From a former Ivy League admissions officer.
Interesting RDad; my father also found it less cooperative than he hoped, wasn’t so happy there, though now we’re talking eons ago. But his brother never really left.
My issue with Urena, Sue, is he only worked at Cornell two years, left in 2010, and now, as a private counselor, it seems to me, needs to establish his “authority” in potential clients’ minds. So, I’d just say, read him as one source, not definitive. And of course, I get a little prickly when anyone starts to talk of “passions.” A kid could be a solid contributor in his local community, doesn’t need to be doing something earth-shattering or rare. A collection of proofs may have less impact than conveying enthusiasm and some mature perspective.
Urena also doesn’t, iirc, cover what some breadth in activities can represent. He mentions responsibilities, but a lot of kids still confuse that with titles or some big bang.
@lookingforward, I found Harvard to be an incredible collection of resources with some tremendous people, many of whom were very generous to me. But I found a lot of barriers to going off the beaten path, and some frustration among even highly placed professors about crossing borders within the university. I found much less resistance to this at other places.
@Sue22, I love the “awesomeness” adcom approach, and I agree that sustained and committed interest with tangible accomplishments is much more impressive. I don’t think it has to be earth shattering, but the more sustained, dedicated and accomplished, the better.
I don’t agree with post 140 irrespective of who the author is and it seems to me he/she is making it up to make it sound like there are only extraordinary kids being admitted at these ivory towers.
If someone played sports at state level, they are usually IN. period. The coaches take care of them if their academics are found acceptable, especially if the student is from larger states where reaching the the state level takes exceptional athleticism.
I am inclined to agree with texaspg, post #143. My bar for “awesome” is apparently set higher than the author of the quotation in #140 (Urena?) sets his bar.
I don’t think that it’s limited to sports, though. The single-initial schools, HYPSMN (N with a nod to Pizzagirl) all admit excellent students who are fine people, but few of them are actually “awesome.”
Of course, it’s a great help in terms of admissions if the student’s accomplishments are stunning. In terms of the labels I’d assign, I think “impressive” seems to be good enough (not meaning “impressive” just in a local context).
@Texaspg, You can certainly disagree with the former AO, but I have to disagree with this:
Take soccer, for example. Every state has state champion teams, usually on Div. 1, 2 and 3 levels. That’s 150 teams. Add in every state’s Olympic Development Team and many, many top level club teams and even taking into account some overlap you’re talking on the order of 200 teams worth of kids. Most of these kids will not play on a varsity team in college at all, much less be recruited by an Ivy League or similar school.
My town’s soccer team was the state champion team for two years and was ranked #16 nationally. At the same time it was ranked among the top academic schools in a state with strong public school. Yet very few of the players on this team went on to Ivy League schools.
Awesomeness comes in many flavors. It can even be just the way a kid perceives things.
Note he also said “likability.” (That means, to adcoms, not hs popularity.) I know we fuss a lot on CC about “gain,” status/standing, awards, prominence, but adcoms like to like a kid. Same as we like some hs kids on CC.
Having spent time on Ivy League campuses, and also seen who among my student applicants does get admitted, I do agree (mostly) with post 140. Among the non-hooked population, extraordinary dominates. The part I don’t agree with, though, is the supposedly deliberate “turning into tangible assets” of one’s abilities,. If the student has those abilities, they are generally pursued, and in pursuit, are awarded tangibly. The passion tends to produce results because that’s what is often generated from “pursuit.” There’s no need to be contrived about it. I think LF would probably agree with me on that point.
I think the “awesome” can be something other than a stunningly impressive accomplishment. It’s something that makes the applicant memorable.
I was just reading a post by a ORM student from an overrepresented state. Top scores and grades and a bunch of science olympiads and honor societies. Applying to Ivies. Clearly he is qualified to do the work at these schools, but as I read his list my eyes glazed over and I pictured some poor admissions officer desperately looking for something to differentiating this student from the hordes of qualified students.
@QuantMech: Nice touch with the acronym. LOL And I too agree with the posters who don’t buy the former Cornell AO’s theory. He’s apparently purposefully mystefying elite college admission process in order to maximize personal gain as a private counselor.
Urena (?) did certainly mention likability, and I don’t doubt that it is a factor, but it got relatively short shrift in the excerpt in #140. Maybe he wrote at more length about likability in another spot in the book?
I don’t think it’s even a book, just a guest appearance on some site-?
About memorable- sometimes, that can just come from the way a kid chooses to present himself. The application and supp may be in a standard format, but each candidate has the opportunity to decide what will come through, beyond grades and the rote list of activities. And they should be thinking of that whole that they present.
That’s one reason I push that kids should know their target colleges. The kids who think it’s just rank and awards are not only shorting themselves on the match process but also in how to handle their apps.
My impression here is that the “and” is something that strikes a chord in the AdCom, and sticks with them. I’m not sure you can define that, so it may be an impossible “ask” of @lookingforward tho they have given several examples. Same with a negative. Who knows what will come off as negatively extraordinay? (i.e., Egyptology…good or bad…)
I don’t love the concept of the “and”. I think kids are under enough pressure, and too many have that “and” designed for them…and some, the and is circumstances they came through, nothing they did. They merely survived…great for sure, but an and?
But it is what it is, and it must be kept in mind when applying, as something to temper expectations. You don’t have to like the message to appreciate the knowlege.
Personally, I’d give full “AND” credit to an applicant who came through difficult circumstances.
But aside from that, I agree with HRSMom. The near-requirement for an AND for the top schools adds pressure to the process, that wasn’t there back when I was in high school. In current terms, I’d say that I had one real AND and a couple of quasi-ANDS, but in those days no one was directing their additional activities with college admissions as the goal (in my area, at least). Now, even students who are pursuing AND activities out of the sheer love of what they are doing cannot be completely unaware that it also affects college admissions.
I also agree that some of the ANDs are designed. This may be done with the student’s interests in mind, but some of the ANDs are not entirely student-generated. It might not be so easy to tell, when there are several arms’-lengths involved in the connection.
These threads always frustrate me so much. I want to tell all the students on CC that while I’m sure it’s nice to attend an Ivy League school, setting their sights on that acceptance with such frantic determination is completely self-defeating. It’s like convincing yourself that the only way to find happiness in romance is to date one of the dozen or so most popular kids at your school. I can’t possibly tell a person like that that they would be just as happy dating someone less sought-after, because they’ve convinced themselves so thoroughly that there is only one road to happiness, that they have literally closed off every other potential avenue for themselves. And if I said “just be yourself and do what brings you happiness and stop caring so much about what the popular kids think,” these poor students would say hopefully “and then will they start liking me?”
So sure, this thread has some great advice for someone who is longing for that elite college acceptance. Basically, stop caring so much about getting into an elite college. Quit always thinking about how your ECs will look on your resume, quit obsessing over your grades and test scores, quit trying to make yourself into the ideal Ivy League candidate. You will know you’ve succeeded when you don’t even care about getting into an Ivy anymore, at which point you are much more likely to actually get accepted to an Ivy, because now you are coming across in your application as an interesting person! That’s all that ECs and “passion” and and AND are all about – are you an interesting person or not? Well, guess what, people who spend all their time trying to turn themselves into ideal Ivy candidates instead of just being themselves, are not very interesting.
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And to respond to the concept of having something memorable (the “AND”) on the application, my older daughter (will be attending Scripps in the fall) had only two ECs – dancing and LGBT issues. She was probably known to admissions committees as “the gay ballerina.” 
Good post, #154.
Yes, @dustypig, the AND is something you’ve either got or you don’t. You can not create it from thin air. It can not be over-contrived. And (just the conjunction, not the subject of this thread…), you also need to be able to present it in an interesting and engaging form (again, some kids can just do this, and others cannot).
I think some forget there is an application between the kid and the admit. There are other parents who claim their sons and daughters only did X and Y in hs, but the app is a self presentation, not a raw brag sheet and some off the cuff answers to a few questions. Adcoms read it all, they try to glean what’s behind the numbers, accolades and purported interests. Try to know what your colleges and their adcoms value, need, and seek, how that community works. If you and your child do research the colleges, I believe you’ll get an idea of what makes a mutual fit. As we keep acknowledging, it’s more than their rep and your hs standing.
The most activated kids are incredibly impressive. It’s not curing cancer or raising $5k or winning a national award. It’s the whole, the young people they seem to be. We like to think they are tiger kids or manufactured or must be padding or suffering miserably. But they have engaged in some depth and some breadth and still have friends and a life.
No, difficult circumstances are not, in themselves, an AND. (How could they be?) What they are is a challenge and the best kids have surmounted them. They are out there leading, contributing, developing insights and other ANDs.
For a tippy top, it’s a fierce competition.
"Awesomeness comes in many flavors. It can even be just the way a kid perceives things.
Note he also said “likability.” (That means, to adcoms, not hs popularity.) I know we fuss a lot on CC about “gain,” status/standing, awards, prominence, but adcoms like to like a kid. Same as we like some hs kids on CC."
Interesting and likable. Hmmm, I’d like to sit down with this kid and talk to him more about this. He sounds like he has some interesting anecdotes, points of view, approaches to life. He will have something of interest to share with the community. He didn’t just phone it in.
This is how you’re evaluated in life and social situations and job interviews. It is really frustrating that some of you don’t seem to get this.