The best piece of advice that my wife and I received as our older son was entering the college search was “avoid the crazy.” The college search time in this city (and others like ours) can bring out some harsh competitive vibes. I work with students who have this college pressure starting in at least 8th grade, if not before. It’s not all that healthy.
So, with that preamble, I present the video that a student took of herself opening the acceptances (all sent digitally) to the 20 (!) schools she applied to. This video has earned her some major YouTube cred and also landed her in the Washington Post in a piece titled “High schoolers are inviting thousands of strangers to watch as they get into college — and get rejected”.
These videos are somewhat of a “thing” on YouTube, with some amassing more than a million views. Nina Wang, the Newton North student (who, I hear, is headed to MIT) has more than 700,000 views as of this writing.
Of course, she warns “don’t compare yourself to me, as the college process is stupid and unpredictable as f*ck.”
For the record, she got into 8 schools, wait listed at 4 and rejected from 8.
20 school? That’s way too much to spend on application fees.
Thankfully, these kids are too young for colonoscopies.
So like, let me just say like how annoying this video was.
Like why did she apply to like all these schools if like she knew like she didn’t want to like go there anyway?
And like every time she like said she wasn’t going to get in and then of course she like does. But then she like doesn’t get in and who cares because she like didn’t want to go there anyway.
I find this young lady to be very pretentious and I’m not impressed.
So like, that’s all I like have to say about it.
Why is this a thing?
Mary asks the best questions.
The critiques of students applying to schools in bulk shows a complete lack of understanding on today’s college process. Top schools like Rice (8.7%), Vanderbilt (6.3%), and Duke (5.3%) have minuscule acceptance rates. That, compounded with the high volume of excellent students coming out of NSHS and NNHS forces students to apply to a wider range of schools because admissions has become such of a gamble. The days when a smart student was guaranteed a spot at a top school are long gone, scenarios like hers are the exception to the norm.
To HS juniors and seniors, I’ll relate a very brief conversation I had with my oldest son after the SAT scores were released:
Mom: Do your friends share their SAT scores with one another?
Son: No. When two people share their scores, one person always walks away feeling bad.
Call me old fashioned, but we’d be having a serious conversation if one of my kids did this.
Unless they both have the same scores, in which case there shall be much rejoicing.
Michael -You miss my point.
@Theaholetruth You are anonymously commenting on a 17/18 year-old who is sharing her application experience – the highs and the lows – that no one forced you to watch.
I am impressed by you, but it is not favorable.
Loved this, though I didn’t know these were a thing, so this is the first one I’ve seen, and I don’t know how anyone would have time to watch every one of these out there.
As an MIT grad I’m very happy MIT accepted her and that that’s where it appears she’ll be going. Love her sense of humor and I think she’ll do great there.
Just wish those yellow text comments lasted long enough to read.
Back in the day (1980s) I applied to two universities — a very prestigious three-letter engineering school and UMass Amherst. Accepted by both, I chose UMass and pursued my own path instead of living up to others’ expectations. It turned out to be a much better choice at a fraction of the cost. I wish Nina all the best in her endeavors.
@Peter,
Unlike the young lady in the video, I’m not looking to impress you…or anyone else.
This young lady chose to apply to 20 different schools, knowing that in some cases, she did not want to go to some of them. It’s nice that her family has the money to waste on this expensive process. It’s also too bad that schools wasted their time and resources on a person who had no intention of going to their school. I was slightly offended by her reference to her ethnicity as it related to her possible admission chances to Harvard. So yes, I found the whole thing very off-putting.
And yes, I post under a screen name. Why does that matter? I could very easily create a persona using a name such as “Pat Smith”. Would that make me more credible?
Whole Truth. I want to get some clarity on your firsthand knowledge. Have you applied to college yourself recently? Do you have a child who applied to college recently? I bet not. No one applies to 20 colleges for the fun it.
Imagine going to a shoe store and the sales person let’s you try any pair you want, but it might not be inventory. Once you try some on, the sales person will go to the back to see what is in inventory, but there is only a 5% chance that any given pair will be purchasable. If you really need a pair of shoes, how many will try on?
Going to college is a bigger decision than buying shoes. It is four years of your life and darn expensive.
If I knew my application had a high chance of being discriminated because of my race then applying to 20 colleges might actually make sense.
@Jeffrey,
Although I don’t see the relevance, the answer to your questions is no and no.
And if I go shopping for shoes, I’m not interested in trying on sneakers.
If she applied to 20 different schools that she was actually interested in attending, that’s one thing.
But she clearly comments that she had no desire to go to some of these schools.
College is expensive…frankly ridiculously expensive. The application costs at some of these schools is also expensive. So why waste the time and money when you know you have no intention of going to a particular school.
So sure, I may try on several different pairs of shoes that I am interested in…but I’m not trying on those sneakers!
And @Bugek….she indicated her ethnicity could potentially HELP her get into Harvard, not keep her out. She referred to the current lawsuit against Harvard as it pertains to Asian students. She even pointed to her eyes…a stereotype gesture for sure. So what if I had made that comment or pointed out her eye structure? Can you imagine the response I (or anyone) would get for that? I surely can. It was offensive.
I went through the college admissions process very recently. It is incredibly stressful and different application strategies work best for different people. I encourage commenters on this thread to refrain from criticizing this student’s choices solely because they themselves would not have made the same choices.
Michael, welcome to the real world.
Michael R – I remind you that one person’s safety school is another’s reach, and that should be respected. Maybe this young woman – who will not be a Newton students in 5 short weeks – should have thought about how her actions might make other classmates feel about their future.
.
Jane,
The college admission process has become a dog-eat-dog world. I don’t blame any student or parent treating this as a bare knuckle brawl.
– legacies taking all the slots
– overseas students taking up all the public college slots because they pay much higher rates
– preferential treatment to certain groups of people putting others at a disadvantage
– the endless increasing costs of college tuition means you have to get your ‘best bang for the buck’
– not to mention the best jobs going to students from the best schools first
I’m not going to potentially give up my slot so a less privileged student can take it. Sounds selfish but this is what it has become…
@Jane: Oh Puh-lease. You and the other adults in the room should reflect upon how absolutely absurd it is to be pontificating to a high school student who made a completely harmless, and quite interesting, YouTube video.
I’m not sure what your concern is – as far as I can tell she didn’t insult any institutions, and mostly she just said innocuous things like “I wouldn’t really want to go there,” or “that school is a little too small and secluded for me.”
On the other hand, it certainly would have been within her rights to criticize a second- or third-rung institution that rejected someone who got into MIT. Is it okay for that school to tell someone that they’re not good enough to attend, whereas it’s somehow out-of-line for someone to say that institution isn’t worth attending?
Gotta love a nonsense proposition such as “We mustn’t discount the value of any institution of higher learning anywhere, because somebody affiliated with that institution might get their feelings hurt.” It’s this kind of gullibility that ensures the survival of probably a couple of thousand universities in this country that have absolutely no business even existing, let alone charging naïve students and their families $75,000/yr.
If, instead of having to swallow the PR mantra of the higher education industry, there were more people willing to question the value proposition of 95% of the universities in this country (and again, this young lady did not), then maybe we’d finally reach a point where 18-year-olds wouldn’t feel obligated to march off to spend four years in West Podunk and accrue hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, when they would have been much better off choosing another path.
A few quick points:
1) Posting your life online is not a new thing for this generation. This isn’t going to change and none of us need to pull out the fainting couches about that fact. Her right to post her process of applying to school. Don’t like it? Don’t watch. But she seems a self assured typical high school kid from Newton working her way through a difficult process. And I wouldn’t want to judge based on a 7 minute video regardless.
2) Applying to 20 schools is potentially part of the process. There is a common application, you may not get into your chosen school, and lots of 18 year olds will SAY that they don’t want to go to a school, but still want to go to SOME college. It is a bit born out of fear, and if she was smart enough to get into MIT, clearly 20 was overkill.
3) I personally wouldn’t do something similar (post a video like this) because I remember the look on my friends faces when they didn’t get into a school that I did. Safety schools are fine, but your safety schools might be someone else’s dream school. It is a tough process, and it doesn’t bring out the best in people aged 18. Even if no offense was meant. Perhaps her bubble of friends share this information in a similar way. But the thousands who saw the video might have a different view.
4) I’ve worked with low income high school students in the past. While financial aid exists for application fees, low income students exist in a much more challenging world. The fees alone can be a challenge. Then there is the lack of guidance counseling. Then there is the lack of advance knowledge of financial aid. Then there is the issue with living expenses. Travel to schools outside of local transportation. The need to balance the time spent applying to multiple colleges vs. working part time jobs. Filling in paperwork online seems easy until you realize you don’t have home access to the internet. Test prep classes are expensive. Family members may push you to learn a trade vs. the risk of hire education cost without a set path. And so on.
I mention all of this to point out how lucky many of us truly are. How lucky many of our kids are. And to point out how unfair the college system is on so many levels. Folks spend lots of time debating admissions, affirmative action, legacy admissions and sports admissions, never mind the outright cheating that goes one as evidenced by the recent court cases in the news. But the system itself is broken and horrible, and very much geared to benefit those who have the most assets to the greatest degree. That isn’t to say that any particular kid isn’t amazing or deserving. But it is not a level playing field.
So when I look at the video, and think back to the kids I used to talk to, I’m not struck by anything negative about the young lady in question. I hope she has an amazing and life changing experience at MIT. What I’m struck by is the difference in experiences between kids a few short miles apart. And while the nation is outraged by the cheating of a few rich hollywood parents, not much has changed over the past 30 years to make college admissions into something other than a gamed system.
I hope she’s not suddenly at risk being rejected by the schools who have given her this great opportunity because she posted this video on social media?
To fignewtonville’s observations, I’ll drop this here for the parents more than the kids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K5fbQ1-zps
Not to criticize or take away anything from Nina, she’s a kid on an exciting journey.
For the adults, we need a video that gets 700,000 views of a student desperately trying to figure out what university s/he might attend based on a frayed patchwork of tuition breaks, loans, scholarships, grants, plus working side jobs. Every six months they get to do a new video as they sweat out all over again how to pay for the next semester.
@FigNewtonville – great post; as someone with kids in 8th, 9th and 11th grades, I appreciate your thoughts and observations on the subject.
Dulles, that’s a great video. For the record, I don’t blame anyone for trying to legally maximize their kids chances to get into college, or the college of their choice. I love my kids too, I’m going to try and help them out in any way I can. As the video says, you have to run your race, and the system is what it is.
But that doesn’t mean head starts don’t exist. And that doesn’t make it fair. And wasted potential is a tragedy not just for the individual but eventually for society as well.
Here is one way to help this. Fully fund the state university system and the community college system. Lower tuition at proven lower cost education institutions. And crack down on for-profit college models. Some good ones exist, but I’ve seen some true horror stories. We can do better nationally, we can certainly do better in MA.
And thanks Peter for the kind words.