What has surprised you - as your kid comes to the end of this process

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised how mean and judgmental people can be about other people’s kids. Adult snark is one thing, mocking teenagers quite another. Regardless of the anonymous nature of this forum, I don’t understand why anyone feels the need to belittle a high schooler’s character, intellect, or choice of ECs, college, major, etc.

I admit anonymously to being overly harsh about a few kids who appear to have waltzed into tippy top schools to play sports but have not done anything close to the academic work my kid and friends have done (many of whom are still waiting for decisions).

Until I had a kid with tippy top athletic ability and saw the amount of work that goes into "waltzing" into any school . . .

+1. I am hoping my very hard working and ambitious DD, currently an 8th grader, will drop her sport in HS, because it is taking an insane amount of time and hard work will likely not pay off. On the other hand, I don't wan to advise her to do that because she has played it for 7 years, loves it, has many friends on the team, and it would be difficult to walk away. She is a top student at a rigorous school but has very little time for anything else.

Unfortunately that is the bargain to be made. Top level athletics is a huge commitment which can pay off for the right kid. The kid needs to love it and understand what will be sacrificed along the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back to the original question on this forum. What we realized, start early in the process of writing the essays, refining, and finding a really good reviewer. There is no limit on the number of schools, between common and coalition you can apply to more than 20. We didn’t want leave a chance and once the essays were done, it was not hard to make the essays relevant to each school. Apply early action every school that allowed it worked for us. And finally, grades sat all to be just one factor we focused more on moving the needle with awards and honors and based on early results that worked in our ds favor. Because it made it easy to write the essays and in the interviews she was able to articulate and steer the conversation towards her activities. Good luck to all.

"WE didn’t want leave a chance", "it worked for US"... Gotta wonder who is going to college in that family. Smh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The athletes get jobs from other athletes. They are top traders and hedge fund managers on Wall Street. The game clock and training give them an edge in high pressure situations

Athletes are not traders at hedgefunds. I work at one and athletes are hired for sales jobs. We want strong math and CS skills at our fund.

Our head trader was a D1 athlete. He is also wicked smart and good at math. One does not preclude the other. HF with over $10bn of AUM, so there is a data point for you.

[Anonymous]

The amount of parental work and research everything takes, including navigating portals, housing. It’s insanity. I have an undecided child and in several
Facebook school forums and I am not the only lost and overwhelmed one. It’s stupidly convoluted even after admission.

[Anonymous]

That participation in a high school summer program is unhelpful for college admissions. I guess they really are a money grab.

Similarly how little it means to get tons of mail from a college like U of C in terms of admissions.

Finally how unhelpful HS guidance counselors can be.

[Anonymous]

The way parents model a lack of resilience when it comes to navigating disappointment.

[Anonymous]

The dirty secret is that the college admission process is so much harder for top students than good ones. The good students aren’t generally applying to schools with single digit acceptance rates. They are applying to schools that admit a much higher portion of the student body IE A 1400 SAT with 3.9 unweighted and 6 APs. They are likely to get into their choices and less likely to face judgement.

The excellent/top kid with no hook is likely to be rejected at some schools they applied to. Go to a high performing school and outcomes are worse. However instead of empathy these kids are told things like perhaps they didn’t do a good job on their essays or admissions doesn’t think they will add to the community etc.

[Anonymous]

The dirty secret is that the college admission process is so much harder for top students than good ones

Oh, those poor, poor top students.

Tell me you you didn’t understand how to make a college list or listen to a counselor without telling me.

Top kids should be swimming in offers. If you encouraged them to fill their list with lottery ticket schools, that’s on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The dirty secret is that the college admission process is so much harder for top students than good ones. The good students aren’t generally applying to schools with single digit acceptance rates. They are applying to schools that admit a much higher portion of the student body IE A 1400 SAT with 3.9 unweighted and 6 APs. They are likely to get into their choices and less likely to face judgement.

The excellent/top kid with no hook is likely to be rejected at some schools they applied to. Go to a high performing school and outcomes are worse. However instead of empathy these kids are told things like perhaps they didn’t do a good job on their essays or admissions doesn’t think they will add to the community etc.

IMO, if you're a top student whose application is not rejected, you haven't shot high enough. As a parent from a jumbo-sized public, what I think we could not anticipate was the number of well-qualified kids at the top of the class. For example, your kid may only know the high performing STEM kids, but there is an equal and opposite group of high performing Humanities/Social Science kids. LOTS of competition within the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The dirty secret is that the college admission process is so much harder for top students than good ones. The good students aren’t generally applying to schools with single digit acceptance rates. They are applying to schools that admit a much higher portion of the student body IE A 1400 SAT with 3.9 unweighted and 6 APs. They are likely to get into their choices and less likely to face judgement.

The excellent/top kid with no hook is likely to be rejected at some schools they applied to. Go to a high performing school and outcomes are worse. However instead of empathy these kids are told things like perhaps they didn’t do a good job on their essays or admissions doesn’t think they will add to the community etc.

But those applications to single-digit schools are a choice. The entire process is not "harder" for these kids: They have many more choices and will get into all but the single digit schools, guaranteed. That's not the case for good students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Surprised when my child received an REA offer from HYPSM that many kids reacted negatively.

Why was your kid sharing this information beyond their closest friends? Please tell me they didn’t post this on social media. If so, they sort of deserve the negative reaction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The dirty secret is that the college admission process is so much harder for top students than good ones. The good students aren’t generally applying to schools with single digit acceptance rates. They are applying to schools that admit a much higher portion of the student body IE A 1400 SAT with 3.9 unweighted and 6 APs. They are likely to get into their choices and less likely to face judgement.

The excellent/top kid with no hook is likely to be rejected at some schools they applied to. Go to a high performing school and outcomes are worse. However instead of empathy these kids are told things like perhaps they didn’t do a good job on their essays or admissions doesn’t think they will add to the community etc.

Judgement from whom? This is a ridiculous statement. No one should be judging where your kid is going to school. If they are, get new friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those with disappointing early results, can you state the major?

Our CCO has basically told the juniors that if you apply for CS or Eng or Business (or Math - apparently that is growing huge), that you need to look for targets that are most other people's safeties. Meaning go down a level (or two), that these majors have very few real targets. So it's only safety and reach.

If you aren't happy with that strategy, look at your transcript, EC list, awards, and who is writing your LOR for other "evidence for a major" in the college or arts & sciences or an adjacent college.

If you do not listen to this advice, you will regret it. And junior year is too late to build up evidence of a major to make any difference. Your transcript probably already outs you as a STEM or business/Econ type anyway.

You can still apply to a target (not a reach that you think is a target) if you apply ED1. Keep in mind that top 20 universities and top 10 SLACs are reaches for everyone.

This seems ridiculous to me. Just because I took a lot of STEM classes in HS doesn’t mean I want to do that in college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That participation in a high school summer program is unhelpful for college admissions. I guess they really are a money grab.

Similarly how little it means to get tons of mail from a college like U of C in terms of admissions.

Finally how unhelpful HS guidance counselors can be.

How much did you sink on a summer program thinking it would make a difference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised when my child received an REA offer from HYPSM that many kids reacted negatively.

Why was your kid sharing this information beyond their closest friends? Please tell me they didn’t post this on social media. If so, they sort of deserve the negative reaction.

Right but it’s okay for the kid who gets into state U to post and everyone is happy. In writing this as the parent of a high stats kid attending a state U. I’m thrilled for friends kids who were accepted to Ivies MIT etc