Please. Stop. Blaming. Others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am really sorry that so many kids are hurting right now because of the college rejections. It hurts, I know. Especially when your child has worked hard and seems to be well qualified for these schools by objective measures, like GPA and test scores. My DC is one of these kids, having just been rejected or WL from seven schools over the last two weeks (and rejected ED in December).

The fact is, many schools are simply flooded with applications from well qualified students and cannot accept them all. So they make tough decisions and make decisions based on very quick reviews of applications, many of which are basically indistinguishable from one another. In some cases, they may look "unfair" because we see other kids in our orbit getting into the same school that our kid gets rejected from and we can't imagine what that kid had that ours didn't.

So, to make ourselves and our kids feel better, there is so much blaming--blaming other "lesser" URM kids, "lesser" public schools with grade inflation, "yield protection", etc.....and it is not fair to the kids who did get in. And, to be honest, it's not good for our own kids--it only feeds grievances. Let's teach them graciousness and grit. It will serve everyone better.

So, to all the kids out there who were accepted to Rice, Hopkins, Wash U, Rice, Northeastern, CMU, Northwestern: Congratulations to you! You deserve it! You are worthy of that acceptance. You earned it.

The kids who weren't accepted deserved it, too. But when you're drawing names out of a hat, "deserve" and "worthy" aren't the right descriptors. I don't have a dog in this race, I am merely an observer. People like you, though, are idiots if you think that the kids who were accepted deserved it more than the kids who weren't. It's a crap shoot right now. Acknowledge it and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am really sorry that so many kids are hurting right now because of the college rejections. It hurts, I know. Especially when your child has worked hard and seems to be well qualified for these schools by objective measures, like GPA and test scores. My DC is one of these kids, having just been rejected or WL from seven schools over the last two weeks (and rejected ED in December).

The fact is, many schools are simply flooded with applications from well qualified students and cannot accept them all. So they make tough decisions and make decisions based on very quick reviews of applications, many of which are basically indistinguishable from one another. In some cases, they may look "unfair" because we see other kids in our orbit getting into the same school that our kid gets rejected from and we can't imagine what that kid had that ours didn't.

So, to make ourselves and our kids feel better, there is so much blaming--blaming other "lesser" URM kids, "lesser" public schools with grade inflation, "yield protection", etc.....and it is not fair to the kids who did get in. And, to be honest, it's not good for our own kids--it only feeds grievances. Let's teach them graciousness and grit. It will serve everyone better.

So, to all the kids out there who were accepted to Rice, Hopkins, Wash U, Rice, Northeastern, CMU, Northwestern: Congratulations to you! You deserve it! You are worthy of that acceptance. You earned it.

No need for condescension OP. No one is blaming kids who got into these schools. The system for applying to schools is corrupted. Bottom line. Anyone who disputes that is not playing with a full deck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand all of the disappointment either. Cast a wide net. It's relatively random at the top, so your kid might be (pleasantly) surprised by the results. With 10-20 schools kids are applying to, most will find a college home they will be happy.

Ultimately, yes. Why is it so hard for people on this board to understand that a lot of teenagers have dreamed of going to a particular school and thought they had a chance? How out of touch are you with the typical DMV high school student?

You might have tempered their disappointment now if you had been clued in and steered them all along (while making their list/visiting colleges) away from the dream school narrative.

We did. It still hurts and it’s still disappointing. What a bunch of sociopaths here.

And people here are generally very sympathetic to hurt and disappointed kids. It’s the denigrating “other” who are “less deserving” that’s an issue.

Nope — I have seen people make up excuses to justify a kid not getting in even when the post only expressed disappointment or sadness, not that it was unfair and not denigrating other applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best post on DCUM college board this year.

Thank you.

Agreed!

Complete agreement from me to!


When I told DC some of the comments/grievances from parents I got the reply "Aren't there always people like this?", then a shrug and the subject was done for DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and students here aren’t blaming “others”. They are blaming a broken system

+1. I haven’t seen one parent or student blaming others nor have I seen anyone exhibiting entitlement so it would be nice if the resident socialists could stop criticizing these hurting parents. You don’t have to inject race into every single page of DCUM, you know. Be gracious and give these families some time to lick their wounds and read closer.

What? The OP was about threads on this forum that blame other people and people responded, commenting on what they've seen in other threads. Are you really claiming that you have never seen one parent blame others? Ok then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and students here aren’t blaming “others”. They are blaming a broken system

How would you fix the system, pray tell? The reality is that demand for the “top” schools well outstrips supply. You aren’t going to change that.

What needs to happen is that everyone needs to stop thinking they have to apply to the same 50 schools.

.

Right. How is the system broken?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and students here aren’t blaming “others”. They are blaming a broken system

How would you fix the system, pray tell? The reality is that demand for the “top” schools well outstrips supply. You aren’t going to change that.

What needs to happen is that everyone needs to stop thinking they have to apply to the same 50 schools.

.

Right. How is the system broken?

This is what I want to know. "The system" has been in place for eons; nothing has really changed. You go to high school, you get X grades and test scores, you develop an interest in Y school and you submit an application. The school looks at all of the applications they receive for the year and makes offers. Some kids get in, some don't. What, exactly, is broken?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand all of the disappointment either. Cast a wide net. It's relatively random at the top, so your kid might be (pleasantly) surprised by the results. With 10-20 schools kids are applying to, most will find a college home they will be happy.

Ultimately, yes. Why is it so hard for people on this board to understand that a lot of teenagers have dreamed of going to a particular school and thought they had a chance? How out of touch are you with the typical DMV high school student?

Think you are out of touch. That kid is delusional and their family did them no favors. Maybe more kids need to take AP Stats. The odds are never in their favor in college admissions.

If your 17 YO kids are "dreaming of going to a particular school," then may I suggest that you, as a parent, have done them no favors in cultivating that attitude. There is no way that the kids themselves get so caught up in name-brand schools, to the point that they are "dreaming" about acceptance, except that a) their parents and b) their current private school encourages that line of thinking. That is on you for allowing that mindset to get out of control in your kids' heads.

This is easier said than done sometimes. My in laws live right next to a college campus and worked there for decades. Every time my DC sees their grandparents they’ve seen this school. This is now their dream school and they probably won’t get in. I’ve been telling them for years how hard it is to get in and have been pumping up other schools but they don’t care.

Yeah, that poster must not have teenagers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents and students here aren’t blaming “others”. They are blaming a broken system

While I agree the system is broken, I am not sure how to fix it. Maybe have different consortiums of schools and limit a kid to one application per consortium. So one to an Ivy, one to a NESCAC, one to a state flagship, etc. That would at least show a priority and limit the applications to the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand all of the disappointment either. Cast a wide net. It's relatively random at the top, so your kid might be (pleasantly) surprised by the results. With 10-20 schools kids are applying to, most will find a college home they will be happy.

Ultimately, yes. Why is it so hard for people on this board to understand that a lot of teenagers have dreamed of going to a particular school and thought they had a chance? How out of touch are you with the typical DMV high school student?

Think you are out of touch. That kid is delusional and their family did them no favors. Maybe more kids need to take AP Stats. The odds are never in their favor in college admissions.

If your 17 YO kids are "dreaming of going to a particular school," then may I suggest that you, as a parent, have done them no favors in cultivating that attitude. There is no way that the kids themselves get so caught up in name-brand schools, to the point that they are "dreaming" about acceptance, except that a) their parents and b) their current private school encourages that line of thinking. That is on you for allowing that mindset to get out of control in your kids' heads.

This is easier said than done sometimes. My in laws live right next to a college campus and worked there for decades. Every time my DC sees their grandparents they’ve seen this school. This is now their dream school and they probably won’t get in. I’ve been telling them for years how hard it is to get in and have been pumping up other schools but they don’t care.

Larla, that is nice that you like X university...there are many schools that share similar attributes, let's plan on taking visits so you can see all the wonderful alternatives.

[Anonymous]

I think grade and SAT inflation is also really hurting parent and student expectations. Back in the 90s only 1-2 kids at my high school had a 4.0 GPA. There were no weighted classes so no GPAs above a 4.0 at all. I got into Carnegie Mellon with a 3.75 GPA, which was very near the top of the class for my high school; the top student ended up at Harvard.

Now students who would have been B students in the 90s have 4.3 GPA, leading both them and their parents not to realize that a top GPA is now a 4.9 or some other nonsense. It's the same with SAT scores. A 1400 used to be really good. Now it seems anything under a 1550 is mediocre. All of the good students are bunched at the top, leading to a lack of separation amongst top students and more of a lotto feeling as to who gets in. The grading scale is fundamentally broken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand all of the disappointment either. Cast a wide net. It's relatively random at the top, so your kid might be (pleasantly) surprised by the results. With 10-20 schools kids are applying to, most will find a college home they will be happy.

Ultimately, yes. Why is it so hard for people on this board to understand that a lot of teenagers have dreamed of going to a particular school and thought they had a chance? How out of touch are you with the typical DMV high school student?

Think you are out of touch. That kid is delusional and their family did them no favors. Maybe more kids need to take AP Stats. The odds are never in their favor in college admissions.

If your 17 YO kids are "dreaming of going to a particular school," then may I suggest that you, as a parent, have done them no favors in cultivating that attitude. There is no way that the kids themselves get so caught up in name-brand schools, to the point that they are "dreaming" about acceptance, except that a) their parents and b) their current private school encourages that line of thinking. That is on you for allowing that mindset to get out of control in your kids' heads.

This is easier said than done sometimes. My in laws live right next to a college campus and worked there for decades. Every time my DC sees their grandparents they’ve seen this school. This is now their dream school and they probably won’t get in. I’ve been telling them for years how hard it is to get in and have been pumping up other schools but they don’t care.

Larla, that is nice that you like X university...there are many schools that share similar attributes, let's plan on taking visits so you can see all the wonderful alternatives.

And Larla will still cry and be upset and this is hard for everyone. Why is this so hard to understand? Quit blaming parents.

[Anonymous]

I used to work for the admissions office for my school and the reality is they have to reject a ton of people with good stats because there are simply more applicants with those qualifications than there are spots. There are a lot of X factors like desired majors, usual skills, a very compelling and tailored essay, and so on.

Most applicants are not obviously unqualified, usually parents and guidance counselors are realistic with students. So that 90% rejected includes a lot of great kids.

And kids need to understand that. They are not bad or failures for not getting into these very competitive schools. It's a crapshoot and depends on factors you sometimes can't really predict like maybe there were just too many people who wanted to major in economics that year.

[Anonymous]

Our college visits began in the DMV - trying to determine what DD liked.. small, mid, large sized campus..city, suburbs, rural… Bottom line, I tried assist her with discovering her preferences, then discussed what we could afford, major, etc. to determine fit. We created her list based on these factors, which included many schools outside of the top 30. Highly selective/rejective schools are not a good fit for lots of students and there are a finite number of seats.

To all the students who applied and got into their preferred school, regardless of ranking - congratulations and best wishes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and students here aren’t blaming “others”. They are blaming a broken system

While I agree the system is broken, I am not sure how to fix it. Maybe have different consortiums of schools and limit a kid to one application per consortium. So one to an Ivy, one to a NESCAC, one to a state flagship, etc. That would at least show a priority and limit the applications to the schools.

And how is that even remotely fair? You can't dictate to other kids and families how many schools they can apply to! Why would the schools even want to do that when each application represents XX in application fee income?