College admissions staff tend to give examples of their unique admits to demonstrate what stands out to them, and college brochures often contain a profile of their recently admitted class that lists the star yo-yo-er, the rodeo champion, and the didgeridoo player. I’ve seen press releases from Ivies that announce the admissions rate and then rattle off the distinctives of their new admits. Furthermore, at convocation college presidents always brag about all the unusual new students and offer a similar list of one-of-a-kind accomplishments. So we should be excused if we end up concluding that colleges like what is unusual for its own sake, not just for the substantive skills acquired, because it gives them bragging rights to specialness. .
No, the question has never been: is uniqueness valued over substance? They are not mutually exclusive. The uniqueness should, of course, involve substance.
I attempted (apparently futilely) to make the point that, if you are qualified (and this includes all of your caveats and more), then having a unique interest or talent can help you get noticed. The Hernandez quote attests to this. (Yeah, I know that you don’t like or respect her, but many do, including me.)
I have also repeatedly stated that the interest or talent has to be authentic and involve self-motivated, long-term commitment. Obviously, this must be conveyed somehow in the application. It doesn’t have to be in the applicant’s essay. A guidance counselor, teacher, or mentor can write about it in their LoR and, as I’ve said before, this may come across as more genuine than when the applicant toots his own horn in an essay.
I agree that a well done pursuit is part of what makes a kid substantive. Hanging out by the beehives or just riding a unicycle won’t cut it, obviously. I never said or implied anything so shallow.
I certainly hope no kid is reading this thread and thinking that he needs to go out and start doing something “unique” so as to get admitted somewhere. The uniqueness, the attention-getting factor, comes from the kid’s personality, not from his list of ECs. An interesting kid can make waiting around in the airport being accosted by weird strangers sound interesting, as per Sue22’s comments.
I also agree that being a rodeo cowboy or whatever is not going to be what gets you admitted. It seems to me that adcoms who refer to that sort of thing are just using it to try to express the inexpressible – which is “there was just something about this kid that appealed to us.”
Here’s another analogy. If you were to ask people what makes various famous movie actors attractive, they might seize on particular things that make them stand out – Scarlett Johansson’s plump lips, George Clooney’s crinkly eyes, whatever. But you can’t just take features like those and stick them on some random person and make them beautiful. When we look at someone who strikes us as impressive, whether physically or otherwise, we tend to pick out their most distinctive features to explain why they impress us so much. But those features by themselves aren’t what makes them impressive.
And because I can’t believe I’ve posted so much in a thread that’s obsessing over something I think is fundamentally a waste of time, I will just take this moment to say to all the high school students out there: If you are smart and accomplished enough to have a reasonable shot at one of these “elite” schools, you have ALREADY won the game. Admission to one of these schools will not complete you, it will not fix you, it will not give you anything you don’t already have. Apply by all means because you might get in and you might enjoy it there, but the measure of what your college experience can give you is not that college’s USNWR ranking.
"I’ve seen press releases from Ivies that announce the admissions rate and then rattle off the distinctives of their new admits. Furthermore, at convocation college presidents always brag about all the unusual new students and offer a similar list of one-of-a-kind accomplishments. "
My daughter’s EC was one of those that was mentioned in the “in the class of 2015, we have …” letter. It was memorable enough that when I sat next to a prof who had been on the ad com, he recognized my last name and said “oh, your daughter is the one who was the xxxx.”
But it was NOT an “odd,” yoyo-spinning unicycle-riding unicorn juggler. It was just an EC that was still within the bounds of normal, just unexpected and a breath of fresh air. It was one of those things that you think “oh, that’s interesting, tell me more.” Not " what a weirdo you must be to ha e done that."
I don’t know what is so hard about this. This isn’t about unusual. This is about interesting.
“Interesting” is less problematic to me than “likeable.”. The former speaks to me of intellectual curiosity and depth. The latter is too vulnerable to the social and political views of the admissions ommittee. Say a kid is a big game hunter and sent his app away right before that dentist killed the protected African lion. Is he now unlikeable?
Depends how he writes about it, of course.
But if these places are sooooooooo liberal politically correct (in your eyes) that it’s unappealing to you, then why send your kid there? I mean, I don’t apply to Liberty U and complain that they’re all right wing.
If he were a big game hunter, he’d still be reviewed for the whole he conveys. If he presses how he loves blood and guts, I’d say there’s an issue. If she were radical in her politics, I say she’d still get a fair review.
I do think likable kids are interesting and interesting kids are likable. Remember, this is to adcoms, representing the college, not her school teachers or neighbors, and filtered through what the college needs to see.
Why not put your best foot forward? Because CC says you have to cure cancer, walk a rope across a canyon or questions the importance of the essay? Or that it’s a crapshoot? Because someone told you he heard X? Or you heard it and assume it meant whatever? I don’t think the most desirable kids (from the elites’ perspective) settle for that.
This might now go back to, but what about the kids who are spoon-fed by private counselors? I don’t think a PC can replace what isn’t there. But the savvy kids do seek various sorts of (qualified) advice, process that and then make their best decisions. Nothing wrong with that. In some fields, it’s an asset.
I read the last paragraph of #327 as supporting the hire of a private admissions counselor, for a student who is already pretty strong. Of course, the private counselor can’t replace what isn’t there, and I don’t think anyone on the thread has suggested that the students are being spoon-fed by any reputable college counselor.
However, it seems to me that “savvy + money” probably gets a student better advice than “savvy” alone. Savvy + money + location would be great, if one could arrange it.
To add: while a private counselor can’t replace what isn’t there, in my opinion it is highly likely that a private admissions counselor could actually make a student savvy, in certain admissions-related terms. After all of this time on CC, I have a very much better idea of what the colleges are looking for than I did at the outset. A private admissions counselor who had accumulated similar knowledge in the course of counseling could easily confer an advantage by passing it along to any reasonably attentive applicant.
Funny. I didn’t write it in in support of hiring a PC.
I do advocate bright kids getting savvy advice.to offer perspective they may be missing. That’s not necessarily anything like a PC. And plenty of good advice is free.
^indeed…I’ve gotten tons of good free advice here! So you don’t need to pay:)
DS had a couple of “ANDS” that made him quite interesting. I was able to utilize the free, valuable advice from CC parents who had already been through the process when he was applying to colleges. I’m still here 9 years later trying to pay it forward.
CC has become a great source of advice, as it has grown over time. Of course, some winnowing of posts is necessary. For example, people should ignore my comments about how admissions should operate–my philosophy has been adopted by zero (count 'em, zero) top colleges, so far.
But in my opinion, the information available on CC about the actual operations of admissions has leveled the playing field quite a bit.
I don’t look down on any family for using a good private admissions counselor, if there is one in their area and the charges are affordable.
I have no idea how any Harvard rep could have said it with a straight face in the last 5+ years.
They had not REQUIRED an essay for at least that long.
Could refer to the Commom App essay?
That is interesting. The CDS seems to put pretty much everything at the same level including application essay. Only thing they don’t seem to care about is the class rank and religion.
http://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2013-14.pdf
Harvard makes the supplemental essay “optional” but every applicant still needs to submit essays required by the Common Application.
Should we add another sentence here: Do we know for sure whether this essay is really written by this kid, rather than somebody hired by his/her wealthy parents? LOL.
Even if the essay is really written by such a student, this reminds me of this: DS once said that, once a top student has been at a top high school or college, he is likely very good at writing what the reviewer wants to see, including padding their resume. Sometimes the person depicted in the essay is very different from the real person. This is what our education has trained them to do, and sometimes has trained them very well.
BTW, I am not sure if this is related attitude: At my work in my life time, I was occasionally asked to mentor/train some new college graduate or an intern when they just get on board. What annoys me the most in some cases is when these new hires try to impress you by pretending to be a “kid-who-is-so-talented-that-he-has-known-everything.” When they know a little bit about something, they would claim they have known it well. When they really do not know it, they would say something like this: I heard of something about it before but could not remember it on top of my head – even if apparently he has never heard of it before. To some of them, it is almost like a “crime” to admit there is something he or she does not know on the first day at work. Then, it is very difficult to know what they know and what they do not. It makes the mentoring and training process more difficult than it should be for everybody involved. The college should educate them better about not being afraid to admit there is something they have not learned yet, instead of polishing their skills of glorifying how great they are constantly.
^I’m not sure that what you describe has anything to do with how colleges “train” kids, but more about the upbringing of said generation where the environment has been created where kids aren’t allowed to make mistakes, and have to be perfect all of the time.