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<p>would he have even wanted to?</p>
<p>Look at Richard Branson. He dropped out of high school because he was dyslexic. The true genius? I don’t really worry too much. I actually wonder, these days, if we aren’t flat out educating the genius right out of our kids. But, that’s just me.</p>
<p>The biggest problem with coming from a non-feeder high school is that you pretty much have to be the best student in years to have a shot: no history breeds uncertainty and uncertainty in a borderline decision will almost always leave you left behind.</p>
<p>So is it easier to be near the top in a highly competitive school or a “best of my career” student at a lessor school? I don’t see an easy way to get accepted either way.</p>
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<p>me too…</p>
<p>please let’s have that thread tomorrow poetgrl! :)</p>
<p>lol i think mit is trying to reflect how the world runs, true but unfair.</p>
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<p>Learning to conform is certainly a priority in grade school. My son used to catch all sorts of grief for solving problems his own way in grade school and in the intro classes of high school. He was quite shocked during his first college class (freshman year of high school, second semester) when the professor called his solution to an extra credit problem that no one else could answer “elegant.” If one word could be said to have reignited his love of school, that was it.</p>
<p>skrlvr expresses well the discomfort some of us feel with a process that partially relies on the assumption that a few people sitting in an office can look at the college applications of total strangers, and from words on a page judge the students’ character, passion, drive, initiative, potential, personality, likeability, and general fit. It’s absurd, really. Beyond that, how much should any of the non-academic stuff matter? Why do we care if the top science student also plays the tuba or started a charity? I’d be happier if the kid used his superior talent exclusively for scientific research if he wanted to.</p>
<p>l also agree that sometimes the really unique and brilliant kids are not the ones who promote themselves or value their accomplishments enough, nor plan for application-worthy achievements. The son of a friend of mine was a very smart, techie kid, but spent hours upon hours alone, composing music–really good music. But he wasn’t interested in showing it off and had no prizes/awards/honors/grades to prove his skill and dedication. He may have talked about it as a hobby, but there’d have been no way for adcoms to know the extent of his talent or lack thereof.</p>
<p>The girl in S’s graduating class who did the best in Ivy/elite college admissions was someone who was very awkward socially, often demonstrated anxiety over grades, and had a timid personality. She was by no means a leader and you didn’t meet her and think “success”, or that she would be a candidate for HYPS. What she had going for her was intelligence (not brilliance) and an unassuming, diligent, good girl demeanor that teachers liked and rewarded with good grades. Ironically, she attended a specialty program for which social skills are paramount, but was unable to get a job other than tutoring. Clearly, she was well-packaged. But there were other kids in that class about whom there was consensus that they were candidates for an Ivy and yet they didn’t do nearly as well in admissions.</p>
<p>Yes these are anecdotes, and someone will likely suggest all the possible things we don’t know about the applicants, etc. etc. but many of us can tell anecdotes like this and they bother us. (Disclaimer: my own kids did fine, not sour grapes)</p>
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<p>Depends on whether you consider Reed a “top college”.</p>
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<p>How do you suppose colleges today would react to his EC of building black boxes to bypass the phone company’s billing system?</p>
<p>I’m just so surprised by the number of posters on this thread who claim they know “the smartest and most gifted kids”. Get over yourselves already. There are HS’s you have never heard of that have geniuses…gasp…and they didn’t enter a math contest or whatever else that is so highly valued (by parents who “know”).</p>
<p>Can it be that you just really don’t know? That all your assumptions are wrong? That maybe Billy wasn’t the best of the best after all? Do you seriously claim to know the abilities of all the admits to MIT? Are you sure you have the capacity to judge leadership skills in a 17 year old?</p>
<p>High school students are not adults. If you judge them as such (along the same criteria you might judge a college Junior or a job applicant) you are guaranteed to be wrong.</p>
<p>Just sayin…</p>
<p>You have to get away from the popular notion that a few detached “anybodies” are reviewing apps. The gorilla throwing them around the room and what lands in some circle gets admitted.
These are folks whose work revolves around and depends on knowing kids, what they are capable of, ed trends, available hs ECs, competitions, enrichment opps, what sorts of traits (and experiences) work for humanities vs STEM, etc, plus their uni, its goals, realities, wants, needs, finances- and the common patterns among kids who thrive there. </p>
<p>LI- the issue of conformity does bother me, but I don’t see an easy way around it. Long story, but I also think the drive to master the SATs is conformist. </p>
<p>Ime, most kids can speak up about themselves. The issue is what they actually choose to say. </p>
<p>Using GFG’s example- the bright loner with a talent. If a college needs kids who will integrate, interact, engage, are they obliged to a kid who won’t? If he decided not to pursue ordinary ECs, engage with his hs group, give back to the community, etc, he needs to show the value in what he did do. Unfortunatley, in ths extreme example, self satisfaction isn’t enough. Going back to the earlier point that some very bright kids deserve a bye because of the contributions they will very likely make to society, post college-- how do adcoms assess this liklihood in a kid who has not taken his talents out of his comfort zone? (If he has, he needs to present that.)</p>
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<p>Absolutely, LF! Once you read a couple hundred college apps, you probably get a good idea of what’s special, what’s cookie-cutter and what’s totally bogus. I think it’s very much like when we took our kids on their first African safari: at first, every animal is amazing, but it doesn’t take long until the various gazelles and springbok become boring. To keep our kids looking intently, we promised them ice cream if they were able to locate 100 gazelles.</p>
<p>On the other hand, opinions varied on which were the coolest other animals that day: the giraffes? the hippos? the elephants? Maybe sometimes the adcoms really want a giraffe and you have the misfortune of being a hippo!</p>
<p>^ No gorillas reading apps for an elite?</p>
<p>There’s really nothing inherently wrong with gazelles and springbok. Many will succeed wonderfully in college. And, end up movers and shakers or good at their work, productive, interesting, innovative, good citizens, great parents. Many will make an impact in their communities, inspire others. Where the ante changes significantly is when the topic is elite colleges- or colleges that can cherry pick based on the overage of apps. </p>
<p>I like your story, LI.</p>
<p>Jobs was in my neighbor class in college.
My neighbor had mentioned that Reed had very good financial aid, which was why my D applied (& yes, I would call it a good college)
I wonder if Jobs father was self employed, which may have made his financial aid package not as generous as our neighbors( or Ds)
Since Jobs continued to stay on campus and audit classes after he dropped out, ( for 18 mo )I think that he would have benefitted from continuing.
[Reed</a> Magazine | Prodigal Son](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/december2011/articles/features/jobs/jobs.html]Reed”>Prodigal Son | Reed Magazine)</p>
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<p>Yes, we have. You spend enough years in academic programs and elite universities and you meet enough to make judgements.</p>
<p>Here’s what you are missing. Let me try to use a sports analogy because, for some reason, people don’t seem it odd to rank people on upside and performance at age 18. Bo Jackson and Lebron James were both can’t misses for recruiting in college by holistic measures. The same thing is true for math and science. The whole premise of recruiting at top schools is based on the ability to distinguish among the top 10,000 candidates in terms of athletic talent and ability. And yeah, some schools recruit for their own system, but I don’t care what system you have, Lebron James is going to be your best pick. </p>
<p>I remember when Lebron James came out of high school. He was heralded as a combination of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. Some sportswriters said, however, “How can you know how good he is playing against slow high school players.” To which Lebron replied that they aren’t giving high school players enough credit, particularly the AAU competitions, which, like magnet schools do for academics, allowed for direct comparison of the talented athletes across the country. He had played against many blue chip athletes in barnstorming tours already, many of which were a couple of years away from the NBA.</p>
<p>Now you point out, rightly, that there are great talents that haven’t distinguished themselves. What about Tom Brady, for instance, who wasn’t recruited heavily in college? Well, the point is that Lebron James is good enough that you can be sure that he is in the top 1500 (the approximate # of people admitted at the top colleges). So it really doesn’t matter that there is someone like Tom Brady out there (assuming you could even identify him, which is another problem.) No matter how it shakes out, Lebron James is a rational pick to take in your first 1500 picks. It’s not likely that 1500 underdogs are going to surpass him. And even if you say you need different sports, Lebron still ends up as one of your top 1500 picks if you are choosing for talent. </p>
<p>And yes, there are people who are that good in math and science. I’ll just cite just one example. The year I graduated there was a guy who won a gold medal in the math olympics and won the westinghouse (now intel) with a math project. Professors said that his work was not only an original contribution that required tremendous talent, but that he was different from other prodigies that come along every few years in that it looked like it came from a mature mathematician. He was skilled at a professional level at several subdisciplines of mathematics, and was able to use them all rather than relying on one strength as even professors sometimes do. He is now a prof at Harvard. </p>
<p>And more relevant to everyone else, there are people at different levels between your median valedictorian and the mathematician I just spoke of.</p>
<p>The problem I am having with your example about the math/science genius is that you’re assuming that the top 1500 stem students in the nation are participating in math contests. So maybe the particular student you mentioned was the best people had seen but they hadn’t seen them all. Math contests tend to be a thing that a small circle of people participate in. Students from the “sticks” are not participating in these contests ( and if they are, their numbers are very low)</p>
<p>There are millions of high school seniors out there, how can anyone say with confidence that one student is absolutely the best unless they have actually seen the credentials of the million? Maybe they have had contact with a few thousand? </p>
<p>Are there math Phd’s at MIT that never competed in contests? I wonder if Donald Sadoway was in a math/ science contest ( I have no idea)? I do know he was voted one of the most influential people in the world.</p>
<p>It is nice to see some fresh information on this age-old debate. Here is my simple take of the matter:</p>
<p>I simply can not see an institute of technology as a finishing school. It does not even give legacy a break, does it? </p>
<p>Then there is MITChris who said in an earlier post that 31% of the MIT admits for the 2014 class are academic stars. Why then are some of these top 100 students not among them?</p>
<p>My first impression is that MIT tries to increase randomness to attract more applicants. On second thought, that does not make sense because why pick on the top 100 candidates and not the lesser lights?</p>
<p>I can only think of one possibility: MIT must have inkling that these students are only using the school as a safety. No other explanation makes sense to me at this time.</p>
<p>Here we go…right away there’s the assumption my techie musician is flawed. Is it so hard to accept that college applications are limited in their ability to capture in neat boxes the essence of flesh and blood people, especially extraordinary people? Furthermore, some students don’t self promote because they aren’t remotely interested in doing so, or feel uncomfortable about it. One reason for that is their ambitions are more internal, knowledge-based goals rather than win this competition, earn that honor. Also, some really talented kids view their abilities in a more global framework rather than a local, high school one and therefore don’t think they’re worthy of self promotion just yet. Imagine a very talented high school basketball player in LeBron James’ recruiting class. He may have been the best his region had ever seen, but if he was knowledgeable about the national scene, he’d have known LeBron was out there and would have judged his own talent by a higher standard. </p>
<p>Anyway, I never said the techie music kid was a loner; I said he spent hours alone composing music. Actually, he was an amiable boy who did participate in ordinary EC’s and community service. But they were ORDINARY–things like marching band and Boy Scouts. He did well in those endeavors, made the top percussion ensembles and Eagle Scout for example. The point is that those things simply aren’t stellar enough for the top schools, and what was stellar about him wasn’t captured by his application. It turned out that later he directed and wrote music for an a cappella group in college. Maybe by that point he felt he had accomplished something worth promoting.</p>
<p>In the athletic arena, politics plays a strong role. At a young age, the child with the very politically involved parent (helicopter) is usually the coach of the team. Therefore his son/daughter will get much more playing time than maybe a better player. This happens all the time in sports. If your family has been involved in a particular sport for generations, your child will get the press and opportunities another equally talented athlete may not. Exposure and connections makes a world of difference in the outcome for the athlete. This holds true for many recruitable sports to college. The game is the same. Those who are fortunate enough to have the money and connections will always shine brighter, therefore a holistic admission policy will help to level the extraordinary unlevel playing field.</p>
<p>I can’t get all worked up about an applicant to MIT who must attend CalTech, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton or Carnegie Mellon instead, even if his friend’s dad thinks he was perfect. </p>
<p>I suppose the moral of the story is, no one should feel certain of their chances at the top schools. There are more qualified applicants than available seats. Compose a list of schools, Safety/Match/Reach, and love the matches and safeties.</p>
<p>I think I’ve read this advice on CC before. :)</p>
<p>" expresses well the discomfort some of us feel with a process that partially relies on the assumption that a few people sitting in an office can look at the college applications of total strangers, and from words on a page judge the students’ character, passion, drive, initiative, potential, personality, likeability, and general fit. It’s absurd, really."</p>
<p>Not all that different from a job interview process (or more accurately the screening part).</p>