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

[Anonymous]

Harvard has a legacy admit rate of over 30% so I say the Harvard legacies are in good shape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard has a legacy admit rate of over 30% so I say the Harvard legacies are in good shape.

you're missing the point--they're not. Our Big3 had ONE harvard admit last year and at least 20 kids were alums (that's just the ones I know-between both parents). <5% admit rate at this top school. That's the thing--30% legacy admit rate does work if there is a super high rate of alums at one high school. harvard is not going to dole out 8 admits to legacy kids from a single DC private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I've seen it a little more engineered than that - CCO " forgeting" to submit things on time on a very bright but unhooked kid OR ooops, by mistake " AP Physics is not available to you because it's full and we seem to have not received your class selection request for that class"

weak link is always the teacher/ advisor who has learned that their bread is buttered by delivering for a certain type of parent.

Don't confront them, just build allies in the Dean of Faculty and go outside for representation if you are really concerned

[Anonymous]

+1.

There are subtle ways to help certain applicants- CCO may call the regional admissions officer and mention how outstanding X is, and not mention Y and Z who are also applying, etc.

CCO at our school told DC in senior year that of 3 schools being considered for restrictive EA, one was definitely the one to go with in part bc DC is legacy x 2, and the other 2 not as likely.

Sure enough, after it was all done, all the kids going to these schools ended up being legacies in addition to strong students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I've seen it a little more engineered than that - CCO " forgeting" to submit things on time on a very bright but unhooked kid OR ooops, by mistake " AP Physics is not available to you because it's full and we seem to have not received your class selection request for that class"

weak link is always the teacher/ advisor who has learned that their bread is buttered by delivering for a certain type of parent.

Don't confront them, just build allies in the Dean of Faculty and go outside for representation if you are really concerned

Can you explain what this means?

[Anonymous]

I remember reading in one of the college admissions books a quote from an admissions officer along the lines of, unless the alumni parent had done really well, there is no legacy bump for their kid. In fact, if the parent took their Ivy degree and went into something like middle management at a not-for-profit advocacy, that was actually a strike against their kid. Yikes….

That said, at my kid’s private school a mom complained to the principal that my kid was acting out. This is the mom of a kid who kicked my kid in the shins once for no good reason. The vice principal told us and laughed about it, and my (totally unhooked, not a legacy) kid got into Columbia.

[Anonymous]

Maybe I will be singing a different tune come college admissions but the faculty doesn’t seem to care who has fancy parents. Sure, some kids of wealthy parents get accolades but those kids seem pretty accomplished if you ask me.

(But I also don’t expect my 1500 SAT/high grades kid to go to Harvard, so maybe I am the outlier).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard has a legacy admit rate of over 30% so I say the Harvard legacies are in good shape.

you're missing the point--they're not. Our Big3 had ONE harvard admit last year and at least 20 kids were alums (that's just the ones I know-between both parents). <5% admit rate at this top school. That's the thing--30% legacy admit rate does work if there is a super high rate of alums at one high school. harvard is not going to dole out 8 admits to legacy kids from a single DC private.

Keep in mind, not all legacy kids WANT to go to their parents' schools. Ours didn't, and did not apply.

[Anonymous]

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).

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 …

Not to re-hash things, but it one one parent who tried to interfere with one student where the parent had ZERO chance of impacting anything. It reflected badly on the parent and that family no longer has any students at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard has a legacy admit rate of over 30% so I say the Harvard legacies are in good shape.

you're missing the point--they're not. Our Big3 had ONE harvard admit last year and at least 20 kids were alums (that's just the ones I know-between both parents). <5% admit rate at this top school. That's the thing--30% legacy admit rate does work if there is a super high rate of alums at one high school. harvard is not going to dole out 8 admits to legacy kids from a single DC private.

Keep in mind, not all legacy kids WANT to go to their parents' schools. Ours didn't, and did not apply.

+1. Kid not applying to DH's Ivy school. He's not terribly interested and he understands what many on this thread have said - he's unlikely to be the anointed one or two kids from his big 3 school, because he's not a URM/jock/development case

[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).

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 …

Not to re-hash things, but it one one parent who tried to interfere with one student where the parent had ZERO chance of impacting anything. It reflected badly on the parent and that family no longer has any students at the school.

How did the parent interfered with the student?

[Anonymous]

I heard at one Big 3 a parent got mad because a kid that was in the same class as the parents kid got into an ivy and the parent though their kid was actually the better student.

[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.

Only if your college was slow in email adoption . . .

Regardless, parents of HS age kids, at least in the professional world so kids not at age 22, likely started using email when accounts were either AOL or your local ISP. When offered an alumni/ae address that was better because it was transferable.

And really who wants to switch email addresses constantly, let alone locking yourself into a gmail address and the google ecosystem at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard has a legacy admit rate of over 30% so I say the Harvard legacies are in good shape.

you're missing the point--they're not. Our Big3 had ONE harvard admit last year and at least 20 kids were alums (that's just the ones I know-between both parents). <5% admit rate at this top school. That's the thing--30% legacy admit rate does work if there is a super high rate of alums at one high school. harvard is not going to dole out 8 admits to legacy kids from a single DC private.

The basic point is that there will be fewer kids going to HYPS etc. than there are parents in that school who went there.

[Anonymous]

It is not just about being a good student in college admissions.
Most kids at the Big3 are objectively good students who can do well at HYP and the like.
Bottom line it takes more than being a good student to get into these colleges and that is where a lot of it is up to chance and luck, unless you are throwing enough money in donations to them.