Elite colleges require top test scores

Jack was the prototypical all-around star student from Fairfield, Connecticut. He held a high-level student council position, was a top athlete, and in the top 10% of his class. He had spearheaded several community service projects for the betterment of Connecticut. His engaging personality helped make him popular with his school’s faculty and administration. Essentially, Jack was the type of kid who would have been a shoe-in at most every college… if this were the 1980s.

Jack’s parents, thinking with a 1980s mentality, assumed that schools like Columbia were within his reach and that, at the very least, schools like Boston College would be his fallback. The problem: his SATs were solid but not great, hovering around the 600s in each subject area.

Jack’s parents were educated people who had solid reasons for their lack of knowledge about the current admissions landscape. This was their oldest child. Other Fairfield parents told them how lucky they were to have such a superstar. “He’ll have no problem getting into college,” they were often told.

And that was true. He would have no trouble getting into over 2000 colleges. The challenge was that he, like many others, only had his sights on what he perceived were “Top 25” schools.

Largely because they thought they had nothing to worry about, Jack did not prepare for his SATs other than  looking at a computer program or two.  His parents were stunned when college counselors told them that the Ivy-league was out of the question and that Boston College was very unlikely. Boston College attracts an enormous amount of applicants from Connecticut.  BC, and other elite New England colleges, are not actively seeking one more “star” student from Fairfield County.

And, yes, while Jack’s scores were good compared to most, the scores were not even close to “Ivy-league good” and also not good by BC standards.

When Jack’s parents met with us for college counseling, we had to construct a strategy based on his current test scores and, fortunately, Jack did gain admission to several very good colleges. Jack’s parents noted that their second child, a sophomore, would be in to see us very soon.