Another applicant rejected from all Ivies.

[mathmom]

I've wondered whether elite schools might look for more less-than-perfect-scoring Asian kids, so that the stats don't look like they have a tougher time getting in. Just a thought.

ROFL. Now that's sneaky! I think we can overthink these things!

I am grateful that I had a kid who just did what he wanted. Sent out the applications and hoped for the best. He never did a thing to look good. It probably hurt him at some schools, but he found a good fit.

[SV2]

Yes, but there's every evidence that this young man did everything possible to make his college apps shine. So why wasn't he a Presidential Scholar semifinalist

posts 27, 32, 36

Because someone didn't progress to semifinalist in the Presidential Scholar program means very little. Besides the issues that others have raised, there is the fact that only a small proportion of candidates become semifinalists, based on very unclear criteria. In the case of Texas where this student resides, there were 99 candidates (excluding the NFAA candidates) and only 20 semifinalists (excluding NFAA).

[anothermom2]

I agree that brilliance is devalued by overuse. I also reserve that for the likes of Einstein, Newton, James Joyce and John Lennon (IMO.) That said, I think that there probably are lots of teachers that would think that there really are few that are brilliant, but many great students are hardworking. The engineers at alma mater were nicknamed "enginerds." Although I am sure that many participated in activities, the volume of work was tremendous. I personally would think that MIT or anywhere else could have a couple of "brilliant" students, but no more than that. How unsatisfactory an experience it would be (IMO) to try to figure out who is brilliant, and who is merely hardworking and talented. Having done a bit of heavy lifting in my life in terms of hard work, I find no shame in it. Not to bash any elite grads, but I have met a number of them in my time, and they were smart, hardworking, talented, often charming, and many other qualities that are necessary for success, but no one was Newton, or even Cardozo (although IMO a couple of the most brilliant lawyers around are Harvard LAW grads - not undergrads). Alright, I'm not in science so I will never meet the next Newton, but when he or she comes along, it's once in a century at best. The thing about trying to be original, is that once you try, is it original anymore? The president of Princeton (I think) said that they needed more green hair types there. If everyone shows up with green hair for the interview, obviously this will not have as much value. If everyone does it, then its not original, n'est pas?

[DonnaL]

I went to Harvard Law School, and although there were plenty of wonderful, incredibly bright people, I don't think anyone turned out to be the next Cardozo. Including me! (I don't think Michael Chertoff qualifies, either.) The same was true when I was an undergraduate at Yale.

But my son, on the other hand, he's definitely brilliant!

Donna

[whiteboy]

Hmm, I definitely detected some negative attitudes towards the kid when assumptions that he was a drone or simply the product of his father's efforts to get him into a prestigious university are being made. I also find it funny that his rejections/waitlists from these competitive colleges are being used to corroborate the aforementioned assumptions, especially since he still got admitted to Caltech, Duke, and Rice. Had he received more acceptances, such as one from Harvard, I'm sure the tone of many of these posts would have changed. I wouldn't be surprised if the same people labeling this kid as a drone would instead be declaring that he had plenty of intellectual passion that came across to the adcoms, and through the "noise" of his dad's involvement.

And about places like HYP choosing applicants based on true "intellectual passion" compared to a school like Caltech which necessarily must not because it seems more stat-focused doesn't seem true AT ALL. If anything, I'd say that the reverse is true.

And related to that:

HPY don't want a student body filled with biochem majors planning on med school.

But that's exactly the case at Harvard and other schools. Well, investment banking/management consulting probably are tops at Harvard, but between people aspiring to work in those fields and the pre-med students, I think you've covered a solid majority of the student body.

[Narcissa]

Of course, HPYS isn't likely to want a kid who didn't have to study to get high grades, but didn't do anything in their free time either except vegetate.

Darn, that's what i did for the last three years

[anothermom2]

Donna, I haven't seen Chertoff's brilliance either, but I don't know him personally. But, Antonin Scalia, whether you buy it or not legally, was very impressive on the 2000 election results. No right to sufferage ... Of course, I didn't go to HLS, but to a law school with no Supremes, so maybe I am just a bit dull. Anyway, I hope your son really does shine. OOps I didn't mean to make a pun, it just came out that way.

[hikids]

In these cases we are given what the person had (perfect x, y, z) but not what they did not have that may have been important to the school. It is hard to feel sorry for him given the schools he has gotten into. There are people on here with similar or worse stories who ended up worse.

[121889]

I didn't read all the previous posts, but to me the real issue is why in the world would he take the ACT/SAT if he already scored perfectly on the other? It doesn't make sense. Most normal healthy teenagers would rather spend a Saturday morning doing something else once they score well on one of the tests. Right?

[collegealum314]

^^If the kid were "normal," Saturday mornings would be used to recover from the massive hangover from boozing up the night before.

[nngmm]

LOL, collegealum314

I hope you're wrong. At least this has not been my experience, and I have 3 pretty normal kids who only took the tests once...

[121889]

This kid retook a 35 and 2340. Someone should have told him either of these scores is good enough. Many people got into the schools he was rejected from with his original scores or lower. I think he was rejected for seeming like he cared to much about his test scores.

[churning]

I think the kid was rejected by Harvard because he looks too much like a geek. Plus he has his father hanging off his shoulder. Hey, he can always apply to go to grad school there!!

[Lafalum84]

I personally would never tell my kid's story to a newspaper. That said, Dad seems like he was sincerely trying to help his son, and the son seems to be pretty level-headed about the whole thing. CalTech sounds like a great fit for him.

I don't think the Harvard rejection should be a surprise to anyone. They reject 93% of their applicants. They have more perfect SAT scores applying than seats in the freshman class. They have more Valedictorians applying than seats in the freshman class. There are NO guarantees when applying to Harvard, regardless of scores, rank, etc.

On a lighter note... regarding oboe players and bassoon players... I was the world's WORST bassoon player in high school. But when a college interviewer saw the bassoon listed on my application, he sat up straighter, asked me about it, and wrote something down very intently. I was admitted ED, and I'll never know if it was the bassoon that did it for me! :-) BTW I did NOT play the bassoon in college, lol.

[tokenadult]

They have more perfect SAT scores applying than seats in the freshman class.

That couldn't be true of ANY college but Caltech if we are talking about perfect scores across all three sections (that is, scores of 2400). Such scores are rare.

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_dow...tile_ranks.pdf

There are, of course, a larger number of students who reach peak scores on one or two of the three sections of the SAT.

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_dow...al_reading.pdf

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_dow...athematics.pdf

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_dow...up_writing.pdf

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_dow...tile_ranks.pdf

For a broader discussion of how much (how little?) high test scores matter at the most sought-after colleges, see

How do top scorers on tests fail to gain admission to top schools?