<p>Well, now I know why my BWRK son was accepted. He was NOT a goody-two shoes!</p>
<p>Now I’m gonna barph. I had no idea. </p>
<p>I think Rachel (author) has moved on. Her book is already obsolete.</p>
<p>Epiphany: Well put! I read the book, too, in one short sitting. And while I found it a quick and interesting–sometimes illuminating–read, my overwhelming and lasting impression was that the author (most likely) did not <em>choose</em> to leave her adcom position. She really sounded like a completely disgruntled employee, who was ultimately ‘let go,’ and subsequently wrote this book. Others have probably voiced this, but that’s my theory, too. Anyway…I love your amusing and accurate summary here, Epiphany. You said it all with the barph bag (and clever segueway, too, what with the anorexia story and all…)</p>
<p>Don’t shoot the messenger… while I agree the tone and condescension is obnoxious, her book does one thing… dispel the notion which is pretty common in my town-- A 4.0 average at our OK high school which has a distinct anti-intellectual edge, a varsity sport, SAT’s of 1450, and community service means you “deserve” a spot at an Ivy; add a musical instrument to the mix, and that “up’s” you to HYP. Add a stronger Math/Verbal mix, and that gets you to MIT or CalTech. You hear people whining in line at the supermarket every April about our local superstar who was denied at Penn or Dartmouth and how unfair the system is and how some (fill in the blanks with your favorite demonized group-- legacy, URM, rich kid, professor’s child) took our local superstars spot.</p>
<p>I think her book does a good job of giving people a reality check. There are kids out there who have accomplished astonishing things by the age of 17. These aren’t kids writing moronic essays about “I want to be Pre-med so I can find a cure for cancer” like we see posted on the “What are my chances” board… these are kids who have worked for three summers at major cancer centers, collaborating with leading geneticists on various therapies. They’re not putting in their 40 hour mandatory community service at a local nursing home to write something trite about “I just love working with old people”-- one kid (I think a Presidential scholar last year?) had patented a technology to inexpensively adapt a computer to read out loud for the visually impaired. I think the point about BWRKS is to recognize that if your normal smart kid wants to go to Penn that’s fantastic-- encourage him/her, be supportive, and then insist that you also fall in love with Skidmore, BU, Northwestern, BC, or whatever other less competitive school strikes the same chord. Your normal smart kid may get in-- which is great-- or a kid with the same stats who is an Olympic contender in windsurfing, or has composed a concerto which will be performed at Tanglewood this summer has gotten in instead… which is also great, as long as YOUR kid has some other options.</p>
<p>hi. I’m sorry to pop in with another one of my questions that might not have anything to do with this forum but…When the colleges give the percentages of ‘International’ students, do they mean foreigners (as in non-U.S.) or U.S. kids applying from overseas? Is there any kind of data for this?</p>
<p>(Damom, I’m not sure. But I’m sure lots of others around here would know!)</p>
<p>I think that SBmom made a good point about BRWKs–they are definitely not all the same, you can’t lump them all together. If “world-class talent” is one level, and BWRK is the next, then we’re still talking quite accomplished in many cases. If I called my child a “normal smart kid” that would probably be overly modest–because we’re still talking very very accomplished, with stellar academics and with academic passions and strengths as well as extracurricular ones. Maybe we need another term or two for various types of BWRKs, to distinguish the ones who are not “world class” but are nonetheless quite exceptional, and anything but boring!</p>
<p>Also, for my multi-faceted kid, one of the aspects of “fit” meant finding a variety of people. And, I think many of these BWRKs, with their interests and talents, ADD variety to their campuses. Win-win situation.</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly second Blossom’s recommendation to have a range of good schools. Cover all bases, have less worries!</p>
<p>soozie,
Don’t laugh; you are not far off. I think I remember one of the admits was someone who had gotten caught with pot, resulting in major h.s. setback, & wrote requisite repentant essay.</p>
<p>Jack,
Actually my take on the author was that she suffered major burn-out due to above-described cynical experience/perception, & thus had nothing positive to contribute to college admissions any longer. Maybe I read too much into it. I could forgive her for her attitude if the book was prefaced or concluded with criticism of the process she was leaving. (I don’t necessarily assume she was alone in her evaluations of applicants; in fact, she indicated that others in the admiss. comm. wanted certain other students admitted for similarly vacant reasons.) I just wish, if she did feel that way, that she would have included such a disclaimer in her book; I would have respected her more. I suppose she didn’t want to get the colleges, or at least Duke, Major Upset with her, since she may have moved into private admissions counseling.</p>
<p>But I love the fact that you picked up on my completely unintentional metaphor regarding anorexia & vomit. (To be honest, my very first instinct after reading the book, & before the nausea set in, was to take about 5 showers.)</p>
<p>Unfortunately I have no inside knowledge as to whether the author’s perspective is “outdated” or not; perhaps not. That’s why I feel concerned for the BWRK’s out there.</p>
<p>Epiphany:</p>
<p>Here is a synopsis of Rachel Toor’s new book. Maybe her new book discloses a bit more about life ? The title of her new book: “The Pig and I”.</p>
<p>“Synopsis:
For every woman who’s ever come home after a disastrous date or day at the office to the unconditional love and comfort of a pet, this funny, irreverent memoir poses (and answers) the eternal question: Why is it so easy to love an animal and so hard to live with a man?”</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with college admissions. I guess in that sense, she has moved on…</p>
<p>“how boring to have character” ???</p>
<p>Ack. I think I would have had a hard time with that book.</p>
<p>I liked “Admissions Confidential” as an antidote to the usual depersonalized, sanitized official language of admissions offices, which always sounds to me like it was written by a committee of lawyers. People wonder who these “adcoms” are, well, they’re real, fallible, quirky, opinionated people. Toor speaks in a voice that is recognizably human, like it or not.</p>
<p>
.</p>
<p>Y’know, Blossom, I have to say that I’m kinda tired of the go-getter cured-cancer kids myself. I think there’s a huge leap to go from “boring” kids to Nobel Prize winners. Hey, maybe my kid coulda cured cancer or written the Great American Novel, too–but he hasn’t felt the need to, yet. What he has become is an immensely thoughtful, thinking, intellectually curious person–but lacks the resume (much of which is only open to kids with tons of money) to prove it. Nor do I think he needed one. It doesn’t make him boring, or run-of-the-mill. I’m glad that the school which admitted him didn’t think it did.</p>
<p>Garland: <em>applause</em></p>
<p>I’m glad there are schools for the kids that just want to continue their education. My kids are sincere and consistent, no fluffy resume and no hired coach. They’ll also finish what they start and pay back their debts, so some school will get a good deal. I must say it is disheartening to have your BWRK fall in love with a Northwestern that is now stuffed to the gills with applications from HYSP deferrals and declines.</p>
<p>Epiphany: Yes, definitely burned out—and oh, yes, I just loved that anorexia/barph bag connection…and I don’t think anything is unintentional! 
My sense, too, is that her own life was just so damn boring, and she just got so tired of reading one application right after another–terrific students though they were–but just so similar that, after reading hundreds, one right after the other, even an interesting anorexia story stands out. </p>
<p>1SokkarMom: Ah, yes. That reminds me. I had completely forgotten about that little section in her admissions book about meeting up with her boyfriend (maybe she was already working on her new novel at the time and somehow got the chapters mixed up?), because I remember thinking that section seemed so out of place…but, wow…it sure gave a whole new insight into Toor, at least for me.</p>
<p>Idler: I forgot to add here…I agree with you that she gave a somewhat refreshingly ‘human’ voice to the admissions process, and it sure made for a fun (if not altogether believable) read, but I thought it was quite clear this woman had a serious ax to grind. I think it would have been a more enjoyable book had she, perhaps, had more of a sense of humor–instead of anger/bitterness–towards the whole process. After all, she was the one sitting in the cat-bird seat, so to speak, yet she seemed to hold nothing but disdain for the process, her cohorts, and many of the students (specifically, the ones she never met). I agree that she’s a good, engaging writer. Why not loosen up and add a little kindness and humor in there; otherwise, I think the reader is ultimately left without much useful or reliable information–and more with a total dislike for the author, and I’m not sure that was her goal. But, hey, I might be wrong.<br>
I’ve mentioned a book on one of these boards before, but I’ll mention it again, that I think is so far superior to this in every way, and that is James Boylan Finney’s ‘Getting In,’ written some years ago and in paperback. Though it’s not from an insider’s view of the adcom process (like Toor’s)–more from the parent/student perspective of the college search…it is absolutely terrific, illuminating, funny, believable, and I suspect, not altogether fictional.</p>
<p>I guess I am not the only one who “doesn’t get it”. I was starting to think everyone else got a secret de-coder ring with their kids first selective college brochure.</p>
<p>Without having read the book we are regurgitating on and over, I had visions of exactly that. “We’ll take 1 from the 1600, 4.0, straight 800’s pile, and 3 from the world class performer pile, and 3 from the legacy/development/urm pile, and one from the coaches “select” pile, did I forget somebody ? No, that’s right. We only accept one in every hundred BWRK’s, just to keep the apps high and the lemmings headed to the sea. Now where was I? We’ll take 1 from the 1600…”</p>
<p>yeah, I agree Jack, both about “AC” and “Getting In.” I’ll add Bill Mayher’s “College Admissions Mystique” to any favorites list.</p>
<p>Garland, you misinterpreted me. My point was precisely that these kids are not the go-getter, burn up the world, gotta be captain of everything types… sometimes they are shy, self-effacing, not particularly extroverted (i.e. not a candidate to be voted captain of this or class officer of that). However-- I have to respect an adcom who picks a kid with a slow, quiet dedication to a cause, or to a discipline, or to an idea, often at the risk of the all-important “activities sheet” or resume, over the extroverted BWRK who is allegedly “well-rounded”. People I know get burned up when our HS’s “most likely to suceed” doesn’t get into an Ivy… but I think Toor’s book did a good job of pointing out that many of these kids (and they number in the tens of thousands, which most people don’t realize) seem so pedestrian on paper.</p>
<p>Colleges need to pick kids who will take advantage of the vast opportunities in front of them. It’s easy to pick-off the bubbly “burn up the world” ones. It’s much harder to wade through the stack looking for the quiet kid in the back of the classroom with stellar academics and a steady, burning interest in something, which may not be on the radar of the school or GC. I have a cousin who was admitted to an HYP early last year (the much vaunted “massacre”). His classmates were flabbergasted-- quiet, self-effacing kid, no athletic ability, parents have no money,and what could have been a very boring application-- no list of awards, no extra activity sheets, no slides or CD’s. Just stellar academics and one EC which he has pursued doggedly since early childhood with minimal parental/financial support, at which he participates on a national level with exceptional talent. I would be very sad if this kid had been denied admission in favor of my local “well-rounded” Val who would add very little to the campus, unless there were a sudden shortage of good tennis players who’ve taken piano for years and volunteers in an animal shelter except on Christmas when he volunteers in the homeless shelter.</p>
<p>I don’t mean this as an attack on normal smart kids-- I have my own. But you have to recognize that every school has a few handfuls of truly, truly exceptional kids, some of whom indeed may find a cure for cancer. Many of them lack weighty applications and are certainly not well-rounded, and Toor’s book puts the thousands of BWRKS into perspective.</p>
<p>By Blossom
</p>
<p>Please point out the boring student for me again? Is this really who the HYPS and AWS adcomms want? A class of students like the one favorably described by Blossom?</p>
<p>Blossom, to some degree, that sounds different. But you’re still emphazing the idea that you have to have an “accomplishment”, preferably “national”. What about the really really bright, curious, maybe a little shy kid who loves the instrument that he plays, and participates in ten different ensembles, but isn’t the best? Or has played ball since she was five, but doesn’t start varsity? Or who likes to write, and may be darn good, but didn’t happen to publish a best seller yet, maybe isn’t ready to send out her poems. Why this emphasis on the product, rather than the process? BWRK is just a way to denigrate students because someone hasn’t bothered to look at them and see what’s special about them. And I’m not saying that every student in that category really does have what it makes to make the cut at the top schools, just that expecting that it hangs on some need to be the best at something doesn’t make sense to me. </p>
<p>And I have to say, I’m not sure how being a champion windsurfer really adds anything to a student body, at all.</p>
<p>Blossom’s dismissive attitude about BWRK’s and my admittedly low view of her described student of choice makes me wonder- where do the best of the BWRK’s go? The 3.9-4.0 uw, 1450, 700’s, varsity but not recruited ballplayers, band members who do community service because they want to, non urm, non legacy,non development, unpublished students who were active in student organizations. Is it just that all those kids end up a rung or two down, so to speak? </p>
<p>I know that it is not your driving motivation LOL but this is helping me understand and I appreciate all the viewpoints.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon–I think some end up one rung down, and some end up at the top, depending on whether or not something subtler in their app sparks something in an adcom. To summarize my kid–SAT a little higher than you listed; SAT 2’s a little lower. 3.9 GPA. White, nonlegacy. Not many APs cuz we don’t have’em. Plays trombone well, but no awards (tons of participation). Likes astronomy, but hasn’t discovered a comet. Did volunteer a little bit with a local group. Wrote a lovely essay about bringing his telescope to band camp and introducing other people to what he loves. His interviewer thought he was wonderful. He’s at Columbia now, flourishing. </p>
<p>My advice? let your D be herself, let that self shine through in her application. Aim for where she really wants to be, but have somewhere else she’d love, too. (S loved Michigan, knew he’d be happy there, too.)</p>