Anonymous wrote:Well at least it's just the grandparents. In our case, it's my husband! He thinks DS should be able to get in most places with mostly As and A-s, maybe 5 APs by end of senior year, a sport and above average SATs. "He can still make it into one of the ivy's or the military academies (his big thing) if he just Aces the last two years." Ugh. He graduated high school in the 80's - he has no clue no matter how I try to inform him. He says I'm just a negative Nancy. Poor kid is going to end up with anxiety at this rate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a junior. 4.2 Weighted GPA, 1210 SAT (taking again in the fall), 3 APs so far with 3 more next year. Limited ECs - nothing out of the ordinary. Not an URM, not full pay...Wants to be a computer science major. Very introverted, typical geeky gamer kid.

He wants a large campus. We are trying to set expectations around state schools like George Mason, Penn State, Pitt, uDelaware, Rutgers, Virginia Tech etc. Even some of those aren’t guaranteed... meanwhile, my in laws keep telling him to apply to IVYs, Stanford, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon (as a “safety”).

I love my kid but he is not getting into Harvard with his stats. What’s the best way to set realistic expectations for him, and his grandparents?

Some of them are not guaranteed? Sorry to break it to you, but unless the SATs go up quite a bit several of them are guaranteed "no" . . .

Anonymous wrote:DS is a junior. 4.2 Weighted GPA, 1210 SAT (taking again in the fall), 3 APs so far with 3 more next year. Limited ECs - nothing out of the ordinary. Not an URM, not full pay...Wants to be a computer science major. Very introverted, typical geeky gamer kid.

He wants a large campus. We are trying to set expectations around state schools like George Mason, Penn State, Pitt, uDelaware, Rutgers, Virginia Tech etc. Even some of those aren’t guaranteed... meanwhile, my in laws keep telling him to apply to IVYs, Stanford, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon (as a “safety”).

I love my kid but he is not getting into Harvard with his stats. What’s the best way to set realistic expectations for him, and his grandparents?

Anonymous wrote:We have the same issue with the grandparents. They have basically said the same exact things to my DC. Now I just change the topic because they just don’t get it.

Anonymous wrote:It's actually a common problem. My parents are the same and I had to have several conversations with my parents about the competitiveness of admissions these days. Part of what they can understand is more people want to go to college (when they were in high school, only 60% of their high school graduates went to college, women less), and the number of colleges is the same.

My dad is obsessed with his alma mater and wanted me to bring my kids to visit. He offered to take my kids on a trip to visit for a weekend. My older kid wanted a specific program that the college didn't have, so it was easy to say no.

Now he is on the younger kid. I literally had to take him aside - I told him - DS can't get into that school - he doesn't have the grades and he won't have the scores and he takes no AP. Please don't bring it up - he literally cannot get into it. Luckily, he stopped pushing.

I think they really just don't know and its better to tell the truth, show them Naviance or just google admissions and show them the new standards.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is hard, I recently pulled admissions acceptance rates for 25 years ago just because I was curious and as expected acceptance rates were DRAMATICALLY higher. Just look it up and if you go back 30 years when many of us applied it is astounding to look at acceptance rates for T20 schools. It's helpful for older generations to understand this and bringing up the ivies is not helpful to kids. When you have a moment alone with the grandparents, share a few with them and how they compare to today to give them a little dose of reality. It's about finding a great school for your kid and celebrating his accomplishments and that is where you might help them focus if they want to be supportive.

+1 Good advice. Although the immaturity of OP's post makes me think that this is just some high schooler trolling for kicks...

Anonymous wrote:This is hard, I recently pulled admissions acceptance rates for 25 years ago just because I was curious and as expected acceptance rates were DRAMATICALLY higher. Just look it up and if you go back 30 years when many of us applied it is astounding to look at acceptance rates for T20 schools. It's helpful for older generations to understand this and bringing up the ivies is not helpful to kids. When you have a moment alone with the grandparents, share a few with them and how they compare to today to give them a little dose of reality. It's about finding a great school for your kid and celebrating his accomplishments and that is where you might help them focus if they want to be supportive.