Elite private schools and college admissions

[52-80 19147]

A bunch of fucking nerds in here

 

[Bateshorn 9927]

4 hours ago, Hefeweizen said:

Good reads.  My sisters son has a 1580 on the SAT, top 5 percent in his class in the Denver area, and decent swim team results.  Denied at Duke, Amherst, Williams, and Dartmouth.  He got a full ride to CU Boulder and is going to BC which is a good school, but expensive.

 

 The thing he didn’t do was “demonstrated interest” which means attending the webinars and visiting the school.  My sister is convinced that and possibly his lack of “social commitment” hindered him, but it goes to show it’s a bit of a lottery.

Depending on the school, demonstrated interest is a big deal. Tufts (I.e. Tufts Syndrome) and Tulane are notorious for rejecting top tier applicants for lack of demonstrated interest, no matter how much the Tulane AO says they don’t on his blog, which is otherwise really good.

[Skipper 6128]

2 hours ago, Brew said:

I’m not even looking for the ones that aced their tests, I’m looking for the ones that had a life, hopefully made decent grades, and can sit down and talk to you in an interview. We’re not Big 4 (they can have all the 4.0’s) but we’re right on the cusp of Top 100 firm size. I left my first school with a 1.7 GPA after my first year, got married and finished out the next 2.5 years strong to get me back up in the low 3’s.

You are preaching to the choir.  I'm absolutely convinced you could apply a moneyball type approach to biglaw hiring without wasting millions on a big summer program and find better candidates than the traditional process.  

[Earl Haffler 590]

On 4/2/2022 at 9:43 AM, alincoln said:

Not very helpful anymore particularly if she comes from a relatively wealthy family.  

At Vanderbilt, at least, it helps to be Asian.

[Bullneck 19073]

On 4/2/2022 at 9:17 AM, Sawbonz said:

My daughter (no pics) just told me that the elite DFW privates had an abysmal acceptance rate at Ivy League schools, Stanford, Duke, and Vanderbilt. One of her friends going back to elementary was rejected by her top 3. She was accepted by her 4th choice, still a competitive out of state public, but this is a girl who was near the top of her class, multi sport varsity athlete, tons of extracurriculars  and close to perfect on sat and act. 
 

Is this a fluke or are we looking at a sea change in how prospective students are evaluated at these universities?

There are a few factors at work.

 -  There is a bias against Southerners, which after living in NJ for close to 10 years, I can understand.  The world is full of smart people.  Why bother with those from red states that might end up like Cotton or Sasse or Massie (no CR)?  

 - Elite schools in the NE are more regionally focused than you might think.

 - Ivy League athletics are a big deal, but football isn't (relative to everything else).

 -  Having an alumni parent, especially one who is a donor, really helps.

You always hear about "my kid was valedictorian and didn't get into a single Ivy."  There are more valedictorians every year than there are beds at Ivies.  Bullneck, Jr. is a two sport varsity athlete at a GLADSHEMMS/10 Schools prep school who has made the Headmaster's List consistently.  Not saying he's Ivies bound but I feel good about his chances.

On 4/2/2022 at 9:35 AM, CooterBrown said:

As a result, navigating to the top of a large, diverse high school from a middle class or lower background is usually going to look better than navigating to the top of a private school with a cherry picked high achiever student body.

There's a double edged sword in attending a very good prep school:  On the whole they are packed with science nerd + lacrosse players who would excel anywhere.  Andover takes something like 10% of their applicants (the only school Bullneck, Jr. was rejected from) while most of the rest of the 10 Schools are around 25%.  Bullneckette didn't get accepted to her brother's prep school and stayed at parochial school.  The difference in curriculum and cohorts is striking.  But it's possible she could place higher in her class than him, mainly because it's easier.  

On 4/2/2022 at 9:35 AM, CooterBrown said:

As a result, navigating to the top of a large, diverse high school from a middle class or lower background is usually going to look better than navigating to the top of a private school with a cherry picked high achiever student body.

^^ This is very, very true.

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Bullneck

[luke duke 6412]

My wife went to Ursuline and she's borderline retarded.
I went to a D/FW private where 15-25% (one year a class had something approaching 40%, that was insane) of each graduating class is national merit semi-finalists. One year Duke accepted like half the class and not a single student chose to go to Duke. 
Duke did not accept another graduate from our school for well over a decade.

LOL. I know that place.

[Bullneck 19073]

On 4/2/2022 at 9:29 AM, Lobo said:

 colleges outside Texas' borders don't give a shit.  They keep tabs on a small group of nationally branded private boarding schools and that's about it. 

^^ This is true as well.

On 4/2/2022 at 10:18 AM, immamac said:

Top private schools have admissions counselors that have relationships with the admissions teams at these universities. The private schools you are talking about are for poor people. 

^^ And so is this.

Edited April 3, 2022 by Bullneck

[Bullneck 19073]

On 4/2/2022 at 12:15 PM, tx 3 putt said:

Unpopular opinion, it’s mattering less and less where you graduate from. It helps on that first job, but after that meh. Some schools have much stronger alumni groups than others. Aggie Mays alumni in Houston is a strong group in helping each other out. 

For the most part, I agree.  There are certain fields - architecture jumps to mind - where it really matters.  Someone like Bjarke Ingles might be a visiting professor during your time there, but it ain't going to be at WUSL.  As it's been pointed out, you can study civil engineering pretty much anywhere.

I have a friend who graduated from MIT and a couple of his kids would have been competitive applicants.  They went to UT-Dallas instead and started their working lives with no debt.

[Brisketexan 105071]

2 hours ago, Skipper said:

You are preaching to the choir.  I'm absolutely convinced you could apply a moneyball type approach to biglaw hiring without wasting millions on a big summer program and find better candidates than the traditional process.  

Malcom Gladwell has a great podcast about this.  Spoiler: but for the “best of the best,” and likely the worst of the worst, your law school has little to do with whether you’ll be a good lawyer.

[pronghorn 44]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Malcom Gladwell has a great podcast about this.  Spoiler: but for the “best of the best,” and likely the worst of the worst, your law school has little to do with whether you’ll be a good lawyer.

dirty secret on big law, consulting, or banking. you aren't paying for the best. you are paying for the credentials.

[Brisketexan 105071]

dirty secret on big law, consulting, or banking. you aren't paying for the best. you are paying for the credentials.

And I don’t give a shit about that. I care about results on the field. Build a strategy, run a case, work the courtroom. Show me what you’ve got. Doesn’t mean that the high end folks from the high end schools can’t do that; it just means that they’re far from the only ones.

[Satchel 6932]

https://www.university-list.net/us/rank/school-300001.html

[TwiceHorn 31439]

3 hours ago, pronghorn said:

dirty secret on big law, consulting, or banking. you aren't paying for the best. you are paying for the credentials.

One of the consistently better firms I've been with or against is Susman Godfrey.  After that, it's all pretty much individual lawyers.

Biglaw firms can staff the fuck out of a case though.

[Not a cat 5652]

I've worked with some badass Harvard lawyers and plenty of Harvard dipshits, too. But I've met only one competent Yale grad.  Hell, I hardly run across many Yalies in private practice, I figure they all go into teaching or government work.

True story from my days as a pup at big law.  Get called into IP partner's office, saying I need to draft an asset purchase agreement for a client.  Start asking all the obvious questions I'm gonna need before  I discover that client is selling a used Ford Explorer. I did manage to convince her that negotiating an APA was not the cost effective way to go here.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Satchel said:

https://www.university-list.net/us/rank/school-300001.html

Grandson will be here in July and will live less than 5 miles from 2 of the top 25 schools on the list.

Momma went undergrad Culinary Institute of America and Masters at Bama.  Dad went to West Point and  Masters in CS at Georgia Tech. They better start saving now...for fucking high school.  LOL.

Edited April 4, 2022 by slorch

[Bateshorn 9927]

I’ll do a breakdown of my two kids once I’ve had some coffee, since Boy 2 has basically all but decided,

But this is the point where I will pitch Trinity University to Surl parents with HS students with a liberal arts bent, who are sweating auto admit at UT. It’s incredibly well resourced, with one of the best endowment per capita of any school outside the ivies and Boy 1 received absurdly generous merit aid, plus more need than we expected given we are pretty well off.  Several people on this board have a kid there, and my son is a rising junior and loving it. Do apply early admit, though. 

9 hours ago, pronghorn said:

dirty secret on big law, consulting, or banking. you aren't paying for the best. you are paying for the credentials.

This is also true of Democrat administrations (no CR), to the point where I think they hamstring themselves trying to find Ivy grads instead of just getting an expert in the field. 

Edited April 4, 2022 by Bateshorn

[Caponata 151]

You can try what Mindy Kaling's brother did to get into med school.

[TurkeyChew 383]

1 hour ago, Caponata said:

You can try what Mindy Kaling's brother did to get into med school.

Go on…?

[SimonBolivar 10957]

On 4/3/2022 at 7:40 AM, pearlandhorn said:

 I made the same amount as a first year in big 4 as someone who graduated from Baylor or TCU. They paid 4x as much. 

Not necessarily,  I ended up with 1/2 the loan burden at Baylor as one of my buddies did at A&M with our parents both forgetting to put checks in the mail.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10229]

On 4/2/2022 at 3:42 PM, DaysOff said:

There's 24,000 high schools in this country. That's 24,000 valedictorians being pumped out every year, and some of them are going to get rejected by Stanford and the Ivies.

It's this plus some... as of last year actual are over 40,000 valedictorians each year. Ivy's accepting around 20,000 students each year... so take into account atheletes, legacy students, international students $$$$, homeschooled and recognized students (think science fair, STEM competitions, etc) there will be more valedictorians that don't get accepted by any Ivy league school than that do. So even if you are top at your school you have less than 50% chance.

I also hate to burst the "elite" high schools bubble, but college admissions know that typically just means the students will be more prepared for college and have more experiences, not that they are intellectually better than non-elite high school students.  Show them a kid from inner city Houston who got a near perfect SAT vs a Kinkaid kid with the same score and they picking the inner city kid who likely didn't have years of test tutoring and class tutors for that matter.  (Reason why they are phasing out the SAT/ACT scores from admissions process)

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

On 4/2/2022 at 9:28 AM, deadshank said:

My nephew just went through all of this; however, he’s not in private school.  Top in his class at DC area high school.    Rejected by Harvard, Yale, Swarthmore (wtf?), Duke, Virginia Tech (wtf x 11th billion).   
 

Accepted by Stanford, Cornell, William and Mary, Vassar, UVA, Clemson, Tenn and SCar all with academic scholarship.  
 

Go figure.  

Accepted by W&M, and UVA, but not by VT ?    Unless she's engineering or architecture, that don't make no sense.

[SimonBolivar 10957]

Just now, Onboard 2.0 said:

Accepted by W&M, and UVA, but not by VT ? 

I'd be thrilled with that result. 

[jdhorn92 1545]

2 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

 

But this is the point where I will pitch Trinity University to Surl parents with HS students with a liberal arts bent, who are sweating auto admit at UT. It’s incredibly well resourced, with one of the best endowment per capita of any school outside the ivies and Boy 1 received absurdly generous merit aid, plus more need than we expected given we are pretty well off.  Several people on this board have a kid there, and my son is a rising junior and loving it. Do apply early admit, though. 

 

We have a family friend (from Alabama) who has a kid playing football at Trinity.  They love it.  CSB

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

3 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

I'd be thrilled with that result. 

Heheh, Well yeah, but how did it happen ?

[CooterBrown 18004]

There's 24,000 high schools in this country. That's 24,000 valedictorians being pumped out every year, and some of them are going to get rejected by Stanford and the Ivies.

Maybe 2,000 of those schools are worth a shit. A guy I knew was salutatorian with a B average because his class had 8 kids. Hell, my valedictorian didn’t even go to college. She got married and became a housewife right after graduation.

[Fudge Nuggets 19189]

I'm glad my kid's going pro so we don't have to deal with all this bullshit.

[South Austin 52454]

10 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Biglaw firms can staff the fuck out of a case though.

I had a case about 8-10 years ago against my old biglaw firm. Great guys, great attorneys, and it was fun. But holy shit they billed the ever-living crap out of that file. And they had a fourth-year attorney whose billing rate was higher than mine (I was about a 12-year lawyer at the time). 

Edited April 4, 2022 by South Austin

[Samson's Wig 3191]

7 hours ago, Not a cat said:

I've worked with some badass Harvard lawyers and plenty of Harvard dipshits, too. But I've met only one competent Yale grad.  Hell, I hardly run across many Yalies in private practice, I figure they all go into teaching or government work.

 

I'm not sure if it's still this way, but Harvard Law's mission involved guaranteed enrollment for students from states without a law school (are there any of those left?).  There used to be a ton of Harvard Law grads in out of the way places who were gifted enrollment in this way.  Most of them have died or retired at this point, but I recall working with/against older lawyers from the western states all the time who had Harvard law degrees and could barely string together a complete sentence.

[ABSR 5308]

17 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

Depending on the school, demonstrated interest is a big deal. Tufts (I.e. Tufts Syndrome) and Tulane are notorious for rejecting top tier applicants for lack of demonstrated interest, no matter how much the Tulane AO says they don’t on his blog, which is otherwise really good.

Acceptance rates is as important to many of these schools to show exclusiveness as other metrics, so convincing them you want to go there, and not just that you are qualified, is part of the process.

[Bateshorn 9927]

22 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Maybe 2,000 of those schools are worth a shit. A guy I knew was salutatorian with a B average because his class had 8 kids. Hell, my valedictorian didn’t even go to college. She got married and became a housewife right after graduation.

The Washington Post used to track the valedictorians of the city's public schools and almost without fail, other than Woodrow Wilson, which is in the tony part of the city, they ended up struggling badly their freshman year to handle the academic load.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Bateshorn

[deadshank 24652]

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Accepted by W&M, and UVA, but not by VT ?    Unless she's engineering or architecture, that don't make no sense.

My nephew is a he. 

[SimonBolivar 10957]

5 minutes ago, deadshank said:

My nephew is a he. 

You never know after that freshman year.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 hour ago, deadshank said:

My nephew is a he. 

D'oh...

[Bateshorn 9927]

I'm going to spoiler the bulk of this post in sections to avoid long catting the thread.

I'm just going to use Acronyms/short names and I assume you asshats can google like a normal human, which is probably a stretch but fuck it. The other caveat is Maryland's public university situation is garbage.  UMD-College Park is good, but broke, so they favor out of state students who can pay full freight.  UMD-Baltimore County is a tech focused commuter school.  Fine, but not exceptional. 
Boy #1

Spoiler

Boy #1 went to an elite and extremely challenging private school in DC, Class of 2020.  His grades were good (3.7 unweighted) but not elite, but he tested well (33 ACT) with good recs.  The rest of his app was meh. He wanted liberal arts and minimal winter, which limits your options very quickly.  He panicked about getting into school, applied ED to American, got accepted (it was supposed to be his safety), then immediately regretted it. Luckily, he also EA to Tulane (Waitlisted-Denied), Richmond(Waitlisted-Accepted), Trinity (Accepted), Loyola Marymount (Accepted), Lewis & Clark (Accepted), Maryland (Denied); Regular decison-GWU (Denied).  His Deep Safety was UMD-BC.  Tulane STRONGLY implied if he flipped his EA to ED2, they would let him in, but we never visited. Ultimately he went to Trinity, which gave him 20K annually in Merit, plus 10K in Need. Happy as a clam.  He also seriously considered L&C, which offered him 30k merit annually, but he didn't want to deal with the rain.

Funny story-  We had identified Occidental early on as a good match, but once we got their for the on campus, it was a disaster.  Everything was closed, the AO was rude, the guide was terrible, campus poorly maintained.  Loyola Marymount, we all loved, and holy fuck the girls were hot on campus, but it was $$$$$, even with lots of financial aid.

Here I will discuss getting out of a binding Early Decision:  You can 100% do it (I used finances as a reason), but expect to get an earful from the Head of Admissions, and don't expect to have much luck with any Regular Decisions.  Legally, due to some court cases, AO's aren't supposed to talk to each other, but they do, and if you bail on an ED, there's a chance it could fuck with your decisions that are still out there. Also, you will piss off your school Guidance Counselor. I suppose there's a chance you could get other admissions rescinded, but that seems unlikely.

Boy#2

Spoiler

Boy #2 didn't get into Boy#1 school, so he went to a magnet public, which is very diverse (minority-majority).  He had excellent grades, 3.98 unweighted, great common app essay, sparkling recs, but tests aren't his thing, so 1350 SAT. He wants the big school experience, and business as a major.  NC STate (accepted), Oregon (accepted/honors/merit), Wisconsin (accepted, but not business school), Michigan State (accepted/merit), Trinity (accepted/merit), LMU (accepted/merit), Miami (accepted/merit), Univ. of Washington (Denied). UMD-BC (accepted/honors/merit) and VCU (accepted/honors/merit) were his deep safety and safety.  I suspect Oregon has been the leader in the clubhouse the whole way, and he got into the Clark Honors College last week.  Unless NC State comes up with a full ride, I don't see that changing.  Oregon came through with 10k a year in merit, plus a tuition lock, which is very, very attractive.  If he had gotten into the business school at Wisconsin, it might have been a different story, but he didn't want to spend his Freshman year in the library to try and get in for his Sophomore year.

One thing that was consistent with both kids, is they get burned out as the application process goes on.  The quality of supplemental essays really suffers, and they just refuse to do anymore.  Boy 2 is a huge Longhorn fan, and I encouraged him to take a lotto ticket on it, but the supplemental questions were harder than he wanted to put the effort into, and with that Nov. 1 EA deadline barrelling down, he just kind dug in his heels, so I let it got.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Bateshorn

[Fudge Nuggets 19189]

22 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

Engineering, you 1000% want the grinders 

I want the kids that played golf on Fridays, bbq’d / drank beer / played cards all night. I want the kids that grouped up and interacted with the other groups 

I won drunkest member of the year in my fraternity two years straight and graduated with a 3.2 GPA in mechanical engineering.  You hiring?

[Bateshorn 9927]

Also: with Test optional, I was told by one of the AO's I spoke to to submit your scores if they are above the school median.  Don't if they are below. If the school doesn't post it's score range, go track down it's latest Common Data Set, which will have that information.

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

On 4/3/2022 at 11:49 AM, Hefeweizen said:

Good reads.  My sisters son has a 1580 on the SAT, top 5 percent in his class in the Denver area, and decent swim team results.  Denied at Duke, Amherst, Williams, and Dartmouth.  He got a full ride to CU Boulder and is going to BC which is a good school, but expensive.

 

 The thing he didn’t do was “demonstrated interest” which means attending the webinars and visiting the school.  My sister is convinced that and possibly his lack of “social commitment” hindered him, but it goes to show it’s a bit of a lottery.

Going to on campus potential student events does matter. Which is in a way classists as to who can afford multiples of those.

Edited April 4, 2022 by ShaggyBevo RIP

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

3 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

Maybe 2,000 of those schools are worth a shit. A guy I knew was salutatorian with a B average because his class had 8 kids. Hell, my valedictorian didn’t even go to college. She got married and became a housewife right after graduation.

I have private school friend who was the top 25% of his class. Yes, that is a graduating class of 4.

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

I've just been on a bunch of college visits with the youngest and UT's was the worst I've experienced for either kid. I left thinking damn the 'We're UT' attitude permeates everything. I guess when you have so few slots after the in state mandatory takes you can do that.

The best college visit production I've been to is UT Dallas.

[tx 3 putt 76873]

1 hour ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

I won drunkest member of the year in my fraternity two years straight and graduated with a 3.2 GPA in mechanical engineering.  You hiring?

the market for mechanical engineers is 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[Guest Lobo]

3 minutes ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

I've just been on a bunch of college visits with the youngest and UT's was the worst I've experienced for either kid. I left thinking damn the 'We're UT' attitude permeates everything. I guess when you have so few slots after the in state mandatory takes you can do that.

The best college visit production I've been to is UT Dallas.

I've said this before, but we did a 2-day deep dive at UT Dallas with the System before Covid.  Got to really look under the hood.  And I was really, really impressed with that campus.  Needs an invigoration of community, housing, and "school spirit" whatever that means...which will come with time.  But the facilities, the grounds, faculty, research, all of it was top flight.  And they take recruiting very seriously for both students, and faculty.  It's the UT System campus making the most meteoric rise as well (UT-Arlington, UT-SA, and UT-RGV and UT-EP all doing great, but the trajectory of UT-D is just in another gear the last few years).  

[Surly Bevo 24908]

I've just been on a bunch of college visits with the youngest and UT's was the worst I've experienced for either kid. I left thinking damn the 'We're UT' attitude permeates everything. I guess when you have so few slots after the in state mandatory takes you can do that.
The best college visit production I've been to is UT Dallas.

Got a freshman at Texas and yea they don’t exactly do much to sell themselves because we don’t really have to.

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

2 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

the market for mechanical engineers is 🔥🔥🔥🔥

So is he! Perfect fit.

[Hefeweizen 5310]

My daughter never really got interested in UT.  Only applied because mom and I insisted.  It was a good safety for her but not in the cards.  She wound up getting denied at MIT and CalTech but got into her third ranked Stem which was Harvey Mudd.  So now I’m getting ready my 55 gallon lube tub.  Because it ain’t cheap.

[Bateshorn 9927]

1 minute ago, Hefeweizen said:

My daughter never really got interested in UT.  Only applied because mom and I insisted.  It was a good safety for her but not in the cards.  She wound up getting denied at MIT and CalTech but got into her third ranked Stem which was Harvey Mudd.  So now I’m getting ready my 55 gallon lube tub.  Because it ain’t cheap.

Yeah, but Mudd grads have some of the highest starting salaries of any college grads, so at least she won’t be in your basement after college. 
 

Congats, dude, your kid is smart AF. 

[tx 3 putt 76873]

3 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

Yeah, but Mudd grads have some of the highest starting salaries of any college grads, so at least she won’t be in your basement after college. 
 

Congats, dude, your kid is smart AF. 

hands down, my most successful classmates all started out as mud engineers. It’s not mudd, but their success as a group is just unreal 

[Bateshorn 9927]

17 minutes ago, Lobo said:

I've said this before, but we did a 2-day deep dive at UT Dallas with the System before Covid.  Got to really look under the hood.  And I was really, really impressed with that campus.  Needs an invigoration of community, housing, and "school spirit" whatever that means...which will come with time.  But the facilities, the grounds, faculty, research, all of it was top flight.  And they take recruiting very seriously for both students, and faculty.  It's the UT System campus making the most meteoric rise as well (UT-Arlington, UT-SA, and UT-RGV and UT-EP all doing great, but the trajectory of UT-D is just in another gear the last few years).  

UMD-BC is doing the same thing.  Really seizing hold of the STEM/Applied Degree space to make them selves an alternative to College Park and a second instate viable option. Nice campus, and really accommodating admissions department.  They took advantage of their 16 over 1 victory in March Madness a few years ago to really up their profile.

[Hefeweizen 5310]

14 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

Yeah, but Mudd grads have some of the highest starting salaries of any college grads, so at least she won’t be in your basement after college. 
 

Congats, dude, your kid is smart AF. 

Yeah she is way smarter than her old man, that’s for sure.  And hell yes I’m proud.  

[Fudge Nuggets 19189]

17 minutes ago, Hefeweizen said:

My daughter never really got interested in UT.  Only applied because mom and I insisted.  It was a good safety for her but not in the cards.  She wound up getting denied at MIT and CalTech but got into her third ranked Stem which was Harvey Mudd.  So now I’m getting ready my 55 gallon lube tub.  Because it ain’t cheap.

Ouch, according to the googletrons that's the most expensive college in America at $80K per year before any aid.

[Hefeweizen 5310]

Just now, Fudge Nuggets said:

Ouch, according to the googletrons that's the most expensive college in America at $80K per year before any aid.

Is this where I humblebrag and rage at the same time?