What does "social capital to transition well" mean. Does it mean the kid is likely a person of privilege who was born into every conceivable monetary advantage (becasue her parents were born into upper middle class privilege) and who has gone to school with others like her?

Anonymous wrote:I think the OP was trying to make the point that a student that does not have a special hook would do better coming from a public school in a random place, (or if local perhaps DCPS), than a local prep school. The prep school kids without hooks go to a range of good non-Ivies, like a PP noted "Williams and Michigan" and the like.

I don't think she said anything about doing better coming from somewhere else - just that the Ivies she was observing were more the result of a hook than a result of the school.

Anonymous wrote:A "smart qualified Caucasian kid" is just one out of thousands with nearly perfect scores and grades and just isn't smart enough or different enough or special enough or lucky enough to pass through the Ivy admission process. He/she'll do fine in life going to Chicago or UVa or Duke or Carnegie Mellon. But please don't cry about the extra burden she/he carries for being a white, upper-middle-class, prep schooler.

First, keep in mind that a very large proportion of the students at the elite private schools are going to be legacy at an elite college. There's a reason why a number of the schools ask applicants where their parents and grandparents went to college. I am guess that there are more "hooked" students at the Big 3 than students who are not.

Second, no one is getting admitted to an Ivy/Stanford/MIT unless they are at the top of their class and took the most rigorous classes available at their school. The top few kids will get their first choice of schools. The top 10% of the class will end up at one of the Ivies but there is no guarantee of which one unless the family has a building named after them on campus. That leaves a large majority of the students at the selective privates with a very small shot at getting into an Ivy and more realistic chances at excellent SLACs and public Ivies like UVa.

If a kid is not among the best students at one of the Big 3, do you really think they would have been among the best students at a public high school? In DC would that kid beat out the Banneker student growing up Trinidad? How would a Cleveland Park kid show greater drive and purpose and mission? There may only be 2 or 3 Ivy admits at a typical suburban DC high school (non-magnet). Those kids tend to stand out for lots of reasons, both academic and non-academic. They are captain of their sports team (though not good enough to be recruited), class president, and aced every AP the school offered. I would be surprised if many of the middle-of-the-pack Big 3 students had much in their application packages that demonstrated as much drive and leadership.

An average student at a Big 3 school will have a huge advantage over the average student at a suburban high school, however. Average public schools students go to 2nd tier public universities while average Big 3 students go to smaller, highly selective colleges. The really good liberal arts schools know that an average Big 3 student is going to be really well prepared for college and has the social capital to transition well and the financial resources to pay full freight.

I agree with most of your post except about Carnegie Mellon. At Carnegie Mellon, you apply to each individual school. the School of computer science received 6000 applications for 360 spots. That is a 6% acceptance rate. 15% of those acceptances were international students. The only harder school at Carnegie Mellon to get into was the school of drama with a 4.9% accepetance rate.

Complete BS, in both my DD's recent graduating classes at big 3s, the majority of admits to HYPS had no hooks: i.e. they were not athletic recruits, were not legacies, and were not URMs. Yes, the process is pretty arbitrary and random once get down to probably the top 25-30% of applicants without hooks, with cases of legacies not getting into the school where they had this supposed hook, but getting into a different HYPS school, and other seemingly strange results, but comes down to how the overall application resonates with the readers on the admissions committee on the day a student is discussed.

A "smart qualified Caucasian kid" is just one out of thousands with nearly perfect scores and grades and just isn't smart enough or different enough or special enough or lucky enough to pass through the Ivy admission process. He/she'll do fine in life going to Chicago or UVa or Duke or Carnegie Mellon. But please don't cry about the extra burden she/he carries for being a white, upper-middle-class, prep schooler.

First, keep in mind that a very large proportion of the students at the elite private schools are going to be legacy at an elite college. There's a reason why a number of the schools ask applicants where their parents and grandparents went to college. I am guess that there are more "hooked" students at the Big 3 than students who are not.

Second, no one is getting admitted to an Ivy/Stanford/MIT unless they are at the top of their class and took the most rigorous classes available at their school. The top few kids will get their first choice of schools. The top 10% of the class will end up at one of the Ivies but there is no guarantee of which one unless the family has a building named after them on campus. That leaves a large majority of the students at the selective privates with a very small shot at getting into an Ivy and more realistic chances at excellent SLACs and public Ivies like UVa.

If a kid is not among the best students at one of the Big 3, do you really think they would have been among the best students at a public high school? In DC would that kid beat out the Banneker student growing up Trinidad? How would a Cleveland Park kid show greater drive and purpose and mission? There may only be 2 or 3 Ivy admits at a typical suburban DC high school (non-magnet). Those kids tend to stand out for lots of reasons, both academic and non-academic. They are captain of their sports team (though not good enough to be recruited), class president, and aced every AP the school offered. I would be surprised if many of the middle-of-the-pack Big 3 students had much in their application packages that demonstrated as much drive and leadership.

An average student at a Big 3 school will have a huge advantage over the average student at a suburban high school, however. Average public schools students go to 2nd tier public universities while average Big 3 students go to smaller, highly selective colleges. The really good liberal arts schools know that an average Big 3 student is going to be really well prepared for college and has the social capital to transition well and the financial resources to pay full freight.

Anonymous wrote:I am observing that the majority of students that my son is friends with at his big 3 school that got into ivies are urm or recruited athletes or in one case a Caucasian legacy. The smart qualified Caucasian kid with no connections does not even have a shot.

Hmmm. What school is that?

Also, depending on how you interpret what OP is saying, it might not be all that surprising ...

To keep the math simple, let's assume 10 students admitted to Ivys. Let's also assume the school is 30% non-Caucasian (which seems to be a fairly common ratio these days), so that accounts for at least 3 of the 10 admits, even without assuming any "hook" for URMs. Given that Ivys are pretty open about promoting URM admissions, it's reasonable to add 1 more URM admit, which brings us to 4 in 10. Add in just 1 athlete recruit (who may well be Caucasian), and 1 Caucasian legacy (and I'm surprised there's only one). When you total it up, we're at 6 in 10 (a "majority"), none of whom fit the mold of a "smart qualified Caucasian kid with no connections." I'm willing to bet the other 4 admits in our hypothetical will end up being "smart qualified Caucasian kids with no connections."

Even in my hypothetical, only 3 of the 10 students got any advantage from a supposed "hook" (1 URM, 1 athlete, 1 legacy). The rest were admitted on merit. The real issue with the math is that OP is focusing her consideration on the "Caucasian" element, and ignoring the simple fact that there are lots of non-Caucasian students who will get admitted on pure merit.

Given the recent bickering over the Long Island student admitted to 8 Ivys, and the many race-related comments that situation encouraged, I am quite skeptical about the conspicuous timing and content of OP's post. I worry she is just trolling for controversy.

Anonymous wrote:I am observing that the majority of students that my son is friends with at his big 3 school that got into ivies are urm or recruited athletes or in one case a Caucasian legacy. The smart qualified Caucasian kid with no connections does not even have a shot.

The Ivies are a crap shoot and they long ago turned away from admitting students who were excellent students without some type of hook. I hope you didn't spend oodles of money on a Big 3 school thinking otherwise. On the other hand, Ivies are really not all that. It is a big world out there with many equally good alternatives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am observing that the majority of students that my son is friends with at his big 3 school that got into ivies are urm or recruited athletes or in one case a Caucasian legacy. The smart qualified Caucasian kid with no connections does not even have a shot.

So, all the Ivy student bodies are URM and athletes?

Last I checked, white students were still the majority at all Ivys except at Stanford.

Stanford is in the Ivy League now? Wow. Sports travel must be murder

I think the OP was trying to make the point that a student that does not have a special hook would do better coming from a public school in a random place, (or if local perhaps DCPS), than a local prep school. The prep school kids without hooks go to a range of good non-Ivies, like a PP noted "Williams and Michigan" and the like.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am observing that the majority of students that my son is friends with at his big 3 school that got into ivies are urm or recruited athletes or in one case a Caucasian legacy. The smart qualified Caucasian kid with no connections does not even have a shot.

So, all the Ivy student bodies are URM and athletes?

Last I checked, white students were still the majority at all Ivys except at Stanford.

Anonymous wrote:I am observing that the majority of students that my son is friends with at his big 3 school that got into ivies are urm or recruited athletes or in one case a Caucasian legacy. The smart qualified Caucasian kid with no connections does not even have a shot.

So, all the Ivy student bodies are URM and athletes?

All those poor white kids from elite schools who are going to have to go to Williams or Michigan. It is sad.

Please. This is a ridiculous thing to whine about. Plus it isn't true, i can think of several kids off the top of my head that I know of who got into ivies from Big 3 schools who don't have those hooks. But, hey, if it makes you feel better to stoke those resentments, go at it.

Well, by OP's own post it is only "the majority" of students who got into ivies from her son's school who had hooks -- the implication is that a few others got in who did not have URM/legacy status or athletic talent. It is very tough and somewhat random, not impossible, and at the end of the day there are many other great options for strong students undergrad. At our DC's school that would not be deemed "Big X" on this board, I am aware of only a few students who got into ivies, but at least 50% or more did not have traditional hooks to my knowledge. As has been said many times before on these boards, the Big x are all great schools, but if you selected one for college placement purposes, you started down the wrong path in the fist place.

That's right. Move on to better options.

I am observing that the majority of students that my son is friends with at his big 3 school that got into ivies are urm or recruited athletes or in one case a Caucasian legacy. The smart qualified Caucasian kid with no connections does not even have a shot.