Disappointment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation?We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

Your DD sounds amazing to me. So amazing that I can see why a lot of people on this forum thought you were a troll and these admission results are fake. You must be so proud of her. She will do great and have a great time no matter where she decides to go.

OP here, thank you! She has worked so hard these past 4 years, it really makes me upset that she feels she isn't good enough because of the decisions - It's hard to get her to stop comparing herself to her peers who made it into some of these schools.

It’s especially hard when you keep doing the same thing.

How am I comparing her? By saying that I feel it's unfair that many of her peers who put less effort got into some of these schools?

Grades/scores are only part of the application. Her peers obviously had something the schools wanted that your daughter did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harsh comments on this thread. Didn’t read them all

To the OP, I think college acceptances are a big farce. We pretend like if this child just had diff ECs or something else her outcomes would have been different. I know two kids admitted to Ivies this cycle that are very average (no leadership, hard working but not brilliant). Why were they admitted? Because they come from rural communities and are economically disadvantaged according to the college’s formula. That gave them the boost to get admitted. Kids from the DC region are on a whole other playing field. It really opened my eyes that admissions is a joke and we are pretending that our kids have some control over the process.

Strongly agree. There is nothing wrong with OP’s profile. What’s wrong is a corrupt admissions process that favors rich people through ED, athletes and often legacies and more. No one should be so invested in affirming the current admissions process that they blame this child, especially with racist Asian stereotypes. OP’s kid will do great at any of the colleges she was accepted to. W&M and Pitt seem to have many happy students! OP, I suggest you have this thread locked and stop subjecting yoursef and your kid to these insults.

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]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation? We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

Your DD sounds amazing to me. So amazing that I can see why a lot of people on this forum thought you were a troll and these admission results are fake. You must be so proud of her. She will do great and have a great time no matter where she decides to go.

OP here, thank you! She has worked so hard these past 4 years, it really makes me upset that she feels she isn't good enough because of the decisions - It's hard to get her to stop comparing herself to her peers who made it into some of these schools.

It’s especially hard when you keep doing the same thing.

How am I comparing her? By saying that I feel it's unfair that many of her peers who put less effort got into some of these schools?

I understand your frustration, as I posted earlier your daughter has a wonderful academic profile and she will do great wherever she ends up. But be careful with comparisons and comments of "unfair" because you don't really know and neither does your daughter even though she may believe that she does.

We had a typical 'sports kid' at my daughter's school last year; cheerful, well liked, and captain of the volleyball team for her junior and senior year. People knew that she did well in school but she wasn't obviously standing out. She would have been on nobody'd RADAR for a top school unless it was to play volleyball. Senior year rolled around and:

She was named as an NMSF. The kids in her AP classes were shocked because she was a 'sports kid' and many of them actually questioned that she belonged in the AP classes
She was named the schools 'Scholar Athlete' for the year. None of the 'sports kids' ever imagined that she would have a 4.6 GPA and neither did her coach
She was an AP Scholar with distinction because she had 12APs with all 4 and 5s as far as I know.
It turned out that she also had probably 600 hours volunteering at a local hospital (and she's not premed) and another 200 or so hours at the local foodbank.

I only know this because she is my kids best friend but it is a quick illustration as to why people need to be careful with the "unfair, people with lesser stats got the spot" comments. Most of the time there is something that you just don't know.

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.

Your kid is literally hiding ECs for a leg up on admissions. You are exactly the type of parent we are talking about.

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?

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]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation? We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

Your DD sounds amazing to me. So amazing that I can see why a lot of people on this forum thought you were a troll and these admission results are fake. You must be so proud of her. She will do great and have a great time no matter where she decides to go.

OP here, thank you! She has worked so hard these past 4 years, it really makes me upset that she feels she isn't good enough because of the decisions - It's hard to get her to stop comparing herself to her peers who made it into some of these schools.

It’s especially hard when you keep doing the same thing.

How am I comparing her? By saying that I feel it's unfair that many of her peers who put less effort got into some of these schools?

I understand your frustration, as I posted earlier your daughter has a wonderful academic profile and she will do great wherever she ends up. But be careful with comparisons and comments of "unfair" because you don't really know and neither does your daughter even though she may believe that she does.

We had a typical 'sports kid' at my daughter's school last year; cheerful, well liked, and captain of the volleyball team for her junior and senior year. People knew that she did well in school but she wasn't obviously standing out. She would have been on nobody'd RADAR for a top school unless it was to play volleyball. Senior year rolled around and:

She was named as an NMSF. The kids in her AP classes were shocked because she was a 'sports kid' and many of them actually questioned that she belonged in the AP classes
She was named the schools 'Scholar Athlete' for the year. None of the 'sports kids' ever imagined that she would have a 4.6 GPA and neither did her coach
She was an AP Scholar with distinction because she had 12APs with all 4 and 5s as far as I know.
It turned out that she also had probably 600 hours volunteering at a local hospital (and she's not premed) and another 200 or so hours at the local foodbank.

I only know this because she is my kids best friend but it is a quick illustration as to why people need to be careful with the "unfair, people with lesser stats got the spot" comments. Most of the time there is something that you just don't know.

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.

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.

[Anonymous]

I bet UVA, Cornell and CM would have admitted her if she had applied to one of them binding ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation? We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

Your DD sounds amazing to me. So amazing that I can see why a lot of people on this forum thought you were a troll and these admission results are fake. You must be so proud of her. She will do great and have a great time no matter where she decides to go.

OP here, thank you! She has worked so hard these past 4 years, it really makes me upset that she feels she isn't good enough because of the decisions - It's hard to get her to stop comparing herself to her peers who made it into some of these schools.

It’s especially hard when you keep doing the same thing.

How am I comparing her? By saying that I feel it's unfair that many of her peers who put less effort got into some of these schools?

I understand your frustration, as I posted earlier your daughter has a wonderful academic profile and she will do great wherever she ends up. But be careful with comparisons and comments of "unfair" because you don't really know and neither does your daughter even though she may believe that she does.

We had a typical 'sports kid' at my daughter's school last year; cheerful, well liked, and captain of the volleyball team for her junior and senior year. People knew that she did well in school but she wasn't obviously standing out. She would have been on nobody'd RADAR for a top school unless it was to play volleyball. Senior year rolled around and:

She was named as an NMSF. The kids in her AP classes were shocked because she was a 'sports kid' and many of them actually questioned that she belonged in the AP classes
She was named the schools 'Scholar Athlete' for the year. None of the 'sports kids' ever imagined that she would have a 4.6 GPA and neither did her coach
She was an AP Scholar with distinction because she had 12APs with all 4 and 5s as far as I know.
It turned out that she also had probably 600 hours volunteering at a local hospital (and she's not premed) and another 200 or so hours at the local foodbank.

I only know this because she is my kids best friend but it is a quick illustration as to why people need to be careful with the "unfair, people with lesser stats got the spot" comments. Most of the time there is something that you just don't know.

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.

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.

+100
My kid was one of those who was underestimated by her peers. She never bragged about grades or shared scores. No one except her closest friends knew the extent of her ECs, which were all outside of school. To the shock of many, she received the principal’s award at graduation for exemplary academics and service to others. She was accepted at two Ivies, among other schools.

Never assume knowledge of anyone’s kid but your own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation? We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

Your DD sounds amazing to me. So amazing that I can see why a lot of people on this forum thought you were a troll and these admission results are fake. You must be so proud of her. She will do great and have a great time no matter where she decides to go.

OP here, thank you! She has worked so hard these past 4 years, it really makes me upset that she feels she isn't good enough because of the decisions - It's hard to get her to stop comparing herself to her peers who made it into some of these schools.

It’s especially hard when you keep doing the same thing.

How am I comparing her? By saying that I feel it's unfair that many of her peers who put less effort got into some of these schools?

I understand your frustration, as I posted earlier your daughter has a wonderful academic profile and she will do great wherever she ends up. But be careful with comparisons and comments of "unfair" because you don't really know and neither does your daughter even though she may believe that she does.

We had a typical 'sports kid' at my daughter's school last year; cheerful, well liked, and captain of the volleyball team for her junior and senior year. People knew that she did well in school but she wasn't obviously standing out. She would have been on nobody'd RADAR for a top school unless it was to play volleyball. Senior year rolled around and:

She was named as an NMSF. The kids in her AP classes were shocked because she was a 'sports kid' and many of them actually questioned that she belonged in the AP classes
She was named the schools 'Scholar Athlete' for the year. None of the 'sports kids' ever imagined that she would have a 4.6 GPA and neither did her coach
She was an AP Scholar with distinction because she had 12APs with all 4 and 5s as far as I know.
It turned out that she also had probably 600 hours volunteering at a local hospital (and she's not premed) and another 200 or so hours at the local foodbank.

I only know this because she is my kids best friend but it is a quick illustration as to why people need to be careful with the "unfair, people with lesser stats got the spot" comments. Most of the time there is something that you just don't know.

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.

Your kid is literally hiding ECs for a leg up on admissions. You are exactly the type of parent we are talking about.

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?

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.

DP. Not bragging about something is hardly “gate keeping.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1

Most of the "high stats" kids should do this. The way most of the DCUM parents brag, they can afford ED if it came to it. If you take your chances in RD, be prepared to get shut out of true reaches and maybe get waitlisted at the targets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harsh comments on this thread. Didn’t read them all

To the OP, I think college acceptances are a big farce. We pretend like if this child just had diff ECs or something else her outcomes would have been different. I know two kids admitted to Ivies this cycle that are very average (no leadership, hard working but not brilliant). Why were they admitted? Because they come from rural communities and are economically disadvantaged according to the college’s formula. That gave them the boost to get admitted. Kids from the DC region are on a whole other playing field. It really opened my eyes that admissions is a joke and we are pretending that our kids have some control over the process.

Strongly agree. There is nothing wrong with OP’s profile. What’s wrong is a corrupt admissions process that favors rich people through ED, athletes and often legacies and more. No one should be so invested in affirming the current admissions process that they blame this child, especially with racist Asian stereotypes. OP’s kid will do great at any of the colleges she was accepted to. W&M and Pitt seem to have many happy students! OP, I suggest you have this thread locked and stop subjecting yoursef and your kid to these insults.

My brother joked that he should have moved to Wyoming for a year before he started this with his kids and they would have gotten in anywhere. He’s probably right.

The bottom line is there are thousands of students applying for about 1,000 or fewer spots at some of these schools. Princeton comes right out and says they reject hundreds of students with perfect SATs, that there is no way they could admit all of them.

When my high achieving son was rejected over and over, it was frustrating because all he had ever done was everything he was supposed to do. Perfect grades, great scores, ECs, letters, blah blah blah. None of the schools will give a tangible, direct answer to why he ends up in the “No” pile. There is a lottery to it all.

Tell your daughter to keep her head up and make her choice her new home and she will thrive there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation?We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

Your DD sounds amazing to me. So amazing that I can see why a lot of people on this forum thought you were a troll and these admission results are fake. You must be so proud of her. She will do great and have a great time no matter where she decides to go.

OP here, thank you! She has worked so hard these past 4 years, it really makes me upset that she feels she isn't good enough because of the decisions - It's hard to get her to stop comparing herself to her peers who made it into some of these schools.

It’s especially hard when you keep doing the same thing.

How am I comparing her? By saying that I feel it's unfair that many of her peers who put less effort got into some of these schools?

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.

And now OP is faced with the GHASTLY prospect of needing to send her daughter to Tech. Can you imagine??!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some point, elite college admissions becomes just a game. It has complex, ever-evolving rules, requires long-term strategy, involves intense competition, and produces winners and losers. It sucks to be rejected or to "lose", but it often simply means you didn't play the strategy optimally. OP's academics and test scores might have qualified her kid to play, but clearly the activities weren't optimized in a way that stood out to admissions committees.

For those navigating elite college admissions, I suggest finding a specific "hook" like an athletic talent, which can provide more concrete admissions benchmarks for test scores and grades.

This is the result of the dysfunctional admissions system. People who think it’s reasonable to “curate” ECs instead of having a student do what they like and enjoy doing.

I also think these rejections hit harder when you spend all of high school taking classes that you didn't want to take or doing activities that you didn't want to do just for your resume. If you like your life and choices, then you don't feel like you've sacrificed for nothing.

This is wise. As a parent, I ask myself all the time if I should push my kids more and I usually don't. Being a parent doesn't entitle me to full control over decisions that impact someone else's happiness. Only to guide them towards the best decisions/options and prevent unrecoverable errors.

Both my kids did the Hopkins CTY program. They really liked it. But they both said in the HS programs they did, several kids in their classes had no desire to be there but were there because their parents “thought it would look good.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I smell a 🧌

Do you think her profile is too "basic"? She says she regrets not picking more creative ECs, although I think her ECs were perfectly suited for her major + demonstrated her passion.

Yeah, I agree there is nothing that stands out in her ECs.

ECs:
not impressive: - A few regional awards (STEM)
Actually good: - 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
everyone has one: - Founder of non-profit
this year AOs don't like research for some reason: - Research w/ prof at T30
everyone has one: - Competitive summer program for BME
everyone has this: - Lots of community service

This year I heard Stanford retracted an acceptance because the applicant lied about volunteer hours.
Are those 200 volunteer hours @ local hospital registered with the school?

Yes, she made sure that everything was registered. I'm assuming the more "basic" ECs were the factor harming her application?

No, it's just a bizarre system that makes kids do these things. In other countries kids don't have to do these admissions acrobatics.

No, other countries instead track kids around age 11/12 (or earlier). You are tracked at this age, based on a one day test. Do well, you can be on tract for pre-med/stem/engineering. Do okay, and you can focus on humanities and social sciences (non stem), do worse, and you won't be tracked for much college at all. And without $$$$$$ it is damn near impossible to get off those tracks.
So yeah, I 1000% prefer what we have, where a kid can grow academically after 5th/6th grade and still decide to be an engineer or a doctor after age 12.

Nah. You can pretty much tell where a kid should be by the end of 6th grade. Pretending that kids can “grow” after that is a waste of everyone’s time and of public resources.

I don't think that's true. My sister almost didn't pass middle school and nearly flunked out of high school. My parents thought she was hopeless and suggested a GED and a job at McDonald's.

She ended up top of her graduate program at Yale and is doing great as an adult. She grew up a lot in college and stopped hating school when they stopped making her take math, science and PE. She probably has some hefty LDs, but is an amazing artist and author. She didn't even know she had a talent for art or writing until she was a senior in highschool. A lot can change when a person finds their niche.

Yeah, the post your responded to is a troll tying to stir things up.

I'm the PP and yes, that is precisely why I like our system. You are not tracked in 6th grade and unable to change courses. I know plenty of kids who blossomed in HS and some in college. There are kids from my HS who are MDs and have their PHDs in science fields---trust me when I say I would never have bet on that when we were in HS. But they grew up, figured shit out and decided academics was worth it. Kudos to them for doing so.

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Anonymous wrote:Harsh comments on this thread. Didn’t read them all

To the OP, I think college acceptances are a big farce. We pretend like if this child just had diff ECs or something else her outcomes would have been different. I know two kids admitted to Ivies this cycle that are very average (no leadership, hard working but not brilliant). Why were they admitted? Because they come from rural communities and are economically disadvantaged according to the college’s formula. That gave them the boost to get admitted. Kids from the DC region are on a whole other playing field. It really opened my eyes that admissions is a joke and we are pretending that our kids have some control over the process.

Strongly agree. There is nothing wrong with OP’s profile. What’s wrong is a corrupt admissions process that favors rich people through ED, athletes and often legacies and more. No one should be so invested in affirming the current admissions process that they blame this child, especially with racist Asian stereotypes. OP’s kid will do great at any of the colleges she was accepted to. W&M and Pitt seem to have many happy students! OP, I suggest you have this thread locked and stop subjecting yoursef and your kid to these insults.

My brother joked that he should have moved to Wyoming for a year before he started this with his kids and they would have gotten in anywhere. He’s probably right.

The bottom line is there are thousands of students applying for about 1,000 or fewer spots at some of these schools. Princeton comes right out and says they reject hundreds of students with perfect SATs, that there is no way they could admit all of them.

When my high achieving son was rejected over and over, it was frustrating because all he had ever done was everything he was supposed to do. Perfect grades, great scores, ECs, letters, blah blah blah. None of the schools will give a tangible, direct answer to why he ends up in the “No” pile. There is a lottery to it all.

Tell your daughter to keep her head up and make her choice her new home and she will thrive there

Nope. I know a brilliant kid from Wyoming with an extremely impressive profile who didn't get into any T10s. Ended up a superstar at a flagship honors program (OOS w/ full ride), had a great time, graduates this year, and going to the top program in his field for PhD (fortunately that's in Europe so he doesn't have to worry about science funding cuts). Undergrad is mostly what you make of it and these superstar kids will do great wherever they land as long as they embrace the opportunities they have instead of wallowing in disappointment.

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Do you think her profile is too "basic"? She says she regrets not picking more creative ECs, although I think her ECs were perfectly suited for her major + demonstrated her passion.

Yeah, I agree there is nothing that stands out in her ECs.

ECs:
not impressive: - A few regional awards (STEM)
Actually good: - 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
everyone has one: - Founder of non-profit
this year AOs don't like research for some reason: - Research w/ prof at T30
everyone has one: - Competitive summer program for BME
everyone has this: - Lots of community service

This year I heard Stanford retracted an acceptance because the applicant lied about volunteer hours.
Are those 200 volunteer hours @ local hospital registered with the school?

Yes, she made sure that everything was registered. I'm assuming the more "basic" ECs were the factor harming her application?

No, it's just a bizarre system that makes kids do these things. In other countries kids don't have to do these admissions acrobatics.

No, other countries instead track kids around age 11/12 (or earlier). You are tracked at this age, based on a one day test. Do well, you can be on tract for pre-med/stem/engineering. Do okay, and you can focus on humanities and social sciences (non stem), do worse, and you won't be tracked for much college at all. And without $$$$$$ it is damn near impossible to get off those tracks.
So yeah, I 1000% prefer what we have, where a kid can grow academically after 5th/6th grade and still decide to be an engineer or a doctor after age 12.

Nah. You can pretty much tell where a kid should be by the end of 6th grade. Pretending that kids can “grow” after that is a waste of everyone’s time and of public resources.

This is so un-American!
I am an immigrant from Asia. What attracts us so much about America is precisely that, as long as you work hard, you always have another opportunity.
Tiger parents often pushed kids hard in their childhood, then the kids lost motivation once they left home.

And some kids just take longer to find their course. Many times that is HS or college (for some it's later). If you want to be a tiger parent, go for it, but don't complain when your kid wants nothing to do with you once they are 30 and done with you financing their education (and are in a career path they dont' enjoy and never really wanted to pursue)