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

[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.

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.

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.

[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.

This is very true. Those in the rat race don't see it, and don't want to. But whether we "win or lose" in this rat race towards status and prestige, our kids lose.

[Anonymous]

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.

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.

For U of T, you can avoid writing essays entirely by not applying to the only three residential colleges inside U of T that require a profile (i.e., essays) - Vic, St. Mike's and Trinity. Apply to any of the others - University, Wordsworth, Innis, etc. - and you don't need to write anything! At least you don't for anything in sciences, social sciences or humanities. You may need to do some extra hoops for CS/engineering/business.

[Anonymous]

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.

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.

This is very true. Those in the rat race don't see it, and don't want to. But whether we "win or lose" in this rat race towards status and prestige, our kids lose.

Well... maybe your kid lost.

[Anonymous]

The worst of those parents will end up with adult children who will no longer be speaking to them, adult children who will go no contact after years of high expectations that were forced on them by parents who never saw them as people but only as performance monkeys. They should be careful what they wish for.

[Anonymous]

They should be careful what they wish for.

Meaning, those parents. High expectations come with high emotional costs.

[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.

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.

For U of T, you can avoid writing essays entirely by not applying to the only three residential colleges inside U of T that require a profile (i.e., essays) - Vic, St. Mike's and Trinity. Apply to any of the others - University, Wordsworth, Innis, etc. - and you don't need to write anything! At least you don't for anything in sciences, social sciences or humanities. You may need to do some extra hoops for CS/engineering/business.

My kid did apply for STEM...just applying to the University (again, not any of the residential colleges) required essays, LORs, etc. The Residential colleges would have meant more essays.

[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.

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.

The schools are very transparent in what they look for. The size of the pool makes things seem opaque because they are forced to choose from a huge number of qualified candidates. But, it is pretty clear than nothing short of a single test would qualify as transparent in your view.

Companies absolutely hire using 'holistic reviews'. Smart ones do anyway. I can state for a fact that most of the candidates for the FAANGs don't fail on the technical side but rather something else comes up short. I've conducted literally hundreds of interviews at three of them over my career and know exactly how they work.

I agree that less emphasis should be placed on foreign students. They are private schools so I accept it but I do not agree with it.

[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.

And difference between T10 and T11 ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

And difference between T10 and T11 ?

It’s harder to reach consensus on who falls outside the top 10, while most people generally agree on who’s in the top 10. That's the difference (for bragging)

[Anonymous]

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.

This is total BS. The education at let’s say the top 10 schools is similar to the education at the 11-100 schools. These connections everyone is talking about are a myth. I’d agree that perhaps services at the top 10 are better but at those price tags and endowments, they better be. Otherwise, what are Yale and Harvard doing with their billions?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is it teaching our kids? About "merit", hard work, financial inequality, value? Parents I know are gnashing their teeth over the blatant games played by colleges who seemingly hold all the power. But can't we vote with our feet? Select colleges outside the US system that are more fair (Canada, UK, Ireland, Scotland, etc.) or pick honors colleges in less competitive US colleges that will provide our kids with scholarships and better opportunities. Our public state schools (at least mine) has good intentions but feels broken as well.

What is it all for?

The parents telling me you need to "prune your child since middle school for a cohesive college narrative" and hire consultants to make you marketable, make me feel so sad and hopeless.

You do not have to join that "rat race". For our kid who was "qualified", we helped them find a great list of realistic Reaches, Targets and true safeties. Then we made sure they knew their chances at the reaches were small because the acceptance rates were single digits (and maybe 10-15% for ED once you remove the athletes, etc). They got into all of their reaches and targets. Got Deferred from their ED1 (and ultimately rejected---T10 school), WL at a T30, in at NEU with first year abroad, and WL at another reach. Everything else they got into with good merit. So they had 6+ excellent choices and are doing very well at their ultimate choice

Our kid chose to pursue their one main EC that they love and we didn't force them to fill their days in HS with random stuff they didn't want to do. We also let them as a STEM major choose in HS to not waste time with APUSH or AP Eng, as those while they could have done well and gotten an A/A-, would have consumed a ton of time each week. Instead they chose to spend 15-20+ hours on their EC and loved every minute of it. And took 7 STEM APs instead and AP Psych.
And you know what, the top 2 schools they ended up choosing, well heck neither would allow you to use AP credit to place out of your "core curriculum". That literally would have been the only reason my kid would have taken APUSH/AP Eng--to get the college credit.
So in the end, they ended up at a T40 (chose between a T40, T50 and a safety in the 60s) and got the HS experience they wanted academically

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a horrible 5 percenter obsession. Most parents don't have the luxury of this.
I would love to sign up as an alumni interviewer for my school and ask kids if they used a college coach or consultant and if so why did their parents think they weren't strong enough on their own.

But your assumption is incorrect. That’s not why parents hire one. You are projecting assumptions onto other parents because you’ve made a decision not to hire one. Parents hire them for a number of reasons - the most sensible is to extricate the parent from the nagging role. Or, in my own case, it stems from the wisdom to know the field has become so complicated and competitive that even if I take two years to master the art of college applications and financial aid aid, I could not figure it all out. Which is why I hire experts to assist me like lawyers (I am one but know not to touch areas in which I do not know), doctors, CPAs, trusts and estates lawyers, etc. investing and paying for a college education is the second largest investment a couple will make after buying a home. Why wouldn’t you hire an expert? I did my research. I Found one by the hour whom my kids clicked with. It worked. Ivy, SLAC, Oxbridge, Yale law.

+1

We hired a college counselor for our T20 qualified kid to simplify the process. I could have managed it. But what the CC offered was intense knowledge about the schools to put on the application list. The school my kid ultimately chose and their top safety (T70 school) were not on my radar as it's on the other side of the country from us. So the CC helped my kid narrow down what they wanted out of college (size, major, ability to switch majors to just about anything except nursing without craziness, location (near a city, in a city, suburbs, rural, etc)) and find a list to go from there. Sure I could do it (and did for our two oldest), but it removed stress and helped our kid have the best list possible. They also help keep your kid on schedule (my really smart kid is a huge procrastinator), so it was not me nagging for 2-3 months of senior year. My kid had a schedule and had to keep it. It meant that by mid Nov, all applications were completed and submitted except a few RD that would go in if ED1 was not an acceptance. But those were 90%+ completed as well. So our Nov and Dec were almost stress free.

If you can afford it, why not.

Now our CC was $4-5K for the entire 4 years of HS (we only used from Feb of junior year onwards). So I'm not talking about the insanity of $20K+ for the process. Just a great person who helps with the process and helps guid your kid thru essays and college selections.

[Anonymous]

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.

What if that's where your kid wants to attend? If you can afford it, why not allow them to apply?

Our "qualified kid" had one T10 they wanted to ED1. It's my alma mater, so yeah I can see the appeal. They had another T20 and T30 to apply to as well. They were carefully selected schools that were a good fit for my kid. They didn't just randomly apply to 10+ T25 schools.
As it turns out they didn't get admission to any of those, but had they, they could have attended. Instead we are paying $90K+/year for a T40 that they are very happy at.

[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.

I disagree. There is little I can do as a chill parent of smart kids when I send them to Palo Alto high school or TJ other than not sending them aka not playing. I can’t change the game at these places.