@CHD2013, He’ll be a junior this year, so I have no idea what he will write. He will probably write about his physics research, I suppose.
My son tells me BBC has better news coverage, and I shouldn’t rely on CNN.
I’ll share that with her. He sounds like a great kid. Just tell him to let that interest/fascination come through. I’ve seen essays about research where you can feel their excitement, how they learned even through failure or long, boring timelines in the lab, or whatever it is. Contrast that to the kid who just wants you to know his lead loves him or how he got his name on some paper.
Ya know, this AND is the same thing that makes us like some of our kids’ friends, whether or not they are top 5%. Some spark. Yeah.
odd dup, came out of nowhere. deleting it.
Re. post #64:
I was told my son was a “breath of fresh air” by someone that works at the elite school that he will be attending. He had weaknesses (lot of 'em, IMO) as an applicant, but perhaps his strengths and atypical interests (essays, too?) for this school were interesting enough to overcome those weaknesses.
@Hunt, this is a great thread. Thanks for starting it.
I’ve generally counseled applicants that they need to do 2 things: (1) meet the necessary cutoffs and criteria to be “competitive”; AND (2) stand out in some respect from the thousands of other competitive applicants. I think that the stronger #2 is the more adcoms will be willing to cut a bit of slack with #1, but there are limits. The applicant who just doesn’t have the grades or scores will have to be unbelievably qualified in some other regard to get by.
I think the “and” can be achieved in a lot of different ways: by doing something at an extremely high level; by doing something in a different way than most people so that it stands out; by doing something offbeat or different that captures people’s attention; by showing risk taking or curiosity in a way which stands out; by compelling writing; and probably lots of other ways.
Ironically, I firmly believe that a lot of high school kids try to hard. They are so busy adding clubs and miscellaneous “other stuff”, and trying to improve their SAT from a 2280 to a 2320 believing it will make a difference, and taking 10-15 AP exams, and pulling their hair out over the lone B that they got as a freshman, that they come across as contrived and artificial. I truly believe that most elite schools would prefer someone who has a few - not too many, but a few - warts because they took risks and made some hard choices and went out and did things that they loved with gusto without worrying about the consequences, and achieved at a high level. Maybe I’m naive. But I really believe that.
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Contrary to the opinions of CC hs kids and some parents, your hs excellence is shared by thousands of others who present with 4.0 and good scores, the same old combo of hs activities
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Amen!
It is weird to hear out-of-town friends/relatives who think that their kids with a ~4.0 GPA, a 2200+ SAT score with some blah ECs have a good chance at HYPMS and a locked chance at “second tier” ivies. This makes the subsequent rejection at our “lowly” flagship state schools even more galling.
I have known my kids’ friends who were admitted to HYPMS and they are a pretty impressive bunch.
IMHO, it is something that either your kids have IT or they don’t…
I have known:
1 kid who consistent volunteered over 500 hours a year at the local hospital (I was hard pressed to get my kid to volunteer 20 hours in 4 years in order to meet the HS requirement)
1 kid who competed musically internationally and got the meet POTUS (in contrast, my kid was in the band for 4 years - yeah!)
1 kid who produced anti-gay-bullying music videos that are aired nationally (my kid showed up at a gay-pride parade - does that count?)
The list goes on.
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Ironically, I firmly believe that a lot of high school kids try to hard. They are so busy adding clubs and miscellaneous "other stuff", and trying to improve their SAT from a 2280 to a 2320 believing it will make a difference
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I just do not understand the obsession of some parents for the prestige of these schools. Unless you have an exceptional kid, the chance is small for your kid to attend one. For most cases, “tigering” your kids make no difference at all. There are many other great schools out there that provide a great education - pick a decent school and do some serious learning.
Lots of us don’t understand the obsession. Perhaps even more of us do not understand the inability to be objective about qualities that one’s own son or daughter has not shown to the world (yet). It’s not that exceptional promise will never be shown, but the level to which a student is a candidate for an elite institution for freshman year admission is not a matter of mere faith in the hidden qualities of that student – the kind of faith a good parent has. The elite institutions need evidence, and if the evidence is only standard or very good as opposed to exceptional among peers, the failure to come to terms with that reality results in an enormous waste of time.
I see this so much in my practice: good students wasting months (August to January) in a fruitless effort applying to super-reaches like Yale and Penn and contorting their essays to make themselves people they are not, when really the student is merely an excellent candidate for the State’s outstanding flagship and will thrive and blossom there.
And actually, even though I agree with you that trumpeting high grades and high scores as “qualifications” are signs of ignorance about the competition (that aspect tends to come more from parents), it’s the students recently who have been ignorant about the relative importance of their activities. Look, “starting an online, socially-conscious company” which sells two items is NOT qualification for the Ivy League. It’s not “special.” It’s not exceptional. It doesn’t prove you have the kind of promise an elite institution is looking for. And it’s really okay to enroll at a wonderful pubic or a different private. Any student of mine who has ended up at “only” his or her safety school has done or is doing beautifully there. Sometimes I hear directly about how they’re doing, sometimes through social media (or both).
So, refresh my memory: What was all the do or die about again?
@epiphany, a few thoughts on the above discussion:
- I think that kids (and many parents) generally don't think enough about "fit" - finding a place that suits their personality, temperament or interests. They are mostly focused on name recognition. There are exceptions, of course, but there are lots of kids who are focused on going to school X who don't really know much about it's student life, culture, academic programs, etc. Some don't take the time to get on web sites and investigate what's available at the schools they are targeting. Being bright enough to get into school X is completely different from being a good fit there.
- I see a tremendous amount of time being wasted in an "incremental" approach: trying to nudge activities up inch by inch to meet some imagined threshold. "I have a 2250 SAT, but I'm retaking and aiming for a 2300+"; "I have 80 hours of community service, but I'm hoping to get to around 120 this year"; "I'm vice-president of 2 school clubs, and I'm running for president this year". Not a good strategy, in my opinion.
- Different students develop/mature at different rates. The student who found their passion early on and developed it may have the "it" factor for colleges, but isn't necessarily brighter or doesn't necessarily have more potential than the one who developed more slowly. Life doesn't end with college acceptance, nor does success at the college game necessarily predict success in life. Getting in to college is just one of many games with its own unique rules.
There’s misunderstanding about “passion,” same as with national awards. You can be passionate about things that run counter to the overall a college is looking for,maybe reflect isolation, self-limits, judgment, etc. Even Harvard ends with, “Would other students want to room with you, share a meal, be in a seminar together, be teammates, or collaborate in a closely knit extracurricular group?”
Going in reverse order with Reply #87:
I think both my recent post and some other posts I have made support your #3 already. One of my points was that the capability is evidenced later than high school in many (maybe even most) cases, but that colleges don’t make freshman admissions decisions based on unproven faith and personal affection/commitment, unlike parents. And that there’s nothing wrong with blossoming later. I thought I already said that, a number of times.
Your #2. Yes, that is exactly what happens. It’s an incremental quantitative approach. More in college admissions is based on quality than on quantity.
Your #1: Yes, and this can be a cultural thing. The notion of “fit,” particularly including an interest in any emotional component to that can be a cultural hurdle when college is seen as a means to an end, not a process, encounter, discovery, personal growth opportunity in itself – as well as a place to learn skills and earn some credentials. The other part, which speaks to your example, is the failure to recognize that each campus has a distinct “culture,” even if that culture is a hybrid of some sort. (And so they don’t bother to investigate any supposed “differences” because the only differences are rankings.) OTOH, if all you value in a college is how much money it will make for your career, you’re not even imagining “college life.” The enrollment is merely utilitarian (you think), and a boot camp for career.
@epiphany I love your post #86. Spot on, thanks.
Someone who is passionate about Egyptology would be better off at Oxford than at any US college, in my opinion. This is about the only type of passionate interest that would seem to reflect “isolation” or “self-limits,” for an American student.
Of course, there is always the AND of rutabaga curling–I could not have guessed that it is a “thing,” but apparently it actually exists.
You’re welcome, Tiggy. Thank you.
@renaissancedad “1. I think that kids (and many parents) generally don’t think enough about “fit” - finding a place that suits their personality, temperament or interests. They are mostly focused on name recognition. There are exceptions, of course, but there are lots of kids who are focused on going to school X who don’t really know much about it’s student life, culture, academic programs, etc. Some don’t take the time to get on web sites and investigate what’s available at the schools they are targeting. Being bright enough to get into school X is completely different from being a good fit there.”
I have to agree. I truly have no problem with the student who chooses to apply to Harvard, Yale etc. but too often it seems they have little notion of why it would be the best school for them to attend. We see prospective engineers asking about Ivy league schools when there are a hundred other schools which might better help them achieve their goals. We see students who want to be doctors trying to get into elite undergraduate schools when it might be better to be the big academic fish in an average pond than an average one or worse in the elite pond.
I also agree with others about students who try to fit themselves into some mold that I’m not sure exists. If a kid is passionate about something and has a thousand volunteer hours that great! That doesn’t mean anyone else has to emulate that kid to be a good applicant and get into a good college. As parents I think we forget that it is OK just to be good (or average even) and not always the “best”. This pressure to be the best can’t be healthy. Getting the best grades, having the best EC’s, writing the best essay, so you can get into the best school, etc. sounds to me like there is little room for failure. Every time I see a a student post on CC that they are worried about that B in math their freshman year because they might not get into Harvard I wonder if priorities aren’t mixed up. I want to tell them to do their best and see where their body of academic work and interests takes them not try to meet some imagined standard.
Charles Darwin was reportedly very interested in the nature and classification of barnacles. I have heard that he often retreated to a study in his home after dinner, to work on barnacles. Apparently, one of Darwin’s young sons thought that this was just part of what fathers did. Visiting a friend’s home, the son asked, “And where does your father work on his barnacles?”
Harvard certainly would not have wanted to admit Charles Darwin–talk about isolation, poor judgment (barnacles? really???) and undesirable qualities in a roommate or meal companion! Luckily, Cambridge . . .
While this story is literally true (to the best of my knowledge), I am not so much being literal here, as indicating that I think that lookingfoward’s admissions philosophy is great for choosing “Future Movers and Shakers of America,” who will have an immediate impact, but less good for choosing scientists who will have a long-term impact on our understanding of nature.
Those who want to pursue a career track in Egyptology specifically are usually looking at archaeology or academia, but they could additionally be interested in a more “applied” use of the subject area, such as eventual museum work or political science. Oxford is a difficult admit, even though lots of people would be “better off” at Oxford.
http://www.brown.edu/academics/egyptology/
http://www.brown.edu/academics/egyptology/about-department
http://www.brown.edu/academics/egyptology/graduate
There’s also Brandeis, Chicago, Catholic U, Queen’s College NY, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, JHU, Princeton, UCB, UCLA, UMich, Penn, Yale, Memphis State.
http://www.guardians.net/egypt/education/egyptology_universities.htm
I always feel “fit” is a very fuzzy and overhyped concept. A truly outstanding student should be able to excel at either Ohio State, or Oberlin, or Yale. In the real world, it is not easy just to find a niche that fits you. We try to fit what the world dishes out at us.
I realize that it is not easy for an American to be admitted to Oxford as an undergraduate. In my posting about the hypothetical Egyptologist, I had in mind a student who is genuinely passionate (and informed) about Egyptology, and who is most likely a stand-out in the statistical aspects of the college application, but who lacks the companionability that some look for, in making elite school admits. An essay about a necropolis is probably not the kind of AND that Harvard wants. But Oxford might, and I think the odds might actually be better there.
I tend to agree with hzhao2004 about fit, if not the entire post. When I hear about “fit,” it usually reminds me of the Star Wars line spoken by the bartender in the cantina at Mos Eisley spaceport, “We don’t want their kind around here.”
The college and university admissions committees disagree with people who find fit unimportant or unsubstantial. They’re the decision makers, and they’re generally very good about noticing positive fit that the student himself or herself may be unsure about. Mostly, in any case, it’s not a matter of ideal or perfect or some bland homogeneous fit, but better versus not quite as good, especially in the case of deciding between one candidate from one region or school, and another.
There’s no need to get paranoid about it, but there are always some people who will be.