Reply to Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I am reaching out for genuine, sincerely needed advice. My husband and I were both educated abroad and are dealing with the college application process in the US for the first time. I apologize in advance for the length--my blood is boiling right now.

We are a working class family (in the true, sociological sense) who send our DC to a "big 3" school in the district, receiving a significant amount of financial aid. Our child is the first in our family to attend a highly-ranked private school and it is relatively well known among faculty and staff that our child is a scholarship student. We live in the suburbs, far away from the school campus and social bubble, limiting how much my husband and I can contribute to the school and belong to the general community. In sum, our DC is a student yet we (parents) are outsiders. Although fellow parents have been nothing but kind to us, it is clear to us [and has been made clear by others] that we do not fit the "typical" profile of this school.

We are currently in the process of short-listing what colleges to apply to yet it seems that the college counselor at DC's school is being extremely conservative if not plainly discouraging in commandeering the college application process and dictating what schools my DC should and should not apply to. After a recent conversation, my concern is that the college counselor is not acting in DC's best interest, but rather, is strategically manipulating the college application process at DC's school to favor legacy students and high-profile parents who operate under the implicit assumption that little Timmy or Bobby will, like his parents and grandparents, go to a school like Yale.

Paranoia or not?

Our child has a highly competitive GPA with an upward trend and is among the top 5-10 students in the school's class (school does not give precise rankings). DC has an SAT score of +/-2200 which is likely to increase, has participated in varsity athletics for all four years of high school, has excellent recommendations and has pursued various research opportunities. That being said, DC does not have a particularly unique narrative or "story" and, without knowing our family background and circumstances, would just appear like a regular, privileged independent school child on paper. It doesn't help that DC is shy.

The college adviser has marked schools like Princeton, Williams and Stanford as "highly unlikely reaches" and has pushed DC to apply to lesser-ranked private colleges (think no. 15-25 USNWR and smaller LACs) and strongly pressured DC to pursue a binding early decision scholarship at a state school (not UMD but not Berkeley or UVA either). I am not clueless and understand that college admissions are incredibly competitive today. Indeed, even students with perfect SATs and NIH-funded research projects are often denied admission. Yet, I cannot help but wonder if I should be more assertive with the college counselor and ask what [b]specific [/b]criteria has been used to steer students towards so-called "match" or "fit" schools?

[b]My query and concern is the following: knowing the profile of parents who send their kids to DC's school, is it possible that the college counselor may be working overtime advocating for some students and not others? [/b]A fellow parent has told me that typically, Ivies and other highly-ranked schools only accept 2-3 students (max) per DC independent school. Is it possible that my son is being steered away from HYPSM and other top schools [b]where DC meets, if not even exceeds the median criteria for admission [/b]in order to ensure that full-paying students who have a history with the school are more likely to be admitted?

I understand how social reproduction works; I knew what we were getting into when my DC began attending this school yet I worry that DC has become objectified due to his [comparative] lack of cultural and symbolic capital. That being said, I can also play devil's advocate. To be honest, if I were a parent paying full tuition for K-12 at this school, I would expect to yield a return on my investment in my child's education. If you had two Yale or Columbia-educated law partners sending their kid to a Big-3, where do you think they would be gunning for their kids to go to?

All being said and done, what can I do? Aside from the logistics of actually applying to colleges--at the end of the day, we can apply wherever we want, regardless of what the school tells us--[b]my deepest concern is that DC's college counselor has made DC feel unfit or inadequate, implying that he is not academically competent or will simply not "fit in" at a traditional HYPSM type school.[/b] This has had a significant impact on DC's sense of self-worth, only confirming DC's sense of alienation, and reinforcing the "I don't belong here" mindset that his school has bred.

Finally, to be explicitly clear: I understand that one can get a rigorous education at many schools. At the end of the day, DC is very industrious and will make do with what he has. [b]I am not pressuring DC to attend a HYPSM school.[/b] Rather, it is always DC who has been very-self motivated and forward-looking. The idea to apply to Big-3 schools (which I had no idea about) was entirely his own. When DC entered this school, I worried that the level of material influence would impact his ability to fit in. I thought we had gotten over that, but it seems that even within a supposed "meritocracy" this is not the case. Excuse me for going on ad nauseam. I'm a mother. I can't help but worry about my child.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics