How the hell is anyone supposed to get into college now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like so many straight A students who were chief school newspaper editor, captain of a varsity sports team, volunteering, and more who can't even get to VA Tech. I don't know what people who get into schools like Michigan or the Ivy Leagues are doing in high school.

Anyone with some hard classes and good but not great scores can get into VT with this, even without all As. ECs /essaysare not used for VT except for borderline cases. They dip below the top30% at my school. UVA and Michigan require more. Ivies require hardest courses in all areas and all As/top5% and better ECs than this.

What? VT absolutely uses essays - their own, not the Common App. And ECs too. Where are you getting your information? VT is quite competitive to get into at our high school - certainly not below the top 10-20%.
DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Full pay helps

Full pay may help at VT but UVa and WM and ivies are all need blind stop making excuses

VT is need blind for in-state students - just like UVA and W&M.
DP
https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/colleges-meeting-your-financial-need/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like so many straight A students who were chief school newspaper editor, captain of a varsity sports team, volunteering, and more who can't even get to VA Tech. I don't know what people who get into schools like Michigan or the Ivy Leagues are doing in high school.

My daughter's friend who got into Yale was an Asian male with a very high wGPA who won Science Olympiad competitions and is an advanced string player.

Straight A doesn't mean anything, OP, you should know this. There is a world's difference between an A in a regular classs and an A in an AP class. Kids who get into the top colleges have 10+ APs, have a national level EC, etc. Your newpaper editing and team captainship worked a generation ago, but not today.

I would argue making it onto a varsity sports teams or school newspaper, especially in NOVA, is just as hard as winning STEM competitions. Keep in mind less than 20% of high school kids even make it onto a JV team.

Playing a high school sport is not even close to winning national STEM competitions. That’s a stretch. The only way a sport would matter is a recruited athlete. Students do other activities besides sports. They might be in more competitive activities than swimming or whatever outside of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does national level ECs (extra curriculars)” mean?

Regeneron science winner
National chess champion
Top ranked national figure skater
National Debate finalist

There are many other examples…you compete against people from all over the country

Nobody can accomplish that realistically even with hard work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like so many straight A students who were chief school newspaper editor, captain of a varsity sports team, volunteering, and more who can't even get to VA Tech. I don't know what people who get into schools like Michigan or the Ivy Leagues are doing in high school.

My daughter's friend who got into Yale was an Asian male with a very high wGPA who won Science Olympiad competitions and is an advanced string player.

Straight A doesn't mean anything, OP, you should know this. There is a world's difference between an A in a regular classs and an A in an AP class. Kids who get into the top colleges have 10+ APs, have a national level EC, etc. Your newpaper editing and team captainship worked a generation ago, but not today.

This is sounds exhausting. Kids have no time to be kids.

They have a ton of time. It's really not that unachievable. We have a ton of college options. If you don't want to be competitive for the top ones, tap out and go to a decent one.

If you go to school all day, play sports after school, eat dinner and have hours of homework, how the hell do you have a ton if time?

The super smart ones only need 2hrs a night for homework when peers need 3-4. Top kids also utilizes weekends to get ahead for the next week. They do it themselves, are highly internally motivated and then if it works out end up at an ivy with a majority of peers the same (the 60% who are unhooked). Most high school students in the top 20% of their HS would not be happy in such an environment. Weird that so many aim for it yet only a few truly thrive in it

What needs to be emphasized here is how much non-top students try to get into mismatch educational environments. If you can't easily get through high school course rigor, MIT or Stanford is going to be a miserable experience and you should not be attending. It is better for you to be in an educational environment that matches your competency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Getting into the second tier schools like Mich really isn’t that hard. You just need the stats and scores. And you need to be strategic, know which regions and which schools the college likes the pull kids from. There are schools that have 3-4 kids accepted into Mich every year. This may not be where your HS sends kids. So figure out if they send kids to NYU or another school.

I disagree. Michigan routinely denies valedictorians

Michigan waitlisted my A Student IB Diploma DD. Has old time ECs like newspaper EIC and sports captain, plus a couple of good internships. Perhaps because TO. But going to a top 15 school.

Yes, it was a mistake to apply TO to Michigan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like so many straight A students who were chief school newspaper editor, captain of a varsity sports team, volunteering, and more who can't even get to VA Tech. I don't know what people who get into schools like Michigan or the Ivy Leagues are doing in high school.

Michigan's acceptance rate is 20%. 25% of the students who even bother to submit an SAT score, scored below a 1350. So you likely have 40% of Michigan's freshmen class who scored well below what DCUM thinks is a "good" score.

Think logically here. About 50% of Michigan’s class are in state. OOS students do not have the same acceptance rate or test scores as in state students.

[Anonymous]

Every single kid in my sons class got into a college they wanted - either first or second choice. Getting into college is much easier these days as there are more choices.

[Anonymous]

My kid just graduated from a large public high school. All the kids got in where they were happy. I would say Virginia is a very easy state to find a good college fit. Between VT, JMU, Mason, ODC etc etc - everyone gets in. Although there were about 15 kids who decided to go to Tennessee and 11 that are going to William and Mary, and 9 to UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Full pay helps

Do you indicate full pay on the application? How does full pay help?

You apply Early Decision, and the admit rates are much more favorable if you do that.

This is the ticket. Look at the difference in admission rate between ED and RD for the schools your DC is considering. Apply ED to the school with the best chance. And be full pay/don’t fill out CSS or FAFSA.

[Anonymous]

Don’t believe everything you read. That’s the most important step in the process. Everyone has an agenda, even if it’s just to humble brag about one’s own kid, so stay alert.

People embellish grades but especially test scores regularly, and there are countless people who will insist that there are more than enough applicants with an unblemished GPA, a perfect ACT of SAT score (one-and-done, no less) and a wall of 5s on 15+ AP tests to occupy every available seat in the incoming freshman class at the Top 20 schools. Meanwhile, back in reality, there are less than 500 applicants in any year with that profile. Not even enough to fill a single Top 20 freshman class other than at Cal Tech.

Just don’t trust strangers …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t believe everything you read. That’s the most important step in the process. Everyone has an agenda, even if it’s just to humble brag about one’s own kid, so stay alert.

People embellish grades but especially test scores regularly, and there are countless people who will insist that there are more than enough applicants with an unblemished GPA, a perfect ACT of SAT score (one-and-done, no less) and a wall of 5s on 15+ AP tests to occupy every available seat in the incoming freshman class at the Top 20 schools. Meanwhile, back in reality, there are less than 500 applicants in any year with that profile. Not even enough to fill a single Top 20 freshman class other than at Cal Tech.

Just don’t trust strangers …

+1 Look at your school's scattergrams on Naviance. You'll see that there aren't a ton of UW 4.0s with highest rigor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Full pay helps

Do you indicate full pay on the application? How does full pay help?

At need blind/meet full need colleges, it does not. Everywhere else it is looked at in the admissions process. A sad reality.

[Anonymous]

Ugh, I feel bad for my average student

[Anonymous]

Just apply as an art history major.