Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a superior student/athlete/artist/overall human being to his parents who matriculated HYPSM. 20+ years ago when we were going through it, however, college admissions wasn't a nuclear arms race. I'm fairly certain we would NEVER be accepted if we were applying now. I've been trying to drill this into DS's head since middle school, but he's now a junior and still has delusions of grandeur. I cannot for the life of me get him excited about safety colleges. Advice?

he will probably get in via legacy route. don't worry too much

No guarantees here. Youngest DC now in first year of school. The number of qualified Ivy legacies not admitted in their class seemed pretty high. And DH has a number of college classmates with kids not admitted to their alma mater.

So legacy helps, but it is not a guarantee.

No guarantees in life.

but a legacy has a much better chance than unhooked students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a superior student/athlete/artist/overall human being to his parents who matriculated HYPSM. 20+ years ago when we were going through it, however, college admissions wasn't a nuclear arms race. I'm fairly certain we would NEVER be accepted if we were applying now. I've been trying to drill this into DS's head since middle school, but he's now a junior and still has delusions of grandeur. I cannot for the life of me get him excited about safety colleges. Advice?

he will probably get in via legacy route. don't worry too much

No guarantees here. Youngest DC now in first year of school. The number of qualified Ivy legacies not admitted in their class seemed pretty high. And DH has a number of college classmates with kids not admitted to their alma mater.

So legacy helps, but it is not a guarantee.

No guarantees in life.

My applying SENIOR is still delusional. Fortunately he's already been approved to three safeties to which he reluctantly applied. Even if the remaining nine come through with approvals, any privates MUST provide significant aid or we can't make it work. The dollar conversation has come up multiple times. Let's see if he remembers in April.

Anonymous wrote:DS is a superior student/athlete/artist/overall human being to his parents who matriculated HYPSM. 20+ years ago when we were going through it, however, college admissions wasn't a nuclear arms race. I'm fairly certain we would NEVER be accepted if we were applying now. I've been trying to drill this into DS's head since middle school, but he's now a junior and still has delusions of grandeur. I cannot for the life of me get him excited about safety colleges. Advice?

Same! Here's the reality check that worked with ours. It's not about you. The internet changed everything. Higher Ed in the US was built on exclusivity of physical access to information and certain people, not the unbiased, fairly-assessed academic merit of applicants. Tests biased in favor of privelege. Legacy is rigged. Oh and don't forget about the multi-billion dollar sports industry of the NCAA and Varisty Blues side doors.

The internet puts all courses online, LinkedIn is better than alumni networking, and social media is finally giving student-athletes, or athletes who also have to be students, some agency over themselves. Oh and Silicon Valley created the Ivy Dropout Unicorn tech bro aspirational track.

So yeah, everything has changed but not all universities have caught up. They are not actually more exclusive, just more accessible. Like Vegas, the odds are always against you and the house always wins. But that doesn't mean you can enjoy a bit of gambling responsibly. Just know your limits and hedge your bets. Don't. Spend. Money. You. Don't. Have.

Grad school is the new undergrad. Might as well save money now because you'll definitely need it later.

Each school has it's own agenda for balancing classes and playing to internal constituencies. Admissions Officers have to fight like pharma salespeople to get enough applicants to check all of the INTERNAL boxes at schools. Note, these have nothing to do with whatever stats you think they think are important.

So relax, cupcake. You're bright. You have opportunities. You have resources. Most people on the planet do not. You are way ahead of the game no matter what you see on Ivy TikTok.

Anonymous wrote:Your post rings untrue to me OP. Are you for real? There is no need to tell your kid anything...the "market" will. He can apply to fancy places and see where that takes him. His school should advise him about his chances and make sure he applies to a range of schools.

I would barf if anyone I knew told their own child they were not a "special snowflake". Kids have to know at least their own family is rooting for them. They find out soon enough that the world at large is a terrible place. Home is supposed to be a safe space free of taunting.

I think you might not be a parent of teens. A major task of parenting kids this age is helping them be realistic. Op didn’t say she’s not letting him apply or taunting him! She wants him to have to have a sense of his chances and not be flabbergasted in the (likely) event they don’t work out. Having a realistic appraisal of your chances doesn’t make acceptance less likely.

Agree this is a message better sent by other students and counselors and such. However some legacy snowflake do get in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a superior student/athlete/artist/overall human being to his parents who matriculated HYPSM. 20+ years ago when we were going through it, however, college admissions wasn't a nuclear arms race. I'm fairly certain we would NEVER be accepted if we were applying now. I've been trying to drill this into DS's head since middle school, but he's now a junior and still has delusions of grandeur. I cannot for the life of me get him excited about safety colleges. Advice?

he will probably get in via legacy route. don't worry too much

No guarantees here. Youngest DC now in first year of school. The number of qualified Ivy legacies not admitted in their class seemed pretty high. And DH has a number of college classmates with kids not admitted to their alma mater.

So legacy helps, but it is not a guarantee.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He has a much better shot as a legacy. He'll need to apply ED.

+1 he's already privileged.

So we'll need to make sure we don't help him navigate anything, ever!

dumb post. That's not the point with respect to OP's thread.

Op's DC thinks he's got an easier in to HYP compared to most kids, and they would be correct, because of their legacy status. In some colleges, if you are a legacy, your chance of getting is much higher than the rest of the unhooked students with the same profile. The thumb on the scale that legacies provide is pretty big.

Your post rings untrue to me OP. Are you for real? There is no need to tell your kid anything...the "market" will. He can apply to fancy places and see where that takes him. His school should advise him about his chances and make sure he applies to a range of schools.

I would barf if anyone I knew told their own child they were not a "special snowflake". Kids have to know at least their own family is rooting for them. They find out soon enough that the world at large is a terrible place. Home is supposed to be a safe space free of taunting.

Anonymous wrote:DS is a superior student/athlete/artist/overall human being to his parents who matriculated HYPSM. 20+ years ago when we were going through it, however, college admissions wasn't a nuclear arms race. I'm fairly certain we would NEVER be accepted if we were applying now. I've been trying to drill this into DS's head since middle school, but he's now a junior and still has delusions of grandeur. I cannot for the life of me get him excited about safety colleges. Advice?

Easy. Tell him to look at the current seniors who he thinks “deserves “or has the specs to get in to an Ivy. Then of those who got in, eliminate the sports recruits and URMs. He’ll get more after seeing his own classmates’ experiences rather than listening to you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has he looked at scattergrams for his HS yet? My DS is HS freshman and we just got access to ours; too a peek this weekend. Sobering experience.

NP here with a high schooler and I don't know what this is. Can you elaborate?

"Naviance is an American college and career readiness software provider that partners with high schools and other K–12 institutions to provide students with college planning and career assessment tools. "

"Naviance's scattergrams show the acceptance history of students within a particular high school to a specific college or university using the historical average GPAs and test scores from the high school. A Naviance scattergram is a scatter plot that shows students within a high school who were accepted, denied and wait-listed by a specific college using symbols in the graph legend"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naviance

Anonymous wrote:Has he looked at scattergrams for his HS yet? My DS is HS freshman and we just got access to ours; too a peek this weekend. Sobering experience.

NP here with a high schooler and I don't know what this is. Can you elaborate?

Picking out colleges requires knowing yourself and what you want, and I achieved that with my current senior by talking with him at length about what he wanted to do in life generally and what careers might possible work for him, what his strengths and weaknesses were, where he thought he might be a standout, etc... And all this is CRUCIAL to write college essays, which need to be a heartfelt reflection of who you are.

So talk. The safety-match-reach will flow as a logical consequence of your discussions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He has a much better shot as a legacy. He'll need to apply ED.

+1 he's already privileged.

So we'll need to make sure we don't help him navigate anything, ever!

Anonymous wrote:He has a much better shot as a legacy. He'll need to apply ED.

+1 he's already privileged.