Waitlisted at TJ - now what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious to know why folks are so mad at the new process:

- Min GPA requirement
- Math or Science Problem Essay
- Essay about skills/goals
- Pick the top 1-2 % from each school


Doesnt seem so different from a college application?

Harvard would look at experience factors also.

There is the small matter of teacher recommendations that colleges look at.

And Harvard is no gold standard - the Supreme Court will have a say soon.

And Harvard arrived at the “experience factors” because too many Jewish kids were making it on objective criteria. Yes there is your parallel with Harvard.

This was true a century ago but has not been for at least the past fifty years.

It's funny that you say that Harvard is no gold standard but that's still the school that every parent in your community wants the bumper sticker of. Sour grapes, I suppose.

Ironically one of the things that makes it great is its diverse student body.

BINGO. And it is rapidly becoming one of the great things about TJ.

“BINGO” - Great in the spirit of Make America Great Again. Congratulations

Make America Great Again exists in contradistinction to the forces seeking to desegregate TJ. MAGA wants to re-segregate TJ.

Foot in the mouth much! Did not know desegregation was a goal of reform. Such racism.

...nonsense reply. Not even sure what point you were trying to make here. Zero stars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

Got rejected from higher-ranked schools? Genuinely wanted to attend at least one of those for reasons beyond their prestige? Were there essays and/or interviews involved?

Many elite schools turn down students who they don't believe will accept their offer because they place such a high value on their yield metrics.

Yes, got rejected from higher-ranked schools. DC genuinely had a dream school, not for prestige but for the education and that school's culture. DC was in debate, so essays weren't mediocre. All the interviews went great!

Did your child get scholarship offers from top 50 schools?

partial scholarship from a couple of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

It's a good thing that you can't, because then folks would be able to fake it. Curie would teach classes in it and charge thousands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

My DC didn't get in, so you are trying to substantiate the outcome. Some of my DC's friends with similar profiles got in while some others didn't just like my DC. The reality is we don't know why one got in and the other with a similar profile didn't because at the end, it is all subjective. "different backgrounds and with different interests" are NOT the only things in consideration. On top of all these, the schools have not increased their sizes to match the growing demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

It's a good thing that you can't, because then folks would be able to fake it. Curie would teach classes in it and charge thousands.

I meant sarcastically - how could the AOs figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that addresses a specific question. The questions are mostly like why you chose the major, elaborate an activity, describe a difficulty you faced, etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

It's a good thing that you can't, because then folks would be able to fake it. Curie would teach classes in it and charge thousands.

Wealthy people already can and do fake it using expensive college consultants who know precisely the best way to present a child. PP’s child was probably leapfrogged by less talented kids who had better college consultants.

[Anonymous]

Or become a recruited athlete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

It's a good thing that you can't, because then folks would be able to fake it. Curie would teach classes in it and charge thousands.

Wealthy people already can and do fake it using expensive college consultants who know precisely the best way to present a child. PP’s child was probably leapfrogged by less talented kids who had better college consultants.

Our TJ student was no less talented than the PP’s child (e.g., captain of the two school clubs, not just an officer), and we hired a college consultant to help the student present themselves. It’s not sufficient to manufacture a great product, you also need to advertise and sell it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

It's a good thing that you can't, because then folks would be able to fake it. Curie would teach classes in it and charge thousands.

Wealthy people already can and do fake it using expensive college consultants who know precisely the best way to present a child. PP’s child was probably leapfrogged by less talented kids who had better college consultants.

Our TJ student was no less talented than the PP’s child (e.g., captain of the two school clubs, not just an officer), and we hired a college consultant to help the student present themselves. It’s not sufficient to manufacture a great product, you also need to advertise and sell it.

Which college did your kid get into?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

It's a good thing that you can't, because then folks would be able to fake it. Curie would teach classes in it and charge thousands.

Wealthy people already can and do fake it using expensive college consultants who know precisely the best way to present a child. PP’s child was probably leapfrogged by less talented kids who had better college consultants.

Our TJ student was no less talented than the PP’s child (e.g., captain of the two school clubs, not just an officer), and we hired a college consultant to help the student present themselves. It’s not sufficient to manufacture a great product, you also need to advertise and sell it.

Which college did your kid get into?

T10

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious to know why folks are so mad at the new process:

- Min GPA requirement
- Math or Science Problem Essay
- Essay about skills/goals
- Pick the top 1-2 % from each school


Doesnt seem so different from a college application?

Harvard would look at experience factors also.

There is the small matter of teacher recommendations that colleges look at.

And Harvard is no gold standard - the Supreme Court will have a say soon.

And Harvard arrived at the “experience factors” because too many Jewish kids were making it on objective criteria. Yes there is your parallel with Harvard.

This was true a century ago but has not been for at least the past fifty years.

It's funny that you say that Harvard is no gold standard but that's still the school that every parent in your community wants the bumper sticker of. Sour grapes, I suppose.

Ironically one of the things that makes it great is its diverse student body.

BINGO. And it is rapidly becoming one of the great things about TJ.

“BINGO” - Great in the spirit of Make America Great Again. Congratulations

Make America Great Again exists in contradistinction to the forces seeking to desegregate TJ. MAGA wants to re-segregate TJ.

Foot in the mouth much! Did not know desegregation was a goal of reform. Such racism.

It's this twisted idea diversity is racist. Similarly, I guess one could argue the civil war was racist against the south since it was against policies that benefited the wealthy at the expense of other groups, but this is just crazy talk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

My DC didn't get in, so you are trying to substantiate the outcome. Some of my DC's friends with similar profiles got in while some others didn't just like my DC. The reality is we don't know why one got in and the other with a similar profile didn't because at the end, it is all subjective. "different backgrounds and with different interests" are NOT the only things in consideration. On top of all these, the schools have not increased their sizes to match the growing demand.

Of course it's subjective. Job applications are subjective, choosing a mate is subjective - that's life.

The college admissions process MUST remain subjective so that colleges can continue to make decisions about which students are the right fit for the campus that they want to have. Objectivity in any selection process leads to homogeneity in the selected body - witness TJ for essentially its entire previous history, including, obviously, the time during which it was far too white.