High-stat kids w/o great college options

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every kid is high stats now thanks to the gat dang coronavirus. Teachers have dialed back expectations, handing out A's like they're frigg'n candy to any kid who can figure out how to get his gat dang zoom connection to work. And with every frigg'n college going test optional (or worse, test blind, meaning they won't even consider SAT/ACT scores if you submit them) it's tougher for the legit superstars to set themselves apart. This whole situation sux knutts for the kids who can crush standardized tests and make straight A's not just because their teachers feel guilty saddling them with a B during a pandemic.

This post is a baseless and pointless rant.

+ 1.
DP here. My kid is a "legit superstar" and he is fully aware that colleges will be easily able to differentiate between all kinds of students even with being test optional and easy As. No worries.

Agree with this. If a kid is a superstar, the rest of the application will show this. It's those elements, not the SAT and GPA that show a kid is above and beyond other applicants.

This makes no sense. The SAT/ACT and GPA have always been huge factors in who gets admitted and who doesn't. Look at the common data set for any elite college or university. A kid may have an out-of-this-world "rest of the application," but he ain't getting in with a 26 on the ACT when the middle 50% range is 32-35. Same for a kid with a 3.27 GPA when 80% of accepted students are at a 3.75 or higher. Or at least that kid wasn't getting in before Fall 2020. Now, thanks to the gat dang coronavirus, his GPA is probably half a point higher from grade inflation, and he no longer has to submit his unimpressive ACT score. Now, by making up a bunch of crap about leadership positions he's held, and maybe writing a Leaders of the New School level Sobb Story about how much his family has suffered because of covid, that thoroughly mediocre kid might have a chance — and might end up taking a spot from a kid who deserves it way more but no longer has a way to show it. That's the rub.

I've seen a few URMs get into top schools with a 26, most recently Notre Dame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read from College Confidential that some kids with 1600 SAT and GPA 4.0 could only get into their flagship public schools. Not sure if every of these people are real. Nor do I think the flagships are necessarily bad. But from what I know about MCPS magnet programs that many kids with high stats only get into public schools.


You can say the public schools are the perfect fit for these students. Which implicitly implies that the good private schools are not good fit for them, even though many of them long to attend these schools.

Definitely not true, unless they applied only to state u and HYP.

As a parent of some MCPS magnet program kids, I will say that about 50% go to the University of Maryland. For my kids, they were looking at top 25 national universities or were planning on going to UMD (and they picked one more state school as a safety). They did ED where it mattered, and ended up getting into one. Many of their peers will waste that ED shot on Princeton, Yale or Stanford, and may indeed be looking at going to UMD because they didn't get in anywhere else. But it's not because they couldn't get in elsewhere, it's because for computer science or math, for example, it just doesn't make sense to go elsewhere for the money and quality. Therefore, they didn't apply, for example, to Villanova, or Loyola, or a myriad of other places they could have gotten in. They have a very skewed list of applications (for the most part, particular needs and interests not withstanding). A certain percentage strategize incorrectly, a large percentage are going to UMD because of quality and affordability, but I would say a very small minority are actually shut out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me that a major problem stems from parental pressure and the mindset that there are only a handful of schools that are worth attending. Parental cravings for prestige, affirmation (I’m a good parent because my kid goes to HYP..), or a desire to live vicariously through their kids, are creating a pressure cooker environment for high schoolers and churning a generation of kids who are having serious problems with separation and individuate on—the critical process for becoming a happy, healthy, functioning adult. I see threads where parents are talking about their kid’s academic interests where all the replies are portents of doom. Make them study engineering! Computer science! Something STEM. Otherwise they are doomed for failure. Anyone ever stop to think that maybe the kid has neither aptitude for nor interest in those areas? Give me a break. Let the kid explore, learn and grow. You don’t have to pick your career at 16. There is no preschool to Harvard pipeline.
There are an estimated 3.7 million teens slated to graduate from high school in 2021. Even if 40% of those kids do not head off directly to college, that’s still over 2 million kids vying for slots in the college admissions cycle. Parents have convinced themselves that there are only 20 schools worth going to—and I think I’m being generous there. And there are maybe 10 more that parents feel like are okay enough in a pinch. So you’ve got at least a million kids vying for admission at 30 schools. If your kid doesn’t get in to Harvard it isn’t because of scores or hooks or those URMs stealing their birthright—it’s because of STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY. There simply isn’t enough room for everyone.
The dirty secret of college admissions is that it is essentially a lottery. Or like a craps table. You buy your ticket or place your bet and hope you win.
Please remember that there are more than 3000 4 year colleges in the US. Do your kids, yourself and your wallets a favor. Look at some of the well known and excellent schools that are not in the US News top 30 ranking. Stop giving money to these schools that bombard you with glossy adverts and just want your (and 200-300 thousand other poor suckers) $80. You kid can get a good education at a school where they fit in, where they are a valued member of the community and where they can feel free to learn and explore

+1000!! Very well said!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me that a major problem stems from parental pressure and the mindset that there are only a handful of schools that are worth attending. Parental cravings for prestige, affirmation (I’m a good parent because my kid goes to HYP..), or a desire to live vicariously through their kids, are creating a pressure cooker environment for high schoolers and churning a generation of kids who are having serious problems with separation and individuate on—the critical process for becoming a happy, healthy, functioning adult. I see threads where parents are talking about their kid’s academic interests where all the replies are portents of doom. Make them study engineering! Computer science! Something STEM. Otherwise they are doomed for failure. Anyone ever stop to think that maybe the kid has neither aptitude for nor interest in those areas? Give me a break. Let the kid explore, learn and grow. You don’t have to pick your career at 16. There is no preschool to Harvard pipeline.
There are an estimated 3.7 million teens slated to graduate from high school in 2021. Even if 40% of those kids do not head off directly to college, that’s still over 2 million kids vying for slots in the college admissions cycle. Parents have convinced themselves that there are only 20 schools worth going to—and I think I’m being generous there. And there are maybe 10 more that parents feel like are okay enough in a pinch. So you’ve got at least a million kids vying for admission at 30 schools. If your kid doesn’t get in to Harvard it isn’t because of scores or hooks or those URMs stealing their birthright—it’s because of STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY. There simply isn’t enough room for everyone.
The dirty secret of college admissions is that it is essentially a lottery. Or like a craps table. You buy your ticket or place your bet and hope you win.
Please remember that there are more than 3000 4 year colleges in the US. Do your kids, yourself and your wallets a favor. Look at some of the well known and excellent schools that are not in the US News top 30 ranking. Stop giving money to these schools that bombard you with glossy adverts and just want your (and 200-300 thousand other poor suckers) $80. You kid can get a good education at a school where they fit in, where they are a valued member of the community and where they can feel free to learn and explore

Sure, tell that to the fortune 500, wall street, and silicon valley companies whose hiring mgrs have the same mindset as the parents you're criticizing. It's not all parental affirmation, sometimes it's a means to an entry level end at the firms with the most resources to give the kid a shot at a financially independent life. Some parents have real-life experience with this.

[Anonymous]

Sure, tell that to the fortune 500, wall street, and silicon valley companies whose hiring mgrs have the same mindset as the parents you're criticizing. It's not all parental affirmation, sometimes it's a means to an entry level end at the firms with the most resources to give the kid a shot at a financially independent life. Some parents have real-life experience with this.



That simply is not true. There are lots of folks getting hired in the F500 companies, WS and Silicon Valley who come from plain old colleges. Stories about snobby hiring managers are great click-bait or anecdata for cocktail parties but they are not anywhere near representative of what is happening in the real world. My kid chose to attend a school many DCUM parents would be ashamed of. And they are having an incredible academic experience, getting lots of support from faculty and school resources. That particular school has a very robust placement rate on Wall Street and in other segments of the finance industry. The school also has pipelines (through faculty resources and alums) to broadcast and print journalism and several other fields. I am sorry that it didn't work out for your kid or for the kid in your anecdote. But nowhere does it say on any diploma that you are guaranteed anything at the end. Things don't always work out the way we want, that's a fact. But rather than nurse grudges or blame others one must retrench and regroup. Spreading misinformation and fear doesn't help