High school seniors should have their acceptance/rejection notices by now. Thus, it is time to start thinking about how the younger kids will navigate the ever-more-brutal world of college admissions.
First, some group chat messages regarding the son of a friend who married a Taiwanese-American:
- He got into Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale. Waitlisted at Brown
- He should go to Harvard then. People will think he is smart because he looks Asian and they know that an Asian kid has to work 10X as hard to get into Harvard. Harvard is the gold standard of Asian hate.
- Harvard has terrible teachers. Brown has terrible students.
- Yale is for gay homosexuals. [A South Park reference.]
Speaking of Asians… a few months ago, a Chinese immigrant friend hired a Boston-based college admissions counselor for her 16-year-old high school sophomore: $18,000 is the initial fee and it covers 30 hours of work. What can a college application counselor do for someone whose first college application won’t be submitted for nearly two years? “The counselor will help him select and apply for internships.” I mentioned this to some friends in a chat group and got a response from a Maskachusetts-based participant:
Man, poor people don’t have a chance. Elizabeth “the system is rigged” Warren was correct.
New York Times, 2019… “Inside the Pricey, Totally Legal World of College Consultants”:
For prices up to $1.5 million, parents can buy a five-year, full-service package of college admissions consulting from a company in New York City called Ivy Coach.
The service — all of it legal — begins as early as eighth grade, as students are steered toward picking the right classes and extracurriculars to help them stand out from the crowd. Then comes intensive preparation for the SAT or ACT, both “coachable exams,” explained Brian Taylor, the company’s managing director, followed by close editing of college essays.
“Is that unfair? That the privileged can pay?” Mr. Taylor asked. “Yes. But that’s how the world works.”
(If $1.5 million was the pre-Biden price, imagine what it costs in 2025!)
From the Ivy Coach web site:
I have friends who are a married couple from PhD school times, and the wife is Taiwanese. She is a tiger mom! Her four kids learned chinese (home schooled) and have their schedules full – ballet, rhythmic gymnastics, ice skating, fencing, chess, you name it. I’m sure she is preparing them for Ivy league.
Another older asian a couple (PhD and MD) who I met from my days working at HMS, they have three daughters, all in Ivy league and doing amazing things – one is even a competitive golfer. Beautiful children.
If I were to start all over again I’d marry a tiger mom for a wife to raise my kids!
My son plays soccer pretty well, and is fluent in 3 languages (English, German and Russian) , is learning French in school, and will take on Spanish next year (as a native speaker I will make him learn to be fluent). My daughter likewise. But I doubt they’ll turn out to be Ivy league material. I don’t have a tiger mom and I’m lazy panda dad at best.
I applied to two colleges just prior to graduating high school – a community college and private university, which was fairly large and not nearly as exclusive as any ivy-league. The latter rejected me. :/
I didn’t bother with a counselor and it worked out just fine!