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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids tend to know more about the process than you think. My son, who isn't close to the top of the class, knows what's impressive and what is not. Last year we had a Standford and Princeton admit. He is more impressed with the CMU engineering admits than those two who applied to a random humanities major.

Hold up. Are you saying the Stanford and Princeton admits aren't impressive? Come on, now! Why do people feel the need to put down some in the process of elevating others? Maybe be impressed by all without feeling the need to compare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids tend to know more about the process than you think. My son, who isn't close to the top of the class, knows what's impressive and what is not. Last year we had a Standford and Princeton admit. He is more impressed with the CMU engineering admits than those two who applied to a random humanities major.

It's one thing for an immature young man to harbor such thoughts. For an adult to actually present this sort of reasoning as something positive and enlightened? Wow. There are intelligent and deserving people outside of STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids tend to know more about the process than you think. My son, who isn't close to the top of the class, knows what's impressive and what is not. Last year we had a Standford and Princeton admit. He is more impressed with the CMU engineering admits than those two who applied to a random humanities major.

Hold up. Are you saying the Stanford and Princeton admits aren't impressive? Come on, now! Why do people feel the need to put down some in the process of elevating others? Maybe be impressed by all without feeling the need to compare.

The son is unimpressive and, related, does not understand what is impressive when he sees it. But he is young and will learn. It is too late, however, for the parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids tend to know more about the process than you think. My son, who isn't close to the top of the class, knows what's impressive and what is not. Last year we had a Standford and Princeton admit. He is more impressed with the CMU engineering admits than those two who applied to a random humanities major.

Asian family engineering bias on display.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids tend to know more about the process than you think. My son, who isn't close to the top of the class, knows what's impressive and what is not. Last year we had a Standford and Princeton admit. He is more impressed with the CMU engineering admits than those two who applied to a random humanities major.

Asian family engineering bias on display.

Nope he just knows engineering is a tougher admit. Getting into top colleges it like buying a lottery ticket. Not many winners. The difference is that more tickets are sold to engineering majors so the odds are worse.

[Anonymous]

The most important thing in admissions is hooks. With the new DEI climate, URM is not the hook it once was.
Don’t think of “hooks” or “points” so narrowly. They are simply advantages in holistic admissions at selective universities.

ALDC is still a hook.
Your HS can be a hook if a feeder or very poor and low performing.
Your major can be a hook.
Your geography can be a hook.
National awards in an individual sport that is a well-funded club sport (looking at you Stanford) can be a hook.
Full pay may be a hook this year. We’ll see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finding true safeties for high stats kids is where to start and yes they are there for every major.
Engineering kid looked at Michigan Tech. Business kid would have been fine at Fordham or Pitt (true safeties for the profile) had T30 school not worked out.
Hard to find safeties kids like, truly like- but all those tours to the selective schools can happen after admission. Best thing we learned- find those safeties. Visit those, not the reaches. We saw some cool
parts of the country.

The same assertion again -- that safeties exist for super high-stats kids. Sure, there are great faculty at lots of places and wonderful programs at many. Smart and motivated students.

But for really intellectual kids, no school that takes 50%+ of applicants will feature a plurality of peers with a similar level of academic interest and enthusiasm. That's not awful -- hardly comparable to the end of liberal democracy, for example -- but in all, not a place that the brainy kid will truly love. Such kids can and should find their niche at the safety, but pretending that it's a great fit is disingenuous.

Not true but a bit of work to find. You need to find good honors programs or nuggets like University of Tulsa. It has a 70% acceptance rate but about a quarter of its class are NMSF because they buy them and then put them in their own Honors program, dorm, etc.

DH went to University of Tulsa, despite getting scholarship offers at “better” schools, including what was the #1 public school in the country at that time. TU was #1 in the country for his major, and that spoke to him. DH won all the awards in his department. It’s really helped his career. If he’d gone to the much better school, he wouldn’t have had as many opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finding true safeties for high stats kids is where to start and yes they are there for every major.
Engineering kid looked at Michigan Tech. Business kid would have been fine at Fordham or Pitt (true safeties for the profile) had T30 school not worked out.
Hard to find safeties kids like, truly like- but all those tours to the selective schools can happen after admission. Best thing we learned- find those safeties. Visit those, not the reaches. We saw some cool
parts of the country.

The same assertion again -- that safeties exist for super high-stats kids. Sure, there are great faculty at lots of places and wonderful programs at many. Smart and motivated students.

But for really intellectual kids, no school that takes 50%+ of applicants will feature a plurality of peers with a similar level of academic interest and enthusiasm. That's not awful -- hardly comparable to the end of liberal democracy, for example -- but in all, not a place that the brainy kid will truly love. Such kids can and should find their niche at the safety, but pretending that it's a great fit is disingenuous.

Not true but a bit of work to find. You need to find good honors programs or nuggets like University of Tulsa. It has a 70% acceptance rate but about a quarter of its class are NMSF because they buy them and then put them in their own Honors program, dorm, etc.

DH went to University of Tulsa, despite getting scholarship offers at “better” schools, including what was the #1 public school in the country at that time. TU was #1 in the country for his major, and that spoke to him. DH won all the awards in his department. It’s really helped his career. If he’d gone to the much better school, he wouldn’t have had as many opportunities.

Oh, and yes. The TU scholarship was generous, making it cheaper than public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your high school defines you destiny (for 95% of kids).

Some high schools limit how high you can reach

Some limit how fall you can fall.

High school name is the most important data on the application

It is true. My niece whose Dad and Mom are college educated well off and not URM of any type. He is Irish, she is German both third generation American sent their kid to a 99 percent low income minority school. My niece got offers everywhere. She was first in years to apply to t25 school out of that HS. Which is in paper more for drug dealing and shooting. I think 50 percent of HS drops out before graduation.

If she was in TJ or a W school those grades she be at Towson or JMU

And on the flip side. Going to a private HS where 40% of kids are admitted to a T25, means your 3.8uw goes to an Ivy.
There is a good old LONG thread on here about how it works - both at the top-end high schools and those on the very bottom (like your niece).

I’m having trouble locating the thread you mentioned. Could you provide a link or more specific search terms?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised that, for high stats (i.e., 1550+ with perfect GPA and top rigor the school offers), there really are no target schools.

All T20s are reaches, and in the next tier down, almost every school yield protects (even state schools for OOS applicants).

As a result, kids need to apply to a v large number of schools, which is time consuming, emotionally draining, and $$$.

So much uncertainty . . . .

People on this site always say 'have a safety DC loves!'. But which school that accepts more than 50% of students is likely to be a great fit for a kid with perfect GPA and scores?

“My kid is too special and smart to actually go to a school that will admit them no questions asked.”

Like they aren’t going to die if they go to SUNY Binghamton or UMass Amherst.

No, they aren't going to die. But if they are going to end up at Binghamton, do they have to spend hours and hours and close to $2K on the way there?

Trying their best and achieving and growing should be an end in itself.

I feel like a substantial numbers of posters here would be perfect fine with DC learning absolutely nothing at colleges as long as they went somewhere that could boost them into a job they approve of based solely on the prestige of the degree.

+1

+2

So much emphasis on prestige on DCUM.

So much pressure for prestige at the W schools. It’s all about where their kid gets in and bragging rights. It’s kinda sad because after being in the workplace for decades now and a hiring manager, where you graduated is the last thing I look at.

What do you look at?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids tend to know more about the process than you think. My son, who isn't close to the top of the class, knows what's impressive and what is not. Last year we had a Standford and Princeton admit. He is more impressed with the CMU engineering admits than those two who applied to a random humanities major.

Asian family engineering bias on display.

Nope he just knows engineering is a tougher admit. Getting into top colleges it like buying a lottery ticket. Not many winners. The difference is that more tickets are sold to engineering majors so the odds are worse.

there aren't a ton of engineering kids going for Harvard and Yale or Stanford.

being an engineer is like being a dentist. it's .. great, but not everyone thinks it's all that aspirational

[Anonymous]

URM is still a major hook and harder than ever to "view" in application. Dont be fooled - colleges want a diverse campus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:URM is still a major hook and harder than ever to "view" in application. Dont be fooled - colleges want a diverse campus

Are you white or Asian?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your high school defines you destiny (for 95% of kids).

Some high schools limit how high you can reach

Some limit how fall you can fall.

High school name is the most important data on the application

It is true. My niece whose Dad and Mom are college educated well off and not URM of any type. He is Irish, she is German both third generation American sent their kid to a 99 percent low income minority school. My niece got offers everywhere. She was first in years to apply to t25 school out of that HS. Which is in paper more for drug dealing and shooting. I think 50 percent of HS drops out before graduation.

If she was in TJ or a W school those grades she be at Towson or JMU

And on the flip side. Going to a private HS where 40% of kids are admitted to a T25, means your 3.8uw goes to an Ivy.
There is a good old LONG thread on here about how it works - both at the top-end high schools and those on the very bottom (like your niece).

I’m having trouble locating the thread you mentioned. Could you provide a link or more specific search terms?

Here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1255948.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:URM is still a major hook and harder than ever to "view" in application. Dont be fooled - colleges want a diverse campus

Of course they do, but they are not picking lower qualified candidates at all this year. And I’m not sure how much they are favoring them. They are really struggling from our private school this year. It is a marked change from even last year.