. "Shy kid" teases out this is the parents' obsession and the low-key kid will be happy as a clam at Maryland, UVA, Tech ... or Wake Forest or other selective LACs.

[Anonymous]

Shaking my head at nutty parents trying to force a shy kid into a top 15. Top 15 student bodies are basically all super outgoing, super aggressive, super boisterous type A kids. Shy kids hate it and get eaten alive as their classmates run circles around them.

I doubt it was "discrimination" more likely the counselor knows your kid and detected all the obsession was coming from the lunatic parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask the counselors for copies of the recs and send them in yourself.

No, not workable for many reasons. Certain items must come from the school -- the school transcript, the counselor forms. The teacher recommendations now for most schools are processed electronically, often through a Naviance account. Even if you don't agree with the recommendations, your child can still go ahead and apply and the high schools won't stand in the way of that. Look at all the examples on this thread -- "the school said my child shouldn't apply to Ivy X and s/he did and now they're at Ivy X" -- the high schools are not black-balling applications or throwing the forms into the trash.

The child should say politely, "thank you, Mr. Doe, but my parents and I have talked and we would like to go ahead and add [Harvard/Stanford/Duke/MIT] on my list as well as my other schools."

The counselor will most likely say, "Okay, that's fine." They might also say "That's fine but I would still like to talk to you about the rest of your list."

Duh. But they cannot refuse to send them.

Sure.

OP loves drama a bit too much.

Yes, counsellors can be biased (or, from their perspective, look for the greater good) but at the end of the day OP is the mom of her own kids and it's the family and the kid, not the high school, that decides where to apply.

[Anonymous]

You really revived a 5 year old thread.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn’t OP’s DC be out of college by now? Why would they be on this site????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn’t OP’s DC be out of college by now? Why would they be on this site????

OP is here for sure.

Who but the most devout DCUM reader writes a novel to open a thread?

[Anonymous]

Got into a top reach school STEM major as an unusual hook was pursued in the application. The counselling story also became a part of the application. Hired an outside consultant and they made a big difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Got into a top reach school STEM major as an unusual hook was pursued in the application. The counselling story also became a part of the application. Hired an outside consultant and they made a big difference.

Are you really OP? Your writing style is so different. And you had money to hire outside college consultant? OP had limited funds.