I’m off to a support group for underpaid bloggers.
So until Monday, please enjoy this musical presentation, courtesy of the Ephlats, one of the Williams College a cappella groups.
I am so proud to announce that CJ has performed brilliantly on his initial round of standardized testing, the SAT IIIs. These subject tests, offered for the first time by the College Board this year, measure the critical thinking and problem solving skills that a student will actually need in college.
CJ’s scores on the following exams were stellar, and should demonstrate that he has mastered an impressive knowledge base for a high school junior.
APTs (Advanced Prom Transportation) – Students are given the task of reserving an appropriate vehicle to transport 26 of their closest friends to the prom and afterparty. Then they must collect $75 per passenger, more than it costs to attend the prom itself. (CJ did so well on the APTs, that he was able to make a considerable donation to the Tufts Syndrome Foundation.)
FMTs (Facebook Multi-tasking 2C) – Students are expected to communicate with at least 680 friends in a five-minute period, while simultaneously studying for a Pre-Calc quiz, watching a Lakers Game and reading The Great Gatsby. (Note: The UCs have announced that they will not accept scores from the lower-level Facebook 1C Exam.)
PBRs (Peer-based Rationalization) – Students research and present an argument that their interim grades were outstanding compared to those of their high-achieving friends.
Most highly-selective colleges recommend taking just three SAT IIIs, but CJ is considering taking the AGH (Accelerated Guitar Hero) achievement exam in November, just to show the admissions committees that he is well-rounded and truly challenging himself in high school.
Q: I wish to become active in the fight against Tufts Syndrome. What are some other colleges it has affected?
A: Thanks so much to everyone who has cared enough to support the cause and stop Tufts Syndrome once and for all. I went back to College Confidential to see if there was a happy ending for the Tufts Syndrome victim who was waitlisted at Bard. No news so far, but I did find a comprehensive six-page thread listing other colleges with signs of Tufts Syndrome: WashU, Lehigh, UC Davis, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Northeastern, Kenyon, Grinnell, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Swarthmore ("infamous for this") and GW (by far the college mentioned the most). One student reported getting "tufted big time at Reed" and another said he "got the tufty at BC". And happily, one poster reported that Tufts Syndrome no longer exists at Tufts, so your efforts have not gone unnoticed.
Q: I have been googling for about 30 minutes now and Fallbrook College doesn’t even have a website!! I mean, it’s like it doesn’t even exist!! I am going to contact these four kids right now and let them know—what a scam!
A: As long as you’re contacting the Fallbrook applicants, please let them know that they don’t exist either. And if they did, they wouldn’t have names like Robert, Mary Ann and Kenneth. Those guys are from the class of ’74.
Q: What are your restaurant recommendations for Amherst and Ithaca?
A: I will list those on a slow news day.
Q: Is it true that this blog is moving to the Huffington Post?
A: We’re in negotiations – I have requested that Arianna write a college recommendation for CJ, and I’m waiting to hear back.
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The website www.collegeconfidential.com is no place for neurotic parents. Just about every student who posts on the site has perfect grades, exceptional scores, grew up in an igloo with multi-generational Inuit relatives and has recently sold a patent to Intel. These superhumans usually want to know their chances at top schools, but occasionally ask others for nurturing and support.
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Today I discovered a desperate College Confidential post from a senior, gender unknown, with the screen name of weisenheimer2u. Weisenheimer has a 2340 SAT and a 3.9 unweighted GPA, and wanted to know if anyone could figure out why he or she was waitlisted at Bard. There was an immediate response from randomname25, whose theory was that Weisenheimer was the victim of "Tufts Syndrome."
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Here is the post (and yes, it is real – http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/bard-college/481804-waitlisted-2340-sat-3-9-gpa.html):
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Weisenheimer2u:
WAITLISTED with 2340 SAT, 3.9 GPA
I just got waitlisted today! I thought I was in for sure and Bard is my #1 school. Does anyone know WHY? I mean I know Bard is a great school but I thought I was qualified:
GPA UW: 3.9 Took the hardest course load at my HS: all honors freshman and sophomore year (no AP’s allowed until junior year); junior year APUSH (5), AP English Lang (5), AP Chemistry (5), AP Calc BC (5), AP Computer Science (5); senior year AP Econ, AP Euro, AP English Lit, AP Physics C, MV Calc/Linear Algebra, AP French. ECs: Captain of the math team, co-captain of Science Olympiad, co-captain of the chess team, volunteer tutor, started own web design company. Why on earth did they reject me? I know I must sound stuck-up but I really can’t figure out why, my stats are above their accepted averages, I’m a good student and I thought my ECs were good enough. What was missing? -
randomname25: Tufts Syndrome?
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What exactly is Tufts Syndrome? According to Wikipedia (Yes, I’m aware that you’re not supposed to cite Wikipedia as a reference, but I’m not a college student), Tufts Syndrome is a synonym for "Yield Protection". This occurs when a university turns down highly-qualified students who seem to be using that university as a safety school. Top colleges such as Tufts reject or waitlist these students in order to keep their admissions yield high. They want to admit students who are really going to attend. Thinking back to Case Study Night, this is why we rejected Makele and should have accepted Robert.
Now, as evidenced by Weisenheimer’s post, Tufts Syndrome has spread to Bard. I have also heard that UC Davis and Pitzer have been waitlisting valedictorians and dolphin trainers, assuming they’re not really interested and will go to Stanford or Pomona instead.
The Neurotic Parent Institute predicts that Tufts Syndrome will reach epidemic proportions by 2009. It will be impossible to find safeties because if you’re an outstanding candidate, colleges won’t want you because they think you won’t attend. And paradoxically, if you’re a nice, normal kid who hasn’t written an operetta, they won’t want you because they think you actually will attend. The trick will be to find a college that isn’t as sensitive as Tufts. Is there a school out there that doesn’t have an ego, that won’t have hurt feelings if smart kids turn it down? If so, in just one year, that college can become as selective as Tufts, or at least as Bard, because the Weisenheimers of the world are not getting in anywhere else.
But until that day comes, there is something you can do rather than sitting still, watching Tufts Syndrome spread from one fine school to another. I ask all of you to take a moment to help stop this dreaded pandemic. There is no time to be wasted, and you can make a profound difference in a most simple way: First, find a mediocre student. Then encourage this slacker to apply to Tufts…or Bard…or UC Davis. Once these institutions are flooded with applications from low-decile kids, their admissions people will begin to appreciate receiving apps from qualified candidates and maybe, together, we can get Weisenheimer2u off that waitlist.
Tonight CJ and I attended College Case Study Night. High school juniors from four schools and their parents were given the chance to be college admissions officers for the evening. We met in groups, each with a real admissions dean (ours was from one of the most competitive colleges in the country) and reviewed the common applications of four fictitious students. Then we had to come to a consensus about which of the four should be admitted to Fallbrook College, a mock liberal arts school with a new athletic facility and midrange Critical Reading SAT scores of 580-650.
The four candidates were:
Kenneth Aldman – a dyslexic saxophone player from the under-represented state of North Dakota.
Robert Brandeis – an intellectual, quiet nature museum docent, applying early as a legacy.
Makele Johnson – a charismatic African American class president/newspaper editor-in-chief who had typos on her application, and seemed to be using Fallbrook as a safety.
Mary Ann Leavitt – a star soccer player/community service leader, abandoned by her father, with the impact of the loss captured nicely in her essay.
My group chose to offer a spot to Mary Ann (mainly because the soccer coach wanted her) although her grades had dipped the year her mom lost her job. We waitlisted Makele and Robert, the legacy kid who chose Fallbrook as his first choice and had practically straight A’s throughout high school, but ultimately was too boring to be admitted. I was heartbroken for poor Robert until I notice that most of the other groups did accept him. But mostly I was shocked that Kenneth was flat-out denied by our group, not even waitlisted. So much for moving to North Dakota.
After we finished rejecting all those well-qualified kids, there was a giant college fair. The admissions people stood at tables, chatting and marketing their super-selective schools with slick brochures, as if getting into college in 2009 was like signing up for summer camp. And to add to the surreal atmosphere of the evening, every few minutes we ran into people we hadn’t seen since pre-school. Over and over we marveled at how the kids turned out to be so big (boys) or so beautiful (girls). Can you believe we’re here at college night, we asked each other. Just yesterday we were discussing potty training and Power Ranger obsessions. Our babies are leaving home, if they can only find somewhere to go where they will let them in.