It really is SUCH a huge disadvantage to be applying to college from the DMV

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

So interesting. I am from NYC and the worst college outcomes I see come from NJ public schools. These families pay high taxes for absolutely nothing. Be grateful you didn’t screw your kids by moving there.

I wonder why? This never used to be the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

So interesting. I am from NYC and the worst college outcomes I see come from NJ public schools. These families pay high taxes for absolutely nothing. Be grateful you didn’t screw your kids by moving there.

What does this mean? They live in NJ because they work nearby. Where you do suggest they live? NYC and their kids goto Stuyvesant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

Palo Alto parent here. Santa Clara county had this season 750 applicants to Harvard and accepted 19 (2.5% admission rate). What’s wild about this is the strength of the applicants (at DC’s school). The vast majority of kids select themselves out (including my DC) because they conclude if they are not in the top 10 percent of applicants from the school, there is no point. 2.5 percent from this group of applicants is kind of nuts. I am curious if people in Boston or ny have seen local numbers like the above for Santa Clara county.

Palo Alto is such a 1% kind of town that I suspect AOs at Ivies like Harvard aren't that inclined to admit a ton of people from that zip code - also Gunn and Paly have reputations for being grind academies where people pursue APs and ECs solely to look good for college admission. So that may be working against your kids. It's so tough because the kids are worked so hard and are very accomplished but there's also this reputation of toxic competition and pressure and history of suicide clusters.

Gunn and Paly are easy compared to Lynnbrook and Cupertino. The real pressure cookers are the schools full of engineering families rather than the exec families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, central heating already existed in the US middle class as early as 1950s, if not earlier. So

NP we're getting pretty far on topic, but this is something I know about.

I'll just copy and paste from royal.uk:

Central heating was not a widespread feature in Britain, including Buckingham Palace, until the 1970s and 1980s. Before that, it was a luxury, and the palace relied on fireplaces and other localized heating methods. While central heating technology existed earlier, it became more common during that period. Specifically, the Combined Heat and Power plant and boiler system at Buckingham Palace was introduced in 1994-95.

[Anonymous]

At this point, you need to be willing to pay for a private admissions consultant to shape your kid's resume so they stand out from the countless other DMV overachievers. The 4.0/1550 SAT/student leadership combo does not work out here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep

What I found is that it really is such a huge disadvantage to be applying to college from private high schools, particularly the elite rigorous ones. For four years, everyone is highly driven. The teachers never give you a sense of achievement, there is always more to be done. B is a good grade, you have to do your absolute best to earn that A. When the college application season comes, you found out T20 can only take hooked plus a few unhooked from your school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes the best thing you can do if you want your kid to get into an elite college is move to Mississippi or Alaska. Thats been known for decades. Do you want to? Probably not…

This is so true! memories of my mom saying this to her friends in the 80s/90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep

What I found is that it really is such a huge disadvantage to be applying to college from private high schools, particularly the elite rigorous ones. For four years, everyone is highly driven. The teachers never give you a sense of achievement, there is always more to be done. B is a good grade, you have to do your absolute best to earn that A. When the college application season comes, you found out T20 can only take hooked plus a few unhooked from your school.

But if the choice is an elite rigorous private high school vs super competitive public high school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep

What I found is that it really is such a huge disadvantage to be applying to college from private high schools, particularly the elite rigorous ones. For four years, everyone is highly driven. The teachers never give you a sense of achievement, there is always more to be done. B is a good grade, you have to do your absolute best to earn that A. When the college application season comes, you found out T20 can only take hooked plus a few unhooked from your school.

But if the choice is an elite rigorous private high school vs super competitive public high school?

Private is the right path every time in this situation.

[Anonymous]

One of the top students at my SLAC came from a public school in an underrepresented state several decades ago. Can’t make assumptions about the quality of college prep based upon geography or type of high school alone. They might not have 15 AP classes, but they might have the drive, work ethic, and common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep

What I found is that it really is such a huge disadvantage to be applying to college from private high schools, particularly the elite rigorous ones. For four years, everyone is highly driven. The teachers never give you a sense of achievement, there is always more to be done. B is a good grade, you have to do your absolute best to earn that A. When the college application season comes, you found out T20 can only take hooked plus a few unhooked from your school.

I agree private schools with grade deflation are not good for college admissions but they are a good investment in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you be willing to live in Arizona or Oregon, and send your kid through public schools there?

Geographic diversity at top school is also really valuable. These schools can get very intensive group think from the coastal bubbles. It actually does matter. It results in a better education for everyone, not just a great opportunity for the kids from these other places.

Also consider that the kid from Arizona with the 33 and a few AP exams likely had to work very hard to seize every academic opportunity that came their way to get to the point where they are applying to and getting into these schools. They tend to be special kids and real standouts. You only see their numbers but you're talking valedictorians, class presidents, kids who are standout musicians, debaters, mathletes, etc. And again, doing this in environments where academics are not always prioritized and where they don't have a zillion peers doing the same stuff. They have to be self motivated in a way that kids in the DMV never have to self motivate because of the culture here, because of who their parents are, because their peers are often all pushing in that same direction.

Like sure, it feels unfair when you look at it on the surface. But in reality those kids are EARNING their admission to those schools, and you just don't see it because you are comparing apples (your kid and all the kids like your kid in the DMV area) to oranges (these kids from far less represented areas who are like the standout Ivy League hope of their entire school or hometown and have never had a chance to be in a school environment filled with kids similar to them).

I was an orange and now I live in DC and am raising an apple. You don't know. It's not the easy gift you think it is. It's hard. My kid has a zillion more and better opportunities than I did growing up where I did, and is also just savvier about the world and speaks the language of professionals better than I did even up graduating college. And she might wind up at a perfectly good but not tip top college despite having better grades, more APs, better test scores. Guess what? She's going to be fine and she will have far fewer barrier to success than I did. She doesn't have to learn a whole new world and navigate everything with parents who have no clue and are suspicious and overwhelmed by it all. She's still better off even if she doesn't go to an Ivy.

Perspective, OP. You need to step outside your bubble a bit.

I don't understand this comment whatsoever. I assume the Scottsdale public schools or wealthy suburban Portland public schools are great...as they usually are in nearly all UMC locations.

We have friends in a nice area of Tucson and they said their public schools are equivalent to what they left in Bethesda (admittedly, they moved when kids were in middle school).

Those probably are not the schools those kids are in as there would be more competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep

What I found is that it really is such a huge disadvantage to be applying to college from private high schools, particularly the elite rigorous ones. For four years, everyone is highly driven. The teachers never give you a sense of achievement, there is always more to be done. B is a good grade, you have to do your absolute best to earn that A. When the college application season comes, you found out T20 can only take hooked plus a few unhooked from your school.

I agree private schools with grade deflation are not good for college admissions but they are a good investment in the long run.

I always laugh when I see someone put their expensive private school on their linkedin

[Anonymous]

Yes, very. I was raised in the Midwest and barely anyone shoots for top colleges so if you go to an average or even top ranked high school and try your best your in and half of the Ivys.

[Anonymous]

I couldn't sleep last night because as a professor at one of these colleges you may be dreaming about, I have been dealing with multiple insane developments that make supporting, and then even doing serious scholarship challenging if not impossible. Here online dealing with the latest 5 pm Friday crazy in that department too.

I am so glad you are still supporting institutions of learning and what they represent. Good luck to you child. Perhaps take comfort in the fact that 2026 is so unknowable that what a "good" outcome for a senior these days is as open ended as it has ever been.