WSJ article on your child's chances of getting into an IVY are slim

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Since when do you have to get into an accounting program as a pre-freshman? And besides, can't you major in anything and take enough accounting courses to still get a master's in accounting to go CPA route? Not all of my CPA friends majored in accounting.

End of the day this is an overachiever who got into a very prestigious state flagship, UT-Austin -- but turned it down, I'd argue she's a fool for turning it down. And that narrative of her going to a dumb party school ASU instead of prestigious UT-Austin helped WSJ hacks whip up this narrative that smart white kids have to go to crummy party schools because of affirmative action.

UVA, VTech,Michigan, UT-Austin, Berkeley, et al. are literally overflowing with kids as smart and smarter than her. There's nothing especially noteworthy about her that would make Ivies clamor for her. Typical UMC smart kid with professional parents. Dime a dozen.

Again, UT probably wasn’t cheap.

She was in-state no?

https://onestop.utexas.edu/managing-costs/cost-tuition-rates/cost-of-attendance/

It’s at least $28,000/year. I don’t know her personal situation financially but some kids have zero college fund regardless of their parental income. She may have had to take out significant student loans. ASU gives full rides and full tuition generously to top star kids.

I fully agree with you, but then how the heck was she going to pay for one of those reach schools?

They give significant financial aid even to middle class families. Beyond that some apply without knowing if they’ll be able to afford every school.

No, they don't. And all of that is determined by FAFSA or the CSS. We got zero

Reach schools are essentially free to families who HHIs under 150k. We mush have very different definitions of middle class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a Black boy who turned down Ivies for a full ride to study pre-med at Alabama. He’s now in medical school. So I don’t think it’s that big of a deal for a pre-accountant to go to ASU on scholarship. Note WSJ omitted details about her ASU scholarship, likely because it was very generous and they didn’t want it to hurt their woe is me white girl narrative. Hacks.

I'm sure you can find massively successful kids at almost any school. That doesn't mean that the majority of Ivy grads aren't going to be more successful than the majority of ASU grads.

[Anonymous]

I saw this article and had no sympathy for her. She got into UT Austin. So many Texans/OOS students would love to go there. And Texas as an econ major is probably better than ASU Honors/Business.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Since when do you have to get into an accounting program as a pre-freshman? And besides, can't you major in anything and take enough accounting courses to still get a master's in accounting to go CPA route? Not all of my CPA friends majored in accounting.

End of the day this is an overachiever who got into a very prestigious state flagship, UT-Austin -- but turned it down, I'd argue she's a fool for turning it down. And that narrative of her going to a dumb party school ASU instead of prestigious UT-Austin helped WSJ hacks whip up this narrative that smart white kids have to go to crummy party schools because of affirmative action.

UVA, VTech,Michigan, UT-Austin, Berkeley, et al. are literally overflowing with kids as smart and smarter than her. There's nothing especially noteworthy about her that would make Ivies clamor for her. Typical UMC smart kid with professional parents. Dime a dozen.

Again, UT probably wasn’t cheap.

She was in-state no?

https://onestop.utexas.edu/managing-costs/cost-tuition-rates/cost-of-attendance/

It’s at least $28,000/year. I don’t know her personal situation financially but some kids have zero college fund regardless of their parental income. She may have had to take out significant student loans. ASU gives full rides and full tuition generously to top star kids.

I fully agree with you, but then how the heck was she going to pay for one of those reach schools?

They give significant financial aid even to middle class families. Beyond that some apply without knowing if they’ll be able to afford every school.

No, they don't. And all of that is determined by FAFSA or the CSS. We got zero

Well, not DCUM middle class, actual middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw this article and had no sympathy for her. She got into UT Austin. So many Texans/OOS students would love to go there. And Texas as an econ major is probably better than ASU Honors/Business.

UT Austin is around $100,000+ total for 4 years. She probably got a full ride or close to it from ASU.

An Econ degree, unless it’s from a tippy top school, is not superior to an accounting degree for job purposes.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Since when do you have to get into an accounting program as a pre-freshman? And besides, can't you major in anything and take enough accounting courses to still get a master's in accounting to go CPA route? Not all of my CPA friends majored in accounting.

End of the day this is an overachiever who got into a very prestigious state flagship, UT-Austin -- but turned it down, I'd argue she's a fool for turning it down. And that narrative of her going to a dumb party school ASU instead of prestigious UT-Austin helped WSJ hacks whip up this narrative that smart white kids have to go to crummy party schools because of affirmative action.

UVA, VTech,Michigan, UT-Austin, Berkeley, et al. are literally overflowing with kids as smart and smarter than her. There's nothing especially noteworthy about her that would make Ivies clamor for her. Typical UMC smart kid with professional parents. Dime a dozen.

Again, UT probably wasn’t cheap.

She was in-state no?

https://onestop.utexas.edu/managing-costs/cost-tuition-rates/cost-of-attendance/

It’s at least $28,000/year. I don’t know her personal situation financially but some kids have zero college fund regardless of their parental income. She may have had to take out significant student loans. ASU gives full rides and full tuition generously to top star kids.

I fully agree with you, but then how the heck was she going to pay for one of those reach schools?

They give significant financial aid even to middle class families. Beyond that some apply without knowing if they’ll be able to afford every school.

No, they don't. And all of that is determined by FAFSA or the CSS. We got zero

And? Then you are not middle class.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Not the whole article, but here is the lede:

“ Kaitlyn Younger has been an academic standout since she started studying algebra in third grade.

She took her first advanced-placement course as a freshman, scored 1550 on her SATs as a junior at McKinney High School near Dallas and will graduate this spring with an unweighted 3.95 grade-point average and as the founder of the school’s accounting club. Along the way she performed in and directed about 30 plays, sang in the school choir, scored top marks on the tests she has so far taken for 11 advanced-placement classes, helped run a summer camp and held down a part-time job.

“She is extraordinary,” said Jeff Cranmore, her guidance counselor at McKinney High School.

Ms. Younger, 18 years old, was cautiously optimistic when she applied to top U.S. colleges last fall. Responses came this month: Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of California, Berkeley, and Northwestern all rejected her.

“I expected a bunch wouldn’t accept me,” she said. “I didn’t expect it to be this bad.””

It says she’s going to Arizona State.

She’s fantastic but the thing is, lots of kids are just like this. In NoVa, the top 20% of the class is similar. My kid was similar and took a full scholarship at a school DCUM makes fun of. Because as a UMC white kid, there was just no hook. Too “privileged” for an assist, too middle class to have connections or invest a ton of money into becoming a recruitable athlete.

What struck me is the guidance counselor saying she was extraordinary. Not in NOVA. My kid had better stats and was not top of the heap. He applied to one ivy for giggles - rejected of course.

She was in exburban Texas, though.

Yup. People in Texas are clueless.. Look at the moron they have as Governor

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote: I thought smart kids went to IVY. Now I know it has nothing to do with how smart they are.

It absolutely does, and also how hard they had to work to overcome really hard circumstances. As it should be.

Speaking of fantasies. Overcoming hard circumstances? For maybe 2% of them. The rest are privileged beyond comprehension for most Americans.

I hate to break it to you, but being first gen and/or a URM IS a hard circumstance.

I hate to break it to you, but my 1/4 black kids who look 100% white and have been raised in an upper middle class home are considered URMs for the purpose of college admissions. They definitely have not had unduly “hard circumstances” and yet it is kids like them who benefit most from affirmative action. I’m certainly not going to force them to not claim 1/4th of their ancestry and hence lower their admissions potential but objectively it is blatantly unfair that they are getting this huge advantage.

Troll.

I am 100% not a troll. What is it about my statement that you find hard to believe?

Most 1/4 black kids don’t look 100% white.

Correct.

And white people don't go around calling people 1/4 black.

Definitely a troll.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:“The record 11.8 percent admission rate for Harvard's class of 1999 is significantly lower than rates at other Ivy League schools, ...“

Has it ever been easy?

It’s never been easy for your typical kid. It’s always been significantly easier for connected kids.

I went to a NE boarding school. They told us that before about the 1990s, kids essentially signed up for HYP like you would an intramural softball team. It isn’t like that anymore, but my high school sends roughly 25% of its graduates each year to an Ivy League school. The process remains deeply unfair.

Is this typical of the higher end NE boarding schools? Do their students get preferred admissions? Looking at this now for my kid who is interested in going starting in 2023 to play a sport (he's been talking to the coach), so if we're going to consider that school, we'll likely consider others as well. Just curious because DH and I are public school graduates so this is all new.

This is a complicated question. It is typical of Andover, Exeter, and others in the Eight Schools Association (essentially the Ivy League of boarding schools). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Schools_Association

The college counselors have a strong relationship with the admissions officers at top universities, and can advocate for the students. On top of that, colleges know how rigorous the courseloads are at these schools, so if a kid does well there, it’s a strong sign of how strong of a student that kid is.

Sadly, this is very true. Two of my kids went to public high school (top-ranked, but far inferior to a good private) and one went to an excellent private school. The private school education was exponentially better than the "top" public. I think the admissions officers at colleges know the difference. My kid at private got lower grades than my kids at public, yet my private kid got into higher-ranked colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“The record 11.8 percent admission rate for Harvard's class of 1999 is significantly lower than rates at other Ivy League schools, ...“

Has it ever been easy?

It’s never been easy for your typical kid. It’s always been significantly easier for connected kids.

I went to a NE boarding school. They told us that before about the 1990s, kids essentially signed up for HYP like you would an intramural softball team. It isn’t like that anymore, but my high school sends roughly 25% of its graduates each year to an Ivy League school. The process remains deeply unfair.

Doesn't this just show that the schools are not "all that" in the first place? It just a prestige thing, with no real value other than that. They aren't actually "better," and obviously there are thousands of brilliant students who attend other colleges.

This. 100% this. But that doesn’t mean people will stop striving for prestige.

yes, but it is talentless mediocrities who are driven by prestige. i have two ivy degrees but the reason I wanted to be at Harvard because that was were smartest people were. this does not seem to be the case and I honestly don't have much interest in my own kids attending. rather than signifying brilliance, it signifies a high degree of conformity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will say it - I think schools didn’t admit her bc her essays were about her mental health struggles over getting Bs during Covid.

I wish the system wasn’t this way - we talk a good game on mental health - but I think societal actions prove another thing.

I also think business is an incredibly oversubscribed major.

Possible, and also, what an unimaginative and banal choice for an essay. Just imagine how many thousands of applicants in the US wrote essays like this. If you want a top school, you have to do better.

[Anonymous]

The essays need to go away.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Three paragraphs summarily explain her rejections. Twenty years ago, she wouldn't have applied to these top-tier colleges and accumulated a hoard of rejections. Twenty years ago, she would have been happy to matriculate at UT or ASU.

1. Ms. Younger wrote in the applications about her history of depression and anxiety to explain the two B’s she earned during her sophomore year.

2. Ms. Younger’s father attended the University of Oklahoma and her mother went to Montclair State University in New Jersey. She has no connection to the faculty or alumni at any elite school, nor did she hire a test-preparation coach or a private college counselor.

3. Her school serves McKinney, Texas, a fast-growing suburb 30 miles outside of Dallas. In a given year, about half of the school’s graduates enroll at four-year colleges; most attend public universities in Texas, Dr. Cranmore said. He recalls two McKinney graduates enrolling at Yale and one at Princeton over the past decade.

So she should have known her place. Got it.

Oh, grow up. Community theatre, school accounting club, a meaningless part time job and stats that were extremely common in their applicant pools was never going to get her into an Ivy. Delusional.

[Anonymous]

Reminds me of that Penn “foster care system” wacko. Many in that thread said she was destined for an Ivy without all the lies — no, like this girl, she was actually a dime a dozen and would have ended up at a state school. And this girl actually disclosed her very impressive SAT score in WSJ, while the Penn wacko never did, which obviously means it was much, much lower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The essays need to go away.

Nobody even reads them. Especially at state schools. Meaningless.