Can a normal smart kid get into an ivy these days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC’s boarding school sends a large number of extremely smart, unhooked white and Asian kids to the Ivies every year.

Yes, coming from a school that costs $85,000 will definitely increase your odds of acceptance.

Right?

The top feeders to Harvard are Andover, Dalton, Spence, Collegiate, Horace Mann, Trinity, Exeter, Choate, Boston Latin, Deerfield.

Just average American families.

Yep. All about “merit”. /s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC’s boarding school sends a large number of extremely smart, unhooked white and Asian kids to the Ivies every year.

At the cost of denying your children a childhood with their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not unless they are first gen, rural, a recruitable athlete, URM, or have famous/powerful connections.

Otherwise they go to Big State U with a ton of merit aid and/or the honors college.

I laughed out loud reading this because it is 100% accurate.

I'm biased but my kid graduated with straight As, 33 credits, a 4.6 GPA on a 4.0 scale, 1580 SAT, top 1% of class, multiple published works, an multi-sport athlete, captain of robotics team and savant like skills in his intended major from a full pay family and he goes in only to safeties. White, unhooked male. Everyone knew who my kid was locally- he is genius IQ smart....and at a state flagship honors with merit. LOL. Oh and he went to a seminar on his essay by college AO and they called it "brilliant" so it wasn't a "bad essay". Aside from now seeing the farce this admissions process is (anyone wonder the logic of 60K a year AO's deciding who's worthy or not?) I have learned to accept it is a game you cannot win, you are either "connected" or URM. On the other hand, my kid is surrounded by similar brilliant rejects at his program so what is happening is these kids are not being cancelled, they are establishing new nexuses. Time will tell of the success of the highly coveted school and their filters, I have a hard time believing they are very fine tuned after seeing the test optional, covid-era, dei, legecy preference, bloodbath my kid went through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC’s boarding school sends a large number of extremely smart, unhooked white and Asian kids to the Ivies every year.

At the cost of denying your children a childhood with their parents.

You lost me at "unhooked boarding school"

Has the boarding school not explained hooks to you yet? Maybe want to book an appointment with the headmaster (after his golf game with the legacy AOs).

[Anonymous]

No, unless he’s URM. If he’s white or Asian, he can get into Cornell ED. But he can also get into top 25 schools ED like Emory and Vanderbilt. Also top publics like UVA or Michigan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, absolutely. Have your kid get off Minecraft and Instagram and start cultivating a talent--debate, orchestra instrument, singing, theater, art, math or science olympics, creative writing, coding, etc--that will be excellent enough to add something of value to an Ivy campus. Otherwise, why should they pick her application out of the pile for admission when so many other kids have high stats too?

Lots of the high stats kids these days are already doing "debate, orchestra instrument, singing, theater, art, math or science olympics, creative writing, coding, etc."

How I long for Europe where college admission is not a variety show but based on your academic performance in high school. I know- inhumane to be reduced to something as base as prior academic performance when I should also be able to showcase my skills in hiring a essay "editor", in my passion for modern dance, and how I raise money for orphans selling cupcakes at the stop sign every Saturday morning. Colleges in Europe must be the height of boredom without the careful crafting of "class mix" to insure we have enough violin players and people of certain national decent, 4 generations removed no matter! I can already see the history books in a 100 years trying to figure out how the hell America got so lost in understanding the point of higher education.

[Anonymous]

The reason I didn't get into Stanford with multiple national awards was a Mormon, blonde white guy that took 0 honors classes 4.0, 1600 on the SATs. Zero hooks, but was willing to apply EA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, unless he’s URM. If he’s white or Asian, he can get into Cornell ED. But he can also get into top 25 schools ED like Emory and Vanderbilt. Also top publics like UVA or Michigan.

I was scrolling to say this also. Some of the T25 are more appealing, have more to offer than the ivies in terms of location, school spirit, weather, with equally strong academics

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think so. I was a normal smart kid admitted to an Ivy regular decision in 1998. Even then, I got to campus and realized I was out of my league and my straight-A gpa, varsity sport, 1510 SAT put me in maybe the bottom 25% of students at the time.

The world is so much more competitive now and that bottom quartile of normal smart American kids has long been bumped for smart international kids and actual smart kids who would never have been able attend 25 years ago because they weren’t offering zero-cost attendance at the time. With cost of attendance off the table for poor brilliant kids and the international student population more than doubling, anyone who is truly normal getting an accept is powerball territory.

Well said. They’re amazing kids who come here from refugee camps or poverty stricken countries whose parent sacrifices everything for their kids. They aren’t all top students but the ones who are also have a work ethic not seen in too many American born kids. Places like Harvard are looking for actually brilliant kids whose older family members never applied because of the costs. These kids are being educated on what they can achieve without money by teachers and guidance counselors.

And then you get the average smart kid. In private school or a town with top public schools. Parents hire tutors to push their kids past the average line. They do SAT prep when the naturally gifted just take the test. The private coaches help them play a varsity sport. These type are too much like the old days when it was a given that rich white kids would automatically go to their father’s Ivy.

Harvard has changed but not enough. There are still too many White kids admitted as legacies and not merit. If they ever have the guts to eliminate legacies the White students will be a minority at the school.

[Anonymous]

This is why God made Tufts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This board is so weird. Yes, of course it's possible. I know of a brown, two Yale, one Columbia just off the top of my head from this year. All normal smart. Public schools. Great kids, great grades, scores, activities. But normal smart.

Of course but the normal smart used to be the large majority. They no longer are.

[Anonymous]

We know a super solid Asian kid with no hooks accepted ED at Cornell A&S (really great kid- all types of peers/community/parents really like and respect him as a person (standout in this sense), 1550 top rigor/grades and good but not great EC). I feel like admissions earned their pay check on this admit.

[Anonymous]

Lots of them do, if they’re legacy admits.

It’s a very unfair system (some might say rigged). You can be successful even by going to no name state schools. Ask me how I know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not if he’s white or Asian.

This. Absolutely.

Not. And clearly. Have you even been on campus???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep hearing about these high stat kids getting rejected. On social media, I have seen posts about ridiculous students with extremely long crazy impressive extracurriculars.

Can a normal smart kid get into an ivy?

My kid has the scores and grades. He plays 3 sports and is on several academic teams. He is not nationally ranked in anything but good at everything. DH and I both attended T25 colleges and ivy grad schools. Our kid is better than DH and me in every single category.

So, keeping things at the Ivy League, Cornell is doable for a smart unhooked kid with the grades and the stats and the ECs and the recs and the essays and all that.

And of course there's always going to be the random that gets into Brown or Dartmouth or wherever.

But by and large, no. Your smart, hardworking kid is not getting into Harvard.

That's reserved for certain names, wealth, wall street, some athletes (hockey is very good), the DEI stuff, some legacy, the "Z" list, first generation.

Straight A white girl Lucy with college educated parents from Hyatsville is not going to Yale.

But there are some very good non-Ivy League schools that prioritize talent and will make it happen financially - MIT, CalTech, Rice, Williams, Chicago, Notre Dame, Bowdoin, Northwestern, Vanderbilt. And the instate public school honors programs are becoming better and better every single year.

And of course you can shoot your shot with merit scholarships,

But generally, the Ivy League today is a club. It's not a meritocracy.

It was ALWAYS a club. Now you are just mad that your mediocre kids can’t be a part of it. Cry me a river.