BWRKs, hooks, and blasphemy

Parents Forum
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<p>Again, I think a lot of the kids you are describing in post #99 <em>DO</em> get in to Ivies & top LACs. I doubt any 1450 SAT 3.9 UW BWRK would not be admitted to at least one top 20 school. As an interviewer, I see plenty of BWRKs are admitted. They are the personable, motivated, interesting BWRKs with a spark (not the automaton BWRKs.) There is an obvious difference between the two.</p>

<p>If I had to guess I’d say out of 10 kids you’ll have an athlete, a development admit, a URM, a world-class kid, a legacy & 5 BWRKs, most of whom will be accomplished (but not insanely so) at something or other or demographically interesting & thus will add to the complexion of the school.</p>

<p>The Toor book provides a very important perspective. She explains that there is relentless marketing to pull in lots of applicants and thereby up “yield.” IMO, she was bitter because her job was to fly around the country encouraging kids with <em>zero</em> chance of admission to love Duke & to apply to Duke. Then she had to sit down and turn away 8 out of 10 of them.</p>

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<p>Cur and Garland-- I just don’t understand your pushback on my comments. Why is a kid boring because he’s only pursued one thing and isn’t an all-around “renaissance man” at age 18? It’s the “mile wide and inch deep” kid who I think has a tough time in elite admissions… and I’m not in any way describing your own kids as that, since they both seem special and wonderful beyond words. I think the tip away from BWRKS as a category is a good thing-- why must every campus be populated by the popular and the well-rounded? And fyi- my cousin is not boring. He’s quiet and self-effacing… and many people on this board complain that their kid isn’t good at bragging and therefore can’t get into HYP. Not everyone can be Jay Leno or Jim Carey and be the life of the party, but that doesn’t make them boring.</p>

<p>Part of it is the reality… what the kid has done and what they’re interested in. Part of it is the communication of that which can tip the balance. If you want to write about serving Xmas dinner in a homeless shelter, great, if that’s what’s meaningful to you. But be cognizant of the fact that since 100 other kids applying to that college will be writing on the same subject, you’d better have a slant that goes beyond, “and that’s how I learned that people are the same even though we seem different”. </p>

<p>I agree that Toor needed to get out of the admissions game based on her own burn-out, but sitting in our own living rooms looking at our own kids friends we lose perspective on what a big country this is and how much talent there is outside our own little high schools. As Soozie posted on a thread about succeeding in the performing arts, sometimes you gotta get out there and see a Broadway audition to realize how high the bar is and how phenonmenal some of these kids are. If Toor merely helps people look outside their own living rooms than she’s done a public service.</p>

<p>I also agree with SBmom’s that the 1450 3.9 kids will be admitted to a top 20 school. The whining is about a kid who didn’t get into Penn but did get into Hopkins, or a kid who didn’t get into Dartmouth but got accepted to Williams. That’s where the lottery/glorious mosaic comes into play, but people don’t want to hear that song and dance when it’s their own kid.</p>

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<p>blossom , Chill. I wasn’t talking about my kid and you didn’t tell us it was your cousin. I value your viewpoint I just think the other kid you described would be a far better dinner partner and would add more to campus life. I did not take your comments personally- I just wholeheartedly disagree with your reasoning. If gpa and test stats were equal, I would much prefer the student you would have rejected. That’s all. You’d pick the other one. So what? Neither of us has a job as an adcomm to my knowledge. I’m just learning how they think, at least I hope that’s what I’m doing anyway ? P.S.

And my question would be, and why would that single minded devotion alone make him more attractive to the “elite” than the “renaissance man”?</p>

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<p>(Knock, knock. Sorry to interrupt again, but I’d like to thank cricket for acknowledging me. If anybody could answer my question, I’d appreciate a response when you’re all done with this interesting discussion)</p>

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<p>damom, I’m not ignoring you-I have no idea. </p>

<p>My gut tells me that if the colleges thought it would help their numbers a two-week senior trip would qualify them as an international admit.</p>

106

<p>Well, we’ve moved on, I should say.
One observation - I think trouble starts when we start using words like “every”, “never”, etc, particularly when we really are speaking anecdotally, granted some on this forum have quite extensive anecdotal experience.</p>

<p>Quick summary

  1. Some BWRKs are admitted, even to HYPs</p>

<p>2) Some “lopsided”, “nationally/internationally talented”, “hooked” kids get in as well, probably have a higher likelihood than your typical BWRK.</p>

<p>3) Good people can disagree on what constitutes a BWRK</p>

<p>4) BWRKs who are admitted may well have a “hidden” hook, after all they got in for some reason. A few may have just slipped in because the adcom thought he was signing off on Susan Hall, opera star, when the folder actually belonged to Susie Hall, unassuming BWRK - apologies to all the wonderful S. Halls out there.</p>

<p>5) Given #4, it may be to the benefit of the BWRKs out there to ask themselves when working on their apps, what distinguishes me? Of all the things I do, what do I enjoy the most, what can I write the most enthusiastically about? If that is even slightly out of the ordinary, the more the better.</p>

<p>Curmudgeon, I don’t think anyone knows for sure, but if you look at the stats, a few of them get into HYPS, a lot do well down a notch or 2, and many will get good merit money at notch 3-4. Lots of them go to flagship state unis around here, places where it is all about stats and 1450 buys you an honors college berth. On another thread, someone brought up that old stat - only 50% of the 1600s are accepted to Harvard. It occurred to me, with this discussion on my mind, that the folks on this forum could take those applications, and pick out a significant number of rejects right away. What I mean is, you threw out the kids with say 3.6 GPAs and lower from Unknown High school, kids who had a disciplinary record, kids who had NO ECs, or very boring ECs, kids whose SATIIs didn’t match the SAT record, kids who took the test 5 times, kids with lukewarm recs. What I mean is the good people on this forum could probably at least identify one-third to one-half of the 1600 scoring Harvard rejects without breaking a sweat. </p>

<p>I still stand by the fact that my daughter is pretty much a BWRK (by my definition, which includes a higher academic profile than what most of the other people are using as a definition), but what I think got her in was a solid academic record, no holes in her academic profile, maybe not world class, but all the boxes checked; she applied ED from an underrepresented state; and she had an EC to write her Com App short answer about that was a little unusual, and she truly enjoyed. Now she was reluctant to use this EC because she only did it for about a year, and reluctantly quit. It involved overnight camping, and all the other girls dropped out, then she didn’t feel comfy going on the trips. She felt so guilty about quitting that she would not on a bet get an extra rec from the leader. Both her school counselor and I urged her to write about this one, because it was a little offbeat, and she lit up when she told you about it, even though she only did it a short time and had to quit (her arguments against emphasizing it). My point is, this EC and her involvement was far from “world class” or even important, but she loved doing it and that shone through, and gave some clue that she was an interesting person in an otherwise rather “typical for this forum” list of high school accomplishments. All the ECs that she wanted to do, and one or another conflict prevented; all the high school “offices” that are elected at her school, that she ran for for years and never got because people tend to overlook her - in the end didn’t matter a hill of beans! Huh, maybe I proved it is all about hooks and packaging, just not the type hooks and packaging we may think of first?!</p>

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<p>Damom, clueless here,too - maybe repost with its own header to attract someone who knows?</p>

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<p>LOL, curmudgeon. I know you’re not. The reason I was asking is because we’re from CA but currently live in Europe…Our D is a BWRK, but you would never guess it if you saw her, because she is quite shy and reticent.</p>

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<p>Great idea. Thanks, cangel. That’s what I’ll do.</p>

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<p>damom, there’s a thread somewhere about third culture kids–that is, expatriates, and apparently it’s a whole separate and quite desibrabel category. That’s all I know.</p>

111

<p>Thanks, mattmom. I’ll go searching for it.</p>

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<p>Damom, I posted elsewhere about the specific question you asked there. I do think, however, the bigger question is…is being a third culture kid a “hook.” The answer is, well, probably! I mean if you have lived in London for a year, probably not such a big deal, but if you have done the circuit of Addis Abbaba, Dhaka and Jakarta of some of our friends here, sure! If the schools admit kids with these sorts of backgrounds, but American passports, they have a more interesting group of students-- without the difficulties now associated with Visa issues for internationals.</p>

<p>I have one more thought about the issues being discussed in this thread, though.</p>

<p>18 years ago if college counseling had come with advice about getting your child to sleep through the night…and the advice was - “well rounded is good” or “quirky is better” or “they better have some world wide acheivement” …would you have done something differently with your child??? Do you think your child would have turned out different/better/happier as a result???</p>

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<p>College admissions aside, I don’t think well rounded kids are boring as a whole, and neither do I think kids who specialize in one thing are boring as a group. I don’t think one of these profiles is better than the next. As mentioned many times on here, I have one who did the well rounded course, and one who opted for the specialization. One kid is not more interesting than the other. I think both of their profiles are strong but just different. I think both paths are choices they consciously made and I would not change either one’s course here. </p>

<p>I agree with Curmudgeon umpteen posts ago that many kids could get to a national level of achievement if they put all their eggs in one basket and did that thing 24/7. My oldest, as an example, opted out of this choice. She is a musician on the All State level but would not go beyond that because it is not the only thing she does (let alone the only instrument she plays) and she never would be in the state youth orchestra because they rehearse on Sundays and she ski races on Sundays. She is not a ski racer on a national level because she made the choice NOT to attend a ski academy which is almost imperative to be competitive at the highest levels. She was at the top of her sport in varsity ski racing but lost the competitive edge when older in the USSA races as she did not ski full time like the majority of racers all who attend full time ski academies. She made that choice as she did not want to give up music, dance, and tennis to only live and breathe ski racing. Still, she exceled at the state level but could never go beyond that with the choices she has made. I could go on with all her other stuff like tennis, same thing. To be at the tippy top, you must specialize but that is not her. Actually she is on a Division I ski team, not a recruit, and most of her team are products of specialized ski academies and ya know what? She is holding her own quite well! She is no more boring than these specialists. She has achieved in her interests, just not at the highest levels in the country. This was a choice to not specialize. I don’t think she leads a boring life. She even chose to write one of her main college essays on being a “A 21st Century Renaisaance Woman”. She even played up that that was her profile! Her essay did not show a boring life but one that is very full. </p>

<p>I also have another kid who was just as well rounded for most of her youth. But she chose to specialize around middle school because of schedule conflicts and her priorities landed in one main area. She has achieved beyond the local area. She happens to even be pursuing her “specialty” as a college major so it is a bit different. She kinda had to specialize to get to this point. She’s not boring either. It is not like she can’t do anything else but one thing but she has chosen to excel to higher levels in just one main area (which truthfully has several sub-areas in which she participates). </p>

<p>I dunno but I don’t find either profile better or more interesting, just different. If colleges don’t want the well rounded thing, oh well. Frankly, as a college interviewer, some of the more interesting kids I have met have impressed me with how much they do and the variety of things they excel at. </p>

<p>Another post on here implied that well rounded kids might not be go getters on a college campus. Maybe we are not talking the same thing when we use “well rounded” but I think my own kid and others I know who have several interests, are very engaged on their college campuses. Colleges need all types of kids, including those who might be good at more than one thing. </p>

<p>I just think kids should choose the paths that they want and then show themselves on their applications. I know when my kids put together their applications, first they brainstormed their strengths, qualities, traits and then used that list to guide the entire application. One of the “traits” of my oldest child on her brainstormed list, was “well rounded” and indeed, her resume, one of the essays, and even the recs, spoke to that trait. So, well rounded might be seen as a negative trait on this thread, but she actually focused some of her app on this very trait! It is who she is. The other kid tried to show her traits and obviously some of the essays and resume showcased her focus in her life’s “work”. If I were reading the apps, I would not see one of these apps as better than the other. Just different types of kids. </p>

<p>Susan</p>

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<p>Well rounded can be very interesting.
Shallow is always boring. They are not necessarily the same thing, but sometimes they are.</p>

<p>I interviewed a boy a few years ago whom I had also taught in 6th grade health. Even then, he fought for every point on every nutrition quiz…as if it really mattered. When I interviewed him 5 years later he was happy to tell me the 11 clubs he actively particpated(much leadership) in and the 2 sports he did at the varsity level. When I asked what he planned to continue in college, he said…nothing, well maybe the sports in a recreational sense, but he was pretty much done. He expected to spend his time working on his classes and didn’t plan to do any EC’s now that he didn’t “have to.”</p>

<p>The reason colleges want to have kids who have pursued something meaningful in depth is not just to show they are committed people who can stick with things. It is also because they hope that these same kids will actually bring this element of who they are to a college campus…I think this is what counts. I think it doesn’t matter if the kid does it all in one area(sports or drama or whatever) or if they scatter their deep interests, or if they only have one truly passionate interest.</p>

<p>This boy’s scattering of his interests to not be pursued later in was in essence the same thing as his 6th grade grade grubbing- Neither cast him in a positive light in my mind. </p>

<p>The HS achievements should not just be trophies, they should be a reflection of who a person is-- and they should be such a part of that person, that the person can’t imagine giving them up just because they have gotten into college…the best way to ensure this, is to encourage kids to just do what they love!!</p>

<p>Why is this complicated? Is it?</p>

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<p>Roby, you hit the nail on the head. I don’t think it matters one hoot if you are involved in one thing or five things or if you excel at one thing on a national level of three things on a state level. What the issue is …is that the person is engaged in meaningful activities that he/she is interested in and would not want to give these interests up, even when college kicks in. Does it matter if we are talking one or four things? While my D was involved in several lifelong activities, she even talked on her applications about how she wished to pursue these in college…met with some folks on campus in the activities on visits because she wanted to find out what opportunities were there to continue these interests. They weren’t done to get into college, they were done as interests from an early age that don’t stop now that college began. </p>

<p>I recall visiting a good friend in winter of my D’s senior year and the friend asked me if my D was going to bother to ski race that winter with the six day/week committment, very early weekend mornings and long drives. I wasn’t sure why she asked, nor could I imagine the question coming up (if you only knew how passionate my D was about the sport), and the friend said…because her applications are all in and she doesn’t need to. I explained how this interest was no different than one her D does (though she is involved in one singular passion) and she could not dream of giving it up and even plans to do it in college. The idea of doing it until college apps were in was a concept I had never heard of! I just never could imagine doing this just to get into college. I mean who would put in these hours, get up at the crack of dawn, drive great distances, go atop mountain in subzero temps, risk life and limb (!!) if they did not LOVE it? You’d have to be nuts. LOL. Even now IN college, it involves some mornings of getting up before 6 AM (few college students are willing to do THAT!) , recent training days when it was 15 below without the windchill, a couple weekday mornings going out of state before classes, going away every weekend, seeing teammates hurt this past weekend in crashes, and on and on…and that is not the only thing she does. When a kid loves something, does it really matter if they only love one thing or if they love a few? I don’t think so.</p>

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<p>That’s whatIi meant by “passionate doers” above. Have passion for what you do. Doesn’t matter if it is one thing or four-- if you do what you love and it makes you happy that will shine through.</p>

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<p>Blossom–certainly don’t want to be arguing with you! I think the sticking point that I kept coming up against is this “national achievement” thing. That idea that passsionate commitment doesn’t count if you haven’t beat the competition. I certainly don’t mean to denigrate those that do, but I didn’t think that those who don’t come out on top should be considered “inch deep” (my own kid or not). I was trying to say, as has been better described in the above posts, that there is a huge gap between the “national achievers” and your description of “shallow” students. And that I didn’t think that being on top should be the be all and end all, as impressive as it is.</p>

<p>I also don’t think that colleges think so, and that’s the only reason I used my S as an example.</p>

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<p>“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 let you know where in April, Curmudgeon. ;)</p>

<p>FWIW, my oldest BWRK is enjoying himself immensely at Bucknell. While some may consider that a few rungs down, it’s quite perfect for him and therefore us. And yes–guilty as charged–we do have a cling-on decal.</p>

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<p>texastaximom, we might have already moved past the cling-on to the flagpole with the college flag after first semester grades. I love it when the students (and parents) are proud of their choice. That’s what I want for my D. That she’ll want the sticker and the flag. Bucknell was an exceptional choice and I’m glad he’s happy.</p>

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<p>Give it a break with the tea-leaves reading, guys. Go home and hug your sons and daughters and tell them how much you love them. That’s my message and age advice for the day! :)</p>