Purposefully & strategically leaving blanks in the Common App

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if you don't apply for financial aid when applying, most t50 will NEVER allow you to apply for financial aid. Not when you lose your job or when a sibling goes off to college. Don't be foolish.

Need blind colleges are need blind. Need aware are need aware.

if you're mom or dad has been in CS for an entire career, believe me .. all schools are totally okay with that. even if you do want to go into CS. It may show "lack of creativity" but it also shows a depth of understanding. Colleges can also wonder if you come from a artsy family or finance family and want to go into engineering, do you really know what an engineer day to day life looks like? And where pay tops out?

Don't over think this stuff.

If you really don't need aid, there's absolutely no reason to complete the SSN. That's a personal family decision, dictated by finances. No one can answer that one for you.

I think your reasoning on occupation works for state flagships. Its naive for top tier schools. This is not how AO at selective privates think when they are looking for a "compelling" (not just a competitive) candidate. Your kid is not compelling if he's following in your footsteps and will be a hard story to sell at the AO table. At the end of the day, its about creating an interesting unique overarching compelling story.
Yes, the kid has a depth of understanding. Yes, kid is a smart kid who knows what day to day engineering life looks like and where pay tops out. But that is not what gets you in to a selective college. At all.

Again - this is only relevant at private T20/T30 for the most part. Everyone should get educated about how this REALLY works. And then make your own personal educated decisions. There's a ton of information out there if you are willing to read up and learn.

What kind of nonsense is this? Do you even have a kid at a T20 private college? I do, and his class is packed with affluent, non-legacy kids who aren't atypically "compelling" in any way. Unless they all lied on their apps, and this seems unlikely. They're the usual kids of doctors, lawyers, and finance types from Bergen, Evanston, Fairfield, Bethesda, Mill Valley and Brookline. Accomplished in all the usual ways, affluent, mostly white or Asian. The Black students are usually from Ghana or Nigeria, not Flint, and they're also the children of doctors.

There is a sprinkling of FGLI kids, who often overlap with ROTC admits. Maybe this is who you mean when you imagine "compelling," but they're a statistically much smaller group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard this podcast because you guys told me to listen. This guy is selling a lot of bullshit.

Most of us know that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if you don't apply for financial aid when applying, most t50 will NEVER allow you to apply for financial aid. Not when you lose your job or when a sibling goes off to college. Don't be foolish.

Need blind colleges are need blind. Need aware are need aware.

if you're mom or dad has been in CS for an entire career, believe me .. all schools are totally okay with that. even if you do want to go into CS. It may show "lack of creativity" but it also shows a depth of understanding. Colleges can also wonder if you come from a artsy family or finance family and want to go into engineering, do you really know what an engineer day to day life looks like? And where pay tops out?

Don't over think this stuff.

If you really don't need aid, there's absolutely no reason to complete the SSN. That's a personal family decision, dictated by finances. No one can answer that one for you.

I think your reasoning on occupation works for state flagships. Its naive for top tier schools. This is not how AO at selective privates think when they are looking for a "compelling" (not just a competitive) candidate. Your kid is not compelling if he's following in your footsteps and will be a hard story to sell at the AO table. At the end of the day, its about creating an interesting unique overarching compelling story.
Yes, the kid has a depth of understanding. Yes, kid is a smart kid who knows what day to day engineering life looks like and where pay tops out. But that is not what gets you in to a selective college. At all.

Again - this is only relevant at private T20/T30 for the most part. Everyone should get educated about how this REALLY works. And then make your own personal educated decisions. There's a ton of information out there if you are willing to read up and learn.

What kind of nonsense is this? Do you even have a kid at a T20 private college? I do, and his class is packed with affluent, non-legacy kids who aren't atypically "compelling" in any way. Unless they all lied on their apps, and this seems unlikely. They're the usual kids of doctors, lawyers, and finance types from Bergen, Evanston, Fairfield, Bethesda, Mill Valley and Brookline. Accomplished in all the usual ways, affluent, mostly white or Asian. The Black students are usually from Ghana or Nigeria, not Flint, and they're also the children of doctors.

There is a sprinkling of FGLI kids, who often overlap with ROTC admits. Maybe this is who you mean when you imagine "compelling," but they're a statistically much smaller group.

💯

[Anonymous]

It's better to fill everything out, plus FAFSA and CSS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard this podcast because you guys told me to listen. This guy is selling a lot of bullshit.

And his vocal fry is so grating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's better to fill everything out, plus FAFSA and CSS.

Ask your school's college counselor.
Our private CCO told us not to fill in SSN if not applying for aid (last year though, so maybe things have changed?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard this podcast because you guys told me to listen. This guy is selling a lot of bullshit.

Which podcast?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have heard on various podcasts not to put SS# or parent occupation. But parent’s education IS required, so not hard to figure out you have two lawyers for parents when you both have a JD. Some of this advice is just silly.

Colleges don’t verify Parents Education. They have no way of knowing or confirming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard on various podcasts not to put SS# or parent occupation. But parent’s education IS required, so not hard to figure out you have two lawyers for parents when you both have a JD. Some of this advice is just silly.

Colleges don’t verify Parents Education. They have no way of knowing or confirming.

In fact, they can’t verify Parents Occupations either. Why do they even ask that, so intrusive. None of that will indicate how the child will perform in college. Plenty of uneducated underemployed parents have kids that excel in college and career.

[Anonymous]

Parent employment helps determine low income for financial aid status, on the one end, full pay on the high end, and possible donors for the advancement office on the very high end.

What I don't understand is why some podcast would advocate not including parent employment for the same student who isn't including SSN in order to signal full pay. Parent employment can signal full pay; why leave it out if the parent's employment is obviously full pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parent employment helps determine low income for financial aid status, on the one end, full pay on the high end, and possible donors for the advancement office on the very high end.

What I don't understand is why some podcast would advocate not including parent employment for the same student who isn't including SSN in order to signal full pay. Parent employment can signal full pay; why leave it out if the parent's employment is obviously full pay?

I agree. That doesn’t make sense.
Unless his point is that each separate decision to disclose ANY of this confi info is based on the candidate’s unique profile.

Example- So you would not include parent profession for an dual dr/MD family where the kid wants to be a doctor because it shows lack of creativity or whatever he said, but you also would not include Social Security number bc you don’t want them thinking you need aid?

If so, I think this is especially true if your kid attends a private school; to be honest, they know who the financial aid kids are likely to be at a private school based on how the college counselor LOR is written? In which case, there are other “crumbs”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard on various podcasts not to put SS# or parent occupation. But parent’s education IS required, so not hard to figure out you have two lawyers for parents when you both have a JD. Some of this advice is just silly.

Colleges don’t verify Parents Education. They have no way of knowing or confirming.

In fact, they can’t verify Parents Occupations either. Why do they even ask that, so intrusive. None of that will indicate how the child will perform in college. Plenty of uneducated underemployed parents have kids that excel in college and career.

This is actually why my parents refused to fill out the FAFSA. We may do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard this podcast because you guys told me to listen. This guy is selling a lot of bullshit.

And his vocal fry is so grating.

SO GRATING 😱

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard this podcast because you guys told me to listen. This guy is selling a lot of bullshit.

Which podcast?

The Game: the Guide to Elite College Admissions

50% of it is BS and his vocal fry is so bad that it’s almost unlistenable. He also takes 30 minutes to make a point.

[Anonymous]

you don't have a choice about putting parent's employment on the common app. it's a required field