These are things that you did specifically for your kid’s HYPSM chances, rather than simply to help the kid explore their interests?
Reading through your list and noticing the number of times you “suggested” and “pushed,” it makes me think about something my D thought was interesting during her MIT interview. One of the things the interviewer asked her several times about various activities was “how did you get interested in this? How did you find these opportunities? Did your parent suggest it or find it for you?”
Keep in mind that regardless of whether your younger kid gets into HYPSM, you’ll never actually know whether any of these things actually made a difference. I know it would be tempting to draw conclusions if your kid happens to be accepted to more of your desired colleges than their older sibling, “These are the things we did and it worked, other parents and kids should do the same to increase chances!” etc… But really, regardless of outcome, you’ll never know.
Again just another sort of anecdote, but my S24 likes to play sports, and in HS what ended up two of his three sports were totally unexpected to me. Each time it was basically a friend recruiting him.
He now plays both of those sports at the club level in college (the highest level for those sports at his college). That’s been great for him–instant mentors, enforced time management, physical and mental balance, making friends, and all that.
Since he is not doing this at one of HYPSM, I guess one perspective is that we should have tried to have more influence on his activity choices in HS.
But our perspective is that by encouraging him to follow this sort of self-driven process, we set him up for a lifetime of beneficial participation in activities.
Old information (my kids finished college by 2010). But what distinguished them from many of their peers who were applying to the same HYPSM type schools– paid jobs. Not fancy jobs, not “my daddy got me an internship at his law firm jobs”. Smelly, minimum wage jobs with late night or early morning shifts, mean bosses, exhausted co-workers who were supporting families by cobbling together several minimum wage jobs.
I continue to see the kids who work out-perform the kids who allegedly cured cancer last summer or solved global hunger with the $2500 they raised at their own 501 C-3.
I’m often surprised that people have such bias about fit. People are individuals and what is important to them can vary widely! One of mine had a strong location preference, but neither cared about size at all. Both started with strength for their major. Next was strength in extra-curriculars that they cared about which was way, way more important rural vs city or 5,000 or 20,000. I hear over and over again here an extremely narrow way of defining fit. My son’s final 2 schools included a public flagship in the middle of nowhere and private research university in the middle of a city with about a 5x size differential.
The universal challenge with high school and college sports is the amount of time involved. At most high schools, “team” sports like football, basketball, baseball, soccer involve a large number of hours and often missing classes for games.
I played D3 in college for a couple years. Good stuff but I found intramurals were equally rewarding and easier to balance with academics.
…or wants a rural environment yet lists Harvard, UChicago, Rice, and Columbia among their favorites.
…or wants to major in an Engineering discipline, but is EDing to Bates.
Doing a bit of research, or simply looking at some pictures, would comprise more thoughtfulness and thoroughness than it seems some put into matching schools to their fit variables.
(We don’t see too many such kids here, but occasionally we run into fit/app contradictions. We collectively scratch our chins. “So you want pizza, but you’re going to an Indian restaurant. Got it.”)
ETA: Nobody new to this site, or who is just looking for answers and is new to the idea of “fit”, should worry whether there are enough Reach, Match, and Safety schools to comprise a reasonable fit-driven app list. There is enough quality and variety in US higher education to virtually ensure that, if the kid identifies and weights their fit preferences, and does some research (including some time on this site – we can help) accordingly, they can create a complete list of schools which are affordable and at which they likely would be happy and academically fulfilled.
@LondonAero, thanks for being responsive to posters’ questions. You’ve remained open and polite, for which I commend you.
This thread reminded me of a different thread, and here are two quotes that I thought might be helpful to share here.
It seems clear that you value admission offers for your kids to SHYMP and T10 schools. Below are a number of other goals that many people often value for their kids (and themselves):
When you think about the possibility of an admission offer to one of the schools you desire for your kids, how does it compare with the other goals listed above?
So a question for you and your family is, which characteristics are less important than an admission offer to a highly selective/rejective school?
Being responsible and accountable? Independent and self-reliant? Being curious? Having a love of learning? Being resilient? Having a relationship built on trust, respect, and open communication? Feeling a sense of belonging? Feeling loved and supported? Feeling worthy? Being emotionally and mentally healthy?
And if you think that no college offer is more important than any of those long-term goals, are any of those long-term goals being damaged by the efforts to get into a highly rejective college?
There’s a lot to be said for hard work and earning money. The impact on admissions seems to be highly demographic-sensitive. Kids at our high school generally have strong admissions results if they take jobs like paid STEM internships.
Are high school kids actually getting paid STEM internships in the current environment? I know grad students who are struggling with so much funding cut…. and these are folks making progress on a dissertation, not high school students.
That’s one of my big takeaways from looking at profiles of previous T10 admits. There are a modest number of high school STEM internships in the area, and those along with specific selective STEM programs are highly predictive of admissions chances (can’t exactly say causative or just correlated)
My kid was disappointed they didn’t have a paying job over last summer but their STEM research program offered need-based aid
Note that none of HYPSM has ABET-accredited environmental engineering as a major, although some have likely related ABET-accredited majors (civil, chemical).
College kids aren’t even getting these right now, from waht I see from my 25s school, at least not w/o serious, serious serious effort, tippy top credentials (way beyond 99.9% of HS students) or parents’ connections (which AOs will assume)
Good list. One way I think of this: confidence and self worth are often built on having meaningful accomplishments. Those same accomplishments usually support college admissions, and they often help develop other skills on the list.
Probably the best example is getting my kid to run for student government and a YAG officer position. Not a typical “natural leader”, they have immensely benefitted from working with other students and school leaders, getting to make proposals and follow through. Also good for admissions.
Is your high school a high end private (i.e. with many wealthy kids, etc.). I think wealth and high end college admissions go hand in hand…..especially when you’re at a hs catering to the very wealthy.
Are most going to high end colleges from there full pay families?
I don’t know of anyone, and I’m in a wealthy public school area, that had a STEM internship in HS, or even knew where to get it. Working at Kroger or Dunkin - yep.
