When not to play - Nine Types of Kids for whom elite schools may not be right: playing the cards you are actually dealt - Post #2 of 21
Many Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, and Amazon Prime shows being aired today make passing references to an amazing character who attends an amazing college. In fact, the top 30 universities are typically unabashedly mentioned by name: when Raven Goes to College, she goes to Georgetown. After graduating from High School Musical, Troy attends Berkeley, Gabriella attends Stanford, Kelsey attends Julliard, and Taylor attends Yale. Legally Blonde, Good Will Hunting, and The Firm all have main characters either attending or who have graduated from Harvard. Popular culture inundates kids and adults alike with an unwavering reverence for the 30 elite universities, and an assumption that everyone should, and does, go there. But is this a healthy idea?
Definitely not. Not for most people in The United States. Acceptance rates at top 30 schools have been shockingly low during the past year. Harvard 5.2%. Yale 6.3%. Princeton 6.5%. Stanford 3.6%. Columbia 6.7%. My son’s 2021 Georgetown acceptance letter stated that the acceptance rate for his class was 6%. You get the idea.
Fun fact: This past Thanksgiving my daughter invited her best friend and fellow Georgetown graduate home for the week. I had the opportunity to get to know her, and she let me interview her! I needed this, because my only Georgetown knowledge so far had been derived from my own two kids and their experiences. When pressed, our guest insisted that she was just an average student from an average high school and she really did not know how she got into Georgetown. When pressed further, she admitted that she was third in her class, had a 4.36 GPA, had taken almost all the AP courses offered by her high school, had volunteered extensively during high school with her town’s paramedics, had never had a tutor, and had never taken an ACT prep course. Good information. Then I just asked her: what did you make on the SAT? Then she dropped the real truth: she had virtually perfect SAT scores.
My kids had to struggle mightily over two years just to get their 33s on their respective ACTs, and our guest had effortlessly earned what translates to a 35. So our guest was born into full-fledged genius level, and my kids had to fight for years just to achieve their 33s, which is the bare minimum ACT score even to be considered. Which of these two types of students should apply to an elite college? Are there other types who should shoot for the top? My answer is a simple: Everyone should shoot for the moon. Everyone. Unless they are one of the ten types of kids enumerated below.
So exactly which kids should not consider applying to the top 30 schools?
1. The Unmotivated.
Internal motivation is key to success anywhere, but this is especially true in the top 30. These schools often seek students who have been working at such a momentum that when they hit college, they bust through and are generally unaffected by the tremendous work demands. Athletic scholarship recipients and admittees based on some endowment gift are often in for a shock when they attend their first class among an ocean of students acclimated to dragging the equivalent of an academic battleship all by themselves. Only the motivated fit well in the elite schools.
2. The Stress Puppy.
Top 30 schools are basically a diving bell filled with pressure that most students on campus soon get accustomed to. Some even love this pressure. If your child, however, does not thrive in a hyper-competitive atmosphere, then pushing them in this direction would likely not be best for them. Master parents play the cards they are dealt, and that means some kids fit in the top 30 schools, some fit in state schools, some fit into a path with no college, some fit in the military, and some will make their own path, one to date never thought of before! The important thing to remember is that your child needs to psychologically thrive in the new biosphere that is their “next step.” Mental health is a deadly serious issue on college campuses, and parents must help guide their child to the location where they are most likely to feel safe and be genuinely happy.
3. The Homebody.
One interesting observation I have made as a two-time Georgetown dad is that once my kids left the farm and saw the big city, they never came back. I spent considerable energy building a cool house for eventual grandkids, but it is obvious now that my older kids have been at college a while, they will never move back home. This is something to factor in for sure as you make your initial college recommendations to your kids when they are little. These early, passing conversations are powerfully formative and, frankly, are almost irreversible in some cases. So, if your child does not permanently want to move far from home, or if you don’t want them to, weigh that reality in your decision-making calculus.
4. The Oblivious.
One inescapable reality is that when polled in class, the majority of my high school students would raise their hand and confidently declare that they intended to attend a top 30 college. Very few of them recognized the disparity between 60% of them wanting to attend, and only a fraction of that number actually being admitted. Think about this ballpark figure: at $75 per application, the top 30 colleges, who each average 50,000 applicants each year, end up pocketing $112,500,000.00 just in application fees from hopefuls almost all of whom are rejected. And this figure is just for the top thirty schools, just for 2021 alone. Applying to colleges should be done by those aware of the odds, and aware that only the elitely-prepared elite attend elite colleges.
5. The Bargain Shopper.
Face it, the top 30 elite colleges are also some of the top 30 most expensive colleges. Finances are an important factor, and often a dollar is stretched far better looking in any direction other than elite. Scholarships are far rarer at the top 30 (while many will fully fund education based on economic need, they only do so if the applicant’s family earnings fall under a certain threshold), and other college choices may value your child’s credentials far higher, in terms of both admission and an offer of financial aid. Avoiding decades of burdensome student loans is a worthy goal for sure.
6. The Unconfident.
“Imposter Syndrome” is actually a term used at colleges. It refers to freshmen who are suddenly surrounded by an army of students who far outgun them, or at least they appear to, and as a result the student feels like a fraud. I view these students as those who look normal on the surface, but who are trying desperately under the water to try to keep up with the rest of the students in class. At every stage of life, college application time included, make certain that your student understands their self-worth on a core level, and that they are okay with immersion among the most stellar people on earth.
7. The Thin-Skinned.
Rejection hurts. The internet is overflowing with videos of seniors sure that they were going to get dazzling news once they opened the email they just received, but instead reading it and descending into the ugly-cry, some of them very, very ugly. Even valedictorians and even students with perfect standardized test scores are rejected from elite colleges. In fact, after 30 years of teaching I have never heard of any student who was not rejected by at least one of their dream schools. Need a good cry? Google this topic. And remember this ugly truth: most of my honors students during my 20 years of teaching were rejected by every single elite top 30 college they applied to. So apply broadly, and don’t apply at all if your child’s credentials/numbers do not support it. Mainly, never set your child up for the disappointment that always accompanies unrealistic expectations.
8. The Vicarious.
Many students apply to elite colleges simply to please their parents. Everyone wants love, and everyone wants approval, and this should not be the motivation for your child. The elite school your child targets needs to be a great personal fit for the child. Otherwise, keep looking, since college application--by all accounts, even by the accounts of some admissions officers themselves--is “a complete crapshoot” that depends on about 30 factors, many of which change year to year.
9. The Superstar.
If your child has enjoyed the spotlight during high school, they may want to continue basking in its glory in college. While every single enrollee at a top 30 school has been bathed in the spotlight all their life, the room under the elite college spotlight is far more limited. Even the biggest fish, accustomed to dominating their small, manageable ponds, soon discover that the new elite pond is filled with amazing Rainbow Fish from all over the world. The second your child freaks out at the mailbox because they just got the exciting elite-admissions news is the second that their high school spotlight begins to fade. Make sure this is not a surprise, and that they are OK with a hefty (and likely constructive) dose of humility.
The best analogy for the exhausting college admissions process is flying a kite. Imagine taking your beautiful child out to an open, green field on a gorgeous, blustery March day. This day is warm, the sun is out, and this scene will one day become one of your most cherished memories, for both you and your child.
Do you tell the child to fly the kite so it flies exactly due west? No. Do we try to fly a kite that is shabby and poorly built? No. Do we have the child try to fly the kite without being shown how? No. Do we quit after the first failed attempt? No.
What do we do? We settle in, take care of each other because this will be unpredictable, we play the cards we’re dealt, we run like hell, we learn all we can about the process, we fly where the wind takes us and make the best course corrections we can, and when the kite finally goes aloft, we nurture it, recognize its fleeting nature, and mainly, we appreciate the moments once that kite is catching the air and snapping and dancing in the wind. We appreciate that this moment took twenty years to achieve. And we appreciate that the moment is all theirs.