Reply to Do you know a kid who was screwed in the college process in last few years?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't think any kids get "screwed" in the college application process. What a peculiar way of looking at things.[/quote]

If you are the #1 kid in your school, aiming for T10/T20, and you end up at the flagship or worse ([i]and not for financial reasons[/i]), then yeah, I think you were screwed since kids ranked FAR below you got into the schools you were aiming for? 
Maybe it was your application? Your major? Your story?[/quote]

I think you should consider that your idea of "#1 kid" (which honestly is kind of a ridiculous thing to even say about any kid in any school) is different than what a college may be looking for - the whole point of holistic admissions is that schools aren't looking for the combination of highest GPA and highest SAT/ACT score - many many kids have that, and the difference between the highest GPA and the kid with the 20th highest GPA in any given school is minute. Nobody cares about those gradations any more than they care about a 1600 SAT vs a 1560. Parents care and they make their kids crazy over such things. Colleges - highly selective or otherwise - are also looking for kids who will be valuable community members. When I think of kids who got "screwed over," it is not the 4.0 who didn't get into HYP (the vast vast majority of kids do not get into those schools - and from our HS at least, with Harvard and Yale specifically, the average GPA getting into those schools is lower than the average GPA going to, for example, Cornell Engineering or Williams. The kids who are "screwed over" are the ones without access to excellent educations, resources, college counseling - the ones who are FGLI who do not have parents who can help them navigate the process. Do a small number of those kids get lucky because they have a helpful mentor, test into a magnet school, or had a college recruiter find them? Sure, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. In my experience, the people who seem most concerned about kids who get "screwed over" tend to be speaking from a place of privilege and entitlement.[/quote]

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