<p>Also: personality and ‘sparkle’ are not conveyed in a stats-only analysis. There are kids who will not come across well to teachers, in interviews, etc, because they are morbidly shy. </p>
<p>I can see my D getting better recs from teachers because she connects with adults, speaks easily, contributes in class, and is very personable. </p>
<p>I did not really understand how exceptional her people skills were until I saw her in a public speaking context and saw the other parents present SO impressed at her abilities. </p>
<p>In a huge HS she’s on first name basis with top administration, lots of teachers, etc. She’s even an email pen pal with one former teacher who is now retired. This sort of personality/ability to connect certainly can’t hurt, and might also explain a lower-stat kid being admitted over a higher stat kid.</p>
<p>epiphany:
My S only once complained about middle school collaborative projects, and that was b/c one of his team members–a good friend–hindered him rather than contributing to getting the project finished. In general, he did not mind. </p>
<p>High school collaborative projects usually present fewer problems b/c of tracking, whether formal or informal. This tends to separate the hard workers from the more laid back ones. Last year, some advanced students were placed in an introductory biotech class b/c it was the only level available and b/c of scheduling issues. They were clearly unchallenged, so the teacher proposed that they do their own projects; invariably, they chose highly challenging ones, and all worked very hard on those.
All the students I know who got in EA to top schools are very involved in teamwork of one kind or another; some have also been involved in more structured tutoring. They’re all great kids as well as very accomplished.
Since my S has been taking college classes, I have seen how much emphasis is put on study groups and how useful they are. Obviously, they work best if there is give and take among members of the group and if they all get along well.</p>
<p>marite, you’re lucky it was only one bad middle school experience. For us, as you see, it was ongoing problem. (And very unprofessional of the teachers not to correct the problem, given that the complaining was hardly limited to one parent.) Some of us parents asked for the kind of tracking you are describing. Yes, I agree that it’s more enforced in h.s. (So far, my 2 D’s have not complained about the few group h.s. projects they’ve had.) </p>
<p>And I definitely agree about the study groups. Those can be crucial in college. (Perhaps some of the adcoms also factor that in in their decisions.)</p>
<p>At Stanford, many of the CS courses require group projects. Some of the assignments are so huge and time consuming that it would not be possible to complete them unless everyone does his or her share. I think that part of the philosophy behind these assignments is that this is how major projects are done in the workplace, and students must learn to work as part of a team. My son finds that he enjoys these team projects the most of any of his class assignments.</p>