Does Relative Excellence Matter for Highly Selective Colleges?

[MirandaKnight]

@HNH

What is different, are the responses that reflect the virtue hierarchy. If a kid wants to volunteer for 100 more hours, get a second or third job, lean into their lacrosse, absolutely no one says “why would you do that? you’re already volunteering 200 hours and there is no statistic that says that 100 extra hours will get you into Princeton. There’s a threshold and beyond that you’re wasting your time!”. No one would say, “that extra job won’t matter! You already have a job, and you already interact with customers, and a second job is beyond the job threshold, and it won’t guarantee your admission to Vanderbilt”. Certainly no one says “you’re already a varsity lacrosse player. Put down the stick or AO’s will think you are a boring, jock drone”. The desire to set ceilings in academics are palpable.

I think your perceptions do not meet reality when it comes to this topic. I can not imagine even one poster here who would encourage students to do more volunteer hours or get a second or third job or lean into their lacrocsse in order to get into a brand name school. In fact, I have not seen a post which asks people on this forum about whether they should add more volunteer hours or play their sport more in order to get into a brand name school. I think the difference here is that there are some posters who do ask will it help me to get into a T20 if I self-study Calculus? The answer to that question is no it won’t. Had the poster asked will help me get into a T20 if I do 100 more volunteer hours guess what the answer would be? No, please don’t waste your time doing more hours if the only reason you are doing so is to get into a T20. The same with lacrosse or whatever other activity you want to ask about.

If someone had asked the following quetion - would it help me to get into a T20 if I become so good at Lacross that I am recruitable or would it help me get into a T20 if I self-study Chemistry with the goal of participating in ISEF and winning? The answer would probably be yes it can but it’s nowhere near a guarantee so if your sole reason for doing the activity is to get into a T20, and you’re still not likely to make your goal, do you really want to invest your time and energy into this ie. are you truly interested in the activity for its own sake because if not, most posters would probably advise that you probably should do something else with your time.