Anonymous wrote:Oh, please. OP, all you are doing is showing how you didn’t understand the process and thought your DC was somehow extra special and high stats meant they were more deserving of top slots than other equally qualified kids. This has always been a numbers game. There are far more top stat kids than T20 spaces. You needs to manage expectations and be more strategic about applications. I’ve had two top stat kids (1550+ SAT, 4.5+ WGPA, ECs) get into top schools - one with only 6 applications (accepted at all 6, one T20), one with 7 (accepted 5 (3 T10), 2 waitlist, 1 reject). They both did EA and RD. They both really identified schools that were a good fit for them and that they brought something to. There was a strategy about rolling decision, then EA and then RD priorities. EA included actual targets (hello best fir state school.) EA admits meant many schools dropped off the RD list. If you have a good strategy and realistic expectations, your top stats kid doesn’t need to be stressed all year.

So the OP does not get that there are "not enough spots" and to illustrate that you share that your kids both got into top schools? In fact, most of all the top schools they applied to? Talk about tone deaf.

I completely agree with OP. I think the expectations when you have a kid with a 4.4 1560 SAT and great ECs and personality is that they will have tons of options at top schools (humor me) because your kids stats exceed the 75% benchmark everywhere. Naviance told me he was a "match" with every top 10 school- including all the ivys! They had Georgia Tech as a "safety". The reality is he got into very few schools - only the very very safeties and even got rejected at some of those. It's shocking.

Its a combination of those top programs not having hardly any growth in size and seats in decades, more and more kids applying (TO), SAT "prep" classes raising scores (my kid's score was first time, unprepped), and aggressive affirmative action biases.

My next kid is more in the 1350 range (I do consider this average at least for our county) and Id never apply to any Ivy for him - and the safeties that rejected his brother for being too high will more than likely accept him. Irony huh. The top stat kids non urm kids are not being well served by the current landscape, it's a debacle. But that said, I'd never want my 1350 kid to go to Princeton because it would be too hard (I would think) and he would not thrive but so many fight for it in any circumstance that many truly gifted kids are edged out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Average income people have it so much easier than high income. I mean, high income have to hire accountants to shield their taxes and wealth managers to help them beat the markets. It takes a lot to manage both a winter home AND a summer home. Have some sympathy. Average income people don’t have these kinds of problems.

Well, I know average income people who went Ivy League schools and high income people who went to state schools. So there’s that.

You are responding to me. If you are saying that the name of the college one attends has very little direct effect on the quality of your professional life, then we are in accord. My DC is a 9th grader at a top local private. I can confidently say we have practically zero interest in even looking at top 20 colleges when that time comes. The differences, if there are any at all, between a top 20 and Nos. 21-100 are negligible. I don’t want DC to feel like they have to have a singular focus in life to start and NGO or publish research just so they can land a coveted spot. DC is 15 and should use the teen (and even 20s) to figure out what motivates them. It unhealthy and most of it is driven by status crazed parents who can’t bear the thought of admitting to their peers that little Larla/o is slumming it at State U.

Anonymous wrote:Boo Hoo my kid is smart its so hard

LOL that is exactly how I’m reading this too!

Oh, please. OP, all you are doing is showing how you didn’t understand the process and thought your DC was somehow extra special and high stats meant they were more deserving of top slots than other equally qualified kids. This has always been a numbers game. There are far more top stat kids than T20 spaces. You needs to manage expectations and be more strategic about applications. I’ve had two top stat kids (1550+ SAT, 4.5+ WGPA, ECs) get into top schools - one with only 6 applications (accepted at all 6, one T20), one with 7 (accepted 5 (3 T10), 2 waitlist, 1 reject). They both did EA and RD. They both really identified schools that were a good fit for them and that they brought something to. There was a strategy about rolling decision, then EA and then RD priorities. EA included actual targets (hello best fir state school.) EA admits meant many schools dropped off the RD list. If you have a good strategy and realistic expectations, your top stats kid doesn’t need to be stressed all year.

Think about how lucky the bellow average kids are though.

Anonymous wrote:Average income people have it so much easier than high income. I mean, high income have to hire accountants to shield their taxes and wealth managers to help them beat the markets. It takes a lot to manage both a winter home AND a summer home. Have some sympathy. Average income people don’t have these kinds of problems.

Well, I know average income people who went Ivy League schools and high income people who went to state schools. So there’s that.

Anonymous wrote:I think that the OP is saying is that high stat kids have worked really hard but not all of them were given chances to stand out and therefore, their chances are lower at schools that would consider high stat kids. Lower stat kids won’t bother to aim for high stat schools.

Now people, you keep telling people to aim lower. If they do, they will wipe the merit scholarships clean and people who are lower will aim even lower. So, you should be happy that high stat kids have dreams.

What do you think is happening now? The high stats kids are still getting into college, just not the revered TopX they (or more likely their parents) think they are entitled to. That’s what OP was griping about. It’s not like those kids are sitting on the sidelines or going to vocational school, they are just going to lower ranked colleges. The real problem is that the top 25/30 universities have added a total of about 1000 seats for freshman over the past 30 years, but there are 180,000 more HS graduates in the top 10% of their class competing for those 1000 seats. Frankly, it’s inexcusable that the tuition increases have not gone to increasing capacity at top colleges. It’s artificially created scarcity.

I think that the OP is saying is that high stat kids have worked really hard but not all of them were given chances to stand out and therefore, their chances are lower at schools that would consider high stat kids. Lower stat kids won’t bother to aim for high stat schools.

Now people, you keep telling people to aim lower. If they do, they will wipe the merit scholarships clean and people who are lower will aim even lower. So, you should be happy that high stat kids have dreams.

Anonymous wrote:Average income people have it so much easier than high income. I mean, high income have to hire accountants to shield their taxes and wealth managers to help them beat the markets. It takes a lot to manage both a winter home AND a summer home. Have some sympathy. Average income people don’t have these kinds of problems.

This is why I keep coming back to DCUM. Well done.

Average income people have it so much easier than high income. I mean, high income have to hire accountants to shield their taxes and wealth managers to help them beat the markets. It takes a lot to manage both a winter home AND a summer home. Have some sympathy. Average income people don’t have these kinds of problems.

Anonymous wrote:Those aren't average stats.

I have an average kid in college right now. SAT 1100 on his 3rd attempt, I believe it was. ACT 21. GPA was 3.0 unweighted.

He got into GMU, VCU, ODU, WVU, High Point, St. Joseph's, Gonzaga, Rutgers, and Xavier.

Congrats to your DC - hope college is going well for him.

Those aren't average stats.

I have an average kid in college right now. SAT 1100 on his 3rd attempt, I believe it was. ACT 21. GPA was 3.0 unweighted.

He got into GMU, VCU, ODU, WVU, High Point, St. Joseph's, Gonzaga, Rutgers, and Xavier.

Anonymous wrote:It’s all about expectations. There is no real difference between a kid with a 1350 who has the same GPA And general profile as a kid with a 1500. The difference is that the 1350 sets his expectations lower and gets in where he should. My kid is someone who has a lower SAT but a very high GPA And excellent everything else. He’s have done just as well at an Ivy as a kid with same profile but a higher SAT, he just didn’t even bother applying because his score is lower.

He is into a top school which was a target thru ED. Again the 1500 academic twin let’s say he has, is probably stressing out waiting fyi hear about Ivies next week.

All in the expectations.

So, I've got twins - both same ACT score of 35, but GPA separated by 5/10ths of a point. That knocked out a lot of schools for one twin while the other was mulling Ivies, etc. The kid with the lower GPA is not average, but it can really feel that way when your womb mate has a near 4.0 u/w GPA in most rigorous classes. Fortunately both got into and are happy with their ED choices (both into T15 LACs). But it wasn't necessarily easy getting to that point and the number of folks who focus on one over the other never ceases to astound me.

This has to be the winner for the most ridiculous thread. Well done, OP! Take a bow.

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