Disappointment
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Anonymous
America doesn’t do everything right. The education system is a perfect example of this! It is a huge waste of time, money, and effort to try and get every kid to go to college. Many kids should be put on a vocational track in high school, as many countries do. |
Anonymous
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We know a family whose top stats daughter was deferred and then waitlisted at UVA (but she did EA not ED because she wanted to ED an Ivy. We've all heard that song before.) They are PISSED at UVA about it. It was pretty shocking to hear them discuss it.
Which brings me back to - you should ED the best school you have a strong shot at. Not some crazy reach school. Anecdotally most kids we know had great results ED-ing a realistic choice. |
Anonymous
| OP, to you your kid seems unique but she's a dime a dozen on paper to admissions people. For everyone of her, there are five hundred others. Her grades don't make her different. So what does? |
Anonymous
Could not agree more. Open enrollment in Honors and AP classes at our public HS has been an unmitigated disaster for the kids who actually deserve to be there. Tons of kids are literally flunking. It should not even be possible to flunk an AP class. It means someone screwed up somewhere. |
Anonymous
Totally agree with this. In some cases, its actually by design that you don't know what the real story is with another kid. At out private, there are some maniac parents who are willing to bring others down to elevate their own kids. These people are to be feared during college applications. For all the EC's that my kid was doing outside of school, he was very, very quiet about it. No one realized the full extent of it until very recently. He was able to stay off the radar for the duration. |
Anonymous
Your kid is literally hiding ECs for a leg up on admissions. You are exactly the type of parent we are talking about. |
Anonymous
You are a fool, that is obvious. Your comment is pretty stupid in so many ways and highlights your status as a mental midget. I wish that this thread happened earlier this week, your comment would have made for a good laugh. On Wednesday I was chatting with Adam Steltzner Chief Engineer of the last Mars Rover Mission (Perseverance). He's from the bay area and was in town for a conference. Adam dropped out of HS to play in a rock band. He then ended up at a community college before going on to study at CalTech, get his Phd and spend his entire career at the JPL. If you told him that potential was fixed at around 6th grade he would give you a curious look and then use his life story to make you a fool. He is wickedly smart, wickedly funny and a great person but he does not suffer fools gladly and you are a fool. |
Anonymous
A key difference between America and other countries resides in that the public education system is funded by local tax payers, not but a central government. We have autonomy, not dictatorship. If you like the vocational track so much, there is community college where you can send your kid to. |
Anonymous
Is there some sort of informational rights that other parents have about what my kid does outside of school that I am not aware of? |
Anonymous
Yes. These schools were looking for a combination of factors that those peers had. Your insistence that your child is a better candidate and that the situation is unfair means that you don’t understand what the school wanted. There is no unfairness here, just you mistakenly thinking that the degree of effort your daughter put in should have automatically resulted in a punched ticket. |
Anonymous
Grades/scores are only part of the application. Her peers obviously had something the schools wanted that your daughter did not. |
Anonymous
The OP said DC was asian, so people are just pointing out that the 15+ APs, ECs and major choice made that clear without even seeing the file. |
Anonymous
No. It's just weird, cutthroat gatekeeping. Like you think it would somehow harm your child if others knew what ECs they are doing. You obviously think the ends justify the means, but I don't want to be around people like that and I don't want my kid around that either. |
Anonymous
She was never hiding anything as far as I know. I know her mainly from hanging out with my kid and volleyball but I think that she just quietly did her thing and focused on what was meaningful to her. She took the hardest courses because I suspect that is just what you do in her household (her parents are successful but lowkey tech execs). The hospital volunteering became a habit (my kid did it with her for a year) that she did on Sunday morning, etc. The point that I was trying to make is don't assume. |
Anonymous
| At DS's school, they families targeting HYP treat is as life and death and can act increasingly erratic. We had a situation where parents called the head of school to inform of them of "students they heard might have cheated" on a math test (which ultimately went no where). Another parent felt it was her responsibility to let Dartmouth know that student they took in December had been suspended as a sophomore "just in case the student hadn't disclosed it." I am very happy my child was not perceived as a threat to these people and ultimately is going somewhere she loves even if not prestigous. |