<p>I believe in Michelle Hernandez’s book A for Admission, based on her experience as a Dartmouth admissions officer, she says colleges are more impressed with the kid with high SATs.</p>
<p>Maybe just since USNWR rankings started since that uses high SATs as a ranking tool.</p>
<p>I would take the kid who actually accomplishes things if I was an admissions officer or an employer.</p>
<p>I suspect that adcoms have lots of first-hand experience with this, and know that on balance, hard-working overachievers and brilliant underachievers tend not to change their stripes in college. (HS grades are generally better predictors of college grades than standardized test scores.) At a competitive college where most of the applicant pool is admissible, there’s not much incentive to take a risk on mere potential unless there’s something really compelling and consistent in the application that suggests that something about the college experience is going to light a fire under the underachiever.</p>
<p>The problem is identifying the brilliant underacheiver as opposed to a bright slacker. </p>
<p>I have long worked with programs for academically-talented students and we agonize about this issue. We do our best to read the tea leaves and are thrilled when we take a chance and are proven right. But, alas, far more often a slacker HS student remains a slacker in college.</p>
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<li><p>I’ve had one of both, sort of. As many of you know, they wound up in the same college. But – as I would have thought – the hardworking overachiever had somewhat better success in the admissions process. I would much rather have that profile going into the college lottery than the “brilliant underachiever” tag. </p></li>
<li><p>Emotionally people will certainly feel that the “brilliant underachiever” has an advantage. But it’s not true. Almost by definintion a “brilliant underachiever” is more likely to exceed people’s expectations in the college process – it only takes the admissions committee at one “reach” school to focus on the “brilliant” part, and everyone will be saying “How did she get in there?” And a hardworking overachiever is more likely to be disappointed, since everyone will be expecting her to go to Harvard. On average, however, I am morally certain that the hardworking ones come out ahead.</p></li>
<li><p>My “brilliant underachiever” was graded much more harshly in high school than the hardworking sibling. Almost all of BU’s teachers knew what BU was capable of. If it wasn’t delivered each and every time they decided (correctly, for the most part) that BU had blown off the assignment, and graded accordingly. HO made them all feel like great teachers: steady progress, sticking to the assignments, taking their comments to heart. HO constantly got cut breaks.</p></li>
<li><p>One of the ways this shows up is in focus and passion. BU did fine in the areas that most interested BU – and those teachers were happy to say that BU was one of their best students ever. But in other areas BU’s self-esteem was not much affected by Bs instead of As. BU presented as a classic unbalanced applicant. And BU’s high school grades were excellent predictors of BU’s college grades, since the same dynamic applied: excellence and passion in some areas, slacker competence in the rest. HO probably came across as a bright, well-rounded kid who could only pretend to have any particular direction in life other than playing by the rules and satisfying parental and school expectations.</p></li>
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<p>I believe in the concept of brilliant underachiever and if I were an admissions persons I’d probably champion that student. Just like there are intellectually sophisticated students that are “bored” by high school there are grind students who know how to give out exactly what is needed to get the A but have a decidedly lower intellectual curiosity. My kids talk about this alot. They will talk about the kids who get the straight As but have little “depth” or add no “depth” to their class discussions. As my oldest S says “high school is no intellectual haven” - at least not in our public school. We’re not having a conversation here about dividing all students into one or two categories we’re talking about 2 polar ends of the spectrum.</p>
<p>I think marite is correct here in that teacher recs are important to many adcoms as it provides information beyond the transcript.</p>
<p>Just consider typical grading. Say 10 students in a class of 25 receive A’s. According to the transcript all are indistiguishable. However there may be one of these students who is truely outstanding(maybe even brilliant) but the grade cannot itentify that student. A teacher recommmendation and exceptional activities outside the classroom can identify that student.</p>
<p>However having said that, if I were an adcom I would be concerned about a student with great incongruities between the transcript and other factors in the college application if they were indicative of some behavioral/attitude/personal discipline problem. If it is merely a brilliant writer poor in math or a brilliant mathematician with iffy writing skills a pass on those deficiencies are certainly in order.</p>
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<p>I agree. There’s definitely a difference. For instance, I had one friend in highschool who was a math/comp sci/engineering genius. In the classes he didn’t care much about (history, English, Spanish, maybe even bio), he had a decent but not great GPA (maybe B or B-)—certainly not the best he could do, he definitely didn’t try. But in his math and chem. classes he excelled (skipped many levels in math, took outside classes, etc). He had very few normal ECs, but he created things and did experiments in his free time, not to mention installed an entire computer network for his parent’s company. Despite an overall kind of low GPA, he got into MIT, and is doing well there. That? Is a brilliant underachiever, and obviously MIT (and probably other schools if he hadn’t gotten in early) saw that he’d be able to do great things in an environment that challenged him on subjects he enjoyed.</p>
<p>I had another friend. Very, very smart. As a kid, people thought he was going to go far. But in highschool, he never did his work for any classes, just slacked off, mouthed off to teachers, smoked pot, etc. He even failed a class. Him? He went to a local state U (that many were surprised he managed to get into—and this wasn’t the flagship), and still sits around slacking off and smoking pot. That’s (an extreme version of) a brilliant slacker. Top schools don’t want that. They don’t care how smart someone is if they are just going to fail out.</p>
<p>Of course, the line does get fuzzy.</p>
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<p>Hi, marite, I know you’ve mentioned the checkboxes on the MIT teacher recommendation form before, which is what prompted me to look them up. I think it’s still an open question how the MIT admission committee interprets those checkboxes when deciding among substantially similar applicants. I’ve looked at the same form, considering the other choices that are available, and I think it’s at least as tenable a hypothesis that what looks good to the MIT admission committee is a both-and profile of “brilliance of mind” AND hard work. But I don’t recall that either of us have ever seen a definitive statement from MIT about how that form is interpreted, and I rather imagine what a checked checkbox means varies depending on what high school the teacher checking the box works at.</p>
<p>Tokenadult:</p>
<p>The ideal candidate is one who combines brilliance and hard work. Every time, MIT and its peers will take such a student. Sometimes, though, adcoms are forced to choose, as your question asked us to do. Some will take a gamble on the brilliant slacker, hoping that s/he is a late bloomer. Often, however, as my anecdote suggested, they are concerned that the bad habits generated from being under-challenged may not be reversible in college. But the phenomenon of the high-achieving high school student flailing miserably in his or her freshman year is an all-too familiar phenomenon. </p>
<p>I am more familiar with top tier colleges, and perhaps my response is colored by what I know of these colleges. At colleges where adcoms don’t expect walk-on-water applicants, it is probably fine to be described as hard-working, diligent, etc…</p>
<p>Finally, in response to Weskid’s post, there is a distinction between being lopsided and slacking. The student who got Bs in humanities and social studies but did college level math would not appear to MIT to be a slacker. On the contrary, that student would seem to be willing to challenge himself or herself to the utmost in the areas that are of the greatest interest to MIT.</p>
<p>There is a difference beween lopsided and brilliant underachiever. MIT loves the former but tends to be wary of the second. Many MIT applicants have sky high math/science grades and average results in the humanities. Same thing with the SAT. Top math SAT, sometimes average verbal SAT. That is certainly OK considering the technical bend of the school. They do expect they will need to assist students developing written and verbal communication skills. On the other hand, a presumably brilliant kid who does not apply himself and gets marginal math/science grades in HS despite strong SAT scores will have a very tough time with the admissions committee. The workload is notoriously intense at MIT and the school may not want to risk a kid flunking out of classes for lack of discipline. It does not help anybody to admit somebody who may not graduate. </p>
<p>Historically, MIT has never associated brilliance with high SAT scores. This surprises a lot of candidates who assume a 2400 will make them an auto-admit at MIT and are then rejected. The most successful students at MIT are generally not the ones with the highest SAT scores. They will look for objective signs of brilliance through achievements and put a lot of weight in teacher recommendations. Potential with no objective evidence of success is simply not enough. </p>
<p>PS: I realized I cross-posted with Marite</p>
<p>A good friend’s son is a very smart (not quite brilliant) overachiever. 1600/1600 on first SAT1, but a B student with some C’s and he even managed to fail gym one quarter. He got a full ride at SUNY Binghampton (obviously impressed by the SAT score), was rejected from his first choice college, but accepted at one of CC’s “top LACs”. His performance in college has been similar to high school and he ended up taking some time off to regroup. I think many colleges see kids like him as a risk. Some of these kids find their passions in colleges others don’t.</p>
<p>OTOH kids like my son are a much safer bet. He got a lot of A’s in high school without much effort. His AP biology teacher remarked at Meet the Teacher night that as soon as he’d done his work he pulled out a computer theory book he was reading. (Teacher btw didn’t hold this against him, but did observe that obviously bio was not son’s passion.) He got B’s in English through lack of effort, but everywhere else he easily made A’s. I don’t know how many of his teachers were really aware of how little work he did to get those A’s though. Since you can check multiple MIT boxes I hope both “brilliant” and “hardworking” got checks, but who knows. They didn’t accept him at any rate! </p>
<p>If I were a college I would accept an kid with high scores and low grades unless there was solid achievement somewhere outside school, some evidence that the intellectual spark and ambition is there, even if it hasn’t exactly been directed at handing in the homework on time.</p>
<p>My S is a bright slacker (IMO). His grades have suffered sometimes because he forgets to turn in daily homework/notes or forgets to do it altogether. He does well on tests, though, so he knows the content. His SAT scores are very good.</p>
<p>We discovered midway through the college search process that most schools really are looking for good grades as a predictor of future performance. And I agree - I realized that my S might not do so well in a school where he would be surrounded by other students who worked their tails off, and really challenged themselves, during high school. Even if he could do the work, he would still be out of his element. Disappointing, but I still have hopes for ‘late blooming’ and also that a fire will be lit within him someday.</p>
<p>Mathmom said: “If I were a college I would accept an kid with high scores and low grades unless there was solid achievement somewhere outside school, some evidence that the intellectual spark and ambition is there, even if it hasn’t exactly been directed at handing in the homework on time.”</p>
<p>Yeah, DS1 is one with high scores and lower-than-expected grades. He’s an absent-minded professor – early on, he was too shy to talk to teachers when he forgot to turn in his (COMPLETED) homework, and junior year, he was so wrapped up in outside reseach and study that he didn’t always pay attention to getting HW done accurately (which counted for 30% in one of his classes). Didn’t matter if it was humanities or math/science – he had a fairly even split of his Bs between the two. The spark, though, is definitely there – it was just outside of the classroom. Happily, he did something with it, and I think that made the difference.</p>
<p>It’s funny this topic came up – one of DS’s friends told him last week he was an overachiever, and DS was horrified. He thinks he’s a slacker. DS: “But you should see my GPA!” Friend: “But look at what you’ve accomplished!”</p>
<p>We’ll see how the rest of his college choices come out, but I think he’ll get in where the creative spark is valued and rejected at schools that want the scores + GPA.</p>
<p>Too late to edit, but of course I meant underachiever in the first sentence of post 31. argh! :rolleyes: And “would NOT accept … unless”. </p>
<p>New Year’s resolution proofread!</p>
<p>I consider myself the brilliant underachiever/bright slacker type. Throughout sophomore year and some of junior year I did my homework during class the period before it was due and never studied on any tests. I didn’t take honors history and english, because I’m really strong and math and the sciences and enjoy them. I have a real problem doing a class that I don’t like (cause I hate writing and reading, even though I’m not a bad writer, 12 on the SAT essay) just to impress colleges or bring up my GPA. I managed to pull a 3.7 UW or so sophomore and junior year and I’m 10/82 in my class. A lot of the kids I know in my class (including myself) could easily be #1 in the class if we studied or did homework, but we’re all extremely lazy except for the top couple in the class. I really started to try senior year, studying about a half hour to an hour for some of my tests (cause I don’t take notes in class, I’m an auditory learner), and it’s really given good results. Although I do still do crosswords/su dokus in calc and pull As with ease. Last year I did the same thing…trying hard 1st marking period…and by the 2nd semester I was back to myself…which I expect to happen this year due to senioritis :D</p>
<p>I’m content with my grades though…I got a 32 on my ACT with little to no preparation, and I’m pretty sure I can get into UW-Madison…which is great for my potential major of biochemistry/math. I never wanted to go to any top schools/ivies…so I never felt pressed to get straight As.</p>
<p>I won’t go into why I hate MIT’s form specifically (I’ve spent enough CC time on that) but I feel compelled to say I still think it is the most backwards document I have run into in college admissions. Talk about secret code, sheesh. Kids everywhere are getting misrepresented by well meaning teachers and GC’s who don’t have a clue that “diligent” “highly competent” , “hardest working kid in my career” and “cares about his GPA” are bad , nasty, get-you-rejected things to say about a 4.0 kid. It is truly Alice, through the Looking Glass and up is down and down is up.</p>
<p>Here’s a very old thread that some of y’all may find amusing. There may even be some truth somewhere in it, too. 
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/36494-cc-connotations-most-important.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/36494-cc-connotations-most-important.html</a></p>
<p>I think there is a difference between brilliance and intellectual curiosity. If someone is brilliant but shows no signs of intellectual curiosity, that’s a problem. </p>
<p>I think many schools want a mix – they want the truly brilliant and the hard worker. They will accept some brilliant underachievers – take a risk that college will inspire them – but they don’t want a class full of them. I liked drizzit’s mountain moving metaphor.</p>
<p>As for the original post – it reminds me of the dozens of posts I see by students who wake up senior year and realize that despite their 750+ SATs, their crappy grades in 9th and 10th grades hurts their admission to HYP.</p>
<p>I know a young man who was definitely a brilliant underachiever. He took Calc BC as s sophomore and then took no more math. He had an EC outside sport that was extremely time intensive. He worked his whole high school schedule around his training. He did what he needed to get by in school. In Math and Science he excelled. In humanities he got by. Perfect Math SAT first time around. 800 Math SAT 2. He did not want to go to college but applied due to parental pressure.
His end results were interesting. Some highly selective schools were willing to take a risk with him. Other schools including several Christian Colleges with much lower averages rejected him.
In the end he went with his heart and attended a local CC for 3 yrs and continued his training. He has since transferred to a UC and is continuing his same pattern of doing well in what interests him and not in subjects that don’t.
He has a great brain but is not intellectually curious as sly vt states.</p>
<p>sorry but I have no sympathy for the brilliant underachiever. They deserve no slack at all in admissions, IMHO. Most of them are just lazy and self centered - see the posts above. Wouldn’t we all love to do just the parts of tasks we like? (sorry, boss, but as a brilliant underachiever, I’ll do the research for this report, but someone else will need to write it. Can I dictate my thoughts?..)</p>
<p>And as for the fear of the overachiever burning out? Please…You see more dropouts from the underachiever group. After all, graduation requirements include some things that are not fun, not interesting.</p>