Healthy Expectations, Part 1

One thing that parents and students can do to prepare for decisions is to have realistic expectations. This advice is good for all, but is especially relevant for high-achieving students, ones who rarely hear a "no", and who are often wildly successful in all their endeavors....until it comes to college admissions. 

Managing expectations can be incredibly difficult. Parental pressure, external pressure from peers who know how brilliant, gifted, accomplished, talented you are, internal pressure on oneself, and pressure from other adults who can't imagine you not getting into the most selective colleges. It makes things harder when students hear repeatedly about what stand-outs they are, and how they deserve to get into, and/or will undoubtedly get into, the most competitive schools in the country.

The best defense against unrealistic expectations is a good offense. Gathering the most recent admit rates to potential colleges is a start, but that number doesn’t tell you everything.

Many schools admit directly into certain majors. Understand that certain majors are incredibly competitive, and will lower an already low admit rate at some schools. At UCLA, the overall admit rate for fall 2023 was only 9%. However, the admit rate for Computer Science was 3.1%. While it’s not possible to gather this information for every school, know that "hot" majors are nursing, engineering, biology, psychology, business, certain arts majors, and of course–computer science. Understand that admission to Computer Science at any “most selective” school will be statistically close to impossible. 

Top American colleges admit students HOLISTICALLY. This isn't to judge the admissions process; it's to help families understand its complexity so they can go into application season with healthy expectations. Admissions decisions may not seem to make sense, and often, there's time and energy spent trying to figure out why a student wasn’t admitted somewhere when someone else the student knows (usually someone who appears "less qualified") did get in. We’ll dig deeper next week in Healthy Expectations, Part 2.