<p>After watching the top students from my high school be denied by their top choice schools for several years, I come to wonder what type of high school work ethic accepted students had in high school. Over the past years, the only students I know to be accepted to an ivy league, or comparable university were ranked below the top 1-2% of their class, did not have anywhere near the list of extracurricular activities, but took risks by taking classes not offered to the normal student body. </p>
<p>Is it more common to have the type (1) that study daily while taking a fairly rigorous schedule in order to secure a top rank (.5-1%), or is it the more rebellious students (2) who spend their high school careers taking schedules of unprecedented difficulty, but never do homework outside of class and have never studied for a test leading to a lower, although very respectable class rank (1-5%)? Which type is more successful once accepted? Does the work ethic developed by the type 1 student prove to be more useful than the late nights, but more advanced work done by the type 2 student? Maybe somewhere in between?</p>
<p>hmmm, for my school I think its the type 2 kid who generally gets accepted/does well. The vast majority of the student body seem to think that type one students do better but are rather surprised when the type 2 kid does better. I think its more a matter of how much attention they’re putting in for the amount they’re getting out. I know alot of students who spend their entire day just reviewing notes from class and get a really high class rank but they typically fall behind the type 2 who pushes themselves and have a variety of contest placements/ecs. Then again, I don’t know what happens when they’re off to uni.</p>
<p>What I’ve noticed in general though is that the type 1 student in general has to spend more and more effort to keep up and falls behind eventually even in class rank/gpa whereas the type 2 student can cut down on some activities, etc and maintain his grades.</p>
<p>When you say courses not offered to the normal student body, what do you mean? college courses? other educational programs? AP/IB/etc?</p>
<p>With regards to APs and IBs, pretty much, the kids who take them are ranked first and everyone who doesn’t follows. Everyone taking them has a greater than 4.0 gpa anyways so I don’t think it’d matter if they didn’t do it that way.</p>
<p>I think the student most likely to be accepted to a school like MIT would be one who took a schedule tailored to his or her interests and did exceptionally well in those classes. The motivation has to be internal – you have to take a really difficult schedule and be ranked in the top 1% of your class for yourself, not for MIT’s sake.</p>
<p>I know personally, I was a mix of your categories 1 and 2 – I took a difficult schedule full of the classes that interested me, was extremely busy in a handful of ECs that I loved. I never really studied for tests or spent much time doing homework, but I also kept top grades and finished in the top 1% of my class.</p>
<p>It’s not the grinder versus the smart non-grinder. molliebatmit describes it well. The students I have seen get into MIT and other similar schools are extremely smart, do well in school so that they are in the top 1-2% (and really don’t need to be grinds to do it because of an abundance of natural talent), and are fully formed personalities with a depth of interest and involvement outside of school.</p>
<p>Honestly, education should be for the sake of education, not for the sake of boasting a number (your class rank) to colleges.</p>
<p>Take classes that will challenge you, force you to think (those classes are few and far between), and that you find interesting. It might be an advanced lit class, it might be Introduction to Analysis.</p>
<p>This is kind of interesting. The unfortunate thing is, I spent a lot of time getting good grades in some classes I didn’t want to take. I guess the deal is, I really liked mathematics, and that was what I did outside of class. I went all out on that. </p>
<p>I think the issue is that I’d have been nowhere near top 1%, quite far below, if I’d chosen to take ONLY the classes that interested me in high school. The only honors or AP classes I’d have taken would be AP Physics, AP Calculus, and AP English, consisting of the subjects that interest me. It seems that in most cases, as much as a high GPA doesn’t guarantee admission, having a very modest GPA might require quite a bit to make up for it.</p>
<p>I am probably a type (2) to the ABSOLUTE EXTREME at heart, as even in college, I at times cannot stand the book or professor for a given course (the only one of its kind offered that semester), and will ignore it and read my own (potentially more advanced) version of the given material.</p>
<p>My opinion is that the type (2) does better at the topmost private schools if this type (2) is good at MARKETING his/her type (2)-ness to schools. </p>
<p>But it seems safer to be a type (1), because you’ll get into some good schools no matter what, and if you have extra hooks, you’ll get into some top privates too. I knew some very, very smart guys who were excessively apathetic to college admissions, and had a pretty rough time compared to people with higher GPAs. </p>
<p>Mollie’s “balanced 1 and 2” does seem the ideal candidate.</p>
<p>type (2) because once they’re in college they’ll work harder (since now they need to — yea necessity forces people to adapt, big surprise there), whereas type 1’s can’t work any harder than they already are</p>