Can you remind me why my DC will not get into the same schools I did?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The first page of this essay explains it pretty well.

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/

Parent of a Kindergartener here - You have just saved me 12 years of stress!

And that doesn't even include test blind schools since it focuses on test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bigger pool of applicants?

This is correct: 300,000 of the top 1% of high school graduates in the nation will apply to and be rejected from HYPSM.

[Anonymous]

I think you two are not the same person

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bigger pool of applicants?

This is correct: 300,000 of the top 1% of high school graduates in the nation will apply to and be rejected from HYPSM.

I think you must mean 300k of the top 10%. Even then, it's a stretch t say they'll all apply to those 5 schools.

But your point is valid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you two are not the same person

This is a weird comment.

OP, the same person, would (probably) not get into those same colleges today.

Many of us have kids who are way "better" than we ever were. Acceptance results will be worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll help you OP. It’s a freaking arms race of affluent parents making sure their kids are getting the BEST enrichments, tutoring, mentoring, internships, etc. I occasionally interview for my alma mater and times have CHANGED!

I participated in an engineering program at a local college for girls interested in STEM where we built balsa bridges and went on a tour of the water treatment plant. I have interviewed kids who placed at the Westinghouse science competition or have patents. Patents!
I worked at k-mart and Subway. I babysat. These kids intern at companies in the field they are pursuing.
I was president of the French club and 1st chair trumpet in concert band. These kids are establishing their own charity or leading the advocacy for some pet issue with their city/county/state government.

I was smart and hard working. I was the Tracy Flick of my HS - all the APs, all As, all the sports and clubs. Kids “these days” are accomplishing things at 15-17 that upperclassmen at my selective university were not doing when I was there. If kindergarten is the new 1st grade, I’d wager that 16 is the new 21. I always come away from interviews wondering - how the heck did I ever get in, how the heck will my kids ever have a chance.

DH is a physician currently doing interviews for residency. Every year he says how these applicants are amazing and how he wouldn’t even get an interview now. There are so many students with perfect everything. Perfect test scores. Perfect extracurriculars. Perfect research.

I have a niece that finished her residency at Hopkins Med and has been working there for a few years. I constantly hear from her and other doctors I know that the batch of students coming out of med school these days are ridiculously unqualified. They are not the brightest. I have heard the same thing form professors. Kids in the last 5 years may have more stuff on their college apps and resumes that seem to look impressive, but the meat isn't there.

Same observation here at a NYC academic hospital.
The kids look 10x better than I did on paper - they have stellar credentials and are so accomplished by age 22. But, then they just refuse to do the grunt work that makes someone a good doctor once they start residency. It’s terrifying. With the boomers retiring en masse, it feels like all of us suckers in Gen X are propping up a house of cards.

Not sure if it’s that:
1) medicine is falling apart, and the kids figure “why bother?” since their salaries won’t keep pace with inflation, they will just be abused by administrators/insurance companies/patients. A lot of them are biding their time before going into business/pharma, since medicine is such a cluster right now
Or:
2) the kids killed themselves buffing up their college and med school apps, and are already completely burnt out by their early 20s

Third possibility, they were only paper tigers to begin with due to rampant grade inflation, resume puffery, etc. . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll help you OP. It’s a freaking arms race of affluent parents making sure their kids are getting the BEST enrichments, tutoring, mentoring, internships, etc. I occasionally interview for my alma mater and times have CHANGED!

I participated in an engineering program at a local college for girls interested in STEM where we built balsa bridges and went on a tour of the water treatment plant. I have interviewed kids who placed at the Westinghouse science competition or have patents. Patents!
I worked at k-mart and Subway. I babysat. These kids intern at companies in the field they are pursuing.
I was president of the French club and 1st chair trumpet in concert band. These kids are establishing their own charity or leading the advocacy for some pet issue with their city/county/state government.

I was smart and hard working. I was the Tracy Flick of my HS - all the APs, all As, all the sports and clubs. Kids “these days” are accomplishing things at 15-17 that upperclassmen at my selective university were not doing when I was there. If kindergarten is the new 1st grade, I’d wager that 16 is the new 21. I always come away from interviews wondering - how the heck did I ever get in, how the heck will my kids ever have a chance.

DH is a physician currently doing interviews for residency. Every year he says how these applicants are amazing and how he wouldn’t even get an interview now. There are so many students with perfect everything. Perfect test scores. Perfect extracurriculars. Perfect research.

I have a niece that finished her residency at Hopkins Med and has been working there for a few years. I constantly hear from her and other doctors I know that the batch of students coming out of med school these days are ridiculously unqualified. They are not the brightest. I have heard the same thing form professors. Kids in the last 5 years may have more stuff on their college apps and resumes that seem to look impressive, but the meat isn't there.

Same observation here at a NYC academic hospital.
The kids look 10x better than I did on paper - they have stellar credentials and are so accomplished by age 22. But, then they just refuse to do the grunt work that makes someone a good doctor once they start residency. It’s terrifying. With the boomers retiring en masse, it feels like all of us suckers in Gen X are propping up a house of cards.

Not sure if it’s that:
1) medicine is falling apart, and the kids figure “why bother?” since their salaries won’t keep pace with inflation, they will just be abused by administrators/insurance companies/patients. A lot of them are biding their time before going into business/pharma, since medicine is such a cluster right now
Or:
2) the kids killed themselves buffing up their college and med school apps, and are already completely burnt out by their early 20s

Third possibility, they were only paper tigers to begin with due to rampant grade inflation, resume puffery, etc. . .

Related, the constant effort to be perfect deprives the kids of learning through trial and error, leaving them anxious and brittle. But anxious, brittle, and perfect is what the top schools want, so obviously it’s what they get.

[Anonymous]

My DC will likely not get into the same VA public schools that I did. They go to an FCPS school and I lived in central VA. I think standards are higher for kids from FCPS vs the rest of VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bigger pool of applicants?

This is correct: 300,000 of the top 1% of high school graduates in the nation will apply to and be rejected from HYPSM.

I think you must mean 300k of the top 10%. Even then, it's a stretch t say they'll all apply to those 5 schools.

But your point is valid.

I can't vouch for that stat but was told at a lecture that Stanford reject 70% of kids who scored perfectly on SAT/ACT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bigger pool of applicants?

This is correct: 300,000 of the top 1% of high school graduates in the nation will apply to and be rejected from HYPSM.

What?

[Anonymous]

Because she is a different person than you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bigger pool of applicants?

This is correct: 300,000 of the top 1% of high school graduates in the nation will apply to and be rejected from HYPSM.

What?

I think this is stat is off. I think there are only 100,000 high schools in America, so couldn't be 300,000 kids in the top 1%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bigger pool of applicants?

This is correct: 300,000 of the top 1% of high school graduates in the nation will apply to and be rejected from HYPSM.

I think you must mean 300k of the top 10%. Even then, it's a stretch t say they'll all apply to those 5 schools.

But your point is valid.

I can't vouch for that stat but was told at a lecture that Stanford reject 70% of kids who scored perfectly on SAT/ACT.

How does that make sense? I read the following.

The Stanford University acceptance rate is 3.95% for the class of 2025. For 2022 admissions, Stanford University received 55,471 applications, of which only 2,190 students were offered admission.

And also this:

The maximum score on the SAT is a 1600. Out of the two million students who take the test every year, only about 500 get the highest possible SAT score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bigger pool of applicants?

This is correct: 300,000 of the top 1% of high school graduates in the nation will apply to and be rejected from HYPSM.

What?

I think this is stat is off. I think there are only 100,000 high schools in America, so couldn't be 300,000 kids in the top 1%.

Around 3.5 million graduate from US high schools each year, so 35,000 in top 1%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bigger pool of applicants?

This is correct: 300,000 of the top 1% of high school graduates in the nation will apply to and be rejected from HYPSM.

I think you must mean 300k of the top 10%. Even then, it's a stretch t say they'll all apply to those 5 schools.

But your point is valid.

I can't vouch for that stat but was told at a lecture that Stanford reject 70% of kids who scored perfectly on SAT/ACT.

How does that make sense? I read the following.

The Stanford University acceptance rate is 3.95% for the class of 2025. For 2022 admissions, Stanford University received 55,471 applications, of which only 2,190 students were offered admission.

And also this:

The maximum score on the SAT is a 1600. Out of the two million students who take the test every year, only about 500 get the highest possible SAT score.

I honestly do believe most schools only care about a minimum SAT score. Once you hit the minimum, any incremental differences are essentially meaningless. Stanford doesn't care about a 1600 if you hit their minimum.

The Dean of MIT Admissions keeps hammering this point home. He spoke to a girl at an info session who told him that she had a 1550 and was going to take the SAT once more. He asked about her math score, because they do care that you score 750+...obviously, it is impossible to score below a 750 on either section with a 1550 total score. He then told her that she was wasting her time and MIT would look unfavorably on her taking the SAT once again because her priorities were completely off and once you hit the minimum cut-off they don't look at your scores again.

Would be nice to know the minimum cut-offs, but it is something 1500 and above (but less than 1600).