Help with Ivy fascinated kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. She thinks she will be out of place in a non Ivy and would rather take a gap year if she doesn’t get into brown princeton or another Ivy.

Then let her learn the hard way. Either her gamble works. Or, she gets taken down a notch. It sounds like she’d be intolerable at a “safety” like NE. Let’s hope she doesn’t have many hooked classmates.

[Anonymous]

Northeastern is not a safety. And Hopkins is not a target.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. She thinks she will be out of place in a non Ivy and would rather take a gap year if she doesn’t get into brown princeton or another Ivy.

Gap years are great, my dd took one (because of Covid) and she learned and grew a lot. But it's unlikely to help her chances at getting in. Listen, I wanted only to go to Brown when I was in high school. I fell head over heels in love with everything about it. I didn't get in. It stung. I still remember taking that "thin envelope" out of my mailbox and knowing it contained bad news. But you know what? I went to a school that may have been less of a dream but allowed me to figure out who I was, what was important to me etc etc. Your kid is 17 years old, she's seeing things through a teenager lens. You can't change that. She needs to grow through this.

[Anonymous]

I am curious as to what she is writing in her why essays. Other than an athletic conference, those schools have little in common.

Pro tip - don’t write because they are prestigious

[Anonymous]

I'll just assume this isn't a troll post (although it seems likely that it is) and say: I hope your DD has better luck than my friend's DD. Nearly identical situation and her school counselor tried repeatedly to tell her she was taking a big risk. But she insisted that she was smarter than many of her other classmates who had gotten into Ivy schools the year before. My friend tried to get her DD to be realistic (unfortunately her husband did not take the same position and insisted that she could get into an Ivy). She did not get into them as well as several other schools. Her only option was a spring admit at UMCP. She learned the hard way.

[Anonymous]

If not a troll, I’d be concerned about the counselor rec being sent out given that it sounds like your DD was difficult to work with and went against the counselor’s very reasonable recommendations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is fascinated with the ivies and is planning to apply to everyone of them. Brown and princeton are her favorites. She goes to a top private and has the reputation as being a hot shot there. So she is confident that she won’t apply to any safeties like northeastern or even targets like jhu. Her college counselor pleaded with her to add more schools. But she argues that her school has never been shut out of the ivies (true) and if someone gets in it would her (since she feels she is the best in her batch). Is that a compelling argument? Or is she in for a surprise. Any suggestions on what to do as parents. I don’t want to ruin her confidence. But want her to be more realistic. Can someone explain why a place like brown and Princeton has this mystique that captures young minds. Growing up in Europe we just went to a local university that gave a solid education. So I am puzzled.

I have three kids at Ivies (lower tier). They got lucky. I assume DD does not have URM, Legacy, or Athlete status? If not it is a crapshoot. Best bet would be ED Cornell or perhaps Dartmouth. I think Northeastern is a safety as is Tulane. Also, your state school EA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. She thinks she will be out of place in a non Ivy and would rather take a gap year if she doesn’t get into brown princeton or another Ivy.

OP, I think your kid has an amazing and very failproof plan...go with it 100% and do not listen to any of these other negative ninnies. She has the right idea, there is no way someone of her incredible intellect would ever be at home with all of the other lowly mouth breathers of non Ivy colleges. I suspect it would be very detrimental to her well being because she would expend too much energy trying to intellectually elevate all of her other intellectually inferior classmates. Stick with the plan OP, it's the only way!

I second this. OP, definitely let your daughter do this. Don't encourage it, but back off and let her do what she wants to do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - I hope you are a troll or you are kidding. I interview for my top ivy college every year and if any student came off as this arrogant I think it would drastically hurt their chances. That’s part of why they have alumni interviews - to suss out arrogance and hubris. The rest of the 4000 colleges in the United States aren’t good enough for her. Give me break. I hope she at least learns to fake some humility or she is going to turn off some of these schools - who all have extremely low admissions rates anyway.

Alumni interviews are given zero weight in admissions. It's something the Ivies do to make the alumni feel connected and like they have a voice. They don't use them for admissions.

This. They are designed to keep alimni connected and giving money. Admissions does not give credence to tge reviewer’s opinions no matter how much PP wants to think that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is fascinated with the ivies and is planning to apply to everyone of them. Brown and princeton are her favorites. She goes to a top private and has the reputation as being a hot shot there. So she is confident that she won’t apply to any safeties like northeastern or even targets like jhu. Her college counselor pleaded with her to add more schools. But she argues that her school has never been shut out of the ivies (true) and if someone gets in it would her (since she feels she is the best in her batch). Is that a compelling argument? Or is she in for a surprise. Any suggestions on what to do as parents. I don’t want to ruin her confidence. But want her to be more realistic. Can someone explain why a place like brown and Princeton has this mystique that captures young minds. Growing up in Europe we just went to a local university that gave a solid education. So I am puzzled.

Is she an athlete (those constitute admits from the top privates every year)? Is she a development admit (also admits from top privates)? Legacy (ditto)? First Gen/URM? Class president? Editor of the school paper? The number of kids who just get in based on academics is pretty small.

Good breakout... without a hook OP-- chances for admittance are slim. Mine went to Princeton as athletic recruit.

[Anonymous]

PLEASE OP, NAME THE PRIVATE!

[Anonymous]

If OP isn’t a troll, it’s a #parentingfail.

OP— there is a difference between confidence and arrogance. And parents enable arrogance. If your “hotshot” (your description) thinks she is the only kid at her school that an Ivy could want, you have a kid who was never taught to she the value in other people— and they in college admissions that value may be earned (and can be earned by more than a high GPA) or not (legacy).

Seems unlikely you can start teaching her humility now. Let her implement her plan, and if it doesn’t work, life will teach a lesson you didn’t.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think an alumni interview can get you in but it sure as hell can tank you

[Anonymous]

OP: I understand your situation. Happens every year at elite prep schools where one or two students apply only to the 8 Ivy League schools. Probably more than just one or two out of 140 or 150 seniors, but most only hear about the one or two who were rejected by all 8 Ivies. Not uncommon for Asian students at the elite New England prep boarding schools to target all 8 Ivy league schools.

One school with which I am familiar, typically sent 25% of about 146 seniors to Ivies and about 31% to Ivies plus Stanford & MIT. (Very few athletic recruits and very few URM. Some legacies, but all legacies were very well qualified academically and well rounded.)

At this particular school, the couple of students who targeted only Ivies and were rejected by all, ended up at very solid schools like Tufts, Georgetown or a top ranked SLAC.

OP: If it will help your daughter, I will try to list the schools to which at least 2 students matriculated from this class of 146 college bound seniors: (pre-Covid matriculation)

7 to UPenn
6 to Yale
6 to Princeton
6 to Stanford
6 to Tufts
5 to Harvard
4 to Brown
4 to Columbia
4 to Georgetown
4 to Middlebury College
4 to University of St. Andrews in Scotland
3 to MIT
3 to Wellesley College
3 to McGill University (Canada)
2 to UChicago
2 to Northwestern
2 to Dartmouth College
2 to Cornell
2 to Univ. of Michigan
2 to Bowdoin College
2 to St. Andrews (Scotland)
2 to Colgate
2 to Davidson College
2 to William & Mary
2 to Lehigh

The above list was the college destination for 87 of the 146 college bound seniors.

The remaining schools to which just one or two of the 146 matriculated included:

Pomona College, Emory, Williams College, Vanderbilt, Duke, USMA at West Point, Vassar College, Carleton College, Trinity College, Colby College, Wisconsin, Bates College, Hamilton College, Conn College, St. Lawrence, Dickinson College, Mount Holyoke, Occidental College, Pitzer College, Lake Forest College, Skidmore College, U Colorado at Boulder, Johns Hopkins, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, Holy Cross, USC, Sarah Lawrence, Emerson College, Wesleyan, Boston College, Emerson College, Reed College, Univ. of Virginia, Franklin & Marshall, Smith College, Lewis & Clark, NYU.

My point in sharing this list is to illustrate why some students at certain elite private schools have college target lists which appear unreasonable to others.

OP: My suggestion is to try to get your daughter to apply to at least 12 colleges and/or universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the long run, it would probably be best to let her make this choice and live with the consequences. If she gets in, then no harm done. If she doesn’t get in anywhere, maybe it will smack some of arrogance out of her.

This is probably the right answer. if I'm being honest, though, I would probably apply to some targets or safeties on her behalf, if she is not willing to.