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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why is it such a crime to want your child to get into a top school? Obviously “top” can mean different things, but whether it’s HYPSM or Ivies or even T50s, it shouldn’t be a horrible thing for parents to want their children to meet certain academic standards. It’s annoyed when people are attacked for wanting their kids to get a good education.

My hypothesis is that the people criticizing these parents are the parents of children who aren’t high-achieving enough to get into good schools. Otherwise, why does it matter to them so much?

Thoughts?[/quote]

Some just want their kids to get into the top school that’s appropriate for their ability.  Parents who understand this are happier and less stressed.  [/quote]

Agree. Those who understand their kids’ individual abilities relative to the population and relative to their own school system will want the kid to end up at a school that challenges them yet also a place they can thrive. They will encourage them to do their best yet not push them to aim for T20s if they are out of reach. For parents who are just becoming aware how deep the “competition” is, it can be tempting to try to make your kid fit what you think AOs want, hence endless test prep and “packaging” and pushing them into non-genuine ECs. This strategy rarely works. Parents would better serve their kids if they took time to look at the data and understand that 75-80% of the students at UVA now are on a similar percentile level to what the top25% when they went to uva (from in state) the 90s. The parents who were an average UVA in state admit frequently were in the top 20% of their public school and hd some clubs and did regular stuff. Now it is very rare for UVA to admit outside the top10% from in-state public schools. UVA is much more popular for OOS , AND the VA high school population applying to college has grown astronomically. The same principle applies to the majority of the top20. Schools, even t10s, were more regional, and/or had a significant preference for feeders(ivies). There have always been side doors and hooks but for the unhooked kid, you used to mainly be competing against your region’s best. The top1% in your region had a much easier time standing out, as many less applied, and there were significant numbers of pell grant poor students who were diamonds in the rough so to speak but never applied anywhere outside of their local community college or directional state. The top 1% in a region, who used to waltz in to the top 10 popular to their region, now competes with top1% from all over the US and world. The top 5-10%ile kid who used to make up the AVERAGE /median student at almost every top 10, now cannot get in without a hook because the unhooked spots mostly get filled with 99th%ile kids.

Parents who understand all this and where their kid really stands only encourage top20 if the kid really is a top 1% kid on their own, needs that level of challenge in the peer set, academically, and can handle it emotionally. I have never met a parent who understood where their kid was who pushed them to be something they were not. It’s always the ones who are clueless or trying to relive their own college experience [/quote]

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