If I’m remembering your D correctly she’s at boarding school now, correct? My kids did not do boarding school, but the kids I know who did all got fantastic guidance/nudging/coaxing into molding a top notch college profile by the professionals. I don’t think you need to worry about EC’s- that’s what the staff is for.
One kid I know who was/is the least athletic kid on the planet was cajoled/encouraged to join the sailing team (apparently a good sport for a kid who doesn’t have the chops for soccer or lacrosse). The local day prep school in my area is famous/notorious for getting kids out of their comfort zone via EC’s and makes it easy because the “activity period” is smack dab during the school day, not after school when kids are tired and want to zone out and socialize.
In my extended family and among my friends, almost all of the kids who got into the HYPS type schools had just ONE strong EC. There was the recruited athlete, the kid with a high national chess ranking, the kid who published a story in a well known magazine, and the kid with The Famous Parents (that was her main EC, lol.)
All had top grades and excellent scores, although the recruited athlete was asked to retake the SATs to raise her score before she could be admitted. Only one, the one with The Famous Parents, went to a private school, an elite boarding school known for sending more kids to Harvard than the entire geographic region in which I live
An art kid who also climbs is more interesting than you think. And maybe she mentors new climbers and that checks a box, so to say, as she is giving that to others, cares.
And hour or two per week is what most kids put into clubs. Think about it. If she puts those club ECs in her app, they are not disregarded. They are looked at, as part of who this kid is, how she thinks. Of course, in general, you don’t want to list empty activities. My bugaboo is kids who think just hanging in some club, with friends, is meaningful. Or donating their old coat once/year is reaching out. Or a year in this, then a quit. But in a good BS, she should have some good choices.
As a 9th grader, she can explore a few, then see what she will commit to. I’m afraid you’re thinking hierarchically- in that she has to show some extraordinary, “showcase” bullets. Instead, this is a case where “the whole” matters very much.
If you think schools just outside the top 20-30 are safeties, (entirely too soon to know,) maybe she joins an academic competition team. If the school doesn’t have an arts journal, why not suggest she work on adding that to the lit mag or organizing an annual show? Maybe she can be a student rep to the same orgs that awarded her.
Remember, they’re looking at attributes, whether a kid has ‘get up and go’ and how that’s used. Not for some dry recitation of this award and that.
It’s a problem with the book and some other advice. It was written to sell, not sit on some library shelf waiting for researchers to find. And sorry, but imo, some of the others, like Hernandez, really just serve to draw attention to her consulting biz.
We talk about actors, Olympians, national math award winners, etc, as if they get an automatic. Not. You’d need to see a lot of apps to know why some of these book excerpts can leave the wrong impression.
I’d encourage her to rethink riding. If not this year, then next. Most of the kids I know who have done this have been surprised by all they got out of it, and it wasn’t just about horses!
If she aspires to business or computer science, maybe she should look into ECs related to those future goals. But seriously, what adcoms might prioritize four years from now is anybody’s guess. Maybe it’ll be “pointy” or “spike” kids, or maybe they’ll favor the well rounded. The fact that she has a deep demonstrated commitment to and talent in a particular area is already a huge advantage.
Let your kid be your kid; encourage her to grow and try new things as her time and interest level permit. I’m sure she’ll do just fine.
I have been encouraging her to apply to the team. She loves riding and rode for several years. She is planning to add more riding days if not joining the team, and also add an art course, if she can ace academics and still find more time. The problem is that she only has 24 hours. All the high school kids have only 24 hours like we did, but they are asked to do so much more than we did.
I think the answer to this is three-fold. One: How truly excellent are you in a field? The better you are, the “more ok” it is to have one EC. Yo-Yo-Ma only needed the cello. A kid who is first chair of his all state orchestra will probably need more. Two: How many people who have equal ability will be applying to the same schools? I don’t know if it’s still the case, but Georgetown and Emory used to give merit money to tippy-top high school policy debaters. Being a state champ policy debater probably wouldn’t help as much at those two schools as at most others because they received a lot of apps from outstanding policy debaters. A state champ swimmer in one event in a not-all-that-competitive state for swimming is going to stand out more in Dartmouth’s applicant pool than in Stanford’s.Three: what does the rest of the app say about this kid’s ability to get along with others? Anyone remember Dominique Dawes? She was an Olympic gymnast, which will make you stand out in any applicant pool. However, she was also elected prom queen by her classmates. I doubt that took much time, but it certainly indicates she was well-liked by her classmates.
So, I don’t think you can answer @SculptorDad 's question with a number because we don’t know just how good her art is. Nor do we know whether she’s going to focus her applications on the TOP colleges with the TOP studio art departments. Nor do we know whether GC will say “plays nice with others” —and I suspect a board school has lots of way to judge this other than ECs.
It is easy to say that a kid should do more ECs, but for those who have reached the highest echelon in their age group in one particular field, and is maintaining high academic standards in parallel, there’s really no time left. This is why I believe that college AOs prefer jacks of all trades than masters of one when it comes to ECs.
And I will add to Jonri’s very fine post- we don’t know what “very selective colleges” means for this particular kid. The impact of one very high quality EC plus the “other stuff” academically at Vanderbilt is going to be very different than it would be at Harvard. It is really impossible to look at a HS Freshman and say, “yup, this kid is clearly Yale material”. There are a lot of very talented and smart HS Freshman who don’t end up performing at the Yale level throughout their HS career. And of course- that’s fine! But it’s tough to predict based on middle school performance- so many other factors go into making a HS senior.
An acquaintance of mine recently lamented that for her first child- who she thought would end up at Harvard (double legacy), he got accepted to JHU but none of the Ivy’s. So for her second- now that she’d learned a bit more about how the system operates she figured he’s going to JHU or UVA (out of state) or U Chicago. nope- Muhlenberg. Now that she’s on her third she finally understands what the admission statistics mean (if a college is admitting 9% of its applicants, then 91% are getting rejected.) Simple arithmetic but it’s taken a while to learn. All three of her kids were in some sort of gifted program by 4th grade. But that doesn’t mean much once HS rolls around.
She has 30 college credits on genEd in addition to 30 on art. She scores high on reading/verbal sections of practice SAT already, and is taking precalc now so I think she will be ivy material for academics part. She is also taking 4 AP science courses because she took college general biology, chemistry and physics (equiv ap physics 1) by 8th grade.
She won’t apply schools with strong art programs only since she isn’t going to major arts
Her art is decent but not Yoyoma. Well over high school level but not yet close to top art school students. Realistic expectation based on past performance is that she will win at least a national award on Scholastic and Young Art, and a few #1~3 award on some juried national shows in coming years. She took 10 college art courses since 11 and has been one of the best in all classes. Her sculpture was decent even before that. Making a decent piece easily takes 50~100 hours, or more, for her, so she can’t make many while doing high school academics. She will need to work on art during Summers, instead of science research or political volunteer, to build a decent portfolio and win those prestigious art awards.
@1Wife1Kid. Thanks. I will read it when it is delivered. I still like paper books better.
lookingforward wrote: “Remember, they’re looking at attributes, whether a kid has ‘get up and go’ and how that’s used. Not for some dry recitation of this award and that.”
I have been told the same by the two independent private college counselors that I have talked to. However, the emphasis has been on “how that’s used” and not on “get up and go” alone. For example, if a kid has lots of energy and enthusiasm into solving Fermat’s Last Theorem vs. starting a group that organizes and gives back to the community through some kind of service model, the latter will be considered to be more attractive than the former.
Of course, this is a flawed way of thinking when considering which kind of kid will likely have a bigger impact on society-at-large in 50 years, but that’s not how adcoms think.
intparent wrote: “Ad coms want curious and interesting people, not robots.”
I have been told that this is also very true. High accomplishment is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration, and that is considered very robot-like. Intellectual butterflies are considered normal and preferable.
@SculptorDad Your DD is only in 9th grade and she sounds amazing. She is young and has already accomplished so much in school and out. I seriously think that her boarding school, combined with her own demonstrated drive for excellence in her ECs and academics, will guide her to success in college applications.
If there were a sure way to get into very selective colleges, every bit of that sure way might help. But there isn’t a sure way, and so that “every bit” is undefinable, and some of the things that comprise it might hurt instead of helping.
If she’s truly precocious, you need to be careful with the impression she creates. Amazing to the world at large (or compared with same-age peers) and admitted to that Tippy Top can be two different things. You want to avoid her seeming sheltered. (I know some will say this is up to her, but I’m referring to parent guidance.)
You need to read the MIT admissions blogs, find the one mentioning the kid who built the nuclear reactor. Unilateral is not what’s sought. Please understand Yo-Yo Ma was applying to college way back 40 years ago, when the entire competition was different. Harvard had maybe a third of the number of apps today, roughly the same number of seats. Similar situation for other tippy tops.
And Upadhyay (the recent book link.) Same kid who graduated from Yale a whopping 2 years ago? The book is based on CC data. Read the Amazon summary. Kid never worked in admissions. But I do admire his savvy in taping into a never ending lust for tips on admissions.
