Please. Stop. Blaming. Others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think grade and SAT inflation is also really hurting parent and student expectations. Back in the 90s only 1-2 kids at my high school had a 4.0 GPA. There were no weighted classes so no GPAs above a 4.0 at all. I got into Carnegie Mellon with a 3.75 GPA, which was very near the top of the class for my high school; the top student ended up at Harvard.

Now students who would have been B students in the 90s have 4.3 GPA, leading both them and their parents not to realize that a top GPA is now a 4.9 or some other nonsense. It's the same with SAT scores. A 1400 used to be really good. Now it seems anything under a 1550 is mediocre. All of the good students are bunched at the top, leading to a lack of separation amongst top students and more of a lotto feeling as to who gets in. The grading scale is fundamentally broken.

It's not broken, it's intentional. And it should be considered fraud. The school brass and teachers keep gullible parents dumb and happy (and quiet) with fake As and the College Board gets suckers hooked to their fake inflated tests.

I see so many parents bragging about their kid's "all A's" and you can just tell by the course list and the kid's orbit they are an average layabout. The parents who brag about the A's never brag about official AP scores or SAT score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really sorry that so many kids are hurting right now because of the college rejections. It hurts, I know. Especially when your child has worked hard and seems to be well qualified for these schools by objective measures, like GPA and test scores. My DC is one of these kids, having just been rejected or WL from seven schools over the last two weeks (and rejected ED in December).

The fact is, many schools are simply flooded with applications from well qualified students and cannot accept them all. So they make tough decisions and make decisions based on very quick reviews of applications, many of which are basically indistinguishable from one another. In some cases, they may look "unfair" because we see other kids in our orbit getting into the same school that our kid gets rejected from and we can't imagine what that kid had that ours didn't.

So, to make ourselves and our kids feel better, there is so much blaming--blaming other "lesser" URM kids, "lesser" public schools with grade inflation, "yield protection", etc.....and it is not fair to the kids who did get in. And, to be honest, it's not good for our own kids--it only feeds grievances. Let's teach them graciousness and grit. It will serve everyone better.

So, to all the kids out there who were accepted to Rice, Hopkins, Wash U, Rice, Northeastern, CMU, Northwestern: Congratulations to you! You deserve it! You are worthy of that acceptance. You earned it.

The kids who weren't accepted deserved it, too. But when you're drawing names out of a hat, "deserve" and "worthy" aren't the right descriptors. I don't have a dog in this race, I am merely an observer. People like you, though, are idiots if you think that the kids who were accepted deserved it more than the kids who weren't. It's a crap shoot right now. Acknowledge it and move on.

The person didn't say 'deserved it more'

You put 'more' there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process may be broken, but we also must understand that capacity at the best schools has not kept pace with the increase in applications. Moreover, there are just more qualified kids. In the past, not everyone was aware of how to play the game at elite schools, but now more people test prep, develop hooks, and are aware of needs-blind admissions. Also, there are so many more opportunities for poor and/or minority kids to attend elite colleges, like Questbridge. Is sum, I don’t know if the system is broken as much as people don’t realize there is a supply constraint even as demand increases. That means the “price” - in this case, the acceptance hurdle - must go higher, which means a lower acceptance rate.

Right. Which means that checking all the boxes for Harvard are necessary, but not sufficient, for admission.

I know someone who was accepted to Harvard. Yes, she got good grades and scores.But so did thousands of others She is also a professional ballerina. Really - who can compete with something like this? 😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process may be broken, but we also must understand that capacity at the best schools has not kept pace with the increase in applications. Moreover, there are just more qualified kids. In the past, not everyone was aware of how to play the game at elite schools, but now more people test prep, develop hooks, and are aware of needs-blind admissions. Also, there are so many more opportunities for poor and/or minority kids to attend elite colleges, like Questbridge. Is sum, I don’t know if the system is broken as much as people don’t realize there is a supply constraint even as demand increases. That means the “price” - in this case, the acceptance hurdle - must go higher, which means a lower acceptance rate.

Right. Which means that checking all the boxes for Harvard are necessary, but not sufficient, for admission.

I know someone who was accepted to Harvard. Yes, she got good grades and scores.But so did thousands of others She is also a professional ballerina. Really - who can compete with something like this? 😂

Yeah, that’s the kind of hook an UMC white kid needs. Or ROTC. I get why schools want URM, I’m not bashing that and I support it. But if you’re white and neither first gen nor a legacy, you need to be extra unique - like pro ballerina unique - or a recruitable athlete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents and students here aren’t blaming “others”. They are blaming a broken system

I think it is both. Some adults really can be jealous of other people's children - which is just as petty, scary and sick as it seems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process may be broken, but we also must understand that capacity at the best schools has not kept pace with the increase in applications. Moreover, there are just more qualified kids. In the past, not everyone was aware of how to play the game at elite schools, but now more people test prep, develop hooks, and are aware of needs-blind admissions. Also, there are so many more opportunities for poor and/or minority kids to attend elite colleges, like Questbridge. Is sum, I don’t know if the system is broken as much as people don’t realize there is a supply constraint even as demand increases. That means the “price” - in this case, the acceptance hurdle - must go higher, which means a lower acceptance rate.

Right. Which means that checking all the boxes for Harvard are necessary, but not sufficient, for admission.

I know someone who was accepted to Harvard. Yes, she got good grades and scores.But so did thousands of others She is also a professional ballerina. Really - who can compete with something like this? 😂

Yeah, that’s the kind of hook an UMC white kid needs. Or ROTC. I get why schools want URM, I’m not bashing that and I support it. But if you’re white and neither first gen nor a legacy, you need to be extra unique - like pro ballerina unique - or a recruitable athlete.

This is a funny post. You're upset that if you're white and not first gen, a recruited athlete or a legacy you need to have something else? You do realize that most legacies are white, as are most recruited athletes? You've listed multiple ways that white kids have an advantage but still imply that somehow URMs are the major issue. Thanks for the laugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am really sorry that so many kids are hurting right now because of the college rejections. It hurts, I know. Especially when your child has worked hard and seems to be well qualified for these schools by objective measures, like GPA and test scores. My DC is one of these kids, having just been rejected or WL from seven schools over the last two weeks (and rejected ED in December).

The fact is, many schools are simply flooded with applications from well qualified students and cannot accept them all. So they make tough decisions and make decisions based on very quick reviews of applications, many of which are basically indistinguishable from one another. In some cases, they may look "unfair" because we see other kids in our orbit getting into the same school that our kid gets rejected from and we can't imagine what that kid had that ours didn't.

So, to make ourselves and our kids feel better, there is so much blaming--blaming other "lesser" URM kids, "lesser" public schools with grade inflation, "yield protection", etc.....and it is not fair to the kids who did get in. And, to be honest, it's not good for our own kids--it only feeds grievances. Let's teach them graciousness and grit. It will serve everyone better.

So, to all the kids out there who were accepted to Rice, Hopkins, Wash U, Rice, Northeastern, CMU, Northwestern: Congratulations to you! You deserve it! You are worthy of that acceptance. You earned it.

Thank you! However, I do worry that the increase application maybe giving the admission officers reasons to be less holistic and more by the stats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really sorry that so many kids are hurting right now because of the college rejections. It hurts, I know. Especially when your child has worked hard and seems to be well qualified for these schools by objective measures, like GPA and test scores. My DC is one of these kids, having just been rejected or WL from seven schools over the last two weeks (and rejected ED in December).

The fact is, many schools are simply flooded with applications from well qualified students and cannot accept them all. So they make tough decisions and make decisions based on very quick reviews of applications, many of which are basically indistinguishable from one another. In some cases, they may look "unfair" because we see other kids in our orbit getting into the same school that our kid gets rejected from and we can't imagine what that kid had that ours didn't.

So, to make ourselves and our kids feel better, there is so much blaming--blaming other "lesser" URM kids, "lesser" public schools with grade inflation, "yield protection", etc.....and it is not fair to the kids who did get in. And, to be honest, it's not good for our own kids--it only feeds grievances. Let's teach them graciousness and grit. It will serve everyone better.

So, to all the kids out there who were accepted to Rice, Hopkins, Wash U, Rice, Northeastern, CMU, Northwestern: Congratulations to you! You deserve it! You are worthy of that acceptance. You earned it.

No need for condescension OP. No one is blaming kids who got into these schools. The system for applying to schools is corrupted. Bottom line. Anyone who disputes that is not playing with a full deck.

Um...if you spend 5 minutes reading some on DCUM you will see TONS of people blaming URMs, yield protection, and urban public schools--all of the things that OP mentions.

You didn’t read the post. The system is broken. No one is blaming URM kids. The. SYSTEM. IS. CORRUPTED. DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND? URM kids are not to blame. The system is to blame. The posts are an indictment of the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really sorry that so many kids are hurting right now because of the college rejections. It hurts, I know. Especially when your child has worked hard and seems to be well qualified for these schools by objective measures, like GPA and test scores. My DC is one of these kids, having just been rejected or WL from seven schools over the last two weeks (and rejected ED in December).

The fact is, many schools are simply flooded with applications from well qualified students and cannot accept them all. So they make tough decisions and make decisions based on very quick reviews of applications, many of which are basically indistinguishable from one another. In some cases, they may look "unfair" because we see other kids in our orbit getting into the same school that our kid gets rejected from and we can't imagine what that kid had that ours didn't.

So, to make ourselves and our kids feel better, there is so much blaming--blaming other "lesser" URM kids, "lesser" public schools with grade inflation, "yield protection", etc.....and it is not fair to the kids who did get in. And, to be honest, it's not good for our own kids--it only feeds grievances. Let's teach them graciousness and grit. It will serve everyone better.

So, to all the kids out there who were accepted to Rice, Hopkins, Wash U, Rice, Northeastern, CMU, Northwestern: Congratulations to you! You deserve it! You are worthy of that acceptance. You earned it.

No need for condescension OP. No one is blaming kids who got into these schools. The system for applying to schools is corrupted. Bottom line. Anyone who disputes that is not playing with a full deck.

Um...if you spend 5 minutes reading some on DCUM you will see TONS of people blaming URMs, yield protection, and urban public schools--all of the things that OP mentions.

You didn’t read the post. The system is broken. No one is blaming URM kids. The. SYSTEM. IS. CORRUPTED. DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND? URM kids are not to blame. The system is to blame. The posts are an indictment of the system.

Huh? There is thread after thread saying “less qualified” URMs are getting in and it’s discrimination. You must be new to DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really sorry that so many kids are hurting right now because of the college rejections. It hurts, I know. Especially when your child has worked hard and seems to be well qualified for these schools by objective measures, like GPA and test scores. My DC is one of these kids, having just been rejected or WL from seven schools over the last two weeks (and rejected ED in December).

The fact is, many schools are simply flooded with applications from well qualified students and cannot accept them all. So they make tough decisions and make decisions based on very quick reviews of applications, many of which are basically indistinguishable from one another. In some cases, they may look "unfair" because we see other kids in our orbit getting into the same school that our kid gets rejected from and we can't imagine what that kid had that ours didn't.

So, to make ourselves and our kids feel better, there is so much blaming--blaming other "lesser" URM kids, "lesser" public schools with grade inflation, "yield protection", etc.....and it is not fair to the kids who did get in. And, to be honest, it's not good for our own kids--it only feeds grievances. Let's teach them graciousness and grit. It will serve everyone better.

So, to all the kids out there who were accepted to Rice, Hopkins, Wash U, Rice, Northeastern, CMU, Northwestern: Congratulations to you! You deserve it! You are worthy of that acceptance. You earned it.

No need for condescension OP. No one is blaming kids who got into these schools. The system for applying to schools is corrupted. Bottom line. Anyone who disputes that is not playing with a full deck.

Um...if you spend 5 minutes reading some on DCUM you will see TONS of people blaming URMs, yield protection, and urban public schools--all of the things that OP mentions.

You didn’t read the post. The system is broken. No one is blaming URM kids. The. SYSTEM. IS. CORRUPTED. DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND? URM kids are not to blame. The system is to blame. The posts are an indictment of the system.

Huh? There is thread after thread saying “less qualified” URMs are getting in and it’s discrimination. You must be new to DCUM.

I think most people are more concerned with the UMC white parents who spend $$$ and pull every string possible to beef their kids resume as opposed to let them standing on their own. If the only way your kid can be impressive is through tutors, test prep, essay consultants, and EC that cost $$$, I thrilled to here colleges can see through that. Because you 100 hours from an $8k “white savior” trip or volunteering for an exclusive sports club in McLean, I am cool if admissions see through that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process may be broken, but we also must understand that capacity at the best schools has not kept pace with the increase in applications. Moreover, there are just more qualified kids. In the past, not everyone was aware of how to play the game at elite schools, but now more people test prep, develop hooks, and are aware of needs-blind admissions. Also, there are so many more opportunities for poor and/or minority kids to attend elite colleges, like Questbridge. Is sum, I don’t know if the system is broken as much as people don’t realize there is a supply constraint even as demand increases. That means the “price” - in this case, the acceptance hurdle - must go higher, which means a lower acceptance rate.

Right. Which means that checking all the boxes for Harvard are necessary, but not sufficient, for admission.

I know someone who was accepted to Harvard. Yes, she got good grades and scores.But so did thousands of others She is also a professional ballerina. Really - who can compete with something like this? 😂

Yeah, that’s the kind of hook an UMC white kid needs. Or ROTC. I get why schools want URM, I’m not bashing that and I support it. But if you’re white and neither first gen nor a legacy, you need to be extra unique - like pro ballerina unique - or a recruitable athlete.

This is a funny post. You're upset that if you're white and not first gen, a recruited athlete or a legacy you need to have something else? You do realize that most legacies are white, as are most recruited athletes? You've listed multiple ways that white kids have an advantage but still imply that somehow URMs are the major issue. Thanks for the laugh.

So many white kids check the Hispanic box so they clearly think they need that advantage- even the ones who are legacies. This goes on all over NY and FL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process may be broken, but we also must understand that capacity at the best schools has not kept pace with the increase in applications. Moreover, there are just more qualified kids. In the past, not everyone was aware of how to play the game at elite schools, but now more people test prep, develop hooks, and are aware of needs-blind admissions. Also, there are so many more opportunities for poor and/or minority kids to attend elite colleges, like Questbridge. Is sum, I don’t know if the system is broken as much as people don’t realize there is a supply constraint even as demand increases. That means the “price” - in this case, the acceptance hurdle - must go higher, which means a lower acceptance rate.

Right. Which means that checking all the boxes for Harvard are necessary, but not sufficient, for admission.

I know someone who was accepted to Harvard. Yes, she got good grades and scores.But so did thousands of others She is also a professional ballerina. Really - who can compete with something like this? 😂

Yeah, that’s the kind of hook an UMC white kid needs. Or ROTC. I get why schools want URM, I’m not bashing that and I support it. But if you’re white and neither first gen nor a legacy, you need to be extra unique - like pro ballerina unique - or a recruitable athlete.

This is a funny post. You're upset that if you're white and not first gen, a recruited athlete or a legacy you need to have something else? You do realize that most legacies are white, as are most recruited athletes? You've listed multiple ways that white kids have an advantage but still imply that somehow URMs are the major issue. Thanks for the laugh.

But you see, their precious princess or OMG Eagle Scout(!!) who even had a SUMMER JOB (wow!) didn’t have the hooks of legacy or jock and was rejected, so therefore to them, the system is “broken.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really sorry that so many kids are hurting right now because of the college rejections. It hurts, I know. Especially when your child has worked hard and seems to be well qualified for these schools by objective measures, like GPA and test scores. My DC is one of these kids, having just been rejected or WL from seven schools over the last two weeks (and rejected ED in December).

The fact is, many schools are simply flooded with applications from well qualified students and cannot accept them all. So they make tough decisions and make decisions based on very quick reviews of applications, many of which are basically indistinguishable from one another. In some cases, they may look "unfair" because we see other kids in our orbit getting into the same school that our kid gets rejected from and we can't imagine what that kid had that ours didn't.

So, to make ourselves and our kids feel better, there is so much blaming--blaming other "lesser" URM kids, "lesser" public schools with grade inflation, "yield protection", etc.....and it is not fair to the kids who did get in. And, to be honest, it's not good for our own kids--it only feeds grievances. Let's teach them graciousness and grit. It will serve everyone better.

So, to all the kids out there who were accepted to Rice, Hopkins, Wash U, Rice, Northeastern, CMU, Northwestern: Congratulations to you! You deserve it! You are worthy of that acceptance. You earned it.

No need for condescension OP. No one is blaming kids who got into these schools. The system for applying to schools is corrupted. Bottom line. Anyone who disputes that is not playing with a full deck.

Um...if you spend 5 minutes reading some on DCUM you will see TONS of people blaming URMs, yield protection, and urban public schools--all of the things that OP mentions.

You didn’t read the post. The system is broken. No one is blaming URM kids. The. SYSTEM. IS. CORRUPTED. DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND? URM kids are not to blame. The system is to blame. The posts are an indictment of the system.

The systems for applying to schools… you mean the one where you apply wherever you want and the colleges pick whoever they want?

Why is that “broken”?

I can understand not liking it depending on the variables and outcomes, but “broken”? That implies it was once “working: and better. When was that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents and students here aren’t blaming “others”. They are blaming a broken system

They are, in fact, blaming “others.” Complaining about a “broken system” communicates resentment for those who WERE admitted and a subtext that they are less deserving.

The system ain’t broke. If a kid has been rejected by a dozen schools, the kid is the common denominator. There is something about the kid and the kid’s (lack of) qualifications that schools are picking up on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think grade and SAT inflation is also really hurting parent and student expectations. Back in the 90s only 1-2 kids at my high school had a 4.0 GPA. There were no weighted classes so no GPAs above a 4.0 at all. I got into Carnegie Mellon with a 3.75 GPA, which was very near the top of the class for my high school; the top student ended up at Harvard.

Now students who would have been B students in the 90s have 4.3 GPA, leading both them and their parents not to realize that a top GPA is now a 4.9 or some other nonsense. It's the same with SAT scores. A 1400 used to be really good. Now it seems anything under a 1550 is mediocre. All of the good students are bunched at the top, leading to a lack of separation amongst top students and more of a lotto feeling as to who gets in. The grading scale is fundamentally broken.

It's not broken, it's intentional. And it should be considered fraud. The school brass and teachers keep gullible parents dumb and happy (and quiet) with fake As and the College Board gets suckers hooked to their fake inflated tests.

I see so many parents bragging about their kid's "all A's" and you can just tell by the course list and the kid's orbit they are an average layabout. The parents who brag about the A's never brag about official AP scores or SAT score.

Because those tests are not as predictive as grades are.

And we know you hate public schools.