<p>On #2400, I meant to say, “Someone on cc once said that it’s easier to get into an elite college by looking like someone who could organize a fundraiser for cancer research than it is by looking like someone who could find the cure.”</p>
<p>Sorry for the typos.</p>
<p>QM, I just lost a good post responding to your ques. Will get back to it later. </p>
<p>Bay, you can spend whatever you want, however you want. You can buy your kid an SUV, for all I care. Just don’t try to tell me that the expensive Africa trip is full bore comm service. Even the fact that you compare it to travel makes me wonder. Go see Europe. My experience is that many, many, many of these “service” trips are a few hours of service. My complaint is kids who do ONLY that. </p>
<p>Kids who write, “And, one day, we went to an orphanage and got to hold AIDS babies. It was beautiful when he smiled at me. I saw I could make a difference.” Blech. And, “Now I understand. I have a car and feel really guilty for complaining it was the wrong color.” It’s a freakin’ college app.</p>
<p>As for indentured servitude, baloney. Folks underestimate kids. They feel sorry for their lost childhoods-??! They can get to the mall, they can watch TV,…they can do a few hours of what we used to call Judeo-Christian giving back. Paying it forward or whatever.</p>
<p>They can mentor in school, recruit and train new members of the math team, go serve at a soup kitchen once/month for a year. They can climb out of their sweet zones. They can put it all together and make it make sense on their apps. Or not. You want to convey worthiness. Not limitations. Comm service is not a Communist plot. Giving back is one of our cultural values. </p>
<p>Sorry for the attitude.</p>
<p>lookingforward,
I am in agreement with your <em>attitude</em> about cheesy platitudes in college apps. What bothers me is the not-so-opaque classism displayed by singling out kids who do their community service while on an expensive trip, versus those who go across town to a soup kitchen, and “saw they could make a difference” by handing out sandwiches twice a month. Please at least be consistent with your scorn.</p>
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<p>Has it been revised by parents or college consultants?</p>
<p>“In his autobiography, Norbert described his father as calm and patient, unless he (Norbert) failed to give a correct answer, at which his father would lose his temper.”</p>
<p>Wikipedia on child prodigy turned MIT math professor, Norbert Wiener.</p>
<p>Coolweather, my best guess is the kid thought it would work. </p>
<p>Bay, nothing wrong with the trips for pleasure. I don’t know where the idea started that there is some class problem here. It’s more a matter of a kid’s plain old sense and savvy re: a college app, especially to a private that is fiercely competitive, where they can cherry pick based on more than stats and interest. If this were your own resume, would you put down travel? If you were trying to get noticed by a company that values service (or community leadership, comm engagement) wouldn’t you want to present more than one service (or “service”) trip to a distant land? Would it be good enough to say, I wrote a check? </p>
<p>The frequently used phrases are: commitment over time, responsibility and impact, climbing out of one’s box, breadth and depth, etc. I said before; what you do to pursue your own interests and goals; what you do for your group (starting with hs activities) and what you do for your community. That’s my take, based on my exp.</p>
<p>So, if anyone here has a kid yet to apply, run their ECs through that filter. It’s not cast in stone, but can help you assess. There will always be plenty of kids who don’t fit that, but still get an admit. But, in a high stakes game, put on your best glasses. </p>
<p>And remember, thre are no guarantees.</p>
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<p>I think writing a check can be much more efficient and effective than spending volunteer hours on menial jobs. Donating money can create a job for someone who needs one to do that work.</p>
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<p>bears repeating.</p>
<p>The other thing is a unique perspective.</p>
<p>My daughter had some success applying to these types of schools, and along with the requisite smart and presentable factor, also had a really unique perspective and wrote an essay her guidance counselor would not approve. Literally called me to say, “I can’t approve poetdaughter’s essay. I have asked her to write on something else, but she wants to submit this one. I won’t take responsibility.”</p>
<p>“Well, it’s her application. What do I care?” I said.</p>
<p>she received handwritten notes from almost every adcom commenting on her essay and how impactful it was for them. </p>
<p>Now, I’m not saying disregard the guidance counselor, but I am saying, let your kid be themselves, take risks, do some things only they can do on those apps. I can promise you her essay had typos in it since she is dyslexic, but nobody cared.</p>
<p>FWIW.</p>
<p>Also, since there are no guarantees, you essentially have nothing to lose. At least that’s what I told my kid, who went off to college, finally, based on yet another personal preference and general dislike of the east coast. (NYC excepted)</p>
<p>I would say a key test to the genuineness of someone’s community service is how much they continue it when they reach a stage where they derive no tangible benefit for doing so. If the student just had a brief stint, it’s hard to assess the true motivation. </p>
<p>However, I still don’t see someone who volunteers only to bolster his credentials as being necessarily bad. To me someone who helps people in a disaster situation only to embellish his resume isn’t very different from someone who spends long hours to get a 5 in AP xyz while having no desire to know anything about the subject itself. </p>
<p>In fact an outside-the-box analysis can even make a case the latter shows better character - DD1 still goes to animal shelters (after graduating from college) for the only reason that she likes doing so; she, however, has long since stopped serving food in shelters or teaching little kids math and chess. So one can argue the latter actually took more effort and discipline to do.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen in our suburban community, the “I founded a charity/service organization and raise lots of money” EC should have a fact-checker to confirm degree of true student-alone leadership et al. Our local newspaper’s featured several years running several 5 - 8 year-old kids who “run a lemonade stand/block party” that raises several thousand dollars each year. LOL. It’s their moms, priming the pump for their college applications, calling the local paper to get their kids’ picture in the news for the scrapbook.</p>
<p>Likewise, a local HS has a “Poinsetta Posse”, a group of boys supposedly selling Poinsettas enmasse to raise money for a charity. Smacks of mom again, purchasing plants wholesale and letting their sons take the credit.</p>
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<p>Put another way - should MIT only be accessible to those children who didn’t have a childhood? Is there no room at MIT for someone who’s really, really bright and good in math and science and a decent, interesting person too- but who hasn’t been gunning for USAMO or similar contests since middle school? It would be a shame if MIT or other elite colleges were only accessible to kids who never have time to just hang around.</p>
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<p>One thought I have is that at the highest income levels, the social capital of the parents is already made – the kids don’t have to be super-duper smart to wind up being successful, they know that success comes in many flavors and interpersonal skills, relationships, and leadership are important in that endeavor. It’s the one rung down, the more wannabes, who are focused on thinking that proving super-duper smarts will reward them directly in the workplace (they’re the ones who seriously think that 800M students are going to make more than 750M students, and so on and so forth).</p>
<p>re. MIT financial aid:</p>
<p>One good thing (at least this was the case last year) is that MIT allows up to $6,000 in outside scholarship. My son was able to do that and it effectually wiped out both the loan and the work study in his package. (Doesn’t mean he can’t do work study or take out a loan; it’s just that was the total amount in his package).</p>
<p>I’m concerned about the change in policy, but we’ll see what happens.</p>
<p>marciemi,</p>
<p>Maybe my friend’s life was the example for the show you mentioned. 
(I don’t watch tv so I am a total dinosaur for anything modern on tv)</p>
<p>FWIW,
My Ds’ essay topics were trite but from the heart, and would probably fail the lookingforward-meter test. They were not about Africa (none of us has visited, yet), I did not advise them what to write and they did not seek anyone else’s help, but they got in where they wanted to go, and have done quite well academically and career-wise thus far.</p>
<p>I really dislike the idea that there is a <em>correct</em> way to write the college essay, as all that does is add more disingenuousness to the process.</p>
<p>"I really dislike the idea that there is a <em>correct</em> way to write the college essay, as all that does is add more disingenuousness to the process. "</p>
<p>I suspect it is not so much the correct way as the shallow way. Kids can make comments that can come across as shallow. I recently was proofing an essay which said something along the lines of I ran to raise money for charity and I am sure those special olympic kids feel thankful I ran. Did the kid run expecting gratitude from them?</p>
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<p>I am well off but still think this occurs in some cases. The sponsors of the AMC (of which USAMO is a part), listed at [Who’s</a> Who at the MAA American Mathematics Competitions](<a href=“American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America”>American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America) , include financial firms such as DE Shaw and Jane Street. Such firms have been known to ask for math SAT scores in job interviews, and being a USAMO qualifier would probably help you get a job at them. I know there are jobs beyond Wall Street.</p>
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<p>Ummm, no. CS projects do not have to be modeling or science-related. Theoretical computer science lives in the math departments at some colleges, and in the CS departments at others. At MIT, this major is 18C – a mathematics major with theoretical CS. At CMU, it’s in CS. At UChicago, theoretical CS courses are cross-listed and one could major in either math or CS to get the same result.</p>
<p>Asking for job applicant’s SAT scores is nothing new. I was asked for my SAT scores at a benefits consulting firm in 1986 where I’d be involved in calculating pension projections. Was not my first job out of school, either. They found my 630 M score quite acceptable.</p>
<p>DE Shaw and Jane Street sponsor math contests because they think that people that do well at math contests are likely to be good traders. I don’t think having high SAT scores or being a USAMO qualifier helps in the interviewing process at these firms except for the fact the problem solving experience would be of great help in answering the interview questions. A USAMO qualifier who can’t answer the interview questions will not be chosen over a non-USAMO qualifier who can.</p>
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<p>My guess is that collegealum was referring to math projects that might rely more on programming and numerical data rather than proofs? I do agree that the word choice wasn’t the best.</p>
<p>Bay’s statement in #2404, “Please at least be consistent with your scorn,” deserves instant elevation to the status of CC Classic.</p>