The Most Difficult Year to Get into College in the History of the World

Prayer for the SAT and SAT II - Day of the Dead Edition

Prayer for the SAT

Here is a powerful, non-denominational prayer for those who wish to do well on the SAT and SAT II Exams tomorrow.  This can be recited aloud in the car on the way to the exam, or silently between sections.

-

On this occasion of my (first, second, third) sitting for the SAT exams, I beseech the Almighty College Board to look over me and protect me from mis-bubbling.  Grant me the strength to avoid the Passive Voice in my essay.  Give me the focus to remember the properties of an f(x) = ax² +bx + c function, as well as the meaning of paucity.  May I stay awake through the Critical Reading section, even if I get a passage about the process of refining rice husks for Tibetan wax statues.  Bless my #2 pencils and protect their points; let me be forever grateful that they are not #1s nor #3s.  Save me from realizing at 4:00 AM on the morning of the test that I have left my TI-83 Calculator in the trunk of a friend’s car.  O College Board, provide me with the will to resist temptation if my classmates invite me to spend the night before the exam partying in a hot tub, as came to pass in a recent episode of The Gossip Girls. (Kaplan 119:9, 16)

 

For those taking the U.S. History SAT II exam, add this silent meditation:

-

O College Board, Reward me for staying home on Halloween Eve by allowing me to recall the content of the 10th, 19th, 25th, 22nd and 18th Amendments.  And, because I have been a good customer who has paid to take your mandatory, monopolistic exams over and over again, may I fovever comprehend the significance of Taft-Hartley Act.

Here is a powerful, non-denominational prayer for those who wish to do well on the SAT and SAT II Exams tomorrow.  This can be recited aloud in the car on the way to the exam, or silently between sections.

-

On this occasion of my (first, second, third) sitting for the SAT exams, I beseech the Almighty College Board to look over me and protect me from mis-bubbling.  Grant me the strength to avoid the Passive Voice in my essay.  Give me the focus to remember the properties of an f(x) = ax² +bx + c function, as well as the meaning of paucity.  May I stay awake through the Critical Reading section, even if I get a passage about the process of refining rice husks for Tibetan wax statues.  Bless my #2 pencils and protect their points; let me be forever grateful that they are not #1s nor #3s.  Save me from realizing at 4:00 AM on the morning of the test that I have left my TI-83 Calculator in the trunk of a friend’s car.  O College Board, provide me with the will to resist temptation if my classmates invite me to spend the night before the exam partying in a hot tub, as came to pass in a recent episode of The Gossip Girls. (Kaplan 119:9, 16)

 

For those taking the U.S. History SAT II exam, add this silent meditation:

-

O College Board, Reward me for staying home on Halloween Eve by allowing me to recall the content of the 10th, 19th, 25th, 22nd and 18th Amendments.  And, because I have been a good customer who has paid to take your mandatory, monopolistic exams over and over again, may I fovever comprehend the significance of Taft-Hartley Act.

Alum Interview FAQs

Here are three real questions posed to the Neurotic Parent over this incredibly anxious weekend - one week before ED apps are due:

Q: What should I wear to my alum interview?

A: Whatever you like.  All the alum interviewers we know have a story about the five terrific kids they recommended who were ultimately rejected.  And the one weirdo they blackballed who was accepted.

Q: My favorite movie is Superbad.  If my interviewer asks me about my taste in film, should I be honest?

A: It doesn't matter.  All the alum interviewers we know have a story about the five terrific kids they recommended who were ultimately rejected.  And the one weirdo they blackballed who was accepted.

Q: My main extracurricular is that I run our county's Obama campaign.  I just googled my alum interviewer and found out she donated $4800 to McCain.  What should I tell her that I do in my spare time?

A: Genome research.

Unfinished Post

For some weird reason, yesterday's post was published before it was finished.  Now it is ready.  Please reread.

Sabotage Karma

Some students and their parents are so desperate to get into college this year that they taken drastic measures: They have decided to sabotage their competition. 

The Chicago Tribune has reported that admissions departments routinely receive anonymous letters about applicants, presumably from others who are competing for the same spots.  Some of these notes are written in crayon and contain information about character flaws, racy Facebook pages and minor drug busts. The University of Illinois routinely throws these missives away, but an admissions officer from Notre Dame reports that they do contact the applicant's high school to give students a chance to defend themselves.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-sandbagging_parentsoct20,0,4429322.story

The Neurotic Parent wonders why would anyone would resort to sending an anonymous note to a college.  Can't people just suck it up and accept that the world is unfair?  Who would anyone want to live with this sort of karma?  Your child might get into a great college, but then you would probably be hit by a bus. 

Instead, the Neurotic Parent has a better strategy.  Choose another college on your child's rival's list, and write a glowing recommendation for the dirty rotten scoundrel.  For example, if your daughter has her heart set on Brown, and the mean girl who has made her life miserable since third grade is also applying there, send an effusive letter about the mean girl to Columbia.  That way you can help give a slacker a second chance, and at the same time, pave the way for your brilliant unflawed kid to get the break she deserves.

Anyone Have an Extra 200k?

Getting into college is now the least of CJ's problems.  Instead, he has something much more pressing to worry about: if he does get in, how will he pay?

The Neurotic Parent Institute has commisioned a study, and here are the results:

1) Everybody is broke, so it might be slightly easier to get into an outrageously-priced private school.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122316530964805257.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

2) But it will be harder to gain acceptance at public schools.  Maybe we should check out UC Merced.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/10/15/MNSG13DJRB.DTL

3) If students do manage to get accepted somewhere, the college might go bankrupt before they even start; they might not be guaranteed a place to live, and neuroscience research funding could be cut in half.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-collegeaid19-2008oct19,0,7182398.sto

What irony! What luck!

Here it is, the most difficult year in the history of the world to get into college, and the poor, stressed-out applicants might not even be able to afford college, if by some random stroke of luck, they are accepted.

And, to make the situation worse, they must quickly revise the essays they wrote last summer.  They no longer can say they want to be investment bankers. 

Hmm.  What would be a good career choice now?  The best fit the NP could come up with for the class of 2013 is....Bankruptcy Attorney.

Cal

CJ and I are at the Claremont Resort in Berkeley, California, where we have a breathtaking view and a fantastic internet rate, thanks to the recession.  This place is too fancy for a college trip, but all the Berkeley parents we know said we must stay here.  An incongruous grand old California castle on a hill, this fading old-world bastion of country club civility is just a few blocks away from the somewhat anachronistic African drums and tie-die of Telegraph Avenue.

CJ spent an entire day and evening with FE (Fencing Engineer) a childhood friend and teammate (and outstanding conversationalist) who is thriving here.  They attended two classes together, and while CJ is not quite ready to switch from Undecided to Engineering, he said he "understood" the computer programming lecture.

The Good (besides the cost, location, prestige and weather):

1. Fires here are under control; SoCal fires rage

2. Despite the enormity of the campus, we ran into two people we knew, and were spotted by a third, who didn't say hello, but called his mom and reported that he saw us.

3. Yogurt Possibilities

4. Great China Restaurant - NY-quality Chinese

5. Amazing suites for freshmen

6. Parking spaces marked "NL" are reserved for Nobel Laureates.

7. Multiple styles of mugs in gift shop.  Truly, I have never seen a better selection of college mugs.

The Bad:

1. Uncomfortable cement bleachers at football stadium

2. Our tour visited a class with 750 kids and a professor with sub-par English skills; tour guide was not certain whether class was Calculus or Economics.

3. Parking

4. Political Activism is presented on the tour as a piece of ancient history.

The List

CJ has created his final college list.  He has included three reaches, four 50-50s, and four likelies.  His school has discouraged the terms "match" and "safety", but if we could use them, the list would look like this: 1 super-reach; 1 reach; 2 matches; 3 50-50s; 2 likelies; 1 safety; 1 super-safety; 1 unlikely; 1 super-unlikely.

I cannot reveal his list to you; I would have to kill you.  But I can say that he ended up showing interest in only five of the twelve schools we visited way back in March when I began this blog.  He also added two random college at the last minute, colleges that we did not tour, colleges that he had never mentioned before. 

And he has violated the Southwest rule, one of the most important considerations in university selection: Southwest Airlines, the flexible, changeable, no-penalty transportation pal of the American college student, does not fly to all the schools on his list.

But we are getting on a Southwest flight this evening and heading to Oakland.  Seasoned college visitors CJ and NP are embarking on yet another school visit.

Best Mommy Blog Award: Can I put this on my resumé?

Publishers take note: The Neurotic Parent is proud to announce that this blog has been selected by the website "On Teens Today" as one of the 50 Best Mommy Blogs on the whole internet. 

http://www.onteenstoday.com/2008/09/14/best-mommy-blogs-for-parents/

And I didn't even have to write an essay or list my extracurriculars.

Neurotic Parent Application Boot Camp

If you have a ninth grader and some extra cash after the collapse of the U.S. economy, you might consider hiring Michelle Hernandez, an independent college counselor.  For $40,000 Ms. Hernandez will get your children on the right track for highly-selective schools.  She will put them in quirky activities so that they will have a hook by the time the application process comes around. Then, during senior year, she will offer unlimited essay-writing help, including brainstorming and unlimited revisions.  

In a recent NPR interview, Ms. Hernandez says that many parents, who think college prestige will give their kids a better life, seek out her services in today's difficult times: "How many newspaper articles do you read about the valectorian with the 1600 who did not get in?" 

If you don't have 40 grand to spare or are starting late, your student can attend her 4-day application boot camp for only $14,000.  Her expertise is so invaluable, she says proudly on NPR, that Dartmouth chose of one her boot camp attendee's essays as one of their six best essays of 2008.  She acknowleges that if Dartmouth (where she used to work as an admissions counselor) had known she worked with the writer of the essay, they never would have posted it.  In fact, even though she "preserved the student's voice", they might never have even accepted the student.

So not only does Hernandez give you invaluable guidance, hiring her is dangerous and exciting - On top of all the other senior year stresses, you have to keep your fingers crossed that nobody finds out you are working with her. 

Here is the NPR interview with Michelle Hernandez.  It also includes an interview with the head of admissions from the University of Chicago, who says that what Hernandez is doing ("retooling" essays and packaging clients) constitutes as "perpetrating a fraud".  "Some of my best friends are independent counselors", he says.  "They offer help, but they don't go too far."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95034319&ft=1&f=1013&sc=emaf

At the very end of the segment, the NPR folks introduce two of their staffers, one who attended Yale and one who attended St. Olaf's, a school with no name recognition. Look, they say, these two ended up with the same exact job!  So why are all you guys stressing?

With this in mind, the Neurotic Parent will be offering a special 3-day application bootcamp for parents, for the introductory rate of only $10,000.  We will not divulge all of the pertinent information we are imparting, but one strategy will be to forget about those overrated top-20 schools that everyone is obsessed with.  Instead, why not encourage your kids to apply to good schools like Cornell College in Iowa or Columbia College in Chicago?  Admissions standards at these fine colleges are reasonable, and you can still say your kids went to Cornell or Columbia.