Here's The College Essay That Got A High School Senior Into Every Ivy League School

College Essays
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Again, I am have little sympathy for the misrepresented.<a href=“Directly%20copied%20from%20your%20post.”>/quote</a></p>

<p>Interesting way to put it. You have little sympathy for the misrepresented. Yes, I’m sure that’s true. Freudian slip maybe?</p>

<p>I have little sympathy for people who advance their own self-serving objectives by maligning teenagers who have done nothing wrong.</p>

<p>I feel duped because I took you at face-value when you expressed concern about young people. Obviously you are only concerned about young people YOU define as worthy of that concern. I now realize that this is not an honest debate or sincere concern, but merely a justification for your own preconceived bias. Luckily, this thread will also be closed soon. </p>

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<p>@Elliemom - I am just putting into proper perspective on what others have said on this thread as well; the essay and everything else are nothing special for the Ivys. Worthy Ivy candidate yes, but nothing out of the ordinary for the Ivys. Why being upfront about exactly where he stands within the Ivys is called maligning is beyond me. </p>

<p>Because of this, I made sure to tell my kids that if anyone is over-presenting / misrepresenting (really the same thing) what they have done, make sure they correct the record pronto. This is an instructive lesson for sure. We can agree to disagree on that. Yes, I do agree the thread has probably run its course.</p>

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“cannot” say no has nothing to do with it. Of course he could have said no. There is no reason he should have said no. He is responsible for what he alone says about himself, not for what other people make his story out to be. And from what I can tell, he merely gave honest answers to questions.</p>

<p>It is a simple principle, really, and I am surprised when people do not take this principle for granted. The principle is: whatever the context and whatever the information, you are responsible for your words alone, not for how other people use your words.</p>

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<p>This student is every bit as accomplished as most of his classmates will be at whatever school he chooses.</p>

<p>He is not the greatest writer but it is obvious his essay wasn’t crowdsource-edited like so many. Plus, as others have said above, writing doesn’t have to be his strong suit since he plans to go premed.</p>

<p>As for the publicity, he is like a lot of teenagers who would like to enjoy their 15 minutes of fame. How about the girl who wrote the whiny essay “To all the schools that rejected me?” (I believe it was published in the NYT or Washington Post.) Wanting public attention is a fact of modern times for many kids, even if they only want to get a lot of Instagram followers or see their videos shared on YouTube. It is a bit ironic that people would hold this kid to a higher standard than everyone else. </p>

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<p>I don’t think the news is about the fact that he had a 2250 and got in while others didn’t, it was about the fact that he got into all 8. The surprise here being that he was admitted into eight widely selective institutions.</p>

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<p>@Suchwowmuchcool - didn’t mean to offend you. If you notice, I also mentioned I wouldn’t want to go to a school of all white people (and yes, I am white). I personally would feel out of place in a school dominated by a background that wasn’t my own, but I also would not at all enjoy being surrounded by people just like me. I didn’t mean to insinuate that any particular race is undesirable, but rather say that I prefer diversity to a homogeneous culture regardless of whether or not I am well represented. I could have, and probably should have, listed more races rather than possibly allude to a bias against Asians or whites but I thought that having included in that posted that I am white, it would’ve been noted (and it was partially because I was typing on my phone, which takes forever). Sorry again.</p>

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<p>There are all black schools–why aren’t they criticized as being boring?</p>

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<p>awcntdb wrote: “The tops do not like when posers try to take their limelight.”</p>

<p>Can we not congratulate this young man without tearing him down and hoping that he will be put in his place at school? From what my son has told me about the kids at his school, I have a hard time belieiving that this will happen on his campus. </p>

<p>Let’s not forget. This kid did receive a 2250 on his SAT. That is in the top 2% of the nation. Aren’t most of the kids who apply to Ivy League Schools average Ivy candidates within the 25 - 75% group? I don’t think that he is going to have any problems ‘keeping up’ with the vast majority of the kids at whatever school he picks. For example, my son is an exceptionally bright young man at an Ivy league school; however, his roommate is one of those kids on the bell curve who blows everyone else away. My son still enjoys debating his roommate, but in his words, “I have never won a debate with XX.” To which his roommate responds that he doesn’t view debate as a competition but an exchange of ideas where you try to sway someone to your viewpoint. To which my son responds while laughing, “Says the foot to the flower as it crushes it underneath it” The point being that spirited debate and discussion really isn’t a competition but an exchange of ideas during which even the ‘smartest’ of people may learn something from someone else. Furthermore, my son doesn’t feel ‘put in his place’ by a smarter person than he and continues to debate his roommate.</p>

<p>As for the 15 minutes of fame, I agree with sally305. There are not many kids of 18 who would turn down the opportunity to appear on the David Letterman show. People get on the Letterman show because their pets can do stupid tricks. Does he still do that or am I aging myself? :slight_smile: </p>

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<p>There was a girl in our college who had apparently attained the status of a local celebrity by virtue of being accepted to our college. She had the cover of the equivalent of 'Parade Magazine" in her local New Orleans newspaper, and I think she hoped that no one would ever find out about it when she went to college. But of course several kids ended up seeing the article. For four years, people made cracks about how she had done something that we all regarded as pretty ordinary (getting into Wellesley) but that she had gotten extensive newspaper coverage for the same feat. It was regarded as odd.</p>

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<p>On the subject of the essay itself, I just found it confusing that he was so idealistic about the process of making music. My kid plays the violin for several hours a day, studied at Julliard while in high school, wins competitions, etc. and he doesn’t talk that way about music (i.e. “a world of infinite possibilities contained within the notes.” ) He tends to talk about technique and mastering a passage and about harmonics and how you resolve a chord. He’s much more down to earth and pragmatic about music, more businesslike if you will. He likely wouldn’t tell you about infinite possibilities but about the four different people who are best known for their interpretations of a specific piece, for example, and then explain to you why the interpretations are different. To me, the essay seemed a bit childish and silly in that regard – a bit like the tourists who visit some developing country where people are starving and then tell you how beautiful the scenery was. It suggests a lack of real understanding of what’s underneath the surface. In other words, someone who talks that way about music probably isn’t a real musician who has actually struggled hard to achieve a really high level of mastery – either that or he truly is a musical prodigy, but if he were, then he would probably be composing or winning compositions.
Please don’t jump all over me and call me a racist for sharing this thought. I just thought it was interesting that he maintained that level of idealism about music since I know many musicians who are not that idealistic about the whole enterprise.</p>

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<p>removed - second thoughts</p>

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<p>Everyone is different, Momzie. Isn’t that the beauty of it all? :slight_smile: Some people aren’t good at articulating the “why” behind their passions, even if they are entirely committed to them. </p>

<p>You seem to keep wanting to disparage this kid’s musical endeavors. No, he is not at Juilliard, but so what? He isn’t going to college to become a professional musician. MOST kids at Ivies and other competitive schools are not involved in music or other ECs at the level of your child. That doesn’t make them any less worthy or interesting. The kid wants to be a doctor. Isn’t that enough?</p>

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<p>@‌Momzie You’ve given us a thoughtful, intelligent, and informed analysis of the essay. I’m not a musician, so I don’t have the background to make that kind of critique, but your post provided an interesting perspective. :slight_smile: </p>

<p>I think one of the things that completely derailed this thread was the title, “Here’s the college essay that got a high school senior into every Ivy school.” Most who have posted expressed basically the same critique—it’s an “okay” essay, not embarrassing but not spectacular either. Presenting it as “the essay that earned the Ivy sweep” evokes two less-than-positive responses (IMO) : 1) It stirs the resentment of those who have written and read better essays that have met with less successful results (the “my kid did better than that!” response) and 2) It suggests a “standard of excellence” for future applicants that is likely way short of the mark and will probably lead to disappointment (the “if that’s all it takes, I guess what I wrote in English class is good enough after all!” response). </p>

<p>@momofmuscian17 I enjoyed that post. Your writing is more what I would have been looking for when earlier I said that if I were a preapplication reader, I would have handed the essay back to the writer and said, “now make it sing!” Your post sang. :slight_smile: </p>

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<p>And good writing is not necessarily a prerequisite of admission or sole indicator of success at an Ivy university, either. It’s one of several pieces of the puzzle.</p>

<p>I see it in my own children—one is a born writer but a reluctant scholar; the other is an excellent student, but her writing is pedestrian though logical and grammatically correct (and at 17, she still has time to grow as writer). I’m sure S would write a better essay; I’m also sure D would be a more successful member of the freshman class. (And, as their mom, I have my own “holistic review” techniques for that assessment. :wink: )</p>

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<p>Why thank you EllieMom! :smiley: </p>

<p>I also agree that the title of the thread engenders ill will as this essay is only average. I have a hard time believing that Dave Berry, who is a CC Admissions Expert, didn’t know what the response would be to posting this young man’s essay with title that he chose. </p>

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<p>Like others, I think it’s an okay essay, but probably not the major factor in his acceptance. I did like what he had to say about leadership though. Not everyone at an Ivy is going to be a world class writer. My oldest got into Harvard with an essay that at best could be characterized as “good for an engineer.” </p>

<p>I’ve sort of enjoyed the detour about how professional vs perhaps more amateur musicians view music. I happen to have read my older son’s best friend’s essay a few years back. (Since it had already been sent in, I didn’t share that I didn’t like it much.) He swooned in a similar away about music. He got into Princeton. So obviously the essay did not hold him back or admissions committees are not overly bothered by teenagers going a little overboard in the sentimental department.</p>

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<p>@Halogen … I would love to know how many Ivy League applicants have ever read any of Archimedes’ works, and could speak intelligently about any of his inventions. I am not so sure that Archimedes himself would have had a chance at getting admitted to any of those schools, or whether he would have even desired it.</p>

<p>I really don’t care one way or the other which students get admitted to the Ivy Leagues, as I don’t have that much respect for the Ivy Leagues, which I find to have been overrun long ago by conformist, liberal idiocy. I look around at those who know hold positions of power in our society, and who were educated at Ivy League schools, and I see a lot of mediocre dimwits who exert an inordinate amount of influence on the world and do not deserve to do so, and have only been allowed to do so because of the connections they enjoy as a result of being a part of that exclusive world. The world, in many ways, would be better off without Ivy League graduates. I know my bank account would be larger, and my country stronger, without them.</p>

<p>Of course, I am in the minority with my disdain for the over-worshipped Ivy League. Many students (and their parents) still believe in these schools, and the possibility of joining that exclusive world is just too hard to resist. So, like many others, this young man made a decision when he was a sophomore in high school to aim for admission to the Ivy Leagues, and he planned to apply to all of them. Why not? Eight chances, and he hoped for at least one. He never expected to receive offers from all eight schools. He won the Ivy League lottery eight times, and people around here, who consider themselves so-called experts at discerning Ivy League caliber students (that often referred-to “wow” factor, which, by the way, is only worth a hill of beans if the persons being “wowed” are particularly wow-worthy themselves, which is absurd) cannot stand it.</p>

<p>Well, so what. Get over it. If you played the Ivy League lottery, and lost, that is just really too bad. This young man did not steal your ticket. He paid for his own. He bought eight tickets, and, fortunately for him, he won every prize. And you will just have to face the fact that the admissions readers (whose opinions are the only ones that count after all) liked him better. End of story.</p>

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<p>@chesterton You’re so bitter. I didn’t mean to hurt your precious feelings; I was just trying to help. And guess what? I’m an immigrant too. </p>

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<p>Actually, the real problem is that it negates the whole concept of a holistic review of an application.</p>

<p>It really is the same as saying: “Here is the 2400 SAT score that got a student into all the Ivies”.</p>

<p>It is a shame since it is a disservice to future applicants if CC is promoting the idea that an essay is what it takes to get you into all the Ivies.</p>

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<p>@bozllie… I have to assume your apology is misdirected, as I have no idea what you are talking about. I just had to scroll through the entire thread to remind myself of what you may have written - I had no recollection of anything you had said. All I could find was your post about the student being a first generation college student. Was that it? As far as your impression that I am bitter, nothing could be further from the truth. And no worry about hurting my feelings, whether they be precious or not. I can assure you that my feelings would never be hurt by strangers in a public forum like this. So don’t worry yourself.</p>