Sorry but this American college admissions "rat race" is stupid ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are two ways you can go about it

1. Prioritize T20 admission from a young age. Tailor everything towards that goal. Push ahead even if student is not interested in the thing they were doing, because it would look good to colleges. You would have a tough 5-6 years.

2. Prioritize academics and doing well in high school, regardless of how it looks to colleges. Do things you like and drop things you do not like. Take classes you like, but do emphasize rigor in all subjects, not because colleges like to see that, but because they are building blocks and a strong foundation is essential.

T20 admission is a low probability anyway. Even if you choose option #1, you might not end up at T20. That seemed to be a bad tradeoff to me.

If you choose option #2, even if your overall chances of getting into T20 are lower than if you choose #1, you win either way because (a) you did what you loved and if ended up not going to T20, you have that happy HS years (b) if you did end up at T20, you just got a bonus. Heads I win, tails I don't lose.

That is how we made the decision. Turns out when you do things that you do love, it is easier for others to see it as well. It showed up in how my son got voted to the top position in the team and most likely how the teachers wrote the recommendation letters. Ended at HYP.

There is actually a third option, which is to not even allow your kid to apply to Ivy-plus schools (or other similarly-priced schools), even if they have the stats and the money for them. That is what we did, and we’re happy with the results so far.

If Ivy was just about stats, 90% of the anxiety would evaporate.

Oh you got a 1520 SAT, here are the 4 schools that you can apply to and one is guaranteed to take you. Oh you got a 1210 on the SAT, here are the 4 schools with your major that you can apply to and one of them is guaranteed to accept you.

These schools are private institutions. They get to admit students based on their goals and priorities, not yours. The vast majority of schools in the US operate in the manner that you describe. You are free to apply to any of them.

Did the PP say anything else? The Ivies and their ilk use sophisticated marketing and opaque admissions to drive an escalating spiral of anxiety among the best and the brightest of American teens. Whether we are playing the game or whether we have opted out, we are all free to observe and remark upon this phenomenon and the deleterious effects it has on American society.

It doesn't have a deleterious effect on society at all. The only deleterious impact is to the egos of some upset families.

Adolescent mental health is a disaster, and the higher-performing the high school, the worse the mental health.

Facts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sucks except if you win. Then it’s great. There is nothing globally that is like the education, connections and level of services of all kinds available at the tippy-top of American higher education.

No, it sucks period. The reason that it sucks is the supply/demand imbalance and the simple fact that there are some whom believe that there are only a small number of schools which "matter" and everything else is a failure. That entire mental model is ridiculous with anything deeper than a surface evaluation because you will quickly realize that this is a demand/ego driven belief rather than any actual difference in quality.

There is a difference in quality. Stanford is better than Arizona State. This is true even though you can succeed in spite of attending Arizona State and even though you may not succeed in spite of attending Stanford.

That is true, Stanford is measurably better than Arizona State. But, Stanford isn't measurably better than Santa Clara especially for undergraduate education.

My suspicion is that Santa Clara is just as good as Stanford for tech majors but wouldn't be as good for other majors.

The quality of the professors and of the other students is certainly going to be higher at any elite school than the majority of state schools.

The real point is that schools are better grouped into buckets, you cannot really stack rank them in any manner that is definitive. And, the top bucket is much larger than many people believe.

In terms of educational quality it may be true that the top bucket is really 100 colleges rather than 20. But in terms of bang for the buck, I certainly made distinctions between top 10 and 50-100. I was prepared to pay full price for top 10, but full price for private or out of state public ranked 11-100, forget it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sucks except if you win. Then it’s great. There is nothing globally that is like the education, connections and level of services of all kinds available at the tippy-top of American higher education.

There is no winning. "If you win, you're still a rat." Participating and performing for the rat race teaches our kids that this is the only way to be successful. They will take that mentality to college, their first job, their first relationship, they will seek out careers/jobs that are prestigious and pay money, they'll seek out partners with status who measure their worth that way to and inculcate their children simlarly, they'll learn to value things for their prestige, not fit. They'll measure their own worth, their life and themselves as ranked.

100%. Well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are two ways you can go about it

1. Prioritize T20 admission from a young age. Tailor everything towards that goal. Push ahead even if student is not interested in the thing they were doing, because it would look good to colleges. You would have a tough 5-6 years.

2. Prioritize academics and doing well in high school, regardless of how it looks to colleges. Do things you like and drop things you do not like. Take classes you like, but do emphasize rigor in all subjects, not because colleges like to see that, but because they are building blocks and a strong foundation is essential.

T20 admission is a low probability anyway. Even if you choose option #1, you might not end up at T20. That seemed to be a bad tradeoff to me.

If you choose option #2, even if your overall chances of getting into T20 are lower than if you choose #1, you win either way because (a) you did what you loved and if ended up not going to T20, you have that happy HS years (b) if you did end up at T20, you just got a bonus. Heads I win, tails I don't lose.

That is how we made the decision. Turns out when you do things that you do love, it is easier for others to see it as well. It showed up in how my son got voted to the top position in the team and most likely how the teachers wrote the recommendation letters. Ended at HYP.

There is actually a third option, which is to not even allow your kid to apply to Ivy-plus schools (or other similarly-priced schools), even if they have the stats and the money for them. That is what we did, and we’re happy with the results so far.

If Ivy was just about stats, 90% of the anxiety would evaporate.

Oh you got a 1520 SAT, here are the 4 schools that you can apply to and one is guaranteed to take you. Oh you got a 1210 on the SAT, here are the 4 schools with your major that you can apply to and one of them is guaranteed to accept you.

These schools are private institutions. They get to admit students based on their goals and priorities, not yours. The vast majority of schools in the US operate in the manner that you describe. You are free to apply to any of them.

Did the PP say anything else? The Ivies and their ilk use sophisticated marketing and opaque admissions to drive an escalating spiral of anxiety among the best and the brightest of American teens. Whether we are playing the game or whether we have opted out, we are all free to observe and remark upon this phenomenon and the deleterious effects it has on American society.

It doesn't have a deleterious effect on society at all. The only deleterious impact is to the egos of some upset families.

Adolescent mental health is a disaster, and the higher-performing the high school, the worse the mental health.

That is a parental, cultural and societal issue. It is not an issue for these schools or their admissions practices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sucks except if you win. Then it’s great. There is nothing globally that is like the education, connections and level of services of all kinds available at the tippy-top of American higher education.

No, it sucks period. The reason that it sucks is the supply/demand imbalance and the simple fact that there are some whom believe that there are only a small number of schools which "matter" and everything else is a failure. That entire mental model is ridiculous with anything deeper than a surface evaluation because you will quickly realize that this is a demand/ego driven belief rather than any actual difference in quality.

There is a difference in quality. Stanford is better than Arizona State. This is true even though you can succeed in spite of attending Arizona State and even though you may not succeed in spite of attending Stanford.

That is true, Stanford is measurably better than Arizona State. But, Stanford isn't measurably better than Santa Clara especially for undergraduate education.

My suspicion is that Santa Clara is just as good as Stanford for tech majors but wouldn't be as good for other majors.

The quality of the professors and of the other students is certainly going to be higher at any elite school than the majority of state schools.

The real point is that schools are better grouped into buckets, you cannot really stack rank them in any manner that is definitive. And, the top bucket is much larger than many people believe.

In terms of educational quality it may be true that the top bucket is really 100 colleges rather than 20. But in terms of bang for the buck, I certainly made distinctions between top 10 and 50-100. I was prepared to pay full price for top 10, but full price for private or out of state public ranked 11-100, forget it.

I agree that there is a difference between the top 10 and say 50-100. But there really isn't a significant difference between the top 10 and the top 40.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are two ways you can go about it

1. Prioritize T20 admission from a young age. Tailor everything towards that goal. Push ahead even if student is not interested in the thing they were doing, because it would look good to colleges. You would have a tough 5-6 years.

2. Prioritize academics and doing well in high school, regardless of how it looks to colleges. Do things you like and drop things you do not like. Take classes you like, but do emphasize rigor in all subjects, not because colleges like to see that, but because they are building blocks and a strong foundation is essential.

T20 admission is a low probability anyway. Even if you choose option #1, you might not end up at T20. That seemed to be a bad tradeoff to me.

If you choose option #2, even if your overall chances of getting into T20 are lower than if you choose #1, you win either way because (a) you did what you loved and if ended up not going to T20, you have that happy HS years (b) if you did end up at T20, you just got a bonus. Heads I win, tails I don't lose.

That is how we made the decision. Turns out when you do things that you do love, it is easier for others to see it as well. It showed up in how my son got voted to the top position in the team and most likely how the teachers wrote the recommendation letters. Ended at HYP.

There is actually a third option, which is to not even allow your kid to apply to Ivy-plus schools (or other similarly-priced schools), even if they have the stats and the money for them. That is what we did, and we’re happy with the results so far.

If Ivy was just about stats, 90% of the anxiety would evaporate.

Oh you got a 1520 SAT, here are the 4 schools that you can apply to and one is guaranteed to take you. Oh you got a 1210 on the SAT, here are the 4 schools with your major that you can apply to and one of them is guaranteed to accept you.

These schools are private institutions. They get to admit students based on their goals and priorities, not yours. The vast majority of schools in the US operate in the manner that you describe. You are free to apply to any of them.

Did the PP say anything else? The Ivies and their ilk use sophisticated marketing and opaque admissions to drive an escalating spiral of anxiety among the best and the brightest of American teens. Whether we are playing the game or whether we have opted out, we are all free to observe and remark upon this phenomenon and the deleterious effects it has on American society.

It doesn't have a deleterious effect on society at all. The only deleterious impact is to the egos of some upset families.

Adolescent mental health is a disaster, and the higher-performing the high school, the worse the mental health.

That is a parental, cultural and societal issue. It is not an issue for these schools or their admissions practices.

That would be correct if elite colleges had, and aspired to have, absolutely zero cultural or societal impact whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100 years ago, 50 years ago, ivies are expensive, even MC may not be able to afford it. And ivies mostly get their students from boarding schools and private schools. So yeah at that time it’s reserved to rich privileged families.

If we go back to those times, restrict the seats from the commons, there would never be a rat race. I mean, it only becomes a rat race when the commons think they are attainable to them.

Not artfully put, but true. One of the top schools for churning out Nobel winners is City College of NY. It’s where children of poor immigrants in NY went, mostly Jewish. These were smart kids who were driven to improve their family’s lot in life, and many did just that.

Between this thread and the Harvard kids one, it’s made me realize that it’s too bad that the prestige of places like CCNY have fallen. They are perfect for super smart, driven kids who need or should stay close to home and are not interested in the typical college experience but want to just hunker down and get a degree. That’s not to say they are not still good options, just that everyone is falling all over themselves to get into a top 10/20/25 school when those places might not serve the ancillary needs (cost, distance from home, overall culture) that a commuter school does.

Stuy and Bronx Sci kids all going off to Hunter and Stony Brook in droves. Macaulay and Sophie Davis highly HIGHLY respected here in nyc. It maybe doesn't have a national name, but neither did City College at the time. But OP has no interest in sending her kid to Hunter.

Hunter had a great name when I went to SUNY long ago. It was also a school that only locals attended.

But that’s sort of my point. Many kids probably should stay close to home for all sorts of reasons. There shouldn’t be such a stigma against going to a commuter school. Not all students should live away and try to fit into a campus life that is not their cup of tea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are two ways you can go about it

1. Prioritize T20 admission from a young age. Tailor everything towards that goal. Push ahead even if student is not interested in the thing they were doing, because it would look good to colleges. You would have a tough 5-6 years.

2. Prioritize academics and doing well in high school, regardless of how it looks to colleges. Do things you like and drop things you do not like. Take classes you like, but do emphasize rigor in all subjects, not because colleges like to see that, but because they are building blocks and a strong foundation is essential.

T20 admission is a low probability anyway. Even if you choose option #1, you might not end up at T20. That seemed to be a bad tradeoff to me.

If you choose option #2, even if your overall chances of getting into T20 are lower than if you choose #1, you win either way because (a) you did what you loved and if ended up not going to T20, you have that happy HS years (b) if you did end up at T20, you just got a bonus. Heads I win, tails I don't lose.

That is how we made the decision. Turns out when you do things that you do love, it is easier for others to see it as well. It showed up in how my son got voted to the top position in the team and most likely how the teachers wrote the recommendation letters. Ended at HYP.

There is actually a third option, which is to not even allow your kid to apply to Ivy-plus schools (or other similarly-priced schools), even if they have the stats and the money for them. That is what we did, and we’re happy with the results so far.

If Ivy was just about stats, 90% of the anxiety would evaporate.

Oh you got a 1520 SAT, here are the 4 schools that you can apply to and one is guaranteed to take you. Oh you got a 1210 on the SAT, here are the 4 schools with your major that you can apply to and one of them is guaranteed to accept you.

Agreed. McGill does this, not sure why all global t50s don't do this. It makes college admissions so easy and predictable. If you don't make the cut offs you don't bother to apply. And no need for admissions readers who are biased and subjective. A whole industry has cropped up to support the nuances of "holistic admission" and they should just scrap it and allow a certain amount to be admission by exception like UCs do for athletes if they want to attract economic diversity candidates with lower marks.

Mcgill is larger than any Ivy and Canada is less than one eight the size of the United States. The top 8 Canadian schools enroll 305,000 undergraduate students. For the top eight US schools to serve the same proportion of the US population they would each need to enroll 305,000 students.

[Anonymous]

The college rat race is created by the people in it -- the rest of us are raising happy, educated children who know their self-worth is not a number or name on a sweatshirt, who enjoy their time in college, get great jobs, and hopefully go on to do good things for the community and world, all with their values and ethics in tact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are two ways you can go about it

1. Prioritize T20 admission from a young age. Tailor everything towards that goal. Push ahead even if student is not interested in the thing they were doing, because it would look good to colleges. You would have a tough 5-6 years.

2. Prioritize academics and doing well in high school, regardless of how it looks to colleges. Do things you like and drop things you do not like. Take classes you like, but do emphasize rigor in all subjects, not because colleges like to see that, but because they are building blocks and a strong foundation is essential.

T20 admission is a low probability anyway. Even if you choose option #1, you might not end up at T20. That seemed to be a bad tradeoff to me.

If you choose option #2, even if your overall chances of getting into T20 are lower than if you choose #1, you win either way because (a) you did what you loved and if ended up not going to T20, you have that happy HS years (b) if you did end up at T20, you just got a bonus. Heads I win, tails I don't lose.

That is how we made the decision. Turns out when you do things that you do love, it is easier for others to see it as well. It showed up in how my son got voted to the top position in the team and most likely how the teachers wrote the recommendation letters. Ended at HYP.

There is actually a third option, which is to not even allow your kid to apply to Ivy-plus schools (or other similarly-priced schools), even if they have the stats and the money for them. That is what we did, and we’re happy with the results so far.

If Ivy was just about stats, 90% of the anxiety would evaporate.

Oh you got a 1520 SAT, here are the 4 schools that you can apply to and one is guaranteed to take you. Oh you got a 1210 on the SAT, here are the 4 schools with your major that you can apply to and one of them is guaranteed to accept you.

These schools are private institutions. They get to admit students based on their goals and priorities, not yours. The vast majority of schools in the US operate in the manner that you describe. You are free to apply to any of them.

Did the PP say anything else? The Ivies and their ilk use sophisticated marketing and opaque admissions to drive an escalating spiral of anxiety among the best and the brightest of American teens. Whether we are playing the game or whether we have opted out, we are all free to observe and remark upon this phenomenon and the deleterious effects it has on American society.

It doesn't have a deleterious effect on society at all. The only deleterious impact is to the egos of some upset families.

Adolescent mental health is a disaster, and the higher-performing the high school, the worse the mental health.

That is a parental, cultural and societal issue. It is not an issue for these schools or their admissions practices.

That would be correct if elite colleges had, and aspired to have, absolutely zero cultural or societal impact whatsoever.

It's flat out correct. What do you not understand about the numbers? And the fact that they are private institutions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The college rat race is created by the people in it -- the rest of us are raising happy, educated children who know their self-worth is not a number or name on a sweatshirt, who enjoy their time in college, get great jobs, and hopefully go on to do good things for the community and world, all with their values and ethics in tact.

Well yeah but that is less common in DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The college rat race is created by the people in it -- the rest of us are raising happy, educated children who know their self-worth is not a number or name on a sweatshirt, who enjoy their time in college, get great jobs, and hopefully go on to do good things for the community and world, all with their values and ethics in tact.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are two ways you can go about it

1. Prioritize T20 admission from a young age. Tailor everything towards that goal. Push ahead even if student is not interested in the thing they were doing, because it would look good to colleges. You would have a tough 5-6 years.

2. Prioritize academics and doing well in high school, regardless of how it looks to colleges. Do things you like and drop things you do not like. Take classes you like, but do emphasize rigor in all subjects, not because colleges like to see that, but because they are building blocks and a strong foundation is essential.

T20 admission is a low probability anyway. Even if you choose option #1, you might not end up at T20. That seemed to be a bad tradeoff to me.

If you choose option #2, even if your overall chances of getting into T20 are lower than if you choose #1, you win either way because (a) you did what you loved and if ended up not going to T20, you have that happy HS years (b) if you did end up at T20, you just got a bonus. Heads I win, tails I don't lose.

That is how we made the decision. Turns out when you do things that you do love, it is easier for others to see it as well. It showed up in how my son got voted to the top position in the team and most likely how the teachers wrote the recommendation letters. Ended at HYP.

There is actually a third option, which is to not even allow your kid to apply to Ivy-plus schools (or other similarly-priced schools), even if they have the stats and the money for them. That is what we did, and we’re happy with the results so far.

If Ivy was just about stats, 90% of the anxiety would evaporate.

Oh you got a 1520 SAT, here are the 4 schools that you can apply to and one is guaranteed to take you. Oh you got a 1210 on the SAT, here are the 4 schools with your major that you can apply to and one of them is guaranteed to accept you.

Agreed. McGill does this, not sure why all global t50s don't do this. It makes college admissions so easy and predictable. If you don't make the cut offs you don't bother to apply. And no need for admissions readers who are biased and subjective. A whole industry has cropped up to support the nuances of "holistic admission" and they should just scrap it and allow a certain amount to be admission by exception like UCs do for athletes if they want to attract economic diversity candidates with lower marks.

FYI...University of Toronto doesn't work this way, even for just regular admission (you have to write essays and go through extra hoops for various Residential Colleges within the unversity). It felt very similar to a UC application. You answer I think 3 of 6 essay prompts...have to provide a recommendation...etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100 years ago, 50 years ago, ivies are expensive, even MC may not be able to afford it. And ivies mostly get their students from boarding schools and private schools. So yeah at that time it’s reserved to rich privileged families.

If we go back to those times, restrict the seats from the commons, there would never be a rat race. I mean, it only becomes a rat race when the commons think they are attainable to them.

Transparency matters. They should be honest about the students and families they want instead of misleading people into thinking everyone has a fair shot. It’s obvious that isn’t true, so why lie?

It is fair, it just might not meet your definition of 'fairness'. They are very transparent in that they do not care solely about academics but rather ensuring that the vast majority cross a very high bar. They lower that bar a bit for people who fit institutional priorities but keep it high enough to be comfortable that everyone admitted will succeed. They want people from across the US and across the globe and they also want to ensure that socioeconomic conditions are not a barrier to admissions.

Using that criteria the number of applications that they receive from a group of mostly similar candidates far exceeds the spots at their schools which results in a situation where most people never know why they were admitted or denied. This also means that there is randomness and a bit of luck involved. It is frustrating but it isn't unfair.

I would not call the holistic review "very transparent". Does companies hire employees by holistic review? Does any company hire a quant trader by checking his violin skills?
1. Despite the prestige, these elite institutions do not guarantee better financial or career success after graduation.
2. If international students are included in the target student pool, these institutions should not receive tax sponsorship or tax-exempt status, since American students are not given higher priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are two ways you can go about it

1. Prioritize T20 admission from a young age. Tailor everything towards that goal. Push ahead even if student is not interested in the thing they were doing, because it would look good to colleges. You would have a tough 5-6 years.

2. Prioritize academics and doing well in high school, regardless of how it looks to colleges. Do things you like and drop things you do not like. Take classes you like, but do emphasize rigor in all subjects, not because colleges like to see that, but because they are building blocks and a strong foundation is essential.

T20 admission is a low probability anyway. Even if you choose option #1, you might not end up at T20. That seemed to be a bad tradeoff to me.

If you choose option #2, even if your overall chances of getting into T20 are lower than if you choose #1, you win either way because (a) you did what you loved and if ended up not going to T20, you have that happy HS years (b) if you did end up at T20, you just got a bonus. Heads I win, tails I don't lose.

That is how we made the decision. Turns out when you do things that you do love, it is easier for others to see it as well. It showed up in how my son got voted to the top position in the team and most likely how the teachers wrote the recommendation letters. Ended at HYP.

There is actually a third option, which is to not even allow your kid to apply to Ivy-plus schools (or other similarly-priced schools), even if they have the stats and the money for them. That is what we did, and we’re happy with the results so far.

If Ivy was just about stats, 90% of the anxiety would evaporate.

Oh you got a 1520 SAT, here are the 4 schools that you can apply to and one is guaranteed to take you. Oh you got a 1210 on the SAT, here are the 4 schools with your major that you can apply to and one of them is guaranteed to accept you.

Agreed. McGill does this, not sure why all global t50s don't do this. It makes college admissions so easy and predictable. If you don't make the cut offs you don't bother to apply. And no need for admissions readers who are biased and subjective. A whole industry has cropped up to support the nuances of "holistic admission" and they should just scrap it and allow a certain amount to be admission by exception like UCs do for athletes if they want to attract economic diversity candidates with lower marks.

My child was admitted to McGill. Didn't apply to UofToronto but almost did. She talked with the admissions counselor there and went to the virtual sessions, etc. We visited both.
It was straight forward and the criteria was published. In my experience, much less drama than her application to US universities.


FYI...University of Toronto doesn't work this way, even for just regular admission (you have to write essays and go through extra hoops for various Residential Colleges within the unversity). It felt very similar to a UC application. You answer I think 3 of 6 essay prompts...have to provide a recommendation...etc.