The Gatekeeper was recently issued up so I read it for the first time. It got me a few surprises. I understand that being an Aisan and from California positive was because it was 15 years ago.
But number of strong EC was a big surprise; In the book, a girl who received score 9, which is a rare top score, from music professor was still deferred after some AO argued that it’s still just one EC and she didn’t have other good EC, even though another AO argued that it would take huge amount of time to be that good in vocal.
I have thought that a strong candidate would need only one very strong EC. So now I am very confused. How is it nowadays? Can one EC do the trick or the 2nd EC is necessary?
My 9th grade dd has been accepted by 3 juried national art shows and won 5 scholastic gold keys. Since she is still improving, I am hoping that she would win at least some important awards in the next 4 years. She also has taken 10 college art courses with all A. She will do some other EC here and there, but I think most of focus will be on visual art, as that is where her passion is, even though she won’t be applying to art schools. She would probably doing some competitive art camps, atelier workshops or take some upper level college art courses in future Summers. Wouldn’t that be enough for EC? Or should she start evaluating another EC?
I’d suggest you stop building your kid’s life around college admissions. If she is as bright as you claim in other posts, she will have good choices. You can really burn her out and turn her off to the college admissions process if you obsess about it and push her too much.
What does SHE want to do? Does she want to start doing something else? Does she want to keep doing this?
Honestly, this just feels like a humblebrag post. Yes, that is almost certainly “enough” for any top college. Or, in other words, those ECs are not what are going to keep her out.
@intparent, my daughter and I have already talked about her future course and activity choices being between her and her high school counselor. She is in a boarding school now and I am out, except giving advises as she asks. We texted 2 hours today because her best friend was visiting home, but it was mostly about our shared interest on movies, etc. We only briefly talked about her academics and I only assured her it will be just fine if she ends up with a B in a seemingly difficult course.
For EC, I am not trying to build it around admission. She cares about college and naturally wondered if she would need something other than art for next Summer. She wanted to take some college art courses otherwise. She has been too busy with academics and missing making sculptures. I have been assuring her that she can continue to focus on just what she wants and not worry about science research or humanity EC just for college admission, even though she doesn’t want to go to an art school. I am concerned now because I don’t want to give her a wrong advise.
@romanigypsyeyes , Let’s just stick to the topic. So you don’t think the most selective colleges nowadays don’t want more than one strong EC, and Wesleyan’s past practice in the book, if it was true 15 years ago, is not true now?
Doesn’t she have activities at her boarding school? Athletics, drama, student government, debate? Yes, I think if all she does is art art art, and some AO thinks that’s not broad enough, it could hurt. It may be fine. WE don’t know the magic number of activities, but the common app limits it to 10, so somewhere between 1 and 10.
This is what concerned me in the book;
The girl had several other EC’s but they were all one year or less, which may happen to mine as well because of her heavy focus on visual art.
@twoinanddone, that is a plan but seems none of them are going to be a strong EC, unless it is deemed necessary for college admission and she sacrifices some of her time and passion for art.
It seems keeping academics strong is still doable but will take more time than she imagined. So there won’t be a lot of energy and time after academics, visual art and some fun.
So it is real that some college AO’s may think just art is too narrow? I have read about admission practices for a while but I only read about being not deep enough and never heard about being too narrow until today.
Is there a college counselor at your DD’s boarding school that you and DD could talk to about this question? That person might be able to give you input on whether your DD’s resume seems too limited or not. DD sounds like she loves and is talented in art. That is awesome.
It’s really up to you if you think her art will be enough. A friend is applying and his two EC’S are sports and sports. Even his mother couldn’t believe that he had no clubs, no honors, no awards. He likes sports, he plays sports. He has offers from dozens of colleges, including the Air Force Academy. None of the things the AFA usually looks for like leadership, Eagle Scout, Val or Sal on his application. For him one activity is enough, but he is very very good at his sport. Maybe one activity for your daughter is enough, but no one knows at this point.
You have 4 years. I’d encourage her to try some other things not for the application but because they might be fun, they might be interesting. She may find she loves to run, or likes drama, or finds Model UN really challenging. She might like knitting, but she won’t know if she doesn’t try.
I believe a strong arts EC will NOT be enough to get into a good college. In fact, it would hurt. You have to think from the perspective of an average college AO, who never put in the effort to be at the top of a line of work which is essentially solitary in nature. If you daughter was in a group activity where she did very mediocre work which will leave no impact on anyone and will soon be forgotten after she gets her acceptance letter, like managing the school journal or being the captain of the swimming team at school, the AO would have liked it. But the huge focus on ONE single solitary activity to be among the very best in the country in the age group would come across as a HUGE red flag, as someone with no social or leadership skills. At least that’s what I have been told by 2 independent private college counselors.
I have a kid very much like that, except the area of focus is not visual arts, it’s music. The way we are approaching it is this - oh well. The kid needs to do what the kid wants to do, and nothing else. Really, the effort that it takes to be in the top echelon in the country leaves no room for anything else.
Schools are interested in kids who are very high achieving at anything - sports, ECS - and have differentiated themselves on the national or International level. For those students 1 EC probably makes sense.
I think though that what a lot of the schools are looking for is something that shows that the student has an ability to explore, to participate, to socialize around an interest – basically anything that takes an interest outside the classroom. Those students are the most likely to get involved in the community at college, and LACS in particular care about this.
Your DD could get involved in a number of things at school that involve art, her interest in animals, etc., and I suspect she’ll do that. Some kids try things and end up being surprised at how much they like them. Or how much they don’t. It’s all part of figuring out who you are.
Absolutely, positively untrue.
As an example, for a recruited athlete, the magic number is one. For everybody else, it’s somewhere between 1 and 5 IMO.
Just because the Common App allows 10 does not mean that one should have 10.In fact, I’d argue that anything over ~5 will just dilute the application. These activities that require 1 hour or less a week are just not meaningful.
In any case, the OP’s kid goes to a highly regarded prep school.The college counselor there is more than capable of providing guidance on this topic.
High school is a time to try new things, just like college is. I personally would encourage my kid to try out more things than just their strongest area going into high school. But not for the sake of college admissions. It is easy for a kid to stick to their comfort zone, and I want my kids to be ready and interested in trying new things in life. Both of my kids discovered interests and talents in HS and college that were surprising to me and to them. To me that is a big part of the point of education.
I would attack college admissions differently. Let your D pursue the life she wants and find a college that works for her. I think that it is backwards to try to mold your child’s life into what you think some AO at some as yet unknown college wants from her.
This is what we did with our kids and the two oldest wound up at colleges that are good for them. We worked on finding colleges that fit them rather than trying to fit them into a college. We let them do what they wanted as far as EC go and then let the college thing work itself out. The truth is that very strong students will have lots of good choices as long as they are willing to look outside of the very narrow top ten ranked universities/LAC.
I agree. My kids pursued what they wanted and allowed the right colleges to accept them. It never occurred to me that one should mold their child to fit a particular school.
I’ve seen ScuptorDad’s kid’s art. She shows enough promise that I would bet she would likely get into top art schools if she wanted to go in that direction. One EC is good enough if you are YoYo Ma, but even YoYo gave back to the community. If art is her primary interest she could still be the art editor of the literary magazine, help teach younger kids or seniors, organize a collection of art materials for poor kids.
That said, I think if your main EC is solitary and primarily out of school hours, it behooves you to do a school based EC so that you have some presence at the school so that school recommenders have some sense of you outside your classroom performance. My CS guy spent one summer volunteering his computer skills at the senior center and he worked for a firm showing he could play well with others. But at school he also did Academic Team and Science Olympiad. You’ll notice all his ECs are pretty academic - I think that hurt him at many schools, but that was who he was.
Younger son had a more scattered list of activities. He played the violin in two school orchestra (mostly during school hours so not really an EC), made origami earrings and also volunteered at the senior center teaching origami class, then for his school ECs also did Science Olympiad and the literary magazine. My well-rounded kid did slightly better than we expected in the application process, but I think that is more to do with his essays, and excellent relationships with the teachers who wrote the recommendations than the list of activities. I wasn’t a fly on the wall however, so of course I don’t really know what made the difference.
Does she want to major in art, even if not at an art college? And how high will she aim, for college targets?
The safest route is to go for depth and breadth. That doesn’t mean she’s super at everything. But life does ask us to do more than just what we want and top adcoms can look for a balance between that primary, driving interest and other activities. It’s not bad at all to get involved in some things, eg, service, just because it’s a “right thing” to do, whether or not it’s a passion. It can be telling to be involved, in addition, in a high school club or play, etc, as a show of how you try new things. (And not just a string of honor societies or some random volunteering.)
You don’t need to achieve at a national or international level. Period. All it might get is a raised eyebrow, a small wow. But they;re still going to look for the patterns they like to see. From my perspective, 1wife1kid is right, in that when a college looks for interpersonal strengths- and willingness to engage and explore- and all the top schools do- just one solitary activity may not be enough. Even if you’re stellar at it. (Where does the idea come from that just being an Olympic qualifier is a hook, when nothing but that sport is present?)
Recruited athletes are still a different story. But unless you have that in your pocket, be wise.
I don’t see exploring other avenues and sticking with them as “molding for an adcom.” I see it more as molding for their lives. And that happens to include college.
So, OP, the question is, what else is she involved with? You’d try to make sense of that “whole,” in the way adcoms will.
Thanks for the helps.
I understand that recruited athletes are different as that is a hook and not EC. Singularly famed world level artist would move into that category. Alas she isn’t there.
Daughter wants to explore many things that her high school offers. That’s why she is there. But unless she intentionally pushes, majority of them would be just 1 hour per week or just 1 year things, good for personal development but disregarded in college applications. She already decided not to apply to a varsity riding team because she doesn’t have enough time after academics. This situation won’t get better in the following years.
She would have joined a varsity sport if the school had a climbing team. But that’s something she gave up for other opportunities. She will continue climbing during Winter ad Summer breaks at her old gym team. But that’s another EC that will just hold a space on her application and won’t be meaningful to adcoms.
She doesn’t want to major art, because a degree in fine art won’t be useful for her as she won’t do teaching, selling, or creating commercial art. She says she can do her art by herself as a lifelong hobby or a middle age career. She wants to try some interesting other careers in a big city corporate during her 20’s-30’s, as she won’t be able to do that later if she becomes a full time artist first after college. For that, business or computer science degree at a top college can be more helpful. - And that is AGAINST my wishes which IS majoring art. Also, she has some good sense of what is like to going to an art school from talking to her college professors and mature classmates. She took 10 courses - 30 semester units in art department already.
I understand that there are great colleges outside of top 20~30, but I think they are already given safeties so no point thinking about them for now.