Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:51
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Plus Covid grade inflation. There are literally entire schools districts (I'm looking at you DCPS) that didn't give grades lower than a B for 2 years.
Let's say the number of kids country-wide with straight As is even up just 10% over a typical year (and it's likely far higher). That's thousands more "top" kids right there.
You can blame public schools all you want.
I wrote this and I'm a public school teacher. My oldest kid is a junior.
Being in denial about Covid grade inflation is just stupid. It 100% happened. Many kids would have earned their top grades any year. Many others who elude not typically get straight As joined them these past 2 years. I have a kid in private high school and there was Covid inflation there as well. My typically A/B student got straight As with doing maybe 1/3 of the work.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:45
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Plus Covid grade inflation. There are literally entire schools districts (I'm looking at you DCPS) that didn't give grades lower than a B for 2 years.
Let's say the number of kids country-wide with straight As is even up just 10% over a typical year (and it's likely far higher). That's thousands more "top" kids right there.
You can blame public schools all you want.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:44
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:I think it's hard for some people to fathom the size of some of these applicant pools. And it's also hard to fathom that there are literally thousands of students with amazing programs and top grades in these pools.
We also tend to grasp onto the anecdotes that comfort us after see the numbers. So a college rejects 90% of applicants, but someone's cousin got in with 2 Bs on their transcript, so we tell ourselves our kid has a chance.
There's a difference between someone having unrealistic expectations and those that looked at past admissions trends and had set more realistic expectations, only to have that expectation shattered by what has been a very different year compared to the past.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:42
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?
I heard there was expected to be a huge increase in applications but I wasn't sure what that impact would be. We figured that the schools would still look at tests for those students that did submit them. I remember seeing statistics showing that for TO schools in the prior year, the acceptance rate was higher for students that did submit test scores. We guessed that the increase in applications is mainly from students who are reaching at schools that they normally would not have applied to and that the schools will still find a way to admit students according to their normal standards. In short, we figured that TO was largely a form of virtue signaling. Apparently, we were wrong.
My kid's counselor was very reassuring to our kid regarding his chances of being accepted. Looking at the Naviance map for his ED school, his stats are in the heart of a cluster of checkmarks and only one X. Despite this, we applied to 20+ schools because ED/EA rounds completely shattered our preconceived notions. Now the counselor is voicing frustration and the sinking feeling that the students haven't been given adequate guidance this year. One student with a 3.6 GPA and 1350 SAT applied to a "normal" number of schools and did not get into any of them.
We did consider the math/odds but felt confident about our kid's stats, ECs, recommendations, and essay quality. Even if he has bad luck at one, two, three, or four schools, he should not have bad luck at 10 or 20 schools. We are engineers and we understand statistics; both of us are also in administrative roles and write documents targeted toward a variety of audiences so we understand the importance of connecting with the reader. I believe we were rationally optimistic based on the then-best-available information.
I do want to congratulate all the students that got into a school that they are happy with. It's a valuable opportunity and I wish them the very best.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:42
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:
I understand some families have overly high expectations and would have benefited from more accurate information about current conditions. However you're being downright nasty, OP. Plenty of families have been rejected from their preferred choices (yes, families, it's all right if it's a family thing, and not just the student's thing), and are pretty down.
But perhaps cruelty is the point of your post. In which case... thoughts and prayers.
+1
Maybe some parents don't have the time or resources to be as knowledgeable as they could be. Why is it so necessary to be nasty? Your shocked others aren't living your same life? That's honestly strange to me.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:42
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?
Even the college counselors got it wrong for us -it wasn't just us that were thrown by results (so far) and we are talking experienced high school college counselors and outside paid ones... applied to 23 because of the unknowns in at 6 ...our huge mistake and we knew when it was happening was that we could not get kid to get in ED or EA apps...we tried...hard... but kid would not do it...
OP here: I would expect paid college counselors to be able to read the room. Many of these trends started before COVID and the pandemic just made it worse, but I have a hard time believing it was a surprise for people in the business.
Do you mean private or school counselors as both groups are paid? Some quick thoughts: I think there was even a greater retrenchment than last year - @ DCs' school, kids with similar profiles to successful kids from last year not getting in to the same schools on ED1. I know there are a couple where the school counseling office still doesn't get what happened. Second, I think some parents still didn't quite grasp the tumult from last year. They knew there had been changes but they couldn't quite figure out how to tweak accordingly for their kid. If ED1 didn't work at a school with a 9% admit rate, then ED2 may not necessarily be successful at a similar school with 13%. Maybe it would've been better to go ED2 @ a 20+ school especially if your DC wants to be in a particular region of country.
I don't think this was necessarily a surprise for most people in the business, though the speed of it may be. Also, parents can be contradictory: they think their kid deserves a reach, the counselor disagrees but supports the parents/kid decision, then the kid gets rejected and the parents demand to know why the counselor allowed them to do that. I've seen/heard that a lot over the last few months.
For the earlier PP, sorry that your DC was not up for the ED/EA. Our one DC in cycle this time did not necessarily listen to much, but nailed that and it was a huge help. Submitted 6 EAs with the ED. Got into 2 EAs before finding out about the ED. Got lucky with ED, but the EAs really lowered the pressure for those few weeks before hearing about the ED. GL to your DC!
Thanks for the explanation. Yes, they both are paid, lol. I was referring to college counselors that people pay to work with, not school-based counselors.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:42
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?
DC has options, so we don't totally fit in this category. Turns out DC got into a reach school, less than 30% acceptance rate with profile in the bottom 25%. Did not go test optional. But, I was VERY suprised he didn't get into a "safety" school that has a 70% admit rate and DC being in the top 75% of their range. It was the school DC planned to attend. Thankfully, he just got lucky on a reach he had out there.
We were surprised! We didn't have any warning from anyone that things were so different this year. I'm still not sure I understand this year even after going through it.
Happy to hear your kid has optioned and got into his reach school. Did the safety school get significantly more applications than last year?
Honestly, I'm not sure. I would assume they did. After he was denied, we didn't look for reasons. The GC told us it was a "safety" and DS wanted to go there. He still feels a little sad about it. It really was his top choice. The reach was done at the last minute, because he felt like he was supposed to have a reach. In our house, we started calling admissions a lottery. You have to have the grades to play, but after that it felt like a lottery.
j
Same here. Paying attention to the previous cycle and the general comments/results on other forums/message boards it became clear to spread the submissions to a wide range to cover all bases. We were also not beyond applying to T100+ for safety. So we were delighted when 50% of her admissions ended up in the T25 - T40 range.
Expecting the worst and not expecting anything to happen as we wished left us positively happy with the outcome.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:39
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?
Even the college counselors got it wrong for us -it wasn't just us that were thrown by results (so far) and we are talking experienced high school college counselors and outside paid ones... applied to 23 because of the unknowns in at 6 ...our huge mistake and we knew when it was happening was that we could not get kid to get in ED or EA apps...we tried...hard... but kid would not do it...
OP here: I would expect paid college counselors to be able to read the room. Many of these trends started before COVID and the pandemic just made it worse, but I have a hard time believing it was a surprise for people in the business.
My son is a junior at Walter Johnson high school, a well-regarded local public. You wouldn't believe the idiocies spouted by his counselor. Busy students and parents might be heartened by such insane advice, and not go looking for other suggestions. In which case they might be disappointed.
The public school counselors have many things to juggle; college counseling isn’t their focus, with very good reasons. You need to spend the time doing the research yourself or pay a private college counselor to get the current data.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:39
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?
Even the college counselors got it wrong for us -it wasn't just us that were thrown by results (so far) and we are talking experienced high school college counselors and outside paid ones... applied to 23 because of the unknowns in at 6 ...our huge mistake and we knew when it was happening was that we could not get kid to get in ED or EA apps...we tried...hard... but kid would not do it...
OP here: I would expect paid college counselors to be able to read the room. Many of these trends started before COVID and the pandemic just made it worse, but I have a hard time believing it was a surprise for people in the business.
Do you mean private or school counselors as both groups are paid? Some quick thoughts: I think there was even a greater retrenchment than last year - @ DCs' school, kids with similar profiles to successful kids from last year not getting in to the same schools on ED1. I know there are a couple where the school counseling office still doesn't get what happened. Second, I think some parents still didn't quite grasp the tumult from last year. They knew there had been changes but they couldn't quite figure out how to tweak accordingly for their kid. If ED1 didn't work at a school with a 9% admit rate, then ED2 may not necessarily be successful at a similar school with 13%. Maybe it would've been better to go ED2 @ a 20+ school especially if your DC wants to be in a particular region of country.
I don't think this was necessarily a surprise for most people in the business, though the speed of it may be. Also, parents can be contradictory: they think their kid deserves a reach, the counselor disagrees but supports the parents/kid decision, then the kid gets rejected and the parents demand to know why the counselor allowed them to do that. I've seen/heard that a lot over the last few months.
For the earlier PP, sorry that your DC was not up for the ED/EA. Our one DC in cycle this time did not necessarily listen to much, but nailed that and it was a huge help. Submitted 6 EAs with the ED. Got into 2 EAs before finding out about the ED. Got lucky with ED, but the EAs really lowered the pressure for those few weeks before hearing about the ED. GL to your DC!
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:37
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?
Even the college counselors got it wrong for us -it wasn't just us that were thrown by results (so far) and we are talking experienced high school college counselors and outside paid ones... applied to 23 because of the unknowns in at 6 ...our huge mistake and we knew when it was happening was that we could not get kid to get in ED or EA apps...we tried...hard... but kid would not do it...
OP here: I would expect paid college counselors to be able to read the room. Many of these trends started before COVID and the pandemic just made it worse, but I have a hard time believing it was a surprise for people in the business.
My son is a junior at Walter Johnson high school, a well-regarded local public. You wouldn't believe the idiocies spouted by his counselor. Busy students and parents might be heartened by such insane advice, and not go looking for other suggestions. In which case they might be disappointed.
Examples?
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:33
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:
I understand some families have overly high expectations and would have benefited from more accurate information about current conditions. However you're being downright nasty, OP. Plenty of families have been rejected from their preferred choices (yes, families, it's all right if it's a family thing, and not just the student's thing), and are pretty down.
But perhaps cruelty is the point of your post. In which case... thoughts and prayers.
Sorry that you feel I'm being nasty. I understand why families and/or kids would feel upset from rejection. I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be down. What I'm trying to understand is what happened that put them in the situation where they were surprised? There is a difference being upset about rejection but you realized the odds were low versus being surprised because you didn't think rejection was a likely outcome. So is that the answer--they didn't have accurate information? Are students largely applying to schools in information vacuums? What are college counselors telling students/families?
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:33
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?
DC has options, so we don't totally fit in this category. Turns out DC got into a reach school, less than 30% acceptance rate with profile in the bottom 25%. Did not go test optional. But, I was VERY suprised he didn't get into a "safety" school that has a 70% admit rate and DC being in the top 75% of their range. It was the school DC planned to attend. Thankfully, he just got lucky on a reach he had out there.
We were surprised! We didn't have any warning from anyone that things were so different this year. I'm still not sure I understand this year even after going through it.
Happy to hear your kid has optioned and got into his reach school. Did the safety school get significantly more applications than last year?
Honestly, I'm not sure. I would assume they did. After he was denied, we didn't look for reasons. The GC told us it was a "safety" and DS wanted to go there. He still feels a little sad about it. It really was his top choice. The reach was done at the last minute, because he felt like he was supposed to have a reach. In our house, we started calling admissions a lottery. You have to have the grades to play, but after that it felt like a lottery.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:31
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?
So you acknowledge the system is broken and no one should expect it to be logical and therefore they shouldn’t complain? Applicants can and should be angry. It’s ridiculous that there’s no reliable way to predict chances of admission and people are right to be aggravated with a needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches these “non-profits.”
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:28
Subject: For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?
Even the college counselors got it wrong for us -it wasn't just us that were thrown by results (so far) and we are talking experienced high school college counselors and outside paid ones... applied to 23 because of the unknowns in at 6 ...our huge mistake and we knew when it was happening was that we could not get kid to get in ED or EA apps...we tried...hard... but kid would not do it...
OP here: I would expect paid college counselors to be able to read the room. Many of these trends started before COVID and the pandemic just made it worse, but I have a hard time believing it was a surprise for people in the business.
My son is a junior at Walter Johnson high school, a well-regarded local public. You wouldn't believe the idiocies spouted by his counselor. Busy students and parents might be heartened by such insane advice, and not go looking for other suggestions. In which case they might be disappointed.
Anonymous
03/30/2022 15:27
Subject: Re:For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...
Anonymous wrote:The thought process that you ‘need’ to attend a selective school to be successful is wrong to begin with. Thats where all the stress and anxiety comes from. It’s unbelievable how seemingly educated people here think the name and selectivity of a school determine success and happiness is completely flawed. Every high stats kid thinks that they deserve to go to a selective school otherwise their high school years were a waste. Thats flawed thinking. Thats a source of stress. Just because you have high stats doesn’t mean you get into a selective school. Fix your expectations
+1 Especially funny that the parents who went to those now-super-selective schools just don't recognize that they were not that selective when they went and the profile of accepted students was not as astronomically high as it is now. They probably would not get in themselves now and you'd get the same peer group they think is so important at somewhat less selective schools.
https://www.ivywise.com/blog/college-acceptance-rates-then-and-now/