Premise: You are a high school student with stats of 4.0 UW GPA, 1600 SAT, 36 ACT (or reasonably close), but you have no ambition to be president, captain or chairperson of anything - mostly because you know that no one would follow. What would be good schools for you?
Question context #1: I am the father of a good student whose sole life ambition is to play video games, and maybe sometimes go out to play basketball. I know from lurking on this site for a couple months that the Ivies focus on “leadership”, almost to the exclusion of everything else. So what are the top “followership” (non-leadership) schools? In case this still isn’t clear, I’m asking which are the top schools that care about academic stats but not so much about ECs. (I realize that “top” here may be relative.)
Question context #2: I see “chance me for an Ivy” threads all the time that only list numeric stats. It would be nice to have a list of names of schools to recommend as more realistic.
This is a bit troubling and I hope an exaggeration. A student can be involved in many EC’s that do not involve leadership. Top public universities likely place less emphasis on EC’s. Canadian universities are generally focused solely on stats. McGill is exclusively focused on stats.
Thanks for McGill. Yes, my characterization of my student’s ambitions is an exaggeration. Everyone typically overstates potential, so I was understating it to make the point.
As a general rule, top public flagships care less about leadership than top private universities and will focus more on GPA, course rigor and standardized test scores for admissions.
For example, at D’s high school, if you have a 4.25+ GPA and greater than 32+ ACT you have a 90% of admission to UCLA/UCB. I doubt all of these students had great leadership ECs. With 100k applicants and 5-15 mins to give a thumbs up or thumbs down, they just don’t have the time to spend looking for subjective qualities like leadership. They also don’t interview so you don’t have to explain lack of ECs.
“Canadian universities are generally focused solely on stats.”
I was thinking the same thing. My kids applied to a total of 7 Canadian universities, and I don’t think they even listed ECs for most of them. Great stats got them accepted to 7 out of the 7 (and McGill was one of them).
I would expect that many in-state flagships (or #3 or #4 or … in California) would also accept in-state students with great stats and few ECs.
I also have one kid who was not very far off from OP’s description until senior year of high school, and then just suddenly got into a range of outside activities. Kids do mature and change over time, often in good ways.
Any college that uses the Common App agrees to be holistic. That does mean more than stats. Not sure how old you son is, whether he has a few years to turn around. It may be that he hasn’t dicovered yet what will lure him away from games. Btw, I wish that, a few years ago, my brother had (literally) unplugged his son from gaming.
The further away you get from the top 30-50, there are great colleges that just aren’t as keenly holistic, are more ‘rack and stack.’ What state are you in and what do you think he’d like to major in?
@lookingforward Thanks for the “below top 30-50”. I was kind of hoping to find some in that 30-100 range that were “less holistic” (good way to put it). I think the recommendations made above for large state schools make sense. In our situation and circumstances, private schools would be preferable, but OOS state schools are an option. FWIW, we are in Wyoming.
It’s not “leadership” just like “passion” isn’t about passion. Let’s be real! (accurate or genuine) “Leadership” and “passion” are proxy for (and the most common instance of) achievement and being identified by others as " excellent and better than most others at X". Both are unacknowledged but convenient misnomers- the use of which simply leads (inadvertently) to angst.
Often those that “stand out” and who are considered outstanding in some attribute are elevated to some sort of leadership position. And in most instances in high school, their leadership position is the most visible recognition of their achievements. The end result is that it looks as if colleges are looking for “leaders” because they amass a large group of students who list “leadership positions” ;but that is really a misread on the situation. Their leadership positions are only the outward manifestation of the construct that schools are actually seeking: “excellence”.
So, while those who are outstanding can often list leadership positions on their application, that isn’t always the case. And when it isn’t, it does not matter. That’s because “leadership” isn’t of much interest to schools anyway. Sometimes, instead, outstanding students get invitations to play at Carnegie Hall. Sometimes they nab spots on the winning IMO team. In other words, these are students who have demonstrated that they are excellent at something. The most common way to do that is to list “leadership” positions as far fewer can list their performances at Carnegie Hall.
Same with “passion” It’s not about “passion”. It’s about demonstrating excellence which often requires sustained attention to a task over a long period of time-something that most people recognize as showing “passion”. But again, it’s all about “excellence”. You can have more passion about violin than anyone else in the world. But if you have lousy NYSSMA scores and couldn’t make All-State despite trying, Juilliard isn’t interested.
Schools are looking for “excellence”-an intangible construct. (and even excellence is probably only a marker for something else-but I’m not going there here). When the college applying public clamors for clarity, schools come up with euphemisms/~“operational definitions” they hope applicants will understand. They dont.
On a related note, this is also why many “for profit” enterprises promising to instill leadership abilities in your kid are worthless for the goal of helping them to nab a slot in one of these highly competitive colleges or universities. It’s not “leadership” that schools are looking for. But those who happen to be able to list leadership positions are often excellent at something.
Well . . . .I’ll be the parent who says: good for him for appreciating gaming. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry, one that makes more each year than do film, books, and other media combined. Not only that but games seem to be entering various other aspects of our lives. The story-telling in games can be extremely passionately done and intricate, much more so than books or movies. Maybe sit down and talk with him about the stories and the characters. They can be really interesting. There’s much to learn about life from games – as much as any story-telling genre. Plus there’s the technical side of things. And the art. More power to your child.
If he were my child I would look at U of Utah – as it is one of the top gaming schools – like making them not playing them. If he doesn’t want to do gaming, he should look at –
I’d look at some of the CTCLs – Reed, Allegheny as it helps the students pursue two different interests, ideally not aligned with each other, Southwestern University in Texas – as it’s near that tech hub and has very good liberal arts – he could pursue both worlds well there; Beloit – as it has a sci fi crowd; and maybe some of the tech schools like RIT which has new facilities for film games and other tech;
No, it’s not that “leadership” is proxy for achievement. It’s that “leadership” is not about meaningless titles, founding a club, or, eg, raising money for some distant project and never lifting a finger locally or that stretches you toward your supposed goals.
Leadership qualities are about awareness and choices, savvy, becoming energized, how one identifies and pursues various opportunities (not just in the cozy hs box.) Not a tally, not a competition, not something hierarchical or assuming (“he must be excellent, he got elected to xxx.”) It’s far to superficial to think winning a national award makes one a “leader.” You can do small things and evidence leadership.
I do agree “passion” is meaningless. (As a Stanford former admissions dean is on record saying, who expects 17 year olds to have the life experiences to develop what we adults see as “passions?”) It’s not that you “claim” a passion for violin but don’t have an award or get into All State. It’s whether you did anything besides take lessons and practice. Join a music group at school, accompany, perform, whatever. Top colleges like kids who get involved-- again, in the “right” ways.
I was very intrigued by this question and the responses. Personally, I think EC’s are a very large contributor to the teenage depression and anxiety numbers that have skyrocketed in recent years. Whatever happened to being a kid with “only” 1-2 hobbies, and prioritizing time with friends?
To some extent I agree with @Dustyfeathers about the gaming industry, but just because someone enjoys gaming doesn’t mean they want to make it their life’s work. With that said, I went to HS with someone who is now a gaming industry CEO and he absolutely loves his job (and the buckets of money that come with it).
Whatever happened to being a kid with “only” 1-2 hobbies, and prioritizing time with friends?
Nothing has happened to that. It’s great. And assuming decent grades and scores, about 99% of American colleges would embrace such a kid and welcome him/her to their campus. So the more important question is, what has happened to that being great?
I think most state schools (if you can pay the tuition) will gladly take an OOS perfect test scores strong GPA without hesitation. UNC, UVA, U Mich , UC berkeley UCLA
Most of these listed schools have OOS acceptance rates in the teens, as such they turn away many high achieving students, including those with 4.0 GPAs and/or perfect test scores.
However, I do agree that OPs hypothetical student will generally find greater success in public schools vs. private. But that’s not absolute either.
Looking forward, I don’t think the idea that leadership is proxy for “excellence” is inconsistent with the idea that simply being given the title isn’t genuine “leadership”. That’s true too. And when it’s just a title, it isn’t even proxy for excellence. Even if the leadership positions are genuine, they don’t always signal excellence. And when they don’t, the top schools probably won’t be interested unless there is something else in the application that suggests excellence in another area. That’s why having a string of leadership positions, even if they genuinely involved leading, isn’t necessarily interesting to a college unless there are other consistent signals of excellence. And that’s also why even genuine leadership positions aren’t necessary for all students, even those “unhooked” (if hooked is about variables about which the applicant has no control).
Depending upon what the award is, a very competitive college will be interested in a student who won a national award or who was placed on a competitive team. Without any negatives in the application, I can’t imagine one of the top schools would reject a student on the US IMOlympiad team, for example.
If he loves gaming, even if he doesn’t plan for it to be his life, I would avoid the top schools that have a competitive scholastic nature. What I mean is: don’t throw him into places where students love to compete with each other by how much work their doing and if they have to be the most clever, the smartest person in the room. Schools like that include Swarthmore, U of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, and maybe some others that I’m not aware of. Northwestern seems to be funner than U of Chick on average BUT extra classes means less time for the thing he loves.
Haverford is a calm environment, very pleasant, time for fun, a top school – it does emphasize ECs however, so there’s that. But it needs men and its very high-performing. I think that H might be possible for him if he can embrace H’s fairly unique form of community. H’s community is passionate about the Honor System, everyone taking personal responsibility. They self-schedule exams with no proctors, there’s no danger of theft of property on campus, whatever grade you get is your grade and your progress – no one else will compete with you. and the academics are top notch. I think that if he was clear that he could embrace this world and that he loves games (the stories, the lessons taught, the sheer fun) he might well have a chance to get in there and might find it pleasant. If H seems too small by itself, H is part of a consortium with Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and UPenn – he can reach out and take classes at any of them. And there’s transportation to those schools. Maybe at least look at Haverford. It might be a good match.
A student at that level of academic success, with a modicum of interest and the ability to craft a good essay will be competitive at nearly all schools. Unless the teacher recs are really poor which usually won’t be the case. At worst, lukewarm.
But It may be lonely from a social standpoint if those attributes you describe are front and center in the collegiate experience.
A few names to avoid would be the Jesuit elite. Georgetown ND and BC. Yes many of the top 50 will have leadership throughout the student body. It will show in the clubs classes and social scene.
Elite schools like Caltech and MIT could be a fit if you can get in.
Always room at top public flagships for a more research oriented student and plenty of gamers too. But perhaps Stanford too with the tech orientation. Berkeley and Chicago as well.
Important thing to focus on is not just getting in, but more on where will they be happy and thrive.
My kid had very high stats, and no formal leadership positions. She did have solid ECs (top notch Quiz Bowl player, in school writing club, some art and writing that won minor awards, on Robotics team, some 4H awards, etc). She had excellent admissions results. So leadership in terms of titles isn’t necessary. But interested and interesting, with activities outside the classroom, are needed for admission to more selective schools.