Anonymous wrote:Someone I heard of got a luxury RV and parked it in a luxury RV resort. The family's two kids then became homeless under the federal definition of homeless. If you are homeless you are eligible for free lunch program. Many academic summer programs give scholarships to anyone on free lunch. Kids write essays saying they were homeless. Technically they were but grandparents lived nearby and kids and parents were usually there. They go every summer to amazing summer camps for free and I am sure they will use their being "homeless" to their benefit when applying to colleges.

Anonymous wrote:OP it goes on all the time with very influential parents. Duh. It does make me scratch my head when someone recently arrived here with a small store thinks their kid “deserves” an Ivy because “only the best will do”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the bottom line is people are likely to hype up their own kid in their minds (his grades aren't perfect, but look at those extracurriculars!!) and dismiss the achievements of kids not their own (assuming every URM would not have gotten in without that "hook," calling a kid average when you don't actually know their scores/GPA/essays). It's much more likely that the kid is actually an exceptional candidate in a way that is not on your radar than that the parents have bribed the kid's way in.

Yup. Some parents never shush about their kids. My parents didn't brag about me much (and still don't, makes me kind of sad ha ha) but when I got accepted early admission by a top Ivy (one of the schools you referenced) maybe some folks were surprised. Bottom line is I was busting my ass in school, activities, and a job. Only people I had to impress were teachers and admissions officers. Also, not everyone brags about their kid's SAT scores and GPAs.

Anonymous wrote:I think the bottom line is people are likely to hype up their own kid in their minds (his grades aren't perfect, but look at those extracurriculars!!) and dismiss the achievements of kids not their own (assuming every URM would not have gotten in without that "hook," calling a kid average when you don't actually know their scores/GPA/essays). It's much more likely that the kid is actually an exceptional candidate in a way that is not on your radar than that the parents have bribed the kid's way in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The unimpressive kids who went Ivy from our children’s private high school were all URM and/or athletes. 100%. And it was obvious to everyone they were not in or anywhere near the top bucket academically. Eye opening to all. And these were not poor URMs, I’m talking a blue-eyed “Hispanic” with a multi-millionaire dad and a Black teen with two MD parents.

The smartest most overachieving URM I’ve seen there in 10 years was an authentic Hispanic gal with truly middle class parents, who went to UVA. I think she pursued marine biology.

Same at our top NOVA public. The URMs are hardly underprivileged and the athletes aren’t thaaat great. But they beat out those with more rigorous loads, better grades and scores. and equivalent or better ECs (they’re just not sports).

Ha! Ours too! I wonder if we’re talking about the same school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at all the protesting and anger before Corona on selective campuses it was largely kids who really didn’t deserve to be there and felt like lower capacity outcasts. They’re displacing their angrier and inferiority complex onto others. Imagine being at an Ivy — essentially winning the life lottery — and being angry about anything.

All the kids admitted deserved to be there by virtue that they fulfilled the only criteria: they got admitted.

Admission to an ivy is not a lottery or comparable to one, nor is it a guarantee of success in the future.

Your bitterness is sad, pathetic, probably racist, and holding you back in life, and you need to let go of it all.

Now that we have established why you are a sicko, let me add why you are an idiot:

Most colleges work hard to admit principled, ambitious, proactive, and committed young people, exactly the kind that are not afraid to try and change things that need changing. Meanwhile, people like you sit in your barcalounger and say "Why should I be angry when I have 175 channels of cable and a full bag of cheetos"?

And you wonder why you weren't admitted. Now you know!

'

DP. The truth is somewhere in the middle - the kids who tend to protest the most certainly "deserve" to be at those schools, but they are less likely to feel comfortable at their institutions and more likely to express their discomfort through various forms of protest (i.e., they tend to think that, if only the things they were protesting about came to pass, they would feel more comfortable in their skin/shoes at an elite school).

Hey DP, you are ignorant also. That is not why people protest. In fact it is possibly the dumbest suggestion I have ever heard.

Touched a nerve, I see.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at all the protesting and anger before Corona on selective campuses it was largely kids who really didn’t deserve to be there and felt like lower capacity outcasts. They’re displacing their angrier and inferiority complex onto others. Imagine being at an Ivy — essentially winning the life lottery — and being angry about anything.

All the kids admitted deserved to be there by virtue that they fulfilled the only criteria: they got admitted.

Admission to an ivy is not a lottery or comparable to one, nor is it a guarantee of success in the future.

Your bitterness is sad, pathetic, probably racist, and holding you back in life, and you need to let go of it all.

Now that we have established why you are a sicko, let me add why you are an idiot:

Most colleges work hard to admit principled, ambitious, proactive, and committed young people, exactly the kind that are not afraid to try and change things that need changing. Meanwhile, people like you sit in your barcalounger and say "Why should I be angry when I have 175 channels of cable and a full bag of cheetos"?

And you wonder why you weren't admitted. Now you know!

'

DP. The truth is somewhere in the middle - the kids who tend to protest the most certainly "deserve" to be at those schools, but they are less likely to feel comfortable at their institutions and more likely to express their discomfort through various forms of protest (i.e., they tend to think that, if only the things they were protesting about came to pass, they would feel more comfortable in their skin/shoes at an elite school).

Hey DP, you are ignorant also. That is not why people protest. In fact it is possibly the dumbest suggestion I have ever heard.

Touched a nerve, I see.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The unimpressive kids who went Ivy from our children’s private high school were all URM and/or athletes. 100%. And it was obvious to everyone they were not in or anywhere near the top bucket academically. Eye opening to all. And these were not poor URMs, I’m talking a blue-eyed “Hispanic” with a multi-millionaire dad and a Black teen with two MD parents.

The smartest most overachieving URM I’ve seen there in 10 years was an authentic Hispanic gal with truly middle class parents, who went to UVA. I think she pursued marine biology.

Same at our top NOVA public. The URMs are hardly underprivileged and the athletes aren’t thaaat great. But they beat out those with more rigorous loads, better grades and scores. and equivalent or better ECs (they’re just not sports).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at all the protesting and anger before Corona on selective campuses it was largely kids who really didn’t deserve to be there and felt like lower capacity outcasts. They’re displacing their angrier and inferiority complex onto others. Imagine being at an Ivy — essentially winning the life lottery — and being angry about anything.

All the kids admitted deserved to be there by virtue that they fulfilled the only criteria: they got admitted.

Admission to an ivy is not a lottery or comparable to one, nor is it a guarantee of success in the future.

Your bitterness is sad, pathetic, probably racist, and holding you back in life, and you need to let go of it all.

Now that we have established why you are a sicko, let me add why you are an idiot:

Most colleges work hard to admit principled, ambitious, proactive, and committed young people, exactly the kind that are not afraid to try and change things that need changing. Meanwhile, people like you sit in your barcalounger and say "Why should I be angry when I have 175 channels of cable and a full bag of cheetos"?

And you wonder why you weren't admitted. Now you know!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unimpressive frauds can only hide so long. The overachievers at less prestigious schools will out work, out earn and be more successful in the end. The Ivy cachet and connections are wasted on charity cases. This is evident by graduation and always clear by who the kid marries. Hint: they don’t marry another Ivy alum, because they were shunned on campus by everyone with a brain.

I take it you neither went to an IVY nor an elite SLAC. Hint, some underachievers luck into great first jobs, some super intelligent classmates do not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The unimpressive kids who went Ivy from our children’s private high school were all URM and/or athletes. 100%. And it was obvious to everyone they were not in or anywhere near the top bucket academically. Eye opening to all. And these were not poor URMs, I’m talking a blue-eyed “Hispanic” with a multi-millionaire dad and a Black teen with two MD parents.

The smartest most overachieving URM I’ve seen there in 10 years was an authentic Hispanic gal with truly middle class parents, who went to UVA. I think she pursued marine biology.

Same at our top NOVA public. The URMs are hardly underprivileged and the athletes aren’t thaaat great. But they beat out those with more rigorous loads, better grades and scores. and equivalent or better ECs (they’re just not sports).

Who cares, really? I went to an Ivy (two, actually) and they are just schools. Branch out and tour a wider range of colleges and universities and you see what great places they can be to get an education (and, honestly, a college town like Ann Arbor or Athens has it all over New Haven).

Of course, the Ivies still seem to have a stranglehold in the public imagination for certain cohorts, but there is so much more out there.