<p>From what I’ve read the alumni interview is the least important aspect of the application.</p>
<p>The alum interview at Harvard can tip you in or tip you out.</p>
<p>I’ve had enough follow-up questions from admissions officers about my reports, and I’ve spent enough time with admissions officers to know that they take them seriously. That’s why in some cases H will arrange for applicants to have a second interview. While H doesn’t tell the interviewer or student why such interviews are requested, from what I can figure out it is done when: H is very interested in a student, but the interviewer’s report doesn’t give enough info for H to make a decision; H is very interested in a student, but the interviewer’s report is negative; H was not that interested in a student, but the interviewer’s report included information that indicated the admissions office should take a closer look.</p>
<p>Okay, I lied about leaving the thread ;)</p>
<p>1) H is not the Ivy League.</p>
<p>2) You defined who “belonged”, not who got in. This is quite different. Obviously, these “other” types of students get in–what you’re saying by saying that they don’t “belong” is that they shouldn’t have. I’m sure you’re the absolute expert on who gets into H, but that is not the same thing as saying who belongs in a group of colleges–that’s a value judgment of a different type.</p>
<p>Actually, Garland, I have not personally seen any students get into H including back when I went there, who hadn’t demonstrated some ability to put their ideas into action. This included students who were extremely intellectual. </p>
<p>As I have said before, that doesn’t mean that the students had spearheaded an international or national project, but they had done something that made a positive mpact on someone or some thing other than themselves.</p>
<p>" I’m sure you’re the absolute expert on who gets into H, "</p>
<p>It would be nice if we could disagree while continuing to show respect for each other.</p>
<p>I give up. I am leaving the thread. I can’t comprehend some of the stubborness displayed here.</p>
<p>blue, thanks for your post 381. Similarly, I do not read a dismissive tone. To be realistic about the admissions realities at the group of colleges <em>called</em> “Elite” is not to be dismissive or to be “brutal.” Like JHS, I see this as a “numbers” problem, partly. Within limited time frames for application reviews, & faced with overwhelming numbers applying, this small group of ‘highly desirable’ U’s will tend to notice more those students with some degree of tangible evidence of their dreams & potential. I certainly agree that those who are late-bloomers, or who have chosen a less ‘visible’ path, will be at a slight disadvantage in this current system of review – while they are not necessarily of any less quality of character, potential of performance, or level of intellect. The ones with concrete ‘capital’ will be favored. </p>
<p>To clarify, it was in about the 4th paragraph of my previous post wherein I detailed the student in question with multiple elite admissions being in fact from a family not with a lot of resources – so much so that the babysitting funded the travel to the summer programs – programs which were <em>not</em> provided by “teachers” – gifted or not, but strictly by the unaided initiative of the parents during the parents’ limited free time, and by the student during her similarly limited free time. As to homeschooling, as I’ve said for over a year now on CC, it is an option not for everyone; in fact a small minority of families are able to do this. There are economic, practical, & motivational barriers to homeschooling, making it less popular than other forms. The student I referred to was most definitely not a homeschooled student. Further, the families I’m involved with educationally comprise a variety of everyday realities, most of those on the low end.</p>
<p>And just editing for further clarification, the point about homeschoolers is that even those without a physical campus to go to have found ways to partcipate in some regional & nat’l programs, as these are really available to anyone. We were just emailed some reminders from Collegeboard about some upcoming nat’l competitions (none that my D will be qualified to participate in, but many others will be able to). For such notifications, all one needs is a collegeboard ‘account.’</p>
<p>NSM-- you are right. And I apologize. I still don’t think, though, that your comment was respectful of students. And I do think you tend to conflate H with the other schools, which may be quite different places. I guess I wish your comments were reserved to the one place, rather than seeming like wholesale commentary on who belongs in a whole group of schools. I’ll admit, that shouldn’t rankle, but it did.</p>
<p>
Oh yeah, and please don’t tell Princeton about mine, either. :D</p>
<p>He is exactly a “dreamer without a leadership background” who does not belong. He’s just a junior now, has no record of action on his dreams and oh yes - might yet change his major (or even do it twice, he has at least three he likes almost equally)</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. DS went way beyond what school was offering, but all that was for the sake of learning, not “leadership” or “fruition” or whatnot. I’m pretty sure he will never be a head of nonprofit (or a business). Yes, he is a dreamer. Yes, I think he belongs to Princeton. Fortunately, Princeton agrees. ;)</p>
<p>Northstarmom has again made some good points. Nobody that I can see has said that how hyp chooses students to admit is necessarily the best way - its just how they do it. Do they miss students with great potential using this methodology - obviously. Along with this, a number of students who have accomplished great things while young have frequently burned out by the age of 20 or so. Some have even become street car conductors.</p>
<p>Hey! I want to bring up Bill Gates again!! I think he’s the perfect model for Northstarmom’s “doer not dreamer” dichotomy. Let’s look at what he did as the foundation of Microsoft: He bought somebody else’s software program, renamed it, then used family connections to wangle a sweetheart contract with an officer of a big corporation to install the software on their computers but keeping ownership of it himself - a deal which basically made him a billionaire at the expense of IBM’s shareholders. And he did it all without doing the messy stuff like writing the software code himself! He left that to the “dreamers.” </p>
<p>So, I guess he is the ideal Harvard man, eh? Can’t short him on the “doing” front.</p>
<p>My S is like Marmat’s S, except he hasn’t changed his mind about his major. He had to explain in his app why he had practically no EC and no leardership position. I wish he were more of a “doer.” But I thought he belonged at Harvard (or Princeton) and was glad Harvard agreed, too. </p>
<p>But Marmat’s S and mine are one type of students who get admitted. Princeton, Harvard and other top school have room for a range of students with a range of skills and interests. Not all of them are Yo-Yo Ma in the making. I’ve heard enough baritones go astray and errant trumpets to know that the orchestras and choirs are not filled with ready-for-Carnegie Hall performers who are also social studies majors and tutor immigrants in Mattapan in their pare time. </p>
<p>There are some superstars in terms of academic or ECs, and there are some superhooked students; but there are others as well who are high achievers who have done something that. while not of Nobel Peace Prize caliber, have sufficiently impressed the adcoms. Students very like curmudgeon’s D. Come to think of it, she was admitted to Yale. But she is going to Rhodes. Which means that there are many schools where students have very similar profiles to the HYP students.</p>
<p>EDIT: I dislike HYP-worship as much as I dislike Harvard-bashing.</p>
<p>You know, I’ve got one of each kind of kid. An observer, albeit a highly articulate observer, and a doer - watch out you might get organized into something if you don’t keep moving…</p>
<p>In the world in which I work, one would be the CTO - the one who dreams up what is next, and one would be the COO - the one who makes what comes next happen now. I don’t really have a CEO kid, those are the type who can sell you the chair you are sitting on.</p>
<p>My COO kid was first up. Good outcome. Then with CTO kid (can you be a CTO of words???ohwell) I had great angst. How will he be accepted.? All he has is a pretty high score and decent grades and he won’t study so the score is what it is and he thinks high school is boring so the grades aren’t 100% so now what? Since I knew and know that in terms of the academics he is as capable as the COO kid - and in a way more of a quirky scholar type so professors would really enjoy him.</p>
<p>I even started a thread on late bloomers.</p>
<p>Then my late bloomer educated me by making it quite clear that he liked how he was, he would carry on having his private but burning interests in a really wide range of topics, and would be happy with even the extremely likely school we found that had a department of great interest to him. And, that he’d really rather not package himself one bit. If they like him, they like him. If not, not. And, as Marite pointed out and we know from years on this board: </p>
<p><em>there are really smart kids at lots of schools now</em></p>
<p>Since I already have my decal (well, actually D got me a license plate surround and it has tiger paws on it and I really can’t bear to put it on my car but I have what we might call the psychological decal for my own identity) I find I am for the most part now OK with the fact that many late bloomers, those who like to read and dream and think and comment, but only to themselves or to their dear friends - may not get accepted to colleges where they might in fact become - were they there - one of the academic high points.</p>
<p>But don’t call me in March as I may be on edge:).</p>
<p>
I would agree with “creative or imaginative” and “thoughtful” action. ;)</p>
<p>
Nope. I have at least a small preference for dreaming. I’d druther be readin’ and thinkin’, or cogitatin’ and ruminatin’. </p>
<p>The emphasis on “implementation” was to differentiate it from “result”. (Which was also the purpose of my further “admission” that my D’s project, a thoughtful idea with creative implementation was - although “successful” - not in fact as impacting as it could be.) A small good thing works, too.</p>
<p>
Leave it to Marite to add some common sense perspective!</p>
<p>Amen to that. I have heard a number of the musical groups at Harvard, and let’s just say that I have yet to hear a Carnegie Hall level performance (which I have heard elsewhere…at conservatories, not HYP!!).</p>
<p>Maybe there is a YoYo Ma in the making at Harvard too, but I suspect he/she is in the joint Harvard/NEC program!</p>
<p>Let’s not overinflate every Harvard undergrad as being soooooooo special!</p>
<p>I think the more balanced blend of perspectives and voices emerging on this thread is taking us all in a good direction. Good therapy - keep it going guys!</p>
<p>Just so we are all clear, 
. Someone else can fight the supposed dreamer/action taker. That wasn’t my point. </p>
<p>My point was that a regular kid who was neither re-translating Homer for her personal amusement nor founding an award winning national or state or even city-wide poverty program can and does gain admission to every elite school. And one way is by “See a problem. Fix a problem.” And there are other ways, too. </p>
<p>Superpowers and cape are not required. Not saying they aren’t helpful, but as of yet …</p>
<p>NSM, I think that you are well within your rights to speak as a representive of HARVARD, but Harvard is not representative of all Ivy’s. A student who is accepted at one Ivy does not mean they would be a good fit at all the Ivy’s. That is the point some posters were trying to make.</p>
<p>"My S is like Marmat’s S, except he hasn’t changed his mind about his major. He had to explain in his app why he had practically no EC and no leardership position. I wish he were more of a “doer.” But I thought he belonged at Harvard (or Princeton) and was glad Harvard agreed, too. </p>
<p>But Marmat’s S and mine are one type of students who get admitted. Princeton, Harvard and other top school have room for a range of students with a range of skills and interests. Not all of them are Yo-Yo Ma in the making."</p>
<ol>
<li>I would bet that your students exhibited some leadership while in high school. I have never said that a person had to have had an official leadership position, though I have never personally met a H student who didn’t have leadership position. I have said they had to have done something to bring some of their ideas to fruition. The example that I gave was a H admit who had noticed that a nonprofit’s web site was outdated, and who then created a new web site for them without being asked. That was an excellent example of leadership. Having a leadership title with no accomplishments or impact behind it would not be impressive to admissions officers.</li>
</ol>
<p>One doesn’t need a lot of ECs to get into Harvard, so it doesn’t matter that one parent here had a student who did “next to no ECs” and got in. The quality of the ECs matters more than the quantity, and quality isn’t determined by the title of the EC, but by what the student accomplished in that.</p>
<p>As for musicians, I don’t think anyone here has said that a musician had to be Yoyo Ma quality to get in. Having some kind of involvement with music is the most common EC of applicants who become Harvard students. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that playing an instrument is what got them into H. What that means is that some of the strongest applicants (many of whom are Asian, a group that has a high level of involvement in classical music) happen to also play musical instruments. The applicants whose music actually is a hook for Harvard are rare as most prodigy-level musician potential applicants would prefer to go to a place like Julliard or Eastman.</p>
<p>One recent example of a prodigy-level musician at Harvard was Joe Lin, '00 (magna cum laude in religious studies), a violinist whose " burgeoning career has taken him around the world. In Hannover, Germany, he became the youngest violinist ever to win a prize at the prestigious International Violin Competition." [Harvard Crimson]</p>
<p>Another recent example:" Few have ever faced the choice that Berenika Zakrzewski '04 had three years ago: Harvard or Juilliard? “It was exasperating,” she says. "It wasn’t choosing between a rock and a hard place, but two great places. …</p>
<p>This summer Zakrzewski (pronounced zak-SHEV-ski) toured the largest concert halls of South America. She has already played Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, soloed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and appeared widely on radio and television, including Bravo! and the BBC. In her native Poland, she has recorded Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Cracow’s Sinfonietta Cracovia; in New York City she played at St. Paul’s Church for the firefighters and relief workers of Ground Zero; and at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre she serenaded the inauguration of President Lawrence H. Summers." [Harvard Magazine]</p>
<p>Meanwhile, many of the H student with backgrounds in music continue their involvement because they genuinely like music as a hobby even though they will never be professional-level performers. That’s why on Arts First weekend, there are more than 200 music, dance, and theater performances by students, who participate for the pure fun of it. Some are very talented. Some are, as one admissions officer tactfully put it, “less experienced.”</p>
<p>" A student who is accepted at one Ivy does not mean they would be a good fit at all the Ivy’s. That is the point some posters were trying to make."</p>
<p>I agree, and have said that elsewhere. While the Ivies differ in some respects, there still is no Ivy that one will be an auto admit because of top scores.</p>
<p>Here are my stats.</p>
<p>All scores are single sitting. </p>
<p>2390
800 bio, 800 math iic, 800 chinese
valedictorian at competitive public</p>
<p>extracurriculars (bit lacking here):</p>
<p>president of go club
secretary of csf (it’s like nhs except for californians)
volunteered at summer camp for disabled during summer
volunteered at food distribution center (for poor) for a couple of years
some miscellaneous stuff: tutored students for money (did this quite a bit for quite a bit of cash =D ), tutored in school program as volunteer tutor, random little things here and there (violin since middle school although i have no talent for it) etc</p>
<p>intern at a fortune 1000 company for a couple months, started just before i sent my apps in so i just mentioned it </p>
<p>essays (average, talked about how being chinese, remnants of cultural revolution in life)
recommendations (one decent, teacher volunteered to let me read it, one probably mediocre, did not know teacher well but performed well in his class, probably talked about that and only that in his recommendation)</p>
<p>applied to stanford, columbia, upenn (wharton), cornell, cmu, berkeley, ucla, ucsd</p>
<p>stanford, columbia, upenn, cornell = flat out reject
cmu tepper = in, but no scholarships</p>
<p>berkeley = regents
ucla = regents
ucsd = regents</p>
<p>my conclusion is that private colleges hate chinese kids. when i applied, i intentionally made it very obvious that i was chinese and proud, but perhaps that is what screwed me over. my parents think it is because i refused to “hire a professional” to help with my essays, sats, and admissions as most others do nowadays, but i doubt it matters since i managed to get regents at the ucs when several of my classmates headed off to cornell(none of them chinese btw although i go to a predominantly asian school) failed to even be invited to apply. i can only conclude affirmative action or better referred to as legalized discrimination. </p>
<p>honestly, i can accept stanford, upenn, and columbia’s rejections although it would have helped my ego a bit if they had waitlisted me instead, but cornell? come on. </p>
<p>public colleges can’t discriminate so i suppose that would account for my success there.</p>