Disappointment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op writes, "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."

This is why so many people are finding OP insufferable. She is so critical of other students with "worse ECs". I bet those are the kids who were on students council, drama, yearbook, marching band, school sports so they didn't have as many weighted/honors/AP classes. Maybe they were taking care of a sibling or having to have paid employment. Being president of the honor club is not student leadership. Her child didn't do anything to make her school a better place. Her whole application seems like she went along checking boxes to try to get into top ranked colleges.

And OP says they make between 200-400k but doesn't answer if they need financial aid. Since she didn't apply ED 1 to JHU most likely they aren't a FULL PAY family. Now add that she applied to the MOST competitive major at JHU- biomedical engineering. It's the number 1 rated program in the country. That acceptance rate a few years ago was probably only 1-2 percent. They only take 100-120 students and it is hard to transfer in.

Now add that the NIH is being cut so JHU is supposedly not taking nearly the same amount of grad student. More reason to take ED 1 FULL PAY students.

So OP not "worst of all" is not that many of her classmates with lower stats got in. It is that you are to shallow to think - wow, that is great at least one of my child's classmates got in so I am going to wish them the all the best.

OP mentions later that she made a mistake and her DD applied ED2 to JHU

[Anonymous]

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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.

No---they are not openly bragging to everyone about their ECs outside of school because they know parents and other students will be nasty and malicious. How does it harm your kid and you if my kid has national level ECs or State level ECs that they are the best at and you don't know about it? Just how the heck does that harm you or your kid? (I'll just wait)

DP here. It's cute that you think you are different from the "maniac" parents at your private. You are not.

My kids attended a public HS (I'm not that PP). What any kid does outside of school (or in school academically) is really none of your business or your kid's business. If my kid wants to spend 15 hours each weekend working as a CNA (or volunteering at a nursing home and doing actual work) from time they are old enough, nobody needs to advertise that to you. Same if my kid wants to spend 5 hours a day practicing piano and becoming one of the best players in the USA by end of HS. It's literally none of your business. They are not hiding anything, they are just pursuing their passions. And unless you are their friend, you have no interest in knowing


I'm sorry that you are so maniac that your kid doesn't have any passions, unless they check your boxes for "how to get into an Ivy"

+1000. What my kid (or any kid) is doing outside of school is their own business. We told our kids early in life that their biggest competition was themselves - so out and win every day versus who you were yesterday and something good will happen in the end.

It's still going completely over both of your heads. No one GAF what your kids are doing in their free time. What's "maniac" about it is that you thing you are somehow above the tiger parents you have so much disdain for. You are not better than them. You ARE them.

You can keep repeating the same tropes all day long if it make you feel better. All I know is my kid quietly kicked ass on what he cared deeply about and is now headed for Harvard in the fall. I hope your find tranquility in your path at some point. Everyone's going to be fine in the end.

Let them eat cake!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That is exactly why we SHOULD have mandatory vo-tech tracking. Our local taxes are paying to “educate” high school kids when at least half of the kids there (and all of them in certain schools) have no business going to college. Complete waste of money.

"At least half," "and all of them" ... Are they tax payers' kids?
If so many kids are failing schools, the main responsibility sits on the principle and the school board. Fire them all and get new ones, repeat until improvements.
In our school, 100% graduation rate, all goes to a four-year college or a community college then transfer to a state u.
If you kid happens to do well, that's great. But "our local taxes" is not dedicated to your kid only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Welcome to the application process for highly qualified daughters. If your daughter is white or Asian, it's even worse. The stats don't lie - your daughter is competing with far more applicants exactly like her than boys. Check the Common Data Set stats and you will see it - applicants are mostly girls. Are you middle class - specifically in the not so sweet spot of a family earned income between 200K and 400K a year? It's even worse than just having a daughter!

A boy with those stats would have a bigger advantage than a girl in gaining admission simply because there aren't enough boys applying. Add to that the middle class earned income no fly zone where you earn just enough to pay for school but not enough to pay full tuition, and it becomes a tougher road. The stats and the achievements are only part of the equation.

You should feel upset - your kid busted their behind and others who may be less deserving but fulfilled some unknown need of the colleges on the list got their admit. It sucks, but it's where we are.

My DD was in the exact same boat but we applied to places where she had clear opportunities at a full ride (in addition to the standard T20 applications) and she got more than one full ride offer at what would be considered by most here as lower tier schools. That helped her get over the sting of not being accepted to the T20s in her list.

My attitude would be as follows - those other schools didn't want my kid? F them - they're missing out, and we are going to focus on the ones that showed my kid some love and love them right back.

Um there are a lots of high stats boys applying to CS/Eng programs at top schools. High stats boys get shut out of T10 for CS/Eng, including my own kid.

Ummm I didn't say it was a guarantee, only that it was a bigger advantage - and that is only if we are not talking about specific majors/schools. When you pick a competitive major like CS/Eng (where boys dominate), that advantage sinks to near zero.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has to be fake. People cannot be this naive.

I read the stats to my DH and this was his immediate response too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op writes, "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."

This is why so many people are finding OP insufferable. She is so critical of other students with "worse ECs". I bet those are the kids who were on students council, drama, yearbook, marching band, school sports so they didn't have as many weighted/honors/AP classes. Maybe they were taking care of a sibling or having to have paid employment. Being president of the honor club is not student leadership. Her child didn't do anything to make her school a better place. Her whole application seems like she went along checking boxes to try to get into top ranked colleges.

And OP says they make between 200-400k but doesn't answer if they need financial aid. Since she didn't apply ED 1 to JHU most likely they aren't a FULL PAY family. Now add that she applied to the MOST competitive major at JHU- biomedical engineering. It's the number 1 rated program in the country. That acceptance rate a few years ago was probably only 1-2 percent. They only take 100-120 students and it is hard to transfer in.

Now add that the NIH is being cut so JHU is supposedly not taking nearly the same amount of grad student. More reason to take ED 1 FULL PAY students.

So OP not "worst of all" is not that many of her classmates with lower stats got in. It is that you are to shallow to think - wow, that is great at least one of my child's classmates got in so I am going to wish them the all the best.

I also get the impression that OP is not full pay and that (along with unrealistic expectations) was likely a factor in her flawed admissions strategy.

If "not full pay", then why not EA to UVA your most affordable, top ranked school. Had she done EA, she likely would have doubled her chances for admission. So there are so many flawed parts to the admission strategy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Mine was kind of in this boat but there was not one of the 6-7 schools he saw that he loved enough to ED. Got rejected RD at several T25s, yeah, expected, but ED really is if you know you want it

But it is also a tool for high stats kids---you say--I care more about getting into a T30 school (of which UVA is the best choice and it's Affordable as it's in State---way more affordable than any of those other schools she applied to except Pitt). So you make a choice to ED to UVA (or any other school) that is slightly below your top reaches, because you have a better chance doing that.

But yeah, if you really must hear from all 15+ schools, then ED isn't for you. But recognize you are missing out on improving your chances

[Anonymous]

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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.

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.

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.

If the kids wants a vocational path, then yes. We need to step back and allow them to take that path, starting 8/9th grade. But no we shouldn't force kids onto that path based on their test scores on one or two days.
But yes, if a kid wants to be a plumber, then don't require 2-3 years of Spanish and Pre-Calc. Let them take thru Alg2 and let them take Vocational courses for half the day and by junior senior year let them start training for specifics (if they want).
But do not force kids down that path. If you offer it, most who are "not college material" will select it.

Yes we should force them down that path. It’s a waste of time and resources to try and prepare kids for college who don’t have the chops to be there. And yes you can know who they are on the basis of testing.

And yes, you are an idiot!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why you or she are upset. She got into more than one target school. What else does she want from life?!

F-off, come on that kid is a star. Should have had better outcome.

Something is definitely off. We know a girl (an Asian!) with similar grades/APs but lower SAT (1510) and fewer notable ECs (but captain of a HS sport) who got admitted to UVA and Chapel Hill.

First: there is no difference between 1510 and 1580---both "meet the cutoff, now let's see the rest of your application"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That is exactly why we SHOULD have mandatory vo-tech tracking. Our local taxes are paying to “educate” high school kids when at least half of the kids there (and all of them in certain schools) have no business going to college. Complete waste of money.

"At least half," "and all of them" ... Are they tax payers' kids?
If so many kids are failing schools, the main responsibility sits on the principle and the school board. Fire them all and get new ones, repeat until improvements.
In our school, 100% graduation rate, all goes to a four-year college or a community college then transfer to a state u.
If you kid happens to do well, that's great. But "our local taxes" is not dedicated to your kid only.

I think all kids deserve an education. We should not force kids onto a track in HS. However, you have to be naive to think all HS send everyone to a 4 year or CC. You are UMC+ and yes, that happens (or at least 95%+) but that is not common in inner city schools/rural schools.
Also, it's not the "fault of the principal and teachers". They only have the kids for 6 hours a day. If those kids are not getting fed at home, don't have a safe space to sleep or do homework, don't have someone encouraging them and expecting them to learn and achieve, the school can only do so much. You have a rich/UMC+ view of how life is and that is very out of touch with the real world

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has to be fake. People cannot be this naive.

I read the stats to my DH and this was his immediate response too.

My DC goes to a competitive magnet school, a lot of their classmates a grade above with these high stats have had similar outcomes (ie not getting into their top choices/T20s).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op writes, "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."

This is why so many people are finding OP insufferable. She is so critical of other students with "worse ECs". I bet those are the kids who were on students council, drama, yearbook, marching band, school sports so they didn't have as many weighted/honors/AP classes. Maybe they were taking care of a sibling or having to have paid employment. Being president of the honor club is not student leadership. Her child didn't do anything to make her school a better place. Her whole application seems like she went along checking boxes to try to get into top ranked colleges.

This is why Harvard has remedial math. Because kids trying to "make their school a better place" instead of getting a good education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op writes, "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."

This is why so many people are finding OP insufferable. She is so critical of other students with "worse ECs". I bet those are the kids who were on students council, drama, yearbook, marching band, school sports so they didn't have as many weighted/honors/AP classes. Maybe they were taking care of a sibling or having to have paid employment. Being president of the honor club is not student leadership. Her child didn't do anything to make her school a better place. Her whole application seems like she went along checking boxes to try to get into top ranked colleges.

This is why Harvard has remedial math. Because kids trying to "make their school a better place" instead of getting a good education.

TBH, state schools are the best places for receiving the best education on engineering. Harvard's engineering is lacking. Perhaps state schools are the best fit for one who merely seeking "a good education" on engineering.

[Anonymous]

The results make sense to me. OP's DD is, for lack of a better term, a one trick pony. That's why the Ivies and Ivy adjacents rejected outright. They are looking to admit a class, and most of the students need to check more than one box. There's only room for a few one trick ponies, so you have to be perceived as the best. Obviously, DD is a human, and there's much more to her than her admissions file, but that is what it looks like to an admissions officer.

DD is very accomplished and the schools she has to choose from will give her a fantastic education. No matter what, rejections sting. I hope as she moves forward she'll start to feel more excitement about her college experience and that the disappointment won't linger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why you or she are upset. She got into more than one target school. What else does she want from life?!

F-off, come on that kid is a star. Should have had better outcome.

Only if she applied to more actual Targets

She applied to basically all Reaches and only a few Targets/Safeties. And she got the results anyone would expect with that. You don't get into many