So much disappointment this week

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the high GPAS from public schools may be questionable to some of the elite schools mentioned by the Blair mom poster. Public school kids in the DMV were not in school for a full year plus. The education was not good and As were handed out easily or it was a “pass” mark/. We all know it. Lots of kids equally worthy of admission to an top 30 were actually in a school building and standards were not dropped. Admissions folks know it. I do believe that is why there are the huge number of odd rejections out there. Covid strikes again (at least if your kid is in the DMV!)

Interesting - that’s a point I really hadn’t thought about. My D goes to a top ranked, challenging VA public school; as far as we know at this point (and, of course this could change!) but as of today, we are seeing a huge drop in acceptances to certain schools that usually accept many kids from our school (we are talking 1/3 admitted compared to normal). Admittedly, as with other DMV schools, our school was virtual most of last year. Are our kids now being held accountable for that? Would be super upsetting if that is the case - it’s not like they had a choice!

The argument that colleges are purposefully rejecting applicants from public schools that were remote for long periods during the pandemic is patent bullsh-t. Probably from someone here with a chip on their shoulder.

First of all, there's no way at a time when concerns about equity run high that public school kids are going to get the shaft as a result of state policies during an unprecedented public health crisis.

Second, there's tons of anecdotal evidence that runs counter. Read the private school boards sometime which were howling with outrage about ED deferrals and rejections a few months ago, read the angst on College Confidential from kids and parents in states that reopened more quickly.

And read the Naviance results from your own kid's school. At my kid's highly sought after MCPS school, there are similar numbers of acceptances at top schools as in past years. The big difference is simply that the total number of applicants is much larger than in past years, so there are more rejections, even for kids with great stats.

DP. I don’t think the schools are purposefully rejecting kids from schools that were remote, but there are factors that can put those kids at a disadvantage. People in the DC area don’t seem to realize that a huge % of the schools in the country were only remote for a couple of months in the spring of 2020. Many (most?) were back in class full time in the fall. Extracurricular activities were normal, grades were normal. It was obviously not every school, but many schools that were remote put a floor on grades that effectively narrowed the variation between students, kids missed ECs, etc. These super competitive schools only take the “shiniest” students and it is not surprising that those kids don’t “shine” as much as kids from areas that had a more normal experience. Add in a desire for more geographic diversity and first gen students, etc, and it’s a bit of a perfect storm.

Yes, agree, if twenty five percent of a class has an uw 4.0 than a 4.0 doesn’t mean as much. Schools no longer provide rank but they do provide colleges with median, top and bottom gpas. Colleges can do the math themselves.

Right. Plus, it's the college area reps' jobs to know the schools in their areas. They know which privates are the tops and have no grade inflation, which publics are the most rigorous, etc.

[Anonymous]

Also, everyone needs to remember that schools looks for geographic diversity. Accomplished, high scoring (white) kids from the DMV are a dime a dozen. If your same child was applying from North Dakota they would have a better chance.

You may not think this is a big factor but as someone who works in admissions…it is.

[Anonymous]

And read the Naviance results from your own kid's school. At my kid's highly sought after MCPS school, there are similar numbers of acceptances at top schools as in past years. The big difference is simply that the total number of applicants is much larger than in past years, so there are more rejections, even for kids with great stats.

This is precisely the point - at our highly sought after NoVa school, we can clearly see almost EXACT same number of applicants as the past 3 years to 3 of our most competitive state schools and, as of today, Naviance shows 1/3 the number of students accepted this year compared to acceptances of the past 3 years for each of these 3 schools. I know perhaps not all students have updated their Naviance, and perhaps we need to wait until May…..but, there is a very popular 4th school in VA that shows about 90 acceptances this year (very much in line with past years) and, either just those students accepted to that one school are totally on top of it and are updating their Naviance, or our high school faced a brutal cut from 3 of the most competitive/popular VA schools. Time will tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

And read the Naviance results from your own kid's school. At my kid's highly sought after MCPS school, there are similar numbers of acceptances at top schools as in past years. The big difference is simply that the total number of applicants is much larger than in past years, so there are more rejections, even for kids with great stats.

This is precisely the point - at our highly sought after NoVa school, we can clearly see almost EXACT same number of applicants as the past 3 years to 3 of our most competitive state schools and, as of today, Naviance shows 1/3 the number of students accepted this year compared to acceptances of the past 3 years for each of these 3 schools. I know perhaps not all students have updated their Naviance, and perhaps we need to wait until May…..but, there is a very popular 4th school in VA that shows about 90 acceptances this year (very much in line with past years) and, either just those students accepted to that one school are totally on top of it and are updating their Naviance, or our high school faced a brutal cut from 3 of the most competitive/popular VA schools. Time will tell.

At DC's public, it's a volume story. I don't think kids are updating results yet, but the application numbers are through the roof-- up 20-50% at some of the schools that were already popular (UMich, Northeastern, Northwestern, Emory, Vanderbilt, Wash U, etc)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, everyone needs to remember that schools looks for geographic diversity. Accomplished, high scoring (white) kids from the DMV are a dime a dozen. If your same child was applying from North Dakota they would have a better chance.

You may not think this is a big factor but as someone who works in admissions…it is.

So true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And read the Naviance results from your own kid's school. At my kid's highly sought after MCPS school, there are similar numbers of acceptances at top schools as in past years. The big difference is simply that the total number of applicants is much larger than in past years, so there are more rejections, even for kids with great stats.

This is precisely the point - at our highly sought after NoVa school, we can clearly see almost EXACT same number of applicants as the past 3 years to 3 of our most competitive state schools and, as of today, Naviance shows 1/3 the number of students accepted this year compared to acceptances of the past 3 years for each of these 3 schools. I know perhaps not all students have updated their Naviance, and perhaps we need to wait until May…..but, there is a very popular 4th school in VA that shows about 90 acceptances this year (very much in line with past years) and, either just those students accepted to that one school are totally on top of it and are updating their Naviance, or our high school faced a brutal cut from 3 of the most competitive/popular VA schools. Time will tell.

So is this because Kids are applying to more schools or Covid grade inflation/test optional means there are more qualified candidates or both?
At DC's public, it's a volume story. I don't think kids are updating results yet, but the application numbers are through the roof-- up 20-50% at some of the schools that were already popular (UMich, Northeastern, Northwestern, Emory, Vanderbilt, Wash U, etc)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And read the Naviance results from your own kid's school. At my kid's highly sought after MCPS school, there are similar numbers of acceptances at top schools as in past years. The big difference is simply that the total number of applicants is much larger than in past years, so there are more rejections, even for kids with great stats.

This is precisely the point - at our highly sought after NoVa school, we can clearly see almost EXACT same number of applicants as the past 3 years to 3 of our most competitive state schools and, as of today, Naviance shows 1/3 the number of students accepted this year compared to acceptances of the past 3 years for each of these 3 schools. I know perhaps not all students have updated their Naviance, and perhaps we need to wait until May…..but, there is a very popular 4th school in VA that shows about 90 acceptances this year (very much in line with past years) and, either just those students accepted to that one school are totally on top of it and are updating their Naviance, or our high school faced a brutal cut from 3 of the most competitive/popular VA schools. Time will tell.

At DC's public, it's a volume story. I don't think kids are updating results yet, but the application numbers are through the roof-- up 20-50% at some of the schools that were already popular (UMich, Northeastern, Northwestern, Emory, Vanderbilt, Wash U, etc)

So is this because Kids are applying to more schools or Covid grade inflation/test optional means there are more qualified candidates or both?

Hard to know...I have heard of some private school kids applying to 20+ schools. I don't know of anyone at DC's public school applying to more than 10-12 schools but I have no idea how that differs from normal years. It's also possible that it's that a lot of kids that used to apply to 6-8 schools now apply to 10-12. I will say that all the kids I know that apply to 10+ schools are applying with scores. Purely anecdotal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair mom poster here. I know that folks assume that Covid instruction wasn't all "that" during the Zoom year. But - at least for mine - she managed to end the year taking a UMD mutivariable calculus exam and score an A on it so that if she were to go to UMD, she would be able to start there at a higher level and not retake the class. So, it's not like the teens sat around doing nothing...

I agree with the other poster that I think the LAC's don't necessarily understand the Blair magnet program or believe that the students there could actually want them as a first choice (which mine did).

And she certainly was on camera communicating during her ASL class !

If it is her first choice, why didn’t she apply ED? Isn’t ED a strong indicator of first choice?

I agree with this. She should’ve figured out which school was her first choice.

I'm the other Blair parent, and we can't afford ED. Even w/ NPC, there were too many variables with home value (Brown dropped this when it was too late for us). Also, we need to compare FA. So, ED was not an option. On the bright side, everything she's gotten so far has been on the lower end of the NPC calculations.

Here's hoping for at least to more to Brown from Blair!

That doesn’t make sense. You can run the NPC before applying and also back out of ED if you can’t afford it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but parents crying over this?

Really, that cannot be helping their children cope at all.

Nothing wrong with crying over anything that hurts your kids. Not dwelling on it past the initial reaction is bad for coping but there is nothing wrong with display of emotion when you find out. Then move on!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair mom poster here. I know that folks assume that Covid instruction wasn't all "that" during the Zoom year. But - at least for mine - she managed to end the year taking a UMD mutivariable calculus exam and score an A on it so that if she were to go to UMD, she would be able to start there at a higher level and not retake the class. So, it's not like the teens sat around doing nothing...

I agree with the other poster that I think the LAC's don't necessarily understand the Blair magnet program or believe that the students there could actually want them as a first choice (which mine did).

And she certainly was on camera communicating during her ASL class !

If it is her first choice, why didn’t she apply ED? Isn’t ED a strong indicator of first choice?

I agree with this. She should’ve figured out which school was her first choice.

I'm the other Blair parent, and we can't afford ED. Even w/ NPC, there were too many variables with home value (Brown dropped this when it was too late for us). Also, we need to compare FA. So, ED was not an option. On the bright side, everything she's gotten so far has been on the lower end of the NPC calculations.

Here's hoping for at least to more to Brown from Blair!

That doesn’t make sense. You can run the NPC before applying and also back out of ED if you can’t afford it.

It does. They could challenge our home value. She actually got into Brown, and the numbers were very different from npc (they revised their FA criteria). But, many of the schools were vastly different from npc (most in a good way). Would they have offered the same ED? We have complicated income with lots of self employment, and then there is the home value. We also need to compare FA.

It's not that simple for some of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid more likely than not will get into an Ivy. A kid like this seems like a good fit for Yale or Princeton. The thinking person’s Ivies.

Hope so!! Will find out tomorrow and let you know.

Hope you got some good options!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but parents crying over this?

Really, that cannot be helping their children cope at all.

I think the parents posted that they cried away from their children.

I completely get parents crying when their child gets rejected from a first choice school. We all hate to see our beautiful children hurt or disappointed, but in this case, there is zero we can do about it except support our children. But it's painful for the parents too! We love our children and are so proud of how accomplished they are. I'm truly amazed by my child and can't understand why she hasn't received the Nobel by now! Of course we know our kids will be fine at their third or seventh choice college and this momentary pain will be forgotten. But don't think it doesn't hurt.

Sorry, but this just tells me you have not known true hardship, as a parent: your kid getting cancer or attempting suicide, for example.

The fact that they may need to attend a college that has a lower ranking in USNWR...is just not tragic or awful. It isn't.

If a teen does not realize that, the adult who is their role model should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would they have offered the same ED?

Yes.

Anonymous wrote:It's not that simple for some of us.

Respectfully, it may seem that way to you. But the fact is if you run the NPC and the real numbers come out different you are released, no harm no foul. So there is no risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, everyone needs to remember that schools looks for geographic diversity. Accomplished, high scoring (white) kids from the DMV are a dime a dozen. If your same child was applying from North Dakota they would have a better chance.

You may not think this is a big factor but as someone who works in admissions…it is.

So true.

Yes, we made sure to add schools to the list where DC would be the geographic diversity, and now we have to fly all over the country to visit them. It's an expensive way to go, but it worked.

[Anonymous]

The NPC are not possible for many doughnut hole families and we need to compare aid offers. ED favors the wealthy and has really changed college admissions. I respect the schools who don’t do it but instead of have only non- binding early admissions.