Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:none of them as they're all just peddling on parental anxiety and control.

we are passing on complexes to our kids. lots of mental health issues affecting them right now.

+1

They are all horrible.

NP. The reason I like the Game is he gives good actionable advice on his podcast for FREE.

Most content creators give you teasers so you sign up, or say controversial things to get clicks, or just talk about Higher Ed trends which, while interesting, is different than giving concrete advice.

But in general, I agree, the whole college prep/content/counseling industry is predatory.

The more “difficult” they make the application process seem, the more they convince parents to spend money on advice or buy their products. This goes for authors, podcasters, bloggers, independent college consultants.

They’re just trying to make a living and the rotating wheel of parents is their paycheck.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Had a kid with 1560 sat and 3.75 gpa in very rigorous private. But GPA was maybe top 35%. Kid was able to talk growth w gpa. Adding in a couple self-study 4s muddied the message and he left them off. Into t10 early not hooked.

It's a nuanced decision

Who gave you that advice? Seems sound.
What major?
Agree that without the 4s (bc self-study anyway), he looked stronger.

we were our own counselors. the idea to self-study for a couple APs was to show intellectual curiosity and back up strong testing with more strong testing. the aim was to make the GPA less of a thing - we thought that only really worked with 5s. He didn't spent too much time studying so wasn't sad to not include. Calculus different if you took an AP class and dont submit the score.

Anonymous wrote:none of them as they're all just peddling on parental anxiety and control.

we are passing on complexes to our kids. lots of mental health issues affecting them right now.

+1

They are all horrible.

Anonymous wrote:Had a kid with 1560 sat and 3.75 gpa in very rigorous private. But GPA was maybe top 35%. Kid was able to talk growth w gpa. Adding in a couple self-study 4s muddied the message and he left them off. Into t10 early not hooked.

It's a nuanced decision

Who gave you that advice? Seems sound.
What major?
Agree that without the 4s (bc self-study anyway), he looked stronger.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No to Sara Haberson. Thankfully my DS did not take her advice on a number of issues - did the opposite. Ended up at a HYPSM.

Thus, us too

I'm curious what are the major things that she gets wrong. I follow her on insta and I often feel her advice is hit or miss.

Examples: Only reporting AP scores of 5s on your applications and don’t list a college summer program because it shows privilege.

Ingenius prep says to only list summer programs if you don't have adequate evidence for major. Its considered neutral and gives the least amount of EC points in the scoring rubrics (just FyI). I mean if you have nothing else, yeah, include it. But hopefully it was reasonably selective and not just an 11k money grab. Bc that won't move the needle on your application.

Anonymous wrote:SH doesn’t like people to report 4s on the APs. We disregarded this advice because our school counselor said to 100% submit. Worked out for our DC. Their school requires students to take the AP test if enrolled in the class, so not submitting sends a message to the AO that you bombed the test. SH says they can’t unsee a 4.

ok this is like the tiniest thing in a college app. everyone knows to ignore her advice on AP scores.
what real advice was disregarded?

Had a kid with 1560 sat and 3.75 gpa in very rigorous private. But GPA was maybe top 35%. Kid was able to talk growth w gpa. Adding in a couple self-study 4s muddied the message and he left them off. Into t10 early not hooked.

It's a nuanced decision

Anonymous wrote:SH doesn’t like people to report 4s on the APs. We disregarded this advice because our school counselor said to 100% submit. Worked out for our DC. Their school requires students to take the AP test if enrolled in the class, so not submitting sends a message to the AO that you bombed the test. SH says they can’t unsee a 4.

Wow! Most colleges give credit for a 4, right? What is her reasoning for this advice?

If I worked at a college that gave credit for 4s and 5s, I'd assume someone didn't report their score because it wouldn't give them credit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No to Sara Haberson. Thankfully my DS did not take her advice on a number of issues - did the opposite. Ended up at a HYPSM.

Thus, us too

I'm curious what are the major things that she gets wrong. I follow her on insta and I often feel her advice is hit or miss.

Examples: Only reporting AP scores of 5s on your applications and don’t list a college summer program because it shows privilege.

Agree, and essay advice was off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No to Sara Haberson. Thankfully my DS did not take her advice on a number of issues - did the opposite. Ended up at a HYPSM.

Thus, us too

I'm curious what are the major things that she gets wrong. I follow her on insta and I often feel her advice is hit or miss.

Examples: Only reporting AP scores of 5s on your applications and don’t list a college summer program because it shows privilege.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the Podcast front, I enjoy College Beat (Dartmouth Head of Admissions) and College Admissions with Mark and Anna.

The Game, which many have mentioned, is excellent but aimed at a very specific audience, and I’ve sometimes found it a little bit sobering as a result.

One I stumbled across and enjoyed - same audience as for The Game but with a bit softer edge - is College with Mattie. Haven’t seen that one mentioned on DCUM.

Mattie talks about this site in one episode

College with Mattie is the Tulane kid, right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No to Sara Haberson. Thankfully my DS did not take her advice on a number of issues - did the opposite. Ended up at a HYPSM.

Thus, us too

I'm curious what are the major things that she gets wrong. I follow her on insta and I often feel her advice is hit or miss.

SH doesn’t like people to report 4s on the APs. We disregarded this advice because our school counselor said to 100% submit. Worked out for our DC. Their school requires students to take the AP test if enrolled in the class, so not submitting sends a message to the AO that you bombed the test. SH says they can’t unsee a 4.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No to Sara Haberson. Thankfully my DS did not take her advice on a number of issues - did the opposite. Ended up at a HYPSM.

Thus, us too

She has good recommendations and very dated recommendations. The trick is figuring out what to follow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No to Sara Haberson. Thankfully my DS did not take her advice on a number of issues - did the opposite. Ended up at a HYPSM.

Thus, us too

Advice on what? APs? Most ppl no to disregard her advice on 4s there.

I noticed in the link someone posted yesterday for Dr. Hoffman‘s YouTube videos on what an admissions committee process is like, he also had links to going through top 10 mistakes in a common app. One of them he said was forgetting to mention non-academic national level or regional level awards in your honors section - if you have nothing else.

I know Sara’s doesn’t like that, but I’ve now heard from numerous former admissions officers that they are OK with seeing non-academic honors in that space. Did anyone else not follow Sara‘s advice on this point?