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Parents of High School Juniors - Hold On To Your Hats
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Anonymous
If anyone is interested, I can reference a college counselor who coaches authenticity for $100/hr. |
Anonymous
| pp, this is a joke, right? |
Anonymous
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Well…it was not too bad for us for either child. The first one knew where she wanted to go from the beginning and that was fine. With the last one (who is the fickle one), we started visits prior to junior year, just to get a feel for the type of schools with the best fit. I went to a large “name” university and my wife went to a regional SLAC, so we were curious where the child would feel comfortable. The child decided that the SLAC was the way to go and it was easy from there. Next, we focused in on geographical preference. We all agreed that a suburban campus in the East with access to a big city was best. Then and only then, we focused on where a school was “ranked” in the desired major and what supplemental academic opportunities were available in that major (internships, research, etc.). Finally, the child is an athlete who wanted to play at a non-scholarship school (i.e., NCAA Division III) with a decent program. Once we put all that in the blender, we came up with a list of 8-10 schools with the expectation we would apply to 5. We visited every school. This is where being an athlete helped us….our tours were individual tours and we were able to see stuff and talk to people not on the “regular” campus tours. We applied to 5 schools and the child got into all 5. Now, we are evaluating the various financial packages although I think the decision has been made. I know this sounds very process and formula driven and it was. However, it worked. It forced all of us to really evaluate (and cut) the schools in light of the factors important to us. I am not saying that my factors should be important to everyone. I am saying that you have to go through the effort of determining what is important to you and let that drive the selection process.
One thing I will tell parents is that, after going through it twice, focus more on the fit and less on the name. Send your child where he/she will be successful and happy. I hear a lot of parents talk and brag about where the kid is applying and rankings mean more than any other factor. The advice I give is that parents must be honest with themselves about what makes the child tick. Not every college is a fit for every child. |
Anonymous
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Regarding athletes, etc. I will say this to all the parents who have kids in 9th 10th and 11th grades.
Make sure that your child in involved in extracurricular activities and, preferably, ones that have some heft. It does not have to be athletics….it can be the arts or academic clubs….something. Colleges want to know that the kid can balance competing priorities. We were told be an admissions counselor from Top 15 that they would rather admit a 3.7 student who played a varsity sport, worked a part time job during the off-season and was in a club over a 4.0 AP everything student who just studied. He said that the kid is applying to become a member of the college’s community – not just a student. A kid who just goes to class and sits in the library all day does not “add value” to the campus community. They want to know that the kid has the potential to make a positive contribution to the campus outside of the classroom |
Anonymous
| I do alum interviews for an Ivy and am constantly shocked at the high GPA/SAT kids who can't speak in coherent sentences, demonstrate higher-order thinking, or reflect meaningfully on any intellectual matter that wasn't addressed in one of their textbooks. Though alum interviews at Ivies are not make-or-break, I give such candidates particularly low scores because of the disparity between academic and real life performance. |
Anonymous
Yes 
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Anonymous
And how do you think these skills are best honed? Spending hours on the soccer field or working at a community organization after school? |
Anonymous
| Whose to say that they have to be mutually exclusive? In this area, most students (including athletes) are required to do a certain amount of community service as part of their academic requirements. So many athletes ARE doing community service also. Also, you should not underestimate the impact of athletics on preparing kids for college. Depending on the sport, many teams, especially club travel teams, have kids from different backgrounds on the team and the ONLY thing they may have in common is athletic skill. Also, a lot of these teams travel to other states and countries. My kid has been to 17 states because of his travel team, has met so many different people and seen different sites. Not all of these kids are dumb jocks! A lot of these kids are well traveled and fairly well rounded kids, even if they are not all 4.0 students. |
Anonymous
I'm the PP- nowhere did I suggest in my post that athletics were the route to hone these skills, simply that the most intellectual or not necessarily those with the highest grades and test scores. Often rounded students with many extracurrics (art, music, debating, service, leadership, etc.) end up with slightly lower grades/scores, but from my experience they are preferred to those with high numbers to the exclusion of all else. I also have come across very interesting lopsided candidates, e.g. someone with a higher verbal 760-800 but an average math 600-650. I've seen a good number of these students admitted as well when they also have a strong record in classes and activities (winning competitions, getting published etc.) that highlight these lopsided skills. I think schools also understand that the future pulitizer prize winning journalist may not need to do well as multi-variable calculus. |
Anonymous
I'm not so sure that all colleges are looking for well-rounded students any more. Georgetown, for example, selected edgy, confrontational math/science students from my child's school. None of them were involved in varsity sports although two were significantly involved in out-of-school athletic endeavors. Not one of the well-rounded kids got in. My child's take is that Georgetown is looking to build their math/science cred and become a major research university in the sciences to augment their social/political science, government and international relations prowess. |
Anonymous
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Following up on 15:12, I have read that schools are now looking for lopsided students with a "passion." After a few decades of experience with well-rounded kids, they have started to conclude that these well-rounded kids may not be the most successful.
Has anybody else heard this? |
Anonymous
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To 9:34
I know you did not ask me but I would like to chime in. This is actually the third time that I have heard this statement (or something similar What we heard (and it may be the schools that we applied to) is that most of the top colleges still want the “well rounded” kids for the liberal arts disciplines, but want the singularly driven kids in the applied science disciplines. Just recently, a friend of mine was telling that a local “elite” private school had 11 kids apply to a certain school in California. Only one got in and that particular kid was not as well rounded as the others but was an absolute beast in science/math. So maybe there is some truth to it. |
Anonymous
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Check out this story on NPR about Amherst admission process:
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/28/134916924/Amherst-Admissions-Process |
Anonymous
Very interesting. Thanks for the link. The comments following the article are also quite interesting. The article notes that by the time the admissions officers sit "in committee" 85% of the applications have been weeded out. Why make this 85% wait until April 3rd for their decisions then? I surmise that the waiting list was made up of those applicants whose files went "to committee" but didn't pass muster there. As much as the Amherst admissions officers want you to think that the process is gut-wrenching for them, I think the process lacks integrity and transparency. |
Anonymous
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Here's one comment from the NPR article that I thought was particularly good and particularly telling about the process in general.
How can a school that labels itself "highly selective" have such a high degree of subjectivity and such ill-defined criteria that they talk about the "magic" or the je ne sais quoi of an essay — much less the retaliations against a student because their "admissions champion" denied a candidate you liked? To be fair, the admissions process at Amherst's peer schools is just as reminiscent of sausage-making. But these schools should stop kidding parents and students about "useful tips" on their applications when this story confirms what many of us suspected: that there is little rhyme or reason behind the decision to admit one kid and reject or wait-list another. To Amherst and the others I would say: "After you've built up an Amherst education as something life-changing and wonderful, don't insult kids by trivializing their rejection with 'It's not you; it's us.' Your schools have tremendous resources. Use some of them to create an admissions process that is worthy of your well-deserved academic reputation." |