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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you're a white gentile you can do everything right and your kid will still have basically no shot at the elites. Just be happy with UVA.[/quote]

Honestly - this is the truth.  My daughter is at a top 5 private and the only kids that get into the top schools are legacy white kids paying full tuition or minorities, especially if their parents hadn't gone to a 4 year college.  Admissions swoon over them to the point that they shut others out.  It is an almost guarantee you will get in. This is no different than public schools like Richard Montgomery too.  Dark skin + uneducated parents + decent scores = Top 20 schools.  If you are an immigrant?  Even more so. Illegal immigrant? They will pay a full ride to educated a person who broke a federal law and can not even legally work here.   It is sad when the top 5% of the class is shut out of some schools and then a few AA with just okay grades/scores get into Yale, Cornell, Columbia. This happens every year at my daughter's school.   We are just starting the process and my daughter is already well aware she is looking further down the line.  She didn't really want ivy anyway.   She has great but not the best grades, Probably around top 10%.  3 season athlete with only one she truly excels and could possibly play D3.  but she does a ton of leadership activities in and outside the school that make her happy.  Going to college open houses it is becoming more apparent that schools are focused on immigrants and international students.  Some colleges were as high as 28% international students.  So the competition is fierce.  She is just looking at schools that fit her lifestyle and majors she wants and is surprisingly picking schools that tend to be easier to get into.  She likes the students and the scene there more.

My advice?  Let your kid be themselves.  Their true selves.  Overworking them for perfection will make them miserable and I guarantee you will be upset with the college outcome like 99% of parents are that are expecting too much.  There are so many great schools out there and there is so much less pressure at schools that aren't highly ranked.  I can't find the article but they interviewed kids that were initially embarrassed about the colleges they did not get into 2 year later and where they were.  It was so redeeming.  One part was about a child from Phillip Exeter getting shut out of all her top picks and only getting into one school (out of 5 easy back-ups.)   She was mortified and sad.  But once she got to the college, she realized there was less pressure than boarding school.  She started a great new club, created new curriculum with a professor, and received top notch internships and getting straight A's while having a healthy lifestyle.  She said there were friends of her leaving other schools, one went home after a breakdown, and others trying to win the race to nowhere with thousands of other kids just like them. So she was happy where she was and said the past is in the past.   I don't want the race to nowhere for my child.  I loved hearing these stories.  There is always grad school and I think older more mature kids can handle the aspects of ivy/top grad schools more than 18 year olds.  A bachelors just isn't what it used to be. [/quote]

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