This isn’t so much about my kid, but I am curious what advice is out there for a kid just starting thinking about colleges and doesn’t specialize in anything, but is great at pretty much everything.
My impression of college admissions these days is that the pendulum has swung to the spikey kids – those that are rock stars in their field. I am reading so many posts about how there are so many kids with great scores, so the colleges have to look for something that sets a kid apart. I get that, but what if that thing that sets him/her apart is that the kid is a Renaissance person --plays multiple varsity sports, does musical theater, is in advanced math and science, but loves taking languages, has great stats and a deep love of learning everything, is at the top of his class and is in student leadership – but is not a recruitable athlete (never played club sports because he just plays for the fun of the game), and never did a national competition for anything, not because he/she isn’t good enough, but because he/she just is interested in too many other things to focus on one? Let’s say the kid is genuinely nice, too? On paper the kid wouldn’t stand out (probably would look heavily curated), but in reality a kid who is top notch at a half-dozen things (and wants to stay that way) is really special.
I still cling to the idea that a high school student shouldn’t have to choose their career path quite yet, but that doesn’t seem to be the model anymore. I also would think that a kid like that would be glue for a campus culture, and there are schools out there that would appreciate the kid’s many talents. But where?
If you had a jack of all trades kid, where would you want that kid to go to school? Is a there a particular school that is well-known for wanting generalists? Would you tell the kid to focus on one thing or encourage him/her to keep enjoying everything and trying new things? What do you think the outcome would be post-graduation – in a world that likewise seems to value spikey adults?
LACs value these kids because they will get involved and help create community.
If that is truly who they are and they can convey themselves in their essays, it will work out for them. Honestly, there is a place for every type.
The kid you have described above describes pretty much my kid and all his friends. It’s easy to feel like there are a million reasons your kid is at a disadvantage in this process, but he sounds like a kid who will have great options if he picks schools that will allow him to put his various interests to use.
I actually think that the spike narrative is overblown, based an on plethora of anecdotal evidence (my daughter included), and that those interesting, well-rounded, high-performing kids are sought after by many schools.
Thanks for your input @gardenstategal – I don’t mean it to sound like I am worried or feeling disadvantaged. I am more or less curious about what schools are known for nurturing the well-rounded kid, and how much of that is still a thing in this spikey world. To the extent my kid will end up in this scenario – I don’t know.
I also think it is a great niche for a school to focus on the uber-well-rounded kids. Not sure I can tell who that is. Yes, generally a LAC is supposed to be that, but are they really when they have to look for things that set apart one kid from another? Are there some LACs that are more committed to the liberal arts concept than others? I came to the question in thinking about how schools differ on their core requirements. Some LACs take the approach of not requiring much of any core, and some require a rigid core. Both are legitimately liberal arts. Is one approach better than another for the jack of all trades?
If a kid is a well-rounded student with many interests, schools that have distribution requirements can be terrific. (Of the ones we saw, Tufts and Colby were at one end of that spectrum with quite a few, including FL.) And certainly, these schools aren’t excited about admitting students who are going to struggle with those. But that’s just about academics.
Even those schools want some spiky kids who are still good in other things.
But schools that emphasize community and need kids who will engage – and that’s pretty much any smaller school – like the a capella singing football player.
I agree with @misty88981 – this narrative is s bit overblown. And to that end, even the spikes will appeal to only a handful of schools. So while those kids go to the front of the line at the schools that want them, that’s not at every school.
I think some of it might come down to the story that such a kid would craft with their applications - including an essay and teacher LOR that set them apart.
I think this is what worked for Kiddo #1. She really was fairly well-rounded (with dance instead of a school sport) and very ambitious. She didn’t decide what she wanted to major in until October of her senior year and then worked backwards on her applications to fit her ECs and her essay to showcase who she was in relation to that intended future. She ended up not even listing all her ECs. (For example, leaving off engineering camp at a university and other activities from Freshman/Sophomore year related to exploring a possible future as an engineer.)
(woo hoo! I got the quote thinggy to work!)
So I guess this is the crux of my question: there are still schools that have a capella football players and the like? From reading this forum, it sounds like kids only have room for one thing beyond coursework. Personally, I did nothing other than coursework, socializing and a part time job, and could never fathom how athletes made it work. Two EC’s seems rough.
Edited to add: I sure hope that the narrative of spikey kids is overblown. There just can’t be enough spikey kids to fill the “elite” schools, and it would make for some strange silo-ing of the student body.
Colleges are looking for a bunch of “spikey” kids to fill their class and make it a well rounded class.
My d19 is not spikey. She was involved in many extracurricular activities, worked part time, volunteered in different capacities, did sports (but not varsity level). She has taken an extremely rigorous courseload at a large, competitive high school, with all A’s She is introverted and the college app process does not favor those students. She pushed herself so hard all through high school…but on paper, I thought, she looks just like the well rounded kid that no top school thinks is ‘good enough’ to admit because they are indistinguishable from one another. She had a good idea of what she wanted to study based on what interested her most in high school classes (said interests compelled her to take a related college class one summer not for credit, but just pass/fail and a one week summer camp) and her part time summer jobs. So her common app (which I didn’t see until the hour before she pushed the send button) just read ‘authentic’. I think somehow, that came through in her essays. She is also the genuine nice kid…flies below the radar, and always gives 100%. I imagine that came through in letters of rec. She also fully admitted in her essays that while she has yet to find her ‘one true passion’ in high school, she wasn’t going to give up trying! Isn’t that what all schools want, including the top ranked schools - students who will engage, take advantage of opportunities provided even if in they are in areas in which students lack expertise coming in, and contribute to not only the university community but ultimately, society? D19 didn’t have much interest in a small LAC…she wanted a larger student body than that, with college sports to root for as part of the experience, broad research opportunities as an undergrad, and a community that she thought she could be part of for a lifetime, not just 4 years. She was admitted to her top choice, a highly ranked school that fits that bill. Applying to a top 20 school (maybe even a top 50) is pretty much a lottery…more qualified students than spots…so she’s beyond grateful. But yes, they still admit some well rounded ones who aren’t spikey…they are not excluded from the pool of potentials. I think some of these schools have also figured out that there are a lot of high performing students that excel in one or two EC’s and contributed greatly to those causes, but whether or not they genuinely reflect the students’ interests/passions is questionable…
“I still cling to the idea that a high school student shouldn’t have to choose their career path quite yet,”
There are literally hundreds of colleges that welcome students who are not spiked and who don’t have a career path yet. There are about 20 that select for students who have already achieved or show some indication they will achieve at an unusually high level (in some way) which can be evident by an impressive spike or some other way.
I think spikes are helpful for T20 schools, but the jacks/jills of all trades will have no problem finding their place if they don’t get caught up in the prestige hype and are thoughtful in the schools they apply to.
I think it depends on the school and how the student crafts the narrative.
I have a dd like this. She had some long term ECs like sports that she did all four years of high school (not at a recruitable level, just that she enjoyed playing) but also got involved with other things like mock trial, doing lighting for the school play, peer ministry. She just enjoyed exploring many different things. She felt that schools with an open curriculum would be a great fit for her to continue exploring different interests, so she applied to several of those and is attending one. I do think that that diversity in interests helped her at the schools to which she applied.
“I actually think that the spike narrative is overblown”
I don’t think it is overblown so much as mis-defined. High schoolers seem to have the idea that a spike is the golden ticket, and, being overly optimistic in general, think they can create a spike fairly quickly (one summer, according to one recent hopeful CC poster).
In reality, it often takes much longer to gain the level of mastery needed to stand out at a top-in-the-field level. According to Malcolm Gladwell, “10,000 hours is the magic number of greatness”. Try fitting anything remotely close to that into your four years of high school! Even if the student hasn’t quite reached 10,000 hours, a perceived spike will be attractive to tippy top schools because the student will have achievements and awards at an unusually high level for a person of his/her age. It’s an easy bet that the student has potential to do even greater things, hopefully something that will bring favorable publicity to the university.
A high schooler aiming for a spike is far more likely to just be merely “pointy”. Pointy can be okay if you’re going for a particularly unusual or rather difficult major - as long as the student has not completely neglected the cores. Otherwise it is not any better than being well-rounded.
To the OP’s question, though, yes, a student who is genuinely nice and loves learning will find a place. Top colleges love those qualities in students too! A “Renaissance Man” can have multiple majors. But choices still must be narrowed and made, but not necessarily in high school. Most colleges are happy to give students a year or two to explore. The entire expression, however, goes “Jack of all trades, master at none.” At the end of the college years, the job market places more value on the master.
I like post # 13’s last paragraph.
A kid can like and do well in so many diverse things but college needs narrowing things down to a major or two. The all around good student needs to focus the search for an area of most interest. By the time kids approach senior year of HS they know if they prefer STEM or humanities or social sciences or whatever. The college search reflects those, public and private. Do not focus on what colleges are looking for with this student. Instead, find their most/least liked things and use that to help them develop a college list. Most students fall into that vast middle- think Bell curve- pool. There is room for them at a good fit place. Remember that the schools your area considers top will often be unheard of elsewhere. Forget prestige- put the finances first.
I still believe the school is what is good for the student, not what the student can do for the school.
I think the magic formula is “one national level achievement in academics or arts equals one state level in sports, or two state level in academics, or three regional level in academics plus some unusual hobby”. Just kidding, of course, but I think there’s a grain of truth in this.
I am thinking of coining a new term. The “sea urchin” kid – well-rounded and pointy at the same time. 
Totally makes sense to me that It is one thing to be undecided your senior year in high school, but by the time you graduate from college, you should be able to commit to something. There’s no grad school for “well-roundedness” – sooner or later you have to get a job. The transition is interesting to me – the whiplash of “try everything” mentality in high school to “be the best in something” trope in college apps is so contradictory. You can’t do both. Maybe the simple key to it all is just being authentic – to use an over-used word.
But one other observation – seems weird to me that the tippy tops go for primarily spikes, and the sea urchins go elsewhere, as seems to be suggested up thread. If you are a school with <10,000 students, just populating all of the sports teams that way, let alone an orchestra, theater department and STEM departments is mathematically impossible. Throw in URM and legacies, and no way is there a place for everyone the admissions office needs. It surprised me reading that some smaller LACs have up to 60% athletes in their student body. But mathematically they would have to – they would just have to have a lot of athletes that are “plus” something else.
I would think it would be flipped. The bigger schools can afford the spikey kids and the smaller “elite” schools need to have kids that check more than one box. For that reason alone, thinking on it, the spike narrative has to be overblown.
I think colleges want both - but it’s easier to sell yourself as a spiky kid. I had one of each. The spiky CS kid had ECs that were either academic or CS related. The other kid majored in IR. His SAT verbal score was 100 pts more than math, but he took BC Cal and two science APs. He took also took all the history APs. His ECs were four years of two orchestras, four years of Science Olympiad (state level medals in Ecology), a couple of years of literary magazine, and he made origami earrings and sold them at local art galleries. He applied as undecided. They both did fine. Younger one, did somewhat better than expected.
I suspect that we are talking about only the elite schools would think that they are assembling a well-rounded class made of spikey kids. There just aren’t that many kids who are truly great at something at each 17. Even at those schools, they have well-rounded kids. However, in the elite schools, you have to assume that there are 10-20 kids for each slot (actually the ratio is worse after factoring in athletes (is this a spike), legacies, celebrity kids and development cases). I think the admission committee members will naturally look for stories that they can remember and are interesting, which often will be spike-like.
My son attended an elite LAC and in the welcoming ceremony to the freshman class, the admissions director welcomed them all and told them how wonderful they were and then described several kids whose stories were particularly interesting (including my son’s). I think a good story is something that helps distinguish a kid from the other 10-15 folks applying for the same slot.
I would be surprised if the admissions folks at very good state schools see themselves as assembling a well-rounded class out of spikey kids rather than admitting bright, hard-working deserving kids. I could be wrong as that is not my end of the universe.
@CateCAParent, your observations are very sensible. At my son’s pretty small LAC that fielded the full set of sports teams, he said many of the classmates were very good at one thing or had one unusual interest – e.g., knowledge of some rare language – that didn’t immediately pop out but may have been part of the admissions package.
I don’t think well-rounded or spikey kids can count on anything in terms of admission at very selective schools. I’m guessing those colleges want both kinds of kids, but maybe the spikey ones who also are top-notch in other areas will get into more schools on their list than the “average excellent” kids. My S19 would be considered well-rounded with no hooks and no major awards. He had a number of strengths as an applicant, we put together a good application, and I thought his essays were mostly very good (not reviewed by any outside person), but there was nothing that made us think he had a great chance at any reach schools. As expected, he received a number of wait list offers and got into a few great state flagship universities. However, he also got acceptances at a couple of selective LACs and three top 20 universities (including one Ivy).