Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

Palo Alto parent here. Santa Clara county had this season 750 applicants to Harvard and accepted 19 (2.5% admission rate). What’s wild about this is the strength of the applicants (at DC’s school). The vast majority of kids select themselves out (including my DC) because they conclude if they are not in the top 10 percent of applicants from the school, there is no point. 2.5 percent from this group of applicants is kind of nuts. I am curious if people in Boston or ny have seen local numbers like the above for Santa Clara county.

Palo Alto is such a 1% kind of town that I suspect AOs at Ivies like Harvard aren't that inclined to admit a ton of people from that zip code - also Gunn and Paly have reputations for being grind academies where people pursue APs and ECs solely to look good for college admission. So that may be working against your kids. It's so tough because the kids are worked so hard and are very accomplished but there's also this reputation of toxic competition and pressure and history of suicide clusters.

Gunn and Paly are easy compared to Lynnbrook and Cupertino. The real pressure cookers are the schools full of engineering families rather than the exec families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my unhooked kids did great coming out of a top private hs in nyc. if you were in the top half of the class (which wasn't easy), schools like BC or Middlebury and Hamilton and GW were safeties. All gravy from there.

The process was only really hard for parents who wouldnt be happy with that.

No one seriously thinks those schools are safeties! Come on, PP.

They are for the top kids at an elite NYC school. At the best privates in New York, 40% go to Ivies + Stanford and MIT every year. UVA, Michigan, Georgetown are safeties at these schools for the top half of the class.

Which NYC private send 40% to ivy+ every year?

Trinity doesn't, Dalton doesn't, Horace Mann doesn't.

Collegiate might but their graduating class is like 50 students.

Maybe if you added SLAC but even then, I doubt it.

Anonymous wrote:PP here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/podcasts/the-daily/christopher-rufo-dei-critical-race-theory.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Listen to this guy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my unhooked kids did great coming out of a top private hs in nyc. if you were in the top half of the class (which wasn't easy), schools like BC or Middlebury and Hamilton and GW were safeties. All gravy from there.

The process was only really hard for parents who wouldnt be happy with that.

No one seriously thinks those schools are safeties! Come on, PP.

They are for the top kids at an elite NYC school. At the best privates in New York, 40% go to Ivies + Stanford and MIT every year. UVA, Michigan, Georgetown are safeties at these schools for the top half of the class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

So interesting. I am from NYC and the worst college outcomes I see come from NJ public schools. These families pay high taxes for absolutely nothing. Be grateful you didn’t screw your kids by moving there.

What does this mean? They live in NJ because they work nearby. Where you do suggest they live? NYC and their kids goto Stuyvesant?

Anonymous wrote:Great news for my kids. They go to a title 1 public school district and we live in a high poverty zip code, Midwest state

Anonymous wrote:OP, just make your peace with it and move on. I do believe the DMV kids will do better in those slightly less selective colleges, big fish small pond and all that. And in the end, it will be ok. And maybe college will be a more well rounded experience for them, not so cutthroat.

Wasn't there some study that kids who apply to Ivys have the same outcomes, whether they get in/go?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try living in NJ if you think the DMV is bad.

Colleges prefer to keep the d-bags to a minimum, so it’s harder to get in if you’re from NY, NJ, or DMV.

Anonymous wrote:Try living in NJ if you think the DMV is bad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my unhooked kids did great coming out of a top private hs in nyc. if you were in the top half of the class (which wasn't easy), schools like BC or Middlebury and Hamilton and GW were safeties. All gravy from there.

The process was only really hard for parents who wouldnt be happy with that.

No one seriously thinks those schools are safeties! Come on, PP.

They are for the top kids at an elite NYC school. At the best privates in New York, 40% go to Ivies + Stanford and MIT every year. UVA, Michigan, Georgetown are safeties at these schools for the top half of the class.

Anonymous wrote:my unhooked kids did great coming out of a top private hs in nyc. if you were in the top half of the class (which wasn't easy), schools like BC or Middlebury and Hamilton and GW were safeties. All gravy from there.

The process was only really hard for parents who wouldn't be happy with that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep

What I found is that it really is such a huge disadvantage to be applying to college from private high schools, particularly the elite rigorous ones. For four years, everyone is highly driven. The teachers never give you a sense of achievement, there is always more to be done. B is a good grade, you have to do your absolute best to earn that A. When the college application season comes, you found out T20 can only take hooked plus a few unhooked from your school.

But if the choice is an elite rigorous private high school vs super competitive public high school?

Private is the right path every time in this situation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep

What I found is that it really is such a huge disadvantage to be applying to college from private high schools, particularly the elite rigorous ones. For four years, everyone is highly driven. The teachers never give you a sense of achievement, there is always more to be done. B is a good grade, you have to do your absolute best to earn that A. When the college application season comes, you found out T20 can only take hooked plus a few unhooked from your school.

I agree private schools with grade deflation are not good for college admissions but they are a good investment in the long run.

I always laugh when I see someone put their expensive private school on their linkedin

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But keep in mind, it's not always sunshine and rainbows for those you deem "lesser" who were accepted into ivies or T20.

My nephew from GA was accepted into Penn and has struggled this entire first year. He's on academic probation right now after failing to maintain a 2.0 his first semester. My SIL said right now he's above a 2.0 for this semester but just barely. He was top of his class at his GA private but their academic rigor clearly wasn't where it should have been. His private didn't even offer AP courses! That's a big red flag, IMO. They tout it as "not teaching to the test" but look what happens when you don't teach to the same standard as most other schools - your students come out unprepared.

The funny part is that the private is now likely bragging about his acceptance, and more parents will be fooled into paying a premium for a substandard education. This will continue unless your nephew or SIL comes forward and educates parents about the quality of the education they're paying for.