There are two ways you can go about it

1. Prioritize T20 admission from a young age. Tailor everything towards that goal. Push ahead even if student is not interested in the thing they were doing, because it would look good to colleges. You would have a tough 5-6 years.

2. Prioritize academics and doing well in high school, regardless of how it looks to colleges. Do things you like and drop things you do not like. Take classes you like, but do emphasize rigor in all subjects, not because colleges like to see that, but because they are building blocks and a strong foundation is essential.

T20 admission is a low probability anyway. Even if you choose option #1, you might not end up at T20. That seemed to be a bad tradeoff to me.

If you choose option #2, even if your overall chances of getting into T20 are lower than if you choose #1, you win either way because (a) you did what you loved and if ended up not going to T20, you have that happy HS years (b) if you did end up at T20, you just got a bonus. Heads I win, tails I don't lose.

That is how we made the decision. Turns out when you do things that you do love, it is easier for others to see it as well. It showed up in how my son got voted to the top position in the team and most likely how the teachers wrote the recommendation letters. Ended at HYP.

I agree OP.
To others posters- you all say you opted out of the rat race but your DC is still attending HYP. You are essentially saying that there was nothing special about your DC that they did and despite that they got in. Cool story.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a rat race only if you’re not good enough. So…

But the OP finds all this cope very soothing when she has to tell her friends that her kid is going to ODU.

St. Andrews and Wake Forest exist for a reason.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sucks except if you win. Then it’s great. There is nothing globally that is like the education, connections and level of services of all kinds available at the tippy-top of American higher education.

No, it sucks period. The reason that it sucks is the supply/demand imbalance and the simple fact that there are some whom believe that there are only a small number of schools which "matter" and everything else is a failure. That entire mental model is ridiculous with anything deeper than a surface evaluation because you will quickly realize that this is a demand/ego driven belief rather than any actual difference in quality.

There is a difference in quality. Stanford is better than Arizona State. This is true even though you can succeed in spite of attending Arizona State and even though you may not succeed in spite of attending Stanford.

Anonymous wrote:What is it teaching our kids? About "merit", hard work, financial inequality, value? Parents I know are gnashing their teeth over the blatant games played by colleges who seemingly hold all the power. But can't we vote with our feet? Select colleges outside the US system that are more fair (Canada, UK, Ireland, Scotland, etc.) or pick honors colleges in less competitive US colleges that will provide our kids with scholarships and better opportunities. Our public state schools (at least mine) has good intentions but feels broken as well.

What is it all for?

The parents telling me you need to "prune your child since middle school for a cohesive college narrative" and hire consultants to make you marketable, make me feel so sad and hopeless.

I never did any of that and my kids went to IVIES unhooked.

DCUM is not the real world

Anonymous wrote:It’s a rat race only if you’re not good enough. So…

But the OP finds all this cope very soothing when she has to tell her friends that her kid is going to ODU.

Anonymous wrote:We opted out. Our DD never applied to one ivy league, is thriving in her second year at a terrific R1 school in a cool city.

Yeah, it’s not too hard to opt out, OP. Just tell your kid you won’t pay full freight for a private college/university.

Anonymous wrote:It’s a rat race only if you’re not good enough. So…

Nah if you win, you're still a rat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS's favorite school he ever toured was UW Seattle and his 2nd favorite is CU Boulder. We noticed that his stats would get him into both comfortably and he's enjoying his senior year!

Not a CS major I presume.

Business/econ!

Anonymous wrote:My DS's favorite school he ever toured was UW Seattle and his 2nd favorite is CU Boulder. We noticed that his stats would get him into both comfortably and he's enjoying his senior year!

Not a CS major I presume.

Anonymous wrote:It sucks except if you win. Then it’s great. There is nothing globally that is like the education, connections and level of services of all kinds available at the tippy-top of American higher education.

No, it sucks period. The reason that it sucks is the supply/demand imbalance and the simple fact that there are some whom believe that there are only a small number of schools which "matter" and everything else is a failure. That entire mental model is ridiculous with anything deeper than a surface evaluation because you will quickly realize that this is a demand/ego driven belief rather than any actual difference in quality.

My kids won big, it was great for us. We won because of athletics and I am perfectly fine with that advantage as the pool of 1% academics combined with D1 caliber athletics is measured in the hundreds each year at most. It's a very select group spread across many sports and they are part of it. But, if it wasn't for athletics we too would have been in the lottery mix like so many very deserving kids and I'm sure that it would have been miserable.

The best things that we can do for our kids is to remind them that they will get a similar student body at 60 schools, not 10 if they are among the brightest cohort you can add another 80 schools to that group for kids who are very bright but maybe not at the very top. For typical college bound kids there are literally hundreds of schools which will provide a quality education and great job prospects for motivated kids.

My DS's favorite school he ever toured was UW Seattle and his 2nd favorite is CU Boulder. We noticed that his stats would get him into both comfortably and he's enjoying his senior year!

We opted out. Our DD never applied to one ivy league, is thriving in her second year at a terrific R1 school in a cool city.

It’s a rat race only if you’re not good enough. So…

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a horrible 5 percenter obsession. Most parents don't have the luxury of this.
I would love to sign up as an alumni interviewer for my school and ask kids if they used a college coach or consultant and if so [b]why did their parents think they weren't strong enough on their own.

[/b]

But your assumption is incorrect. That’s not why parents hire one. You are projecting assumptions onto other parents because you’ve made a decision not to hire one. Parents hire them for a number of reasons - the most sensible is to extricate the parent from the nagging role. Or, in my own case, it stems from the wisdom to know the field has become so complicated and competitive that even if I take two years to master the art of college applications and financial aid aid, I could not figure it all out. Which is why I hire experts to assist me like lawyers (I am one but know not to touch areas in which I do not know), doctors, CPAs, trusts and estates lawyers, etc. investing and paying for a college education is the second largest investment a couple will make after buying a home. Why wouldn’t you hire an expert? I did my research. I Found one by the hour whom my kids clicked with. It worked. Ivy, SLAC, Oxbridge, Yale law.

+1. I interview for Harvard. PP - you’re not allowed to ask that question.