<p>LI- I don’t doubt your kid was qualified. Any speculation risks unfairness to his genuine desire to stretch- and his results. But when a school says they like risk takers (and I believe all the Ivies like that, plus Stanford, Chicago and others,) they don’t mean simply academic.</p>
<p>Risk is manifested in many ways, as is stretching.</p>
<p>"re PCH’s comment: kids who work too hard to present themelves as outliers, all academics, all specifically chosen challenges based on their own goals, all the time, lose some attractiveness. You really have to take MITChris’s advice to heart. "</p>
<p>Personally, I am advocating that everyone, including the parents, should just follow their hearts and care less what any “dream school” wants. If you have demonstrated significant interests, and hopefully with some achievements, some good universities will happily have you on their campuses.</p>
<p>Blossom – “Too few seats. Repeat after me.”</p>
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<p>So they shouldn’t take deserving kids who are legacies – why again?</p>
<p>Quantmech: I enjoy your posts immensely, but I was really struck by this:</p>
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<p>It appears as though you took the question VERY literally - write about a failure – and only considered it in light of academics (“but these are smart kids and their high schools may not adequately challenge them - how are they to experience failure?”). And, you worried about the substance of the failure (“is an Intel non-win really a failure?”).</p>
<p>I have to say, my mouth was kind of agape, because what MIT isn’t looking for wasn’t “tell me where you’re not perfect academically” or “tell me about what you learned from the math / science contests you didn’t win.” Nor are they really screening for “tell me you won’t kill yourself when you get your first C on our campus.”</p>
<p>They were asking the student to be self-reflective. To talk about times in their lives where they tried something and it didn’t work out as they first thought. Maybe it was learning how to knit a scarf, or ask that cute girl to the prom, or learning to ride a bicycle, or making a dessert for the family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Whatever. </p>
<p>The point is – the nature of the failure isn’t the point AT ALL! The point is being self-reflective, to have the third eye, to be able to step outside one’s own thoughts and feelings and reflect on a situation – what it meant, what it taught them about themselves and their capabilities, hopes, dreams, passions, challenges and fears – and NOT necessarily to wrap it all up in the trite and tired “I didn’t win the contest, but boy, I sure learned to keep persevering and not to give up hope!”</p>
<p>As JHS aptly points out, these are valuable qualities associated with people who are reflective, multidimensional people of substance. And probably the kinds of qualities that MIT would like to select for, since they have more than enough applicants who are qualified to do the work.</p>
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<p>Of course. And although my son is lopsided academically (sports? music? forget it!) he also developed a community service project from scratch, to address an unmet need. The project never met his own expectations, but made a positive impression with the schools that accepted him, again based on their customized acceptance letters.</p>
<p>But getting back to the OP’s complaint: if you make an effort to diversify to a range of schools and try to show your personality in your application, you’ll end up somewhere where you can be happy. The obsession, often found here on CC, that it’s either School X or your life is ruined leads to a lot of unnecessary sadness.</p>
<p>And to add to Pizza’s excellent point- the colleges all have ample data points to evaluate a kid academically- so to write about an academic failure (as if that’s the only time a person can fail) is overkill-- or at least doesn’t add to the picture of the kid. What about the clumsy kids who try out for gymnastics or the fat kid who still takes ballet even though he/she knows the teacher is groaning and wishing he/she would lose 30 lbs?</p>
<p>I can’t over-generalize- but in my line of work (corporate HR with a focus on executive level hiring although I’ve done all levels in virtually all functions during my career) we groan when a candidate talks about “a time that I’ve failed” and it’s straight up resume talk. There is a value for people who will work in teams or will lead others who do things they know they’re not good at just for the joy of it. There is something inescapably inspiring to meet a high achiever who is not perfect-- and moreover, embraces that imperfection. </p>
<p>But I still maintain that it’s the math. In a very few cases, and in subtle ways, essays can move the needle. But even so, there will be fantastic kids shut out just because of the numbers.</p>
<p>I lose no sleep over legacy admissions. I am much more concerned about the kids in large chunks of the US who graduate from HS reading at a 5th grade level or who can’t find China on a map. How will they ever enter the adult working world?</p>
<p>I actually believe there is a way to improve your chances at a top college, assuming you have the stats. Learn everything you can about them. See what they tout, which kids they highlight and the kinds of things those kids are involved in, what their unique programs or offerings are and on and on. Form a sense of their reality- and their self-image. Get an idea of how they might look for your fit in the actvities and real responsibilities you have sought and managed, their supp questions, and imagine how they might seek to glean your fit through your essay and short answers. I used to call that, think like an adcom.</p>
<p>Not foolproof, because the gross numbers are against you. </p>
<p>Adding to PG: self-reflective, yes. But in line with what the school is looking for- which is a matter of this research, not usnews, CC or your asumptions. In choosing the topic, one should aim to convey college-relevant skills, qualities and strengths. Eg, playing with little children may have taught much, but what does it say to an adcom? Shape it to make sense.</p>
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<p>Right. And I’m willing to bet that 9 out of 10 MIT essays about failures are of the “I didn’t get the A / win the contest / etc., but I learned that if I worked really hard, I should be proud of myself / I"m not a failure because I tried / winning isn’t everything / I get knocked down but I get up again, ain’t never gonna keep me down.” Trite, trite, trite. </p>
<p>It’s like some on CC don’t seem to understand why adcoms don’t want a breath of fresh air in an applicant who takes a fresh look and pulls something out from deep inside.</p>
<p>MIT 2011</p>
<p>Total first-time, first-year (freshman) men who applied 12,443
Total first-time, first-year (freshman) men who were admitted 891
Total full-time, first-time, first-year (freshman) men who enrolled 620</p>
<p>Essentially there were 810 or so admits who are from US if we reduce about 10% for internationals. </p>
<p>Fourteen percent were among the first generation in their family to attend college. I assume that takes it down to 700 for someone with parents who went to college.</p>
<p>My guess is that the STEM competition is very severe among the boys applying to MIT, much more so than the Ivies. I think the boys admit rate this year was less than 7%.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, </p>
<p>Because being a legacy by itself is an unearned status (unlike athletes, musicians etc) to the applicant w/o any discrimination based on that status and also because legacy admits perpetuate the same racial make-up that existed generations ago (ie, legacy beneficiaries are overwhelmingly white). Also, the admissions rates of 30% at Harvard and 34 to 47% at Princeton suggest that legacy admissions are going well beyond “all other things being equal” or developmental cases.</p>
<p>Aah, but legacies have the advantage of knowing the school, as I suggested kids should. They tend not to ramble off about it being “the best” or odd things that basically admit they don’t know the place. The tend to do a chunk of the job of “fitting” themselves to the school. Imo, this opp is available to all.</p>
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<p>Perhaps. The greater question is whether one should mold one’s self to the perceived ideal candidate of a given school or just express one’s own self and say, “This is me. Take it or leave it”? The former may get you into a particular school, but the latter may well get you into a school that is ultimately a better fit.</p>
<p>An associated question is how much effort is this research worth, given the very low acceptance percentage at most top schools? It would be an unbearable amount of work to customize essays for 8-12 different colleges, given the workload one needs to maintain just to be a contender in the first place.</p>
<p>Well, my son’s MIT essay (the challenging situation/how did you handle it prompt) was about umpiring little league games and throwing a coach out of a game for unbecoming behavior (he was 16 and the coach 40). It demonstrated his qualities - integrity, calm under pressure, a sense of fair play…nothing about academics whatsoever, and he certainly did not come across as a striver/grind. My view is that he was not accepted primarily because he was geographically/demographically over represented. Such a rejection (after the sting wears off) becomes the road not taken, and other opportunities arise that may be for the best anyway.</p>
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<p>BINGO. Well expressed. The best way to get into Harvard (etc) is to live the kind of life that is most authentically you, not the life that you’re carefully scripting so that you can please Harvard. </p>
<p>And I think there’s a bridge of the two concepts in place – show what it is uniquely about you, how you approach life, challenges, learning, etc. in a way that is congruent with the expressed values of the school and leaves them thinking, “Wow, we’d miss out if we didn’t get this kid.” Which is NOT “look, I have excellent test scores and I play the piano.” </p>
<p>When we did college tours, I did a series of posts on how we looked for what we looked at schools. Not just the dorms and what-not, but what were the values that each school was expressing in their choice of what they talked about and how they chose to express it. Here is a sample of what we found: </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/901466-8-colleges-4-days-how-i-spent-my-spring-break.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/901466-8-colleges-4-days-how-i-spent-my-spring-break.html</a></p>
<p>This tells me easily how I’d want to position different aspects of a student to appeal to the values that each college espouses.</p>
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<p>So sit there and stew over it. This helps you, exactly, how? </p>
<p>BTW, it’s not “fair” that some kids have natural athletic or musical talent either. It’s also not fair that some kids have parental lifestyles that enable them to pursue athletics or musical talent at high levels (e.g., paying for private coaches, having an at-home parent to schlep to competitions in faraway cities) and others don’t, either. But I don’t see you getting upset over that.</p>
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<p>Sigh. If these colleges were so concerned with just perpetuating the same racial makeup as generations ago, tell me again why there are also privileges given to URM’s? And tell me again why so many are welcoming internationals? (And yes, I know, full pay is a reason, but still.) My D’s top 10 LAC is a full 15% international. I think that’s terrific and I’m glad for it.</p>
<p>I agree with LI and PG that a student should be him/herself and let the chips fall where they may. Fit is the only way to explain the admissions results in thus household: each kid was rejected at schools less selective than the schools that accepted them. And I don’t believe that the schools thought they wouldn’t have attended – these schools were serious contenders.</p>
<p>S was accepted at wonderful places by going against prevailing “types.” He did not want to study bio or economics at schools that see many of these prospective majors.</p>
<p>He did not have quite the credentials of LI’s son (or those abilities) but he was accepted to Williams, U of Chicago, and Brown because he compses interesting Philip Glass type music and studies art. He did have demonstrable success in math and science. I think MIT might be interested in a student like him if he had the willingness to do their core.</p>
<p>I think this is an absurd and irrational element of college admissions. LI’s son could do much more justice to the environment.</p>
<p>Dartmouth did decide he didn’t “fit” their environment. Now that he’s finished college I can say with assurance that they were right. This decision was not absurd or irrational.</p>
<p>Williams was wonderful for him, so things worked out well. I am just exploring some of the tangents being discussed with one anecdotal case.</p>
<p>As for legacies, it reminds me of an exchange between Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald said to Hem, “The rich are different from you and me.” Hem said, “Yeah, they have more money.”</p>
<p>Legacies and rich folks are favored. Sure. Not loosing sleep.</p>
<p>I am a college prof and I used my insights and skills to help my kids in the ways I could.</p>
<p>There is no way that we’re ever going to have a level playing field. Programs like Questbridge try to help less financially privileged kids. I’m thrilled by that, and the full pay develop kids and donors help foot the bill. Works for me.</p>
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<p>Not sure about formula, but data would help. How Nate Silver nailed the election I think is he applied some sort of formula to enough data while others flashed millions down the toilet.</p>
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<p>If LoremIpsum’s son got it, he could got rejected faster.</p>
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<p>Any suggestions for a Korean boy? I mean an American.</p>
<p>“What I do not think most people understand though is that when you get done with preferences at most Ivies and other top small universities (ie 4 to 6 k), you are left with just over half the slots for “academic merit” and likely less if you count ED as a preference. 10 - 15% for athletics, 10-15% legacies, and 20% or so for URMs.”</p>
<p>Muckdogs07-
Are you seriously suggesting that all of the applicants who fall into these categories are academically unqualified?</p>
<p>Does Questbridge go mostly by income? I would imagine there could be some kids from highly educated backgrounds that might be at an advantage intellectually, whose parents for whatever reason are low income. Some might think that is not fair. There are always going to be people who think some group is getting an unfair advantage.The bottom line for me, though , is there are so many ways in or around this that it’s just not worth losing sleep over-athletics, income, URM, legacy, first generation, development, test prep, etc. There’s a school out there for everyone.</p>