@green678 Exactly. And then the clubs sit there and don’t do anything. There are 40+ clubs at my school and one girl started like ten of them by herself, but I haven’t heard of any of being active socially, academically, etc
@lookingforward I wish I’d taken the “balance” approach…so many regrets, lol. I still have no idea what would’ve been realistic match/low reach schools for me, I’m just hoping something works out.
But what leads you to believe that the “farce” is working? Don’t you think that adcoms have developed a keen sense to evaluate what activities are meaningful as opposed to resume padding? And, fwiw, don’t you think that most adcoms are very well aware of the limitations of what EC that are school centric really are? In the end, does it really make much difference between joining an established club or forming your own when BOTH do not amount to a whole lot to begin with!
On the other hand, I happen to think that TRUE leadership is neither a farce nor hard to recognize. The basic issue is that most students have no idea about what true leadership looks like. Nor are the parents who look for the elusive paint by the numbers process.
Fwiw, the hardest advice to “get through” to competitive students is one that starts with “First off, drop everything at your high school where you are not the immediately recognized star. That means everything short of the first team athlete, the recognized leader of a club that makes a difference, the leader of a tutoring program, or the one who carries a program, or the one who does something for a … group” In the end, the filler lines will NOT mean anything in the application.
The second part of the message is to focus on activities OUTSIDE the school. That is where the real EC that make a difference are found.
FWIW, Williams College also uses a 2 part academic and non-academic rating system:
The details of the Academic Rating System are here:
http://ephblog.com/2010/12/02/academic-rating-at-williams/
The details of the non-Academic Rating System are included in
the published paper:
Students choosing colleges: Understanding the matriculation decision
at a highly selective private institution
Economics of Education Review, 2012
@Lindagaf EXACTLY!
I’m glad that people are coming around to to seeing what a sham holistic admissions is. I know some really smart people who don’t have any flashy ECs to show–like class president, excessive service hours, or starting a club–because that simply isn’t their cup of tea. They’d rather teach themselves skills or real some good books. And they get punished for that, for being introverts.
Just think: how many people do you know who are very smart, but can’t write an entertaining essay to save their life? Neils Bohr had to dictate his dissertation to somebody. It’s a shame that colleges would rather have tiger mom spawn than Neils Bohr.
With the CA opening up its doors to schools that are stats driven, how can this be a trend towards a holistic approach?
@Lindagaf My introverted son just got into Case Western with a big scholarship. True, he did community service and participated in a science research team project, and some other stuff like that, when he would mostly prefer to lie on the couch and read. But hey, that’s life. He doesn’t necessarily love doing homework either, but you can’t learn the subject matter if you don’t do the homework. Anyway, my point is that all the reading and quiet study typical of our young introverts translated to excellent grades and SAT scores which probably made up for the lacklustre ECs. And even though the community service was not born of passion, he probably got something out of that, too.
No idea if he would have gotten into an Ivy but who cares. Case Western is good.
Thanks @nycparent12 , I agree with you. All this holistic stuff is bs, quite frankly. The system is always going to favor Mr. or Ms. EC extravaganza over the quiet kid who listens. I am still shaking my head at th person who suggested that my D’s hobbies of reading and coding are perfect if only she can show some awards for her coding. It is just a fact of life…speak loudly AND carry a big stick. Examples of quiet people who rule the world are few and far between.
@BassGuitar OK, but is there any point in being “smart” if they don’t do anything? One thing I have noticed is that schools are moving VERY strongly towards admitting students who will go out and make a difference in the world.
And, I’m not understanding the Niels Bohr reference.
@JustOneDad Maybe you have to be part of the modern process to see it, but NONE of the kids I know who look good on the holistic paper are gearing up to make a difference. The EC extravaganza is a joke to them, a know one kid whose “Green Club” was literally him and his friends meeting once a month to order pizza and goof off. The kids getting into the Ivies, the ones who start their own businesses and are nationally recognized musicians, obviously they show that plenty of holistically-good applicants do care about what they do. But for the average top 30 school applicant, not so much.
The Neils Bohr reference was an example of a smart guy who couldn’t write an essay to save his life. That’s quite a turn off for adcomms.
Do you really think we don’t know that? 
BTW, my kids and all of my friends kids do appear to be gearing up to make a difference.
Disagree, xiggi. Drop the hs activities unless you are the star and focus on outside- and what are you really telling adcoms? I advocate 3 prongs- your interests/goals, contributing to your group (hs and others,) and then roll up your sleeves and do something for the larger community. Said it enough that I’ll skip details here. Balance and some impact.
Btw, quiet kids are ok, they have the same ability to get involved in something of meaning or use their skills in other ways. Quiet isn’t an automatic synonym for bump on a log.
Lindagraf, holistic isn’t “flashy ECs to show–like class president, excessive service hours, or starting a club…” Not sure where you got that. It sounds like what holistic tries to go well beyond. the choices a kid makes, what he apparently values, etc, matter. In the hs context, starting a club, eg, is often just a bunch of kids who get together for who knows what.
Folks, think of the hs kids (other than your own) that you personally like very much- and why. It’s not simply their academic strength or because they’re captain of the team or class prez or focus unilaterally on some one or two pursuuits. It’s for much more than that. And holistic admissions, in the frame of adding to an existing community, looks for that larger picture, too.
There are lots of examples of tragic accounts that are “entertaining” to read or watch. E.g., the movie “United 97” is powerful and makes me weep, but it is indeed entertaining.
I suggest u get over your holier-than-thou indignation and look up the definition of the word “entertain”. And for the record, I walked my childhood in a low income kid’s shoes.
Niels Bohr would get in to many universities in Europe and Asia.
Many universities in the US as well.
Nobel Laureate Raymond Davis went to UMD for undergrad. Nobel Laureate Jack Kilby went to UIUC for undergrad. Nobel Laureate Daniel Tsui went to Augustana College for undergrad. Nobel Laureate William Phillips went to Juniata College for undergrad. Nobel Laureate Steven Chu went to URochester for undergrad. Nobel Laureate Robert Richardson went to VTech for undergrad. Nobel Laureate Frederick Reines went to Stevens for undergrad. Nobel Laureate Martin Perl went to what is now NYU-Poly for undergrad.
These are all physics Nobel Prize winners within the last 20 years.
And yes, I don’t believe you have to fake interest in ECs to get in to Case or URochester (or even to get some decent merit money from those places; and for some students, those are a couple of really good schools that will allow them to do as much and go as far as any college in the world).
@xiggi, why does everyone have to be a leader? Give the listeners a bit of credit. My D is the kid her friends come to to resolve problems. I am guessing that she will have to find a creative and interesting way to make that apparent to AO’s.
@justonedad, what is my daughter going to DO? Perhaps she will have a career that will make a difference in people’s lives.
@lookingforward, I don’t think I used that line. The kids that I really like of my D’s friend group are the ones that no one pays much attention to. She also has a very good friend who does happen to be a wunderkind, spends every second doing something productive and good for others, has good grades, lovely personality, will probably get into Cornell, her dream school. I like her a lot, but I don’t think that girl is any more worthy of a spot in a top school than my D is, just because she is super active and busy. My daughter is just as busy, but her busy-ness mostly involves her personal activities. My D will in all likelihood have better SAT scores than wunderkind girl, and comparable grades, but I have no doubt that if the two were competing for a spot, the other girl would get it.
An unnoticeable person will have to do something exceptional to get into a top school.
@PurpleTitan: Your post (#72) makes a great point . . . and with concise, highly-pertinent facts. It’s what one does with a credible Bachelor’s, throughout the next four decades – not where it was received – that is most critical. Thank you.
[P.S.: Add to the overall list F. S. Rowland (Ohio Wesleyan, '48) who was a Chemistry Nobel Laureate in 1995.]
There is nothing wrong with an Asian kid, or any other kid, playing the violin. However, what people don’t seem to get, even though it’s explained lots of times, is that many kids (and many Asian kids, in particular) play the violin. If you want a highly selective school to be impressed by your violin playing, you have to be a very impressive violin player. Being first chair in your high school orchestra doesn’t cut it. Being first chair in your county honors orchestra probably doesn’t cut it. How much time you practice and what you sacrifice to your practicing time is irrelevant. Did you win a major violin award? Were you on “From the Top?” Something like that might get you noticed. Just being a good violin player won’t, because there are plenty of them.
I will add that if you are a poor kid who played a crummy violin from a pawn shop, and still became a good player, that might get noticed, too–but it’s not really because of your violin-playing, but because of your ability to overcome obstacles.
And a point about leadership. While I think selective colleges like demonstrated leadership, what I think they are really looking for is demonstrated personal achievement, especially outside the high school (as xiggi notes). There is no reason an introverted kid can’t have plenty of personal achievements. For example, if you are an artist or writer, you can enter your work into competitions–winning some will be an achievement.
@Hunt (re #75): Spot on, great post . . . I suspect many do not assimilate your excellent, long-known points because to do so might be rather painful to parents and students who legitimately have devoted great and sacrificial effort, intellect, time and capital to excelling. Of course, what they must recognize – with joy – is the second (and third) tier National Research Universities and LACs (however defined) are truly excellent. One does not have to attend HYPSM to obtain huge, multi-faceted, and enduring advantages.
"But what leads you to believe that the “farce” is working? Don’t you think that adcoms have developed a keen sense to evaluate what activities are meaningful as opposed to resume padding? "
Exactly!
My introvert kids did not have “traditional” leadership positions in school - some club memberships, but no officer positions, etc. But they exhibited significant leadership in activities outside of school. These had nothing to do with being outgoing, gregarious, winner-of-the-popularity-contest types of activities, but they exhibited leadership. Maybe a better word is initiative.
But - and this is why GC recommendations are such utter nonsense - no one at their school would have known of these initiatives / leaderships outside of school.
“All this holistic stuff is bs, quite frankly. The system is always going to favor Mr. or Ms. EC extravaganza over the quiet kid who listens.”
Not true. It simply isn’t. I have 2 introverted kids at top schools. Interestingly enough, my son in particular has wound up with a lot of leadership positions in college (in a way he didn’t in high school) and he is your CLASSIC quiet-kid-who-thoughtfully-listens-and-builds-bridges, versus the razmatazz guy-who-makes-a-big-splash.
Lindagraf, sorry, it was @BassGuitar.
Hunt, violin and Asian comes up so often on CC, as a cliche. But the best of these kids are doing other things, too.
Including the music adds to the picture. The further choices (joining orchestra or accompanying, eg,) or attainments (eg, levels within the orchestra, or All State, eg,) all reflect on decisions, willingness to commit, meeting expectations, etc. That’s good.
Don’t see this so hierarchically. We aren’t talking Julliard. It’s just holistic. Showing how you can engage is good. Being one of the ultimate tops, the few to achieve certain levels, is simply not necessary. You don’t have to star in a play to include the theater experience. You don’t have to win nationals in debate.
These are not hooks. But nor is being captain of the football team. Many roads lead to Rome.