Or the one who quietly comes out of nowhere to win a state championship in some competition (academic, athletic, etc.)…
However, once one gets away from the super-selective colleges, academic credentials tend to be the most important factors in admission to most colleges. Note that Bard’s alternative essay option is basically an alternative means of providing academic credentials.
Even if admissions isn’t biased towards extroverts, there is overwhelmingly a sense that one has to have achieved significantly by the age of 17, rather than working towards something which might not ultimately flower into anything until you are much older. There’s surely no way to fix that – but the kid who is really impressive at age 17 isn’t always ultimately the most successful person in life. Think about the fiasco with that girl whose parents paid the college consultant to turn her into a published author of young adult fiction and it turned out it was all plagiarized. Perhaps some of us will someday write the great American novel – but it’s unlikely that most people will do so while they are in high school. The great novelist might have been sitting quietly on the sidelines for many years, taking it all in, before crafting the novel when he is in his thirties. Don’t mathematicians do their best work in their forties or something? I thought I read that somewhere. . .The question is whether someone’s high school transcript is actually a valid indicator of the likelihood that they will “shape the future” or 'become a person of influence" in the future, or whatever the terms are. The most influential guy in your high school didn’t necessarily become the most influential person in the future, yet the thinking seems to be that high school leadership is a good predictor of who will be a CEO. not sure I buy that.
Re: #81
Yes, late bloomers lose out in admission to selective colleges.
However, a practical consideration is that, for students going to college immediately after high school graduation, achievements (academic and otherwise) done while in high school are pretty much all that selective colleges can see for admission selection (for criteria strictly based on the applicant, as opposed to externally bestowed hooks like being related to a huge donor, etc.).
A disproportionate number of movers and shakers in a lot of fields still come from the most selective colleges. There could be several reasons for this:
Note: “Some combination of the above” is almost always the real answer to anything like this.
Of all people here, LF, I’d hope you know me better and know what my words meant. The narrative is one about allocating time judiciously IF selective college applications and admissions are the objectives. Do you know many HS who claim to have too much time on their hands for activities at school or outside? The perennial excuse is that they have NO time … cannot sit for the SAT … are too tired to start writing essays in their junior year.
As far as activities, the point is that it is MUCH easier to join a group in high school than leading one, and easier to participate in an activity outside the four walls of your school.
The comment about being a star could have been rewritten in a different way. How about participating in an activity you can write about with passion and have others describing your CONTRIBUTIONS in a manner than might peek the interest of an adcom?
Let’s be honest here. What is that YOU look at when reading an application if you’d wear your reader hat? Glossing over the GPA, test scores, and rankings to make sure the basic qualifications are in place? Right? Then delve into the essay and hope they might sway you in the direction of either pile? Right? And then look at the ever growing list of activities and awards listed by students! What do you retain from reading a long list of middling participation and little that stands out? Again, let’s be honest in THAT does NOT score many points.
For the majority of the students, what I wrote presents little interest. I wrote about competitive students who target the schools listed in the first pages of the USNews. Some might not like it, but in the rarified air of uber selective admissions, words a la leadership (meaning there is a group led), intellectual vitality, and recognized angular activities grab the bacon. The last words of the ode to the BWRK were heard years ago. Right or wrong, I am pretty sure that such is the scene in 2015.
No, holistic is no BS. But what is BS is the faulty interpretation of what holistic means. Just as this introvert element. One does not have to be constant rah-raher with a booming voice to be a leader and a contributor. Ever heard of the quiet leader who leads by example or the quiet leader consulted by his or her peers for having a sound judgment? Ever heard of the quiet kid who happens to lead a group of tutors without speaking over and past his or her friends? Ever heard of the national team player who happens to be the val of her school and is as quiet as they come?
Trust me, such kids do exist!
Haha, I should have quoted this and seconded before writing my post. That is exactly what I was alluding to with perhaps the caveat that some in fact have a leadership position at school as well. The point, however, remains that the world outside the four walls of a HS offer better opportunities to showcase the type of talent and contributions valued by the admission people currently.
If you’re applying to a tippy top, when you say late bloomer, what do you mean? The kids who does nothing, but someday, maybe, will achieve and leave a mark? Presumably, this means he doesn’t do anything with academics or related interests ? Take another look.
When you weigh against this notion that you have to be a recognized super-duper star, you can miss a lot. (Are we surpassing Tiger Mom, now?) Elite adcoms are looking for characteristics and attributes, the core strengths that suggest you are growing now and will continue to explore and grow, in college and after: motivated, takes on challenges, resilient, looks for additional ways to pursue interests, good team player, plus things like some concern for others, etc. You “show” that through the choices and activities you did pursue.
You certainly don’t have to be class president or win prestigious awards to show that. But you do have to get out of your chair, so to say. If a kid needs time to bloom, maybe he goes to a college that…gives him that time, that environment in which to flourish. If it’s his destiny, he will.
Do not cling to that super-duper star moniker. I used the term immediately recognized star in the context of the local high school.
Fwiw, look at the “stardom” that is applied by adcoms to high school students in terms of ranking. Aren’t they looking for the local stars who happen to be in the top 10 percent, with an incredible preference for the 1-3 top percent?
Put that in the proper perspective. We can go on forever and a day about late bloomers, and Lake Wobegon kids, the reality is that when it comes to highly selective schools the “chosen” ones are most often kids who did excel in one or more activities as opposed to be diamonds in the rough or underperformers.
And again, I think you know this. And so do the admissions officers who do make the decisions.
@Momzie, mathematicians peak early. It’s biologists (among others) who peak later.
In any case, the beauty of the American higher education system is that your life path isn’t set at 17 (unlike in some other countries). Many paths to success in various fields here.
Even something like that won’t necessarily work against you!
I know I’m only using one example, but in high school I had zero ECs with leadership positions. I was in a lot of ECs, and I was in JROTC, but I wasn’t a president or a captain of anything. I didn’t like the idea of being in club leadership positions at my hs, as lot of the kids who took leadership roles in clubs were duds and just did it for resume fluffing, but that’s another story.
I spent most of my free time writing stories. I think by the time I submitted my apps I had three novels I’d written, though none were published or anything, so it wasn’t like the college could verify they even existed. But in my essay, I wrote about how that process was for me and what I enjoyed most about it, especially the more challenging projects.
I didn’t have the same volume of ECs or sports as other people applying to my school, but I think that essay contributed a lot to my acceptance…
And now I’m president of the Creative Writing Association so that’s cool, ha.
So yeah, if you’re the type of student who tends to participate in more introverted things like writing and art outside of school, don’t despair! There are ways to show this in your college application and it can still benefit you.
I do interviews for Yale and I have come across many introverted kids during the process. I am not looking for kids that have a million ECs which, when I ask them to tell me about them, give my vapid canned answers. I’ll take the quiet kid any day who, when I ask about the last book they read, will light up as they tell me about some science fiction novel they read and how they may love the particular author and read all their works. This gentle “passion” comes through.
Like has been said on this thread a couple of times, AdComs, interviewers, etc. see tons of kids and we get a sixth sense about those that are passionate about something, anything. It could be about the dog walking service they started in the neighborhood for elderly neighbor, not about finding the cure for cancer and irrigating the desert bringing fresh water to dying children in some remote land. I never ask an applicant for the list of their ECs. I just ask them to tell me about one with the assumption being they will pick the one that means the most to them. Again, not having at least one is telling in and of itself.
Then, when I see what the applicant’s strong suit is, I focus on that in my write up. This gives the Committee some insights into the “real” person sitting before me. Not the packaged kid whose parents have been grooming him for YHPS for the last 18 years.
The recent Op-Ed in the New York Times on Harvard admission may be relevant to this discussion
of holistic admissions and extracurriculars:
“It’s perfectly fair to consider extracurriculars as an important factor in admissions. But the current system is so opaque that it is easy to conceal discrimination behind vague criteria like “intangible qualities” or the desire for a “well-rounded class.” These criteria were used to exclude an overachieving minority in the days of Lowell, and they serve the same purpose today. For reasons both legal and moral, the onus is on the schools to make their admissions criteria more transparent…”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/opinion/is-harvard-unfair-to-asian-americans.html
Yascha Mounk, a political theorist and a fellow at New America, teaches expository writing at Harvard.
I strongly agree with @Tperry1982 's interview approach. It is my belief that we have two overriding functions: (a) answer questions and provide candid, detailed information and (b) through a bilateral conversation, attempt to discover – or, at a minimum, to enlarge – the “applicant behind all the quantitative data” (to which, at least for Duke, we have zero access). Tperry is also correct, we do develop a “sixth sense” about their passions, which is infinitely more compelling than the “canned” candidate with near-perfect superficialities, but little real depth.
The initial article linked in the first post discusses the following:
I don’t see any of these as the sole domain of extroverts. There are surely advantages to being an extrovert as far as the application process goes. That doesn’t mean an introvert has nothing to contribute, and there are ways to show what makes such a student unique, what their interests are, and what their skills are. Yes, there are students who try to game the system. Some may be successful. But, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with the article.
FYI - neither of my children had leadership roles in high school, and I would not consider either one to be a true extrovert. However, they each had something that they pursued deeply and it was reflected in their application. Their interests, what they did with their interests, and how their respective activities shaped them, is what made them unique.
And none of that makes him an expert on college admissions, It reflects the vantage point of a PhD candidate who has little insight into the application process for undergraduates in the US, let alone the inner workings of the admissions’ department at the school he attends.
Inasmuch as we should welcome additional statistical transparency from a school such as Harvard, what he calls opaque is actually pretty clear to the one who does not refuse to see.
Just another worthless oped!
None of the admissions rating scales are published on the college’s own websites.
They have to be found elsewhere. The lack of transparency benefits the institutions
and insiders not the standard high school age applicant.
@foobar1: Individuals who understand the stock, commodities and/or financial markets generally achieve greater returns on their invested capital. People who appreciate the health benefits of preventative medicine, exercise and nutrition – and who practice them – frequently live better and longer lives. Experts who analyze automobiles ardently normally purchase better cars. Framers who intensively study agricultural sciences typically attain greater profitability than those who don’t. The examples are endless. Why should those with expertise in university admissions differ from this general paradigm? Can’t “standard high school age applicants,” with sufficient effort, become become experts? Aren’t public libraries still found in essentially every community? Doesn’t the internet massively enhance and streamline accrual of information and development of expertise?
Agreed TopTier, but does anyone think that a 17 year old that is new to the college application process is going to be up to speed in a couple of months like you and xiggi are. Who benefits from the current information disparity? Insiders and the colleges themselves. Not students.
@foobar1 (re #97): Life is extremely Darwinian, ruthless, and tough. The slowest zebra becomes the swiftest lioness’s lunch. That has been the way of the world since before the advent of recorded history, and it is entirely unlikely to change. Students are near-adults and they would be well advised to learn the skills required to prevail. If your seventeen year old is unable to compete successfully, isn’t that fundamentally his problem? Finally, just to be clear, I came from considerable poverty, my university degrees were entirely provided by scholarships, and I repaid the American people for their largess with decades of service and sacrifice as a naval officer. If I can do so, why can’t your seventeen year old?
TopTier - with all due respect in post #41 didn’t you say the standards were lower decades ago?
In some ways, the standards were lower and the bar was easier to clear back then. Consequently,
the standards were more transparent. Back in those days getting getting 1 or 2 scores of 5 on
an AP exam was a substantial achievement. Nowadays, the valedictorians have 8 or more APs
plus national awards in extracurricular achievements.