Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:who do not have much in the way of leadership or pointy ECs? A profile might be 1550-1580 SATs, 13-15 APs in all subjects + all 5s, MV Calc and above, all As or maybe 1-2 A-. ECs are regular ECs including PT jobs, Varsity sports (not recruited), volunteering, tutoring, coaching, clubs and honor societies. Normal awards like AP Scholar. Solid essays. Full pay. My student falls into this category and they are not alone.

How many kids with this profile in DC's school? How many gotten in T20 T5lac each year?

At TJ, most likely looking at UVA, WM, VT, UMD.

At a normal high school with only a few this kind of profile, probably T20 yes.

Most local oh kids have lots of kids with this profile due to grade inflation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

+1. At our public HS, even the higher income families are balking at the cost of private college for kids not eligible for aid. It's getting harder and harder to justify the cost, especially for kids planning on grad school anyway.

If you don't readily have it saved/can easily cash flow it, then yes no school is worth the $90K+. But if you have saved (and most higher income families easily could have), then it's nice to have those options

This is a mentality I do not understand at all. We could pay $400k but wouldn’t because the ROI is not there. Part of our job as parents is to teach our kids to make good financial decisions. Spending $400k to get the same outcome as going somewhere free seems hard to justify.

It’s tough to say no to your kid who wants to go to a $400k school when you went a similar (albeit cheaper at the time) school 25 years ago. It’s even harder to say no when you remember your own (life changing) experience and recall how different (not as life changing) it was for your old HS friends who stayed home and went to their local flagship. It’s not all about a financial ROI, or at the very least there should be a few more layers to your ROI calc than a first year starting salary.

This. My ivy changed mine and wife's life trajectory. We wanted and are happy to pay for similar.

Please explain to me how your life is better than someone your age who went to UVA. I’m genuinely curious.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

+1. At our public HS, even the higher income families are balking at the cost of private college for kids not eligible for aid. It's getting harder and harder to justify the cost, especially for kids planning on grad school anyway.

If you don't readily have it saved/can easily cash flow it, then yes no school is worth the $90K+. But if you have saved (and most higher income families easily could have), then it's nice to have those options

This is a mentality I do not understand at all. We could pay $400k but wouldn’t because the ROI is not there. Part of our job as parents is to teach our kids to make good financial decisions. Spending $400k to get the same outcome as going somewhere free seems hard to justify.

It’s tough to say no to your kid who wants to go to a $400k school when you went a similar (albeit cheaper at the time) school 25 years ago. It’s even harder to say no when you remember your own (life changing) experience and recall how different (not as life changing) it was for your old HS friends who stayed home and went to their local flagship. It’s not all about a financial ROI, or at the very least there should be a few more layers to your ROI calc than a first year starting salary.

This. My ivy changed mine and wife's life trajectory. We wanted and are happy to pay for similar.

Anonymous wrote:who do not have much in the way of leadership or pointy ECs? A profile might be 1550-1580 SATs, 13-15 APs in all subjects + all 5s, MV Calc and above, all As or maybe 1-2 A-. ECs are regular ECs including PT jobs, Varsity sports (not recruited), volunteering, tutoring, coaching, clubs and honor societies. Normal awards like AP Scholar. Solid essays. Full pay. My student falls into this category and they are not alone.

T20-30 privates or top publics are well within reach.
The bolded makes the difference between unhooked kids with top stats getting in at T10 and those "settling" for T20-30.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

+1. At our public HS, even the higher income families are balking at the cost of private college for kids not eligible for aid. It's getting harder and harder to justify the cost, especially for kids planning on grad school anyway.

If you don't readily have it saved/can easily cash flow it, then yes no school is worth the $90K+. But if you have saved (and most higher income families easily could have), then it's nice to have those options

This is a mentality I do not understand at all. We could pay $400k but wouldn’t because the ROI is not there. Part of our job as parents is to teach our kids to make good financial decisions. Spending $400k to get the same outcome as going somewhere free seems hard to justify.

It’s tough to say no to your kid who wants to go to a $400k school when you went a similar (albeit cheaper at the time) school 25 years ago. It’s even harder to say no when you remember your own (life changing) experience and recall how different (not as life changing) it was for your old HS friends who stayed home and went to their local flagship. It’s not all about a financial ROI, or at the very least there should be a few more layers to your ROI calc than a first year starting salary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

+1. At our public HS, even the higher income families are balking at the cost of private college for kids not eligible for aid. It's getting harder and harder to justify the cost, especially for kids planning on grad school anyway.

If you don't readily have it saved/can easily cash flow it, then yes no school is worth the $90K+. But if you have saved (and most higher income families easily could have), then it's nice to have those options

We could easily cash flow it and also could pay from savings and still don't see it as a good value. I used to work in grad school admissions and the private school undergrads didn't fare any better than the state flagship kids with similar stats.

Prestige matters in the short term as well in the long term (gulp!)
Don’t shortchange your dear child as the investment would yield -typically- lot more than s&p returns (both monetarily as well as socially)

Nope. I don't want my child accidentally marrying someone with this mentality.

Those are actually pretty good ECs especially considering those academic stats.
Harvard Yale Princeton Stanford are just ridiculous for anyone without some hook but I think any of the other top schools you’d have a realistic shot. Pick the favorite and ED, then expect to submit widely as reaches with some targets that they’d feel comfortable with.
This really is a strong application — don’t let people get you down. Being a 4 year varsity athlete while getting those grades/scores in those classes is not all that common actually.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

+1. At our public HS, even the higher income families are balking at the cost of private college for kids not eligible for aid. It's getting harder and harder to justify the cost, especially for kids planning on grad school anyway.

If you don't readily have it saved/can easily cash flow it, then yes no school is worth the $90K+. But if you have saved (and most higher income families easily could have), then it's nice to have those options

We could easily cash flow it and also could pay from savings and still don't see it as a good value. I used to work in grad school admissions and the private school undergrads didn't fare any better than the state flagship kids with similar stats.

Prestige matters in the short term as well in the long term (gulp!)
Don’t shortchange your dear child as the investment would yield -typically- lot more than s&p returns (both monetarily as well as socially)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

+1. At our public HS, even the higher income families are balking at the cost of private college for kids not eligible for aid. It's getting harder and harder to justify the cost, especially for kids planning on grad school anyway.

If you don't readily have it saved/can easily cash flow it, then yes no school is worth the $90K+. But if you have saved (and most higher income families easily could have), then it's nice to have those options

We could easily cash flow it and also could pay from savings and still don't see it as a good value. I used to work in grad school admissions and the private school undergrads didn't fare any better than the state flagship kids with similar stats.

At our school, these types of stats kids end up at Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Penn, UChicago, Hopkins or our local state flagship.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

+1. At our public HS, even the higher income families are balking at the cost of private college for kids not eligible for aid. It's getting harder and harder to justify the cost, especially for kids planning on grad school anyway.

If you don't readily have it saved/can easily cash flow it, then yes no school is worth the $90K+. But if you have saved (and most higher income families easily could have), then it's nice to have those options

This is a mentality I do not understand at all. We could pay $400k but wouldn’t because the ROI is not there. Part of our job as parents is to teach our kids to make good financial decisions. Spending $400k to get the same outcome as going somewhere free seems hard to justify.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

+1. At our public HS, even the higher income families are balking at the cost of private college for kids not eligible for aid. It's getting harder and harder to justify the cost, especially for kids planning on grad school anyway.

If you don't readily have it saved/can easily cash flow it, then yes no school is worth the $90K+. But if you have saved (and most higher income families easily could have), then it's nice to have those options

Anonymous wrote:who do not have much in the way of leadership or pointy ECs? A profile might be 1550-1580 SATs, 13-15 APs in all subjects + all 5s, MV Calc and above, all As or maybe 1-2 A-. ECs are regular ECs including PT jobs, Varsity sports (not recruited), volunteering, tutoring, coaching, clubs and honor societies. Normal awards like AP Scholar. Solid essays. Full pay. My student falls into this category and they are not alone.

there's some good advice here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1nrw37w/admission_officers_and_college_admits_of_reddit/

Anonymous wrote:Brown/ Columbia / Cornell / Dmuth/ UPenn / Vandy all possible ( T11 thru 25)

+ Northwestern and JHU, they are same difficulty. All long shot schools.

A lot of them are heading south to the SEC these days. Amazing college experience and amazing outcomes.