Anonymous wrote:i interview for a reasonably competitive college. i was very impressed with and tried to write really nice recommendations for most of the students this year. most of my interviewees were either denied or waitlisted. there are a very large number of talented students applying nationally.

Seems like a waste of time to interview them then. My friend did this for their school and stopped, because the people they spoke to rarely were accepted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the kids I know it was usually one of the two:

1. ECs were not that strong and/or couldn't convey the drive behind the ECs.
2. Put lots of effort into preparing the app for their top choice, got rejected or deferred in the early round, were blindsided by that and spread themselves too thin preparing apps for another 20 top schools.

Please. The core period of these kids' high school experience was during the pandemic. Strong EC opportunities were not even available to most of them, especially in this area.

I think a lot of the kids who had success figured out how to do ECs during COVID. It really wasn't that hard to find a non-profit to volunteer for etc.

Sure. “Volunteer” by asking mommy and daddy to find them a bogus “volunteer” position of an organization they are on the board of, so I can put it on my application.

Most non-profits were scrambling to stay afloat and we’re operating in a 100% remote capacity. They weren’t putting out the red carpet for high school kids looking to dress up their college resumes. Unless, of course, the kid’s parent was an influential donor or trustee.

This. Schools need to start to randomly verify often enough to stop these parents and kids from lying about volunteering and creating organizations and businesses that don’t actually serve anyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the kids I know it was usually one of the two:

1. ECs were not that strong and/or couldn't convey the drive behind the ECs.
2. Put lots of effort into preparing the app for their top choice, got rejected or deferred in the early round, were blindsided by that and spread themselves too thin preparing apps for another 20 top schools.

Please. The core period of these kids' high school experience was during the pandemic. Strong EC opportunities were not even available to most of them, especially in this area.

I feel like schools forgot this. The pandemic killed my kid’s 40 hour a week EC and changed their career path. Starting all new ECs in the middle of high school online during a pandemic is unrealistic.

What does this even mean??

How do you define top college? T20, t10, hypsm
?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the kids I know it was usually one of the two:

1. ECs were not that strong and/or couldn't convey the drive behind the ECs.
2. Put lots of effort into preparing the app for their top choice, got rejected or deferred in the early round, were blindsided by that and spread themselves too thin preparing apps for another 20 top schools.

Please. The core period of these kids' high school experience was during the pandemic. Strong EC opportunities were not even available to most of them, especially in this area.

I guess you did not read the second part of that sentence.

Sure I did.

Nope. The kids who had part time jobs in retail and food places kept working for most of the pandemic. The kids who built websites and apps, participated at hackathons, edited school newspapers, painted, wrote fiction, etc, kept going as well. The kids who were into music learned how to do multi-track recordings on their iphones and put out lots of cool stuff together with their friends. Debate competitions were online, full force. One kid I know, a fitness buff, started a business doing personal training online. Plus all the political activism, providing virtual visits to the elderly, organizing grocery delivery for the high risk people, there were lots of opportunities during the pandemic for those who wanted them.

You don’t live in the DC area, do you?

I live in NYC. Almost all that I wrote above was done online and did not require teachers' participation, so not sure what could stop the high school kids in DC.

Much of what you wrote could not be done online, and was not happening in person in the DC area. Stop spreading false narratives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid had perfect or close to perfect grades in AP classes, high SAT scores, strong extracurricular activities and got rejected from all the top schools, what do you think went wrong?

Didn't make strategic use of ED?

Agree. People seem blind to this. It isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s as close as you’re going to get for the kids we’re talking about on this thread.

We couldn't afford it. Hard to discern (for various reason -- type of income and home value) if NPC would be accurate for us, but it worked out for RD. All admissions were under NPC, and we were able to negotiate even better FA.

The premise behind the numbers you all are using are ridiculous. First of all, every high school is not equal in rigor so the caliber of top students as far as true intelligence and ability varies widely. Many so called top students could not replicate the success of the truly top students if required to take the same classes with the same teachers. Second, the vast majority of top students at public schools cannot afford the cost of a top T20 or SLAC even with financial aid (and perhaps a scholarship if available) so that cuts the numbers dramatically.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the kids I know it was usually one of the two:

1. ECs were not that strong and/or couldn't convey the drive behind the ECs.
2. Put lots of effort into preparing the app for their top choice, got rejected or deferred in the early round, were blindsided by that and spread themselves too thin preparing apps for another 20 top schools.

Please. The core period of these kids' high school experience was during the pandemic. Strong EC opportunities were not even available to most of them, especially in this area.

This is not true. DC did four activities virtually all through virtual school--FCPS. DC even had virtual statewide events for two of the activities.

Yeah, but a lot of stuff didn’t happen, and even this year was impacted. My kid was in 9th last year and did a few activities that did have some virtual component but not everything did. He plays an instrument and that continues to an extent last year but very minimally with few of the related activities.

Anonymous wrote:There’s roughly 400 kids graduating from DCs school this year. The top kids have been in the same classes all 4 years and know each other’s ranking and test scores. The top 2% of graduating class (8 kids) all had 4.0 uw and 1500+ SATs. This is how acceptances went for them:

1. Carnegie Mellon (shut out of Ivies)
2. UMD (shut out of Ivies and top SLACs)
3. UMD (shut out of Ivies)
4. Johns Hopkins (recruited athlete)
5. Yale (first gen)
6. UMD
7. Penn (first gen)
8. Princeton (URM)

All great, hard working, top scores, excellent EC kids, but like PP said there just isn’t enough room for all high achievers at the tippy top.

The UMD kids (if in-state) are saving a boatload of money that can go to grad school, car, home etc expenses. They may not realize it now, but once at UMD will likely find their place and thrive.

Anonymous wrote:Nothing “went wrong.” If a school has a 5% acceptance rate, that means 95% of kids are rejected and many (most?) of those are going to be “top students.”

I’m going to rent a small plane and fly over the DMV with this message trailing behind across the sky.

My son was one of these last year. The only thing that “went wrong” is that he set his hopes only on the top schools. He ended up in the T30-T40 range and he was really disappointed. But he was up against all of these other top kids applying at T20 schools.

He is fine at school but he is still a little disappointed. He had a good freshman year and made friends. He thought he was going to want to try try transfer and decided not too.

He was good with the decision until he found out today that a friends from HS who took far less rigorous courses and had Bs and Cs in HS put in transfer applications to top schools and got into a T20. So now all of his old insecurities and feeling bad about himself have kicked in.

I try to talk to him about not comparing but it’s virtually impossible. Now he says he feels like a loser for not trying to transfer because if his friend got into a T20 maybe he could too.

Neither my husband nor I went to a T20 school so this pressure never came from home. It was definitely his HS culture to be caught up in the ranking and top school craziness.

Anonymous wrote:It's simple math, 30,000 HS in the US, 20,000 ivy seats, so even if only the val's are considered there are still 1/3 rejected.

Add in all the sal's, athletes, and other types of applicants and you realize even as the top student at your HS, admission to a top 20 school is incredibly good fortune (assuming you want that).

There is no shame in a top student not getting admitted, no flaw in application, nothing other than bad luck of a sort (even though painful).

Top students who have been rejected are still top students, with much to be proud of, and as every study shows, highly likely to remain successful in life regardless of their alma mater!

In addition to all the international students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sure. “Volunteer” by asking mommy and daddy to find them a bogus “volunteer” position of an organization they are on the board of, so I can put it on my application.

You think that you can tell this and adcoms can't tell?

That was in fact part of my point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid had perfect or close to perfect grades in AP classes, high SAT scores, strong extracurricular activities and got rejected from all the top schools, what do you think went wrong?

Didn't make strategic use of ED?

Agree. People seem blind to this. It isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s as close as you’re going to get for the kids we’re talking about on this thread.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the kids I know it was usually one of the two:

1. ECs were not that strong and/or couldn't convey the drive behind the ECs.
2. Put lots of effort into preparing the app for their top choice, got rejected or deferred in the early round, were blindsided by that and spread themselves too thin preparing apps for another 20 top schools.

Please. The core period of these kids' high school experience was during the pandemic. Strong EC opportunities were not even available to most of them, especially in this area.

I guess you did not read the second part of that sentence.

Sure I did.

Nope. The kids who had part time jobs in retail and food places kept working for most of the pandemic. The kids who built websites and apps, participated at hackathons, edited school newspapers, painted, wrote fiction, etc, kept going as well. The kids who were into music learned how to do multi-track recordings on their iphones and put out lots of cool stuff together with their friends. Debate competitions were online, full force. One kid I know, a fitness buff, started a business doing personal training online. Plus all the political activism, providing virtual visits to the elderly, organizing grocery delivery for the high risk people, there were lots of opportunities during the pandemic for those who wanted them.

You don’t live in the DC area, do you?

I live in NYC. Almost all that I wrote above was done online and did not require teachers' participation, so not sure what could stop the high school kids in DC.