WSJ: the Secrets of Elite College Admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

it's on reddit/A2C

Um, sorry, I googled that and it didn't pop up. Anyone have a link?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/iijso3/wsj_posted_an_article_today_about_what_its_like/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The original readers gave him a score of 2 out of 5 in that category, observing that he wanted to major in pre-med “but we don’t see activities to support that,” one of the admissions officers said.

other than taking all available bio and chem classes, how exactly does a high school kid demonstrate a love of premed?

Hospital shadowing and research (which is a whole other issue—not really acessible for kids in rural or suburban areas if they don’t have their own cars)

Yep. One of my friends who is a doctor spent high school summers and weekends as “Candystriper.” I don’t know if they even have that program anymore, but it involved volunteering at local hospitals. They wore a striped smock to identify them as young volunteers, thus the name.

My sisters and I did the same. Ours were jumpers (similar to what a first grade Catholic
School uniform looks like) and they were pink and white. We wore white shirts. I don’t remember doing much more than delivering flowers from the gift shop.

If you want to torture yourself, you can go to Princeton’s web site. The financial aid page has a calculator where you can guesstimate your DC’s cost of attendance for the year. Spoiler alert - they think you can pay way more than you think you can for DC to be a Princeton tiger.

I ran it too. I’d consider us MC/UMC and we got $25k/yr efc.

We did too on the EFC...until we added in the equity in our house. That jumped us up another $10K per year to $35K. That is a killer.

Go with the county assessment for the home value - it’s what the government says your house is worth and it probably reduces your equity by a decent amount

I just did the Princeton calculator. Isn't the home equity of your present home excluded? It looked like they were only asking about other properties?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't feel like I learned anything new from this article.

Overall: I can't believe we subject ourselves to this ridiculous game. I'm encouraging my kids to go to state schools and not get caught up in all this nonsense.

Part of me wants these over-priced private schools to fail in the coming corona-fallout and demographic crisis and get their come-uppance.

You seem to have a problem with private schools and you write terribly. Pretty clear what happened to you.

DP

She seems normal. You seem like an a$$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't feel like I learned anything new from this article.

Overall: I can't believe we subject ourselves to this ridiculous game. I'm encouraging my kids to go to state schools and not get caught up in all this nonsense.

Part of me wants these over-priced private schools to fail in the coming corona-fallout and demographic crisis and get their come-uppance.

When you see people driving expensive cars you can’t afford does part of you hope they crash and die? Nice attitude you’ve got there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson College, Emory University and the University of Washington, aren’t exactly “elite.” They are solid, high ranking schools. Elite would be like T10.

There are 4K colleges/unis in the US.

So what? Nobody really cares about schools outside the top 15. People definitely don't care about Davidson, Emory, and Washington. Fine schools of course, but honestly, nobody cares. Just like nobody cares about UVA outside of the DMV. It's just a good state school. Maybe -- maybe -- people will assume you're preppy and were in Greek life, but that's the extent of the UVA reputation outside of DMV.

Emory is a top 20 school. I hope you assume no one cares about Cornell and Berkeley either.

Nobody outside of busybody SAH tiger moms who study the US News list really care about Emory. It's irrelevant. Claim to fame is Newt went there? Cornell is an Ivy. Berkeley undergrad is a joke compared to elite top 15 privates. Go read pre-med forums, UCLA and Cal kids complain non-stop about their crummy experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson College, Emory University and the University of Washington, aren’t exactly “elite.” They are solid, high ranking schools. Elite would be like T10.

They are elite schools. Since there are only 8 Ivies and 400,000 plus or minus students other schools have moved up. There just isn’t room in the Ivies for every qualified student.

Umiversity of Washington is “elite.” If you say so. This makes every State Podunk Uni “elite.” Good to know.

It's a solid public university in a growing affluent state. Great CS program. But definitely not elite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Davidson College, Emory University and the University of Washington, aren’t exactly “elite.” They are solid, high ranking schools. Elite would be like T10.

+1. Literally not worth reading once I saw those schools. Another thing reporters frequently do is profile URMs who got into Ivies and Stanford, as if their story is in any way helpful to non-URMs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson College, Emory University and the University of Washington, aren’t exactly “elite.” They are solid, high ranking schools. Elite would be like T10.

There are 4K colleges/unis in the US.

So what? Nobody really cares about schools outside the top 15. People definitely don't care about Davidson, Emory, and Washington. Fine schools of course, but honestly, nobody cares. Just like nobody cares about UVA outside of the DMV. It's just a good state school. Maybe -- maybe -- people will assume you're preppy and were in Greek life, but that's the extent of the UVA reputation outside of DMV.

Emory is a top 20 school. I hope you assume no one cares about Cornell and Berkeley either.

Nobody outside of busybody SAH tiger moms who study the US News list really care about Emory. It's irrelevant. Claim to fame is Newt went there? Cornell is an Ivy. Berkeley undergrad is a joke compared to elite top 15 privates. Go read pre-med forums, UCLA and Cal kids complain non-stop about their crummy experience.

Crummy meaning very rigorous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson College, Emory University and the University of Washington, aren’t exactly “elite.” They are solid, high ranking schools. Elite would be like T10.

+1. Literally not worth reading once I saw those schools. Another thing reporters frequently do is profile URMs who got into Ivies and Stanford, as if their story is in any way helpful to non-URMs.

And whenever I read a story about how some random white person succeeded I think it has no application to URMs because white people rarely succeed on merit alone

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson College, Emory University and the University of Washington, aren’t exactly “elite.” They are solid, high ranking schools. Elite would be like T10.

There are 4K colleges/unis in the US.

So what? Nobody really cares about schools outside the top 15. People definitely don't care about Davidson, Emory, and Washington. Fine schools of course, but honestly, nobody cares. Just like nobody cares about UVA outside of the DMV. It's just a good state school. Maybe -- maybe -- people will assume you're preppy and were in Greek life, but that's the extent of the UVA reputation outside of DMV.

Emory is a top 20 school. I hope you assume no one cares about Cornell and Berkeley either.

Nobody outside of busybody SAH tiger moms who study the US News list really care about Emory. It's irrelevant. Claim to fame is Newt went there? Cornell is an Ivy. Berkeley undergrad is a joke compared to elite top 15 privates. Go read pre-med forums, UCLA and Cal kids complain non-stop about their crummy experience.

Emory grads make more than Cornell grads and frankly top 15 includes Vandy, Notre Dame, and Brown which is questionable. While Cornell, Georgetown, Rice, and Carnegie Mellon aren't. Emory cemented it's place among the elite schools. There's plenty of Emory grads on Wall street, you can meet at least 1 everyday. I can tell you don't work there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson College, Emory University and the University of Washington, aren’t exactly “elite.” They are solid, high ranking schools. Elite would be like T10.

There are 4K colleges/unis in the US.

So what? Nobody really cares about schools outside the top 15. People definitely don't care about Davidson, Emory, and Washington. Fine schools of course, but honestly, nobody cares. Just like nobody cares about UVA outside of the DMV. It's just a good state school. Maybe -- maybe -- people will assume you're preppy and were in Greek life, but that's the extent of the UVA reputation outside of DMV.

Emory is a top 20 school. I hope you assume no one cares about Cornell and Berkeley either.

Nobody outside of busybody SAH tiger moms who study the US News list really care about Emory. It's irrelevant. Claim to fame is Newt went there? Cornell is an Ivy. Berkeley undergrad is a joke compared to elite top 15 privates. Go read pre-med forums, UCLA and Cal kids complain non-stop about their crummy experience.

Emory grad just sold his company for 5.3 billion.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/13/visa-to-acquire-plaid-the-fintech-powering-venmo-and-other-banking-apps-for-5point3-billion.html#:~:text=Menu-,Visa%20to%20acquire%20Plaid%2C%20the%20fintech%20powering%20Venmo%20and%20other,apps%2C%20in%20%245.3%20billion%20deal&text=Visa%20is%20buying%20Plaid%20in,start%2Dup's%20last%20private%20valuation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The original readers gave him a score of 2 out of 5 in that category, observing that he wanted to major in pre-med “but we don’t see activities to support that,” one of the admissions officers said.

other than taking all available bio and chem classes, how exactly does a high school kid demonstrate a love of premed?

Intern at a local hospital or clinic, take on leadership of the science club.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have any connection to these schools but I think Emory and Davidson are elite. They are very selective private schools. Sure, they are not Harvard, but in some ways that makes the stories more interesting and a bit more widely applicable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have any connection to these schools but I think Emory and Davidson are elite. They are very selective private schools. Sure, they are not Harvard, but in some ways that makes the stories more interesting and a bit more widely applicable.

Exactly. Most, if not all, of the "Top 10" have enough $$ to be truly need blind. Admission to those schools is interesting, but a different discussion. The article is relevant to admissions for the thousands of kids that are applying to competitive, non-top 10 schools. For those bashing on the University of Washington, it's also pretty clear that the author wanted a range of schools -- small, medium-sized and large flagship. I would think those on this board would be aware that the increase in tuition at private colleges means that most state flagships have gotten very competitive for admissions, whether you think they're "elite" or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have any connection to these schools but I think Emory and Davidson are elite. They are very selective private schools. Sure, they are not Harvard, but in some ways that makes the stories more interesting and a bit more widely applicable.

Exactly. Most, if not all, of the "Top 10" have enough $$ to be truly need blind. Admission to those schools is interesting, but a different discussion. The article is relevant to admissions for the thousands of kids that are applying to competitive, non-top 10 schools. For those bashing on the University of Washington, it's also pretty clear that the author wanted a range of schools -- small, medium-sized and large flagship. I would think those on this board would be aware that the increase in tuition at private colleges means that most state flagships have gotten very competitive for admissions, whether you think they're "elite" or not.

Never heard anyone say Emory is not elite until i came to this site. When did "top 15" become a thing?