Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In some schools, counselors control as they are the ones who upload the school recommendations and transcripts. For example, at my kids' private school, they discourage applications to HYPS unless there is a hook or the #1 candidate from school where school will throw 100% of support behind candidate

I understand a private school doing this, though I don't think it's a great practice. Private schools justify their prices and existence in part by offering families a better chance of getting their child into a top school for their stats. But I think it's crazy that a public school would do this, or that parents would put up with it. I absolutely think a counselor should be honest if a kid's stats fall below the likely level for UVA, but they should still fully support the kid's application. There are a lot of kids whose grades or scores might be slightly below the top 10% who are both extremely talented and more likely to make a positive impact on a campus or in the world than some of those in the top group. Also, how can a school with 400 or 500 kids in a class only have a single counselor?

I'm a laid back parent, but I'd be making waves if I had a kid at McLean and they actually do what the PP has stated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ sorry, meant UVA's rate. Yes I can explain. We just went thru the process for the second time. It goes sorta like this. Langley and McLean have a senior class of 400-500 and one college counselor. You go in to talk to the counselor about colleges and universities you think would be good for daughter. Counselor has all of daughter's grades and school-related EC in front of her. I ask - after she suggests expensive privates - is she a candidate for UVA? Couonselor says no - you need over a 4.0 and daughter is a 3.5. You agree on which schools to apply and counselor arranges for the transcripts and letters of recommendations to go to those schools. UVA comes on campus and counselor notifies the 60 in the class who are ranked at the top of the class.

This also happens at private schools. There was a poster last week complaining that DS was allowed to only apply to ten schools and all of those will be reasonable fits.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to help explain to me. I am shocked at this scam that only benefits the college and high school numbers. At first I have decided none of my children will apply to UVA; but further thinking, all my children will apply to UVA and decline to attend so it will ruin their yield percentage.

Anonymous wrote:^^ sorry, meant UVA's rate. Yes I can explain. We just went thru the process for the second time. It goes sorta like this. Langley and McLean have a senior class of 400-500 and one college counselor. You go in to talk to the counselor about colleges and universities you think would be good for daughter. Counselor has all of daughter's grades and school-related EC in front of her. I ask - after she suggests expensive privates - is she a candidate for UVA? Couonselor says no - you need over a 4.0 and daughter is a 3.5. You agree on which schools to apply and counselor arranges for the transcripts and letters of recommendations to go to those schools. UVA comes on campus and counselor notifies the 60 in the class who are ranked at the top of the class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In some schools, counselors control as they are the ones who upload the school recommendations and transcripts. For example, at my kids' private school, they discourage applications to HYPS unless there is a hook or the #1 candidate from school where school will throw 100% of support behind candidate

I understand a private school doing this, though I don't think it's a great practice. Private schools justify their prices and existence in part by offering families a better chance of getting their child into a top school for their stats. But I think it's crazy that a public school would do this, or that parents would put up with it. I absolutely think a counselor should be honest if a kid's stats fall below the likely level for UVA, but they should still fully support the kid's application. There are a lot of kids whose grades or scores might be slightly below the top 10% who are both extremely talented and more likely to make a positive impact on a campus or in the world than some of those in the top group. Also, how can a school with 400 or 500 kids in a class only have a single counselor?

I'm a laid back parent, but I'd be making waves if I had a kid at McLean and they actually do what the PP has stated.

Anonymous wrote:In some schools, counselors control as they are the ones who upload the school recommendations and transcripts. For example, at my kids' private school, they discourage applications to HYPS unless there is a hook or the #1 candidate from school where school will throw 100% of support behind candidate

Anonymous wrote:
Nope. It's 27% for this year. And you try telling your public high school counselor that you want the school's support (records, letters of recommendation, statistics, push for your kid) if your child is only an A- students. All high schools, public and private, self-select which students are allowed to apply to UVA. There was no way McLean High school was going to help my A-student get into UVA. So we discussed other options. http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2017/03/uva-acceptance-rates-drop-for-regular-admission-decisions. Also the average GPA to get into UVA is now 4.26 and average ACT scores are 31-34. And 90% of class of 2021 is in the top 10% of their class. 94% of the class of 2020 was in the top 10% of their class. You cannot compare admit figures for UVA (and UCLA and Berkeley for that matter) to rates at SLACs which receive a very different pool of candidate.