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Sure-- they are measured using a carefully constructed rubric which allows them to select the most likely victors. The top competitors are granted admission.




I'm thinking that it would save a lot of time, though, if they just selected for those who are listing things like gladatorial combat and ultimate cagefighting under "hobbies" and quizzed for soft ethical boundaries. But that's just me. Then again, maybe it's the parents we need to be worrying about there. Hmm. Might be an additional sorting criteria, though...

Is it just me, or does this all seem increasingly ripe for a reality TV show?



My DD has been disheartened to realize that playing the piano, having near-perfect grades, and interests in strategy gaming, photography, speech and community service make her....

common. Plus, dog handling and showing experience? Not a selling point.

Of course, doing those things because you ACTUALLY like them and nobody is pushing you to like them, and not having them be exaggerated by an overzealous parent, not-so-much, but that's harder to tease apart on paper. As she and I put it-- the stuff in her vitae is actually HERS. LOL.

Wonder how she'd do in the featherweight classes of cage fighting...

I'll probably have my kid get admitted to one for entertainment purposes.

However, I'm not paying the $300,000.

Yeah, but that's because dog showing/handling is technically a cult.

I hope I'm not the only one who will be perfectly happy if my kids just go to the local community college, or our State University (well, I might take that back since the tuition there will be about as much if not more than at a good out of state small town America college!), or even if they go a different route and don't go to college at all. I know they are smart and I want them to know their potential but to me it doesn't necessarily mean the push for the "best" education. I was a gifted kid back in my days (I think I lost most of it when I gave birth to these two ... :)), I have two college degrees and for a while played with the idea of getting a Phd in Decision Science, I went into real estate right after getting out of college, when the market went down I became a stay at home mom ... and I love it! I have yet to use my education (one of the squeaky points between me and my husband and even my mom ... they both think that I should be using my education and my brain but to me it all just means that I have sharp thinking and can use it in whatever area I decide to be in but I have to desire to join the corporate world). So, my big expectations when it comes to our boys is for them to be HAPPY! And I don't mean smoking weed happy. I mean happy with whatever they choose to be and do with their lives. I also for the most part expect them to fund their own college education. Whatever scholarships, resident adviser positions, on campus kind of jobs they can get, they need to go for it. When they get to high school age, I expect them to be responsible enough to have the college funding in mind and keep their grades up and work hard.

So, to me all this Ivy league school talk is more like a sci-fi. I am not saying I wouldn't love to have a child in one of those schools but only if that's where they truly want to be and work hard for it.

I don't get it. Even the most selective Ivy leagues school accepts 6% of applicants, the 20th most selective is like 17%. They seem like such kiddy play numbers compared to 0.01% and such.

Hey-- it's FAN-DOM.

Just noting. LOL!

Actually, I don't really get it, either, with acceptance rates hovering over 5%, and seriously? I also just really don't buy that you don't get a good education at most places if you're into getting a good education.

So yes, price is a major consideration for us. Particularly for undergrad.

Oh, sure-- we'd like for DD to apply to Reed. Absolutely. She doesn't see the point, already stating to us that there is NO WAY that she'll be going there... but we figure, if she gets in and gets $$ from them, it's leverage elsewhere. WIN.

Except that the purpose of attending an Ivy League school is the credential/network you acquire.

I still don't know *why* I went to college (non-ivy) in the first place, but it wasn't to "get an education". It was more a combination of (1) that's what you had to do and (2) I didn't have any idea of what else to go do with myself.

Although there was a lot of criticism on on how the Ivy's admit, I haven't read an alternate viable solution to weed through a ton of applications when twice as many kids have perfect scores on their SATs than there are spots.

--and Mana, actually ballet is in there. Harvard recruits dancers.

I was surprised about water polo, since I know someone who went on water polo scholarship and said, that aside from Brown, it was a CA thing. But maybe that has changed since he went to school 10 years ago.

I read speculative IQs of famous people. Hillary Clinton was suppose to be 125, her husband 140. I think on pure IQ, most people would put Bill ahead but I think he would never have been president without her. I think her work ethic leveraged her lower IQ so that she could achieve greater success than someone with a higher IQ. Though that didn't play out in the primary, I think she is an example of gifted and good habits make for great success.

Why wouldn't top schools be looking for that kind of discipline in their recruitment?

Ahhhh--but how to tease apart which discipline is the STUDENT and which is the PARENT... now that has become the new challenge.