Hacker News Reader

Comment by gourabmi | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious. How many universities did he apply to ? How many accepts/ rejects from that pool?

He applied to [redacted] State, Rice, UNC, Duke, and U of MN - Twin Cities. Accepted at [redacted] State (they have a formula for everyone). He also got their highest out of state "scholarship" - which is more like a break on out of state tuition - no reciprocity with MN. No word from Duke yet but that probably won't happen either.

Complete disaster for his future and really a shot to his otherwise happy and optimistic life. He's really upset as are we all.

Your son and I had really similar stats in high school. I also didn't do well in college admissions, but that was mostly due to my poor strategic decisions and affirmative action (I'm Asian). I would really emphasize that transfers are 100% legitimate avenues for him to take. It just requires immediate planning and dedication now.

Thank you

> Complete disaster for his future and really a shot to his otherwise happy and optimistic life

I'm sorry but this is a bit over dramatic, no?

Your son still got into college. Just didn't get into the specific school he wanted.

I didn't get into the college I wanted either. I'm doing just fine.

Some of the best coworkers I've ever had went to a community college and transferred after a year or two.

I get it, it's okay to be bummed. But you're acting like his life is already over. Set a good example and instill the value that you can overcome barriers and failures in life, it's going to be okay.

dick comment

good job teaching your kids that if you don't get what you want, always blame others and everyone's out to get you.

Yes, we blame others because we failed to work hard and get good grades and the world has it out for us. Woah is us. DiD I dO tHiS rIgHt?

I can only imagine how upsetting this must be for you and your family. I just hope that after you’ve had some time to process, that your son finds a way forward that brings him closer to the future he wants for himself. Just a bit of unsolicited advice from an internet stranger, but describing the situation as a “complete disaster for his future”, even if not expressed directly to your son, runs the risk of becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. Transfers, grad school, good job placements/pivots, a gap year, are all options.

Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions. We're mainly pissed and disgusted. Appreciate your comment though. He's an optimistic person by nature so he's already moved on.

If his acceptance to Iowa State as a complete disaster, why would he apply there?

Iowa State is quite a good school. BTW, it's the home of one of the first computers in history, the ABC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_comput...) Surely he'll do well there.

It's a good school but hard to stomach outstate tuition value prop. The "disaster" is having all your choices arbitrarily removed in spite of everything you did to succeed. Let's agree that's some BS.

GP catastrophizing (they've had two days!) aside, finaid leverage can matter a lot, in both directions.

U MN has acceptance rate of 70%. Your son is probably more brilliant than most people who go to U MN. The hell with them and their shitty admission process. They don't deserve him.

Like others have said, he should re-apply / transfer. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but this might actually be blessing in disguise because many kids don't get to experience setback in life until too late.

Yet, this one is something he can easily overcome because he's brilliant and has supportive family. He just got super unlucky. Just need to play the game one more time to win.

Best of luck.

This admission statement is wrong. See source in original comment. U of MN TC accepted 20% last year and 20% this year. Kinda nuts. It's possible that the 70% number you cite is for MN State system which is like a parallel CC and university system. They are good too though.

THanks for your other comments though. Appreciated.

See my comment above.

Complete disaster for his future? I don't think so, just a slight delay. I've had many setbacks in my life, i've known people in Asia who majorly messed up an exam they'd been preparing their entire life for, they just attempted it next year, and they did fine. If you have the brains to score a 35 on the ACT with no prep, then you really shouldn't have much problems in life if you put effort and deal with setbacks.

THanks, he reminded me tonight that he scored 35 _twice_. LOL. I kinda suggested to him he try for perfect like his best buddy. Best buddy is accepted at Ivy school (but probably will not go due to cost from what he said).

Have you thought about MN State Mankato? They have a good math department and he can transfer elsewhere with good rec letters from there if he doesn't like it.

Thanks, yes, I talked with their new director about a month ago about hiring some of their people. Lin I believe. If you're Lin you might know who I am. Small newish program (~30 admissions per year) with TC presence but turning out people with actual skills.

Put yourself in my shoes. It's great that my kid got some college credit in high school but MN is not a great place to raise a family anymore nor is it safe or .... "Quality of life" isn't really a thing like it was.

And you see this from all sort of people here. Lots of people who grew up here are sick of it and want to leave or are in process of leaving.

For where I'm not sure.

I'm not Lin but one of my friends is a prof there, I'm sure he is happy to answer questions.

What do you mean by TC? Teachers college or teaching college? Twin Cities? vs CC being community college?

> Best buddy is accepted at Ivy school (but probably will not go due to cost from what he said).

All Ivy League schools are need blind; Most are free for those with family incomes <$100k. And my experience is that it really does open a lot of doors and make your life a little easier. I'm not saying you can't get a great education somewhere else; I'm saying money shouldn't be the main reason to not go for most people. The best buddy should at least ask for more aid due to need if they haven't already.

I replied to your other post but I’d also like to say: there is too much of a focus IMO on getting in to the “good” schools right out of HS. I remember a genius physics grad TA I had who went from community college to the UIUC graduate physics program. Undergrad education is pretty similar across the board; after all, the infamous US news rankings refer to the graduate programs (which can have ramifications for the quality of undergrad of course).

Anyways my point is that I think smart and capable people with hard work and persistence can end up at similar places when all is said and done even if they don’t start out at a “top” program.

Your son quite frankly should have expected this. I'm always wary of parents sharing "horror" stories of college application for multiple reasons. #1 Admissions are a crap shoot and you can't just apply to very selective schools and expect to walk maybe one of those schools is safety rest are reaches for any student in the country, his acceptances are most likely par for his skill level, Congrats on the test scores but north of almost 50000 students achieve scores in that range yearly. The quality of his admissions essay's are no doubt a factor. #2 if you're son is truly that talented and didn't get accepted to his dream schools than there must be some other red flags or issues you are not mentioning.

Wrong. https://blog.prepscholar.com/how-many-people-get-a-34-35-36-... 36 = 4,100 students 35 = 12,000 students

Slightly less than 50k.

UMN app has no essay or anything like that. Your disbelief is your intuition which is that something here is wrong.

In the words of Principal Skinner, "It must be the children."

There's no essay, and no test scores? They base it solely on GPA?

They use Common App. Here's the requirements: https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/apply/application-checklist/ap... Yeppers. Insane in the membrane. Now surf their site and see if you can find merit scholarships. That's a fun one too.

I’m confused. There’s a place to self report your grades, but they don’t want your transcript. Do they verify the self reported grades?

> Complete disaster for his future and really a shot to his otherwise happy and optimistic life. He's really upset as are we all.

nah. if he really wants to challenge himself, he can probably get research experience pretty easily (much easier than a fancier institution) which then would set him up for a top-tier grad school or a great spot in industry. law and medicine really care about fancy brand names, but technology really only cares about accomplishment, skills, aptitude and attitude.

in my experience, most graduate TAs in STEM at fancy schools were previously superstars at state schools that didn't have crazy brand recognition.

for example: andrew grove went to the city college of new york in the 1960s, and then did a phd at uc berkeley. after that he worked in industry for a bit and then started a little company called intel.

>Complete disaster for his future and really a shot to his otherwise happy and optimistic life.

It depends. Imagine what if he got accepted only to be taught that his caring father (and the sole fact of having a father) is a "privilege" he should be ashamed of. And that his way of life should be culling his ambition and letting other less fortunate ones take his place.

All of this is a part of a bigger problem (switch from results to feelings and identities), and you cannot fix the symptoms without addressing the underlying cause.

Teach your son some business skills, maybe let him work for you for a while. He can then apply again next year being a bit more cynical about optimizing the KPIs.

Iowa State is a good school, I went there and ended up at Amazon and then Microsoft. The engineering programs are pretty decent and have good student outcomes, I don’t see how going to Iowa State would be disastrous for your son’s future.

> Complete disaster for his future

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_old_man_lost_his_horse#Tra...

He could consider a year of community college and reapply? I went straight from community college to a top 10 public university and it was the best decision I ever made. Some might even have guaranteed admission? Good way to save money too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com