<p>Apprentice prof, completely spot on. Great post. QM, you may not realize it, but this is exactly what your dollhouse discussion sounded like. There is no “signal” being sent by whether the dollhouse is Victorian or it has an eat-in kitchen. The devil ISN’T in these details. </p>
<p>“blossom makes a good point that essays will probably be viewed differently at different “top” schools. I get that. It might make the question in the third paragraph irrelevant.” </p>
<p>And they’ll be viewed differently by Adcom member A vs Adcom member B. And Adcom member A may like an essay one year and dislike it another year. So??? This is the “it all comes out in the wash” piece. Maybe fenale adcoms will find the dollhouse story sweeter than male adcoms. Again, so? </p>
<p>“If the essay describes the “over-thinking” dollhouse builder, is it a useful essay? Is that an attractive applicant or not?”</p>
<p>If the essay described something where the dollhouse builder built a pool in the dollhouse and was then taken aback when it was received negatively by poor kids who couldn’t envision a pool, and used that to reflect on her own capacity to observe and learn from others, it could be quite compelling. </p>
<p>If however the dollhouse builder never actually gets around to building a dollhouse because she’s fretting over Victorian vs Georgian vs Frank Lloyd Wright, then no, it’s not compelling. </p>
<p>Stories have to have trajectories. I think some of you just describe and don’t get to the trajectory. Something needs to change to show growth. </p>
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<p>By the same token, while some closed-minded folks may not like the applicant who breeds ballroom dancing and operatic singing/performing mutant 15 foot tall Dodo birds or T Rexes because they deem her to be weird…others may view the same applicant as the epitome of an innovative highly creative “out of the box thinking” intellectual budding scientist with great potential to combine the best of the arts & sciences in her own unique manner. :D</p>
<p>Some academics…possibly QMC may welcome and enjoy having her in their campus community. </p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>I’m not presenting a “story” with the dollhouse comments, nor am I trying to tailor anyone’s hobby to gain admission anywhere. I thought the idea of someone building dollhouses for children who would enjoy them was actually a good idea for the hypothetical dollhouse collector, independent of college admissions issues, as an act of service; but perhaps also relevant to mention on a college app–but then again, perhaps not, based on its reception here. </p>
<p>I don’t see the issues of Victorian mansion or stately colonial vs. typical house in my area as a “signal” to the admissions staff. I see it as a question of best serving the people that one is trying to serve. It’s not a question of the applicant’s story, “Oh I put in a pool, and then that was viewed negatively by the recipients, and now I have learned how to observe and learn from others.” It was a question of the dollhouse builder figuring out <em>in advance</em> whether the children might like a pool, or other features, or not–perhaps by observing what toys they did like to play with before building the dollhouse, or perhaps by asking adults in charge of the facilities what they thought the children would like. To me, this does not seem like over-thinking. It seems like putting in the appropriate level of thought when investing a substantial amount of time in a service project. I agree, the devil is not in the details. The best service to others is in the details, though, I think. </p>
<p>I think there are links between thoughtful dollhouse building and thoughtful service in soup kitchens.</p>
<p>I would like to request that you please understand that I am quite sincere about these posts.</p>
<p>I think that the same issues apply to service trips to help re-build homes in Haiti, or in New Orleans, or in areas hit by tornados in Oklahoma. Or for that matter, work on water filters or more elaborate water-purification systems for areas that need them. If the person providing the service doesn’t understand the lay of the land and the desires of the people who are being served, the effort is not likely to be very successful.</p>
<p>To provide a totally different example, that addresses a different component of the posts above: Suppose that a person plays an instrument (or several) and loves music. If he/she volunteers to teach the instrument for free to students in under-served schools, and organizes groups to play at nursing homes, and perhaps organizes multiple car washes to raise money to buy instruments for students in under-served schools, would that be viewed as “tailoring” a hobby for college admissions? Earlier on on CC, I thought that was actually being recommended.</p>
<p>I have missed about 800 posts on this thread, and I am not about to catch up. But w/re collegealum314’s contrasting of Harvard and Chicago: I think that’s a useful work of fiction, but not something that describes the admissions process at either school – not ever, and certainly not now.
A decade (or more) ago, Chicago seemed mainly to have a one-factor assessment discipline (although, even then, I am sure they took into account such things as ethnic and cultural diversity, geography, socio-economic status, country of origin), aimed perhaps somewhere halfway between intelligence and intellectualism. At the time, however, Chicago had an admission rate that hovered around 33-40%. People weren’t making that many difficult choices; they certainly weren’t turning away any student they affirmatively liked. They had the luxury of being able to take risks without guilt. What constituted an admission decision at Chicago was probably equivalent to making the first cut at Harvard, but at Harvard the staff then had to decide which 25% or so of those students to accept, and which of the rest to waitlist or reject. I do not believe Harvard was ever accepting anyone who would not have been accepted at Chicago back then with little or no discussion.</p>
<p>In any event, the world has changed a lot at Chicago since Jim Nondorf became the admissions dean six years ago. Nondorf is the ultimate Yalie – Whiffenpoof, Bonesman, learned the ropes in its admissions office. There is little question that he was hired, and arrived with a plan, and executed that plan, (a) to increase the number and quality of applications Chicago received, so that its applicant pool looked a lot more like Harvard’s or Yale’s, (b) to make admissions nearly as selective as Harvard’s or Yale’s, and © to make the student body look a lot more like Harvard’s and Yale’s as well. There were some good reasons for that. The quality of student experience at Chicago absolutely suffered from a lack of leaders, people who would take the ball and run with it in terms of extra-curricular activities, and several high-paid consultants determined that the university’s alumni fundraising suffered from the same problem, projected decades out – a dearth of movers and shakers, and a surfeit of academics and wonks. </p>
<p>Chicago still has an admirable academic and intellectual culture, but it is at most a few degrees separate from Harvard or Yale, not really a contrast at all. In part, that’s because I think Harvard and Yale (etc.) have a much stronger intellectual culture than people credit them with here. (Yale and Princeton, perhaps, more than Harvard, but that’s absolutely debatable.) At least from what I can tell, Harvard admissions is nothing like “check the NMF box then look at ECs.” Except for recruited athletes, every single student I have seen accepted at Harvard in the past two decades has been someone whom it was easy to see why he or she might be considered extraordinary, and for a variety of reasons, but always including a really high intellectual standard. Not every student like that was accepted, but every student accepted was like that. In my children’s high school classes, Harvard chose the students with the most exciting intelligence, period. Not the best grades, not the best scores (although darn close), not the best ECs . . . the students other top students admired most, or who had some special interest with a depth that eluded 99.9% of their peers.</p>
<p>All too, too, too convoluted.<br>
You realize that for the high stakes colleges, there’s a sequential read process, right? Multiple reviews. Many checks and balances. </p>
<p>Car washes recommended by whom??? And ya know, some people will tell you the world if flat. Try to vet that info before assuming.</p>
<p>I guess I’m still batting my head here cuz some bright kids ask advice- and golly, they get it and go forth and get good results. And here are bright adults in this thread still fussing. Kids can activate themselves without paralyzing self examination, QM. </p>
<p>Voracious writers in this thread. </p>
<p>Okay, no one recommended car washes, explicitly. But I think that people did recommend that a musician consider teaching younger children, and organizing groups to play at nursing homes. (The recommendation was not made on this thread, but I have seen it more than once on CC.)</p>
<p>It seems to me that it would really benefit the students in under-served schools to have their own instruments, rather than having to borrow the school’s instruments and return them at the end of the school year (the case in my school). The suggestion of car washes was just a way for the high-school music student to raise money, to purchase instruments for some of the the younger students. </p>
<p>I am not “fussing,” nor suggesting that students engage in “paralyzing self-examination.” The hypothetical dollhouse builder is not examining herself (nor trying to game the system, nor re-mold herself to fit some admissions desiderata). She is trying to figure out what the children would like best, so she builds the dollhouses they will like best. It’s rewarding in itself. If this thread is any indicator, it’s an activity best left totally unmentioned in the application. </p>
<p>On a separate note, JHS’s #1526 is an interesting updating of the view in collegealum314’s earlier post. I don’t seem to be able to mark a post both “Like” and “Helpful,” so I settled on “Helpful.”</p>
<p>Added: When it comes to advice about admissions, I am pretty sure that earlier on this thread, I suggested that students should listen to lookingforward and PG, because they have a view that is consistent with admissions practices, to the best of my knowledge. blossom has posted some quite interesting additional information, and is well worth listening to. I would not have guessed that admissions is looking for the type of students who will contribute to the university 5 years after graduating. I am not being sarcastic, nor capitulating here. I still think what I have thought before about how admissions ought to operate. But from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, in my opinion, for the next few years at least, it would be best for applicants to follow the suggestions of lf, PG, and blossom. </p>
<p>QM. Did you notice that not all of the things on the list I shared were necessarily service-oriented? Doing service-oriented things MAY be useful in the context of one student"s overall story. It may be not as important for another student. Please stop trying to make universal EC recommendations as if there were one true path. </p>
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<p>Do you have a source for this? @JHS , these are some interesting ideas certainly. I thought U. of Chicago went to the common app and that was responsible for increases in (A) and (B) pretty instantly as apps increased. The drop in selectivity due to this may have also had a multiplying effect; U. of Chicago may have risen a bit in the rankings, and then became more attractive, and therefore more people applied (selectivity up even more) and actually wanted to go (yield up). Even if (C) happened, I’m not sure how U. of Chicago’s student experience may have contributed to its attractiveness to applicants at least on the timescale of Nondorf’s appointment. Perhaps you aren’t making this contention that it already has, just arguing that it was a goal to make the student body makeup more like Harvard and Yale’s.</p>
<p>I read an article that U. of Chicago’s previous model was working in terms of turning out future movers and shakers; however, I can’t seem to find it now. I do know that MIT has one of the top records in turns of founding companies, though they are predominantly in the tech field. Until recently, admissions at MIT was pretty much by straight academics with leadership and other qualities only maybe a tiebreaker. I don’t know about U. of Chicago’s campus life. However, even in this respect, I am a little incredulous. I went to a tiny high school which was selected by academics alone, and we always had events going on that were initiated and run by students. I am surprised that a much bigger school wouldn’t have the same.<br>
I wonder what impact being in that neighborhood has on the student experience and consequently, the alumni giving rate. it’s interesting that if students aren’t happy, people’s solutions is to change the students. </p>
<p>I don’t think all your ECs need to be service oriented, but I do think that if there’s a little box on the Common Applicaiton that asks about your volunteer activities it’s a good idea to have something to fill in. Not a jillion hours, and not the “I founded my own charity!” and not “I put in hours at the soup kitchen because my parents made me” and not “I did a church mission trip”, unless those really were your thing. I think a good approach is for kids to look at their hobbies and see if there is something they can do with them.Older son helped seniors at the computer lab at the senior center and also helped write a program to work out bus schedules for them. Younger son also worked at the senior center giving violin concerts and teaching origami. There’s no one true EC path, but both our kids did take a look at their interests and said, okay what volunteer activities make sense for us.</p>
<p>PG, I was hardly making a “universal EC recommendation.” There are probably about 3 teenagers in the U.S. who are still interested in dollhouses (exaggeration for the sake of effect–but maybe not). The suggestion of possible “service” for a musician was just what I’ve read on CC, except for the car washes to raise money to buy instruments for younger students who need them. But apparently that idea did not pass muster.</p>
<p>I’m not looking for a formula for students to get in–though maybe some of the readers of this thread are.</p>
<p>Belief in"one true path" is someone else’s idea entirely. The whole essence of quantum mechanics is that even simple particles have an infinite number of available paths, and follow them all simultaneously.</p>
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<p>I have no evidence but I believe JHS is on the right track in terms of trying to get kids to apply. The applications did not go up just because of common app but a huge effort in marketing to kids to apply. Older kid was getting cards, brochures, quirky little puzzles almost everyday back in 2011 (for whatever reason, 2 of everything) and younger one won’t apply until next year but we see a lot of material from Chicago already. They are buying the lists from everyone (PSAT, SAT, ACT, SAT II, AP - whatever cut offs colleges are looking at) and marketing is starting really early.</p>
<p>Who’s on first?</p>
<p>LF believes in the true path, with a fixed destination, and suggests getting directions from experts?</p>
<p>PG thinks one path is probably as good as another and the route and destination are more or less random?</p>
<p>QM - ?? - There isn’t one path and the journey may be more important than the destination??</p>
<p>And cobrat has many cousins, other relatives, and old high-school classmates who have been down various paths and have discussed their opinions about them. 
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<p>I hope you don’t mind the teasing, cobrat? If you do, I’ll delete this, if I’m within the edit window, or at least not repeat anything similar!</p>
<p>Cobrat and I are walking along, holding hands, and usually off road. … </p>
<p>Jym is directing traffic.</p>
<p>Fretfulmother is wondering why on earth she got on this path to begin with, but may discover it exerts an almost irresistible pull.</p>
<p>'Scuse me, what do I believe in? And you know because-? With the the ‘he he I dont read closely,’ I suspect this is just more of the same.</p>
<p>alh,</p>
<p>No need to be disengenuous and obnoxious. For the record, I’ve not looked at this thread since yesterday morning, and it appears that that is true for most other posters, who have also bailed as they likely have grown weary of the longwinded posts of a few who are in about round 57889076542233445 of this circular off topic thread. If this is what floats your boat. Well enjoy. </p>
<p>A suggestion that many have made oftentimes on cc that excessively long posts are rarely read by posters who lose interest after the first paragraph or two. This is a discussion forum, not a blog. But have at it, if its your source of amusement. You wanna be a windbag, feel free. But kindly refrain from accusing me of something I did not do. You seem to confuse a suggestion and an observation with something else. Theres more than enough wordiness in this thead. No need to read something else into a post that is not there. </p>