do college admissions get ugly at the Big3 when all the parents are Ivy grads?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am so curious how this works out.
My kid just started at a Big3 for 9th.
I was looking through an email that I was on and out of 30+ addresses, 10 are Ivy alumni addresses.
This prompted me to google a bunch of the rest and out of 20, I easily hit 5 Harvard grads, 2 Duke, 3 Stanford, etc. There was one lonely Boston College grad. lol The rest were all.Ivy.

Now the reality is that last year this school sent maybe 15 kids to the Ivy League. 1/2 were sports recruits. 1/2 were minorities (some overlap but not entirely).
There was maybe one kid each to HYPS. One to Duke (and of these 5 or so kids a few were athletes or URM).
That's it. Period.

When you have a parent body that overwhelmingly went to the Ivy League (or other tippy top schools) themselves and the spots for their kids are EXCEEDINGLY few (i.e. single digits) and everyone (50 people?) wants these spots, how does this work out?
Does it get ugly?
I am so curious and am sort of frightened to find out.
(BTW I went to a SLAC).

We’re you living under a Rock in 2019 when the scandal around leaked emails from Sidwell college counseling office criticizing Sidwell parents who were sabotaging their DC’s peers in order to jostle for prime Ivy pick positions for their DC? It was nuts - can simply not imagine that level of college arms race anxiety/ insanity …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a family who just went through the college admissions process with two kids at two different DC privates, yes, it does get ugly at times. The most polite thing that happened to both of my kids, was classmates asking them not to apply to a certain school because it was classmates' first choice, and my DCs application would hurt classmates chances of getting in.

That was polite; it got worse from there. Lots of academic cheating happens as well.

Good luck - I'm glad it's all over!

How could classmates know where your children apply? Were your DC already been accepted into a non-binding EA when classmates asked?

Easy: the kids talk and ask each other. Then the most entitled parents tell their kids — and worse in many cases the college advisory counselors — “you should advise x and y and z not to apply to a, b, c schools — it’s cutthroat. And of course those being urged not to apply are often targeted because they’re strong students, but unhooked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I have no idea about admissions, but this is insane to me. Do people who have been out of school for long enough to have high school aged children really still use their college alumni addresses?

One angle to consider - Using an alumni alias email isn't so strange if it was the first email you had and then continued to use it ever since. It takes a lot of work to disentangle all the places you've used it as a login id etc. Of course, not everyone fits into that category but many people I know from school (where this WAS the case - and is not an IVY) still use that alias. It has nothing to do with status - it's a consistent email address - just like keeping the same cell number that has a non-DMV area code because that's where you had your first cell phone.

Yeah, no. It’s actually totally strange, douchey, and a not-so-subtle flex.

+1. Grow up. It’s time for an adult email address

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a high school age kid and you are using Harvard alum email address that’s extremely strange because email had barely begun when you were in college. Those alum accounts are for the 35 and under crowd.

Well, maybe Harvard wasn't that advanced, but I had email at my SLAC in the 1990s.

[Anonymous]

There are thousands (5 thousand?) Yale alumni here in the DMV, according to my alum newsletter. There are probably similar numbers for HPSM. It's just not practical for all of our/their kids to get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have a high school age kid and you are using Harvard alum email address that’s extremely strange because email had barely begun when you were in college. Those alum accounts are for the 35 and under crowd.

Well, maybe Harvard wasn't that advanced, but I had email at my SLAC in the 1990s.

OP here. This is a good point. I graduated in 1996 and had a college email address but the address from that era has long been changed by the school. These Harvard (and Yale and Stanford) address people definitely started using their school email addresses many years after attending the school. They're all 48+ and attended for undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am so curious how this works out.
My kid just started at a Big3 for 9th.
I was looking through an email that I was on and out of 30+ addresses, 10 are Ivy alumni addresses.
This prompted me to google a bunch of the rest and out of 20, I easily hit 5 Harvard grads, 2 Duke, 3 Stanford, etc. There was one lonely Boston College grad. lol The rest were all.Ivy.

Now the reality is that last year this school sent maybe 15 kids to the Ivy League. 1/2 were sports recruits. 1/2 were minorities (some overlap but not entirely).
There was maybe one kid each to HYPS. One to Duke (and of these 5 or so kids a few were athletes or URM).
That's it. Period.

When you have a parent body that overwhelmingly went to the Ivy League (or other tippy top schools) themselves and the spots for their kids are EXCEEDINGLY few (i.e. single digits) and everyone (50 people?) wants these spots, how does this work out?
Does it get ugly?
I am so curious and am sort of frightened to find out.
(BTW I went to a SLAC).

I have no idea about admissions, but this is insane to me. Do people who have been out of school for long enough to have high school aged children really still use their college alumni addresses?

You know what's insane to me? That OP, our SLCA grad, has time on her hands to google the educational background of every parent in her child's class. So, OP, what are you doing with that SLAC degree?

NP. No need to be so high and mighty. We all occasionally get nosy and curious.

[Anonymous]

I haven't used my Ivy alum email address (not HYP but one of the next rung down). I had heard MIT email addresses were for life, but what we got was a forwarding email address that was [e-mail]. I never see college alum email address still used by alums - anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. Legacy preference is going the way of the dodo. Kids will have to compete on merit.
2. But, life isn’t fair, and most of the Ivy parents take parenting just as seriously as they did their SATs, so a lot of their kids are going to be competitive, even without legacy preference.
3. Can’t we all just collectively NOT CARE about who gets in where anymore?

On the UP side OP, if you somehow made it in Washington well enough to afford to pay $ 450,000 K for your kid's grade 4-12 education and you DIDN'T go to an IVY nor did your spouse AND your kid is smart enough to be accepted to a Big 3, they are likely pretty well set on their own ability and merit.

Right ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Based on this thread, I just checked for my kids big 3 class email and wow there are several alumni emails! I play it cool with gmail and just let it slip occasionally that I went to college near Boston.

The “near Boston” thing is just as lame as alumni emails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so sad.

+1. A bunch of pathetic parents focus on others email addresses.

ok, [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a high school age kid and you are using Harvard alum email address that’s extremely strange because email had barely begun when you were in college. Those alum accounts are for the 35 and under crowd.

Nooe! Alums can sign up too! That’s why I know so many lame 50-somes with these.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it’s common for a classmate to pay another classmate to write a paper for them? Crazy. How can a Big 3 school not spot this cheating?

Cheating is widespread now. Even at college. I’m a teacher and trying to monitor cheating is a nightmare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't used my Ivy alum email address (not HYP but one of the next rung down). I had heard MIT email addresses were for life, but what we got was a forwarding email address that was [e-mail]. I never see college alum email address still used by alums - anywhere.

Damn! I’m an MIT alum. Should I be using my alumni email?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Legacy preference is going the way of the dodo. Kids will have to compete on merit.
2. But, life isn’t fair, and most of the Ivy parents take parenting just as seriously as they did their SATs, so a lot of their kids are going to be competitive, even without legacy preference.
3. Can’t we all just collectively NOT CARE about who gets in where anymore?

#3 is a tough ask, PP, though it would solve so many problems for American society if it could be achieved. I have succeeded in conveying (and occasionally even feeling) a zen-like calm on the sidelines of my youngest’s games. That has taken all the self-discipline available to me right now.

Humans are programmed to have a pecking order.