How many strong EC do you need for very selective colleges?

Parents Forum
61

I think you may be a better Dad than you sound like in some of your posts. But for many of us whose kids got into top colleges we really did step out of their way. Of course we bought the CS books my kid asked for and took him to the library and updated his computer more often than if we’d had a kid who wasn’t interested in programming. I told him about things I found out about - he pursued some (open courseware at the MIT site, and decided others weren’t for him some online computer programming contests - though he did quite well on similar things in college.) He joined the school teams on his own without any advice from me. I let him drop playing in the band in high school.

Younger son had an even iffier set of activities. He figured out on his own to make the most of what he’d done and to tie it all into a package that gave a picture of who he was. A bit of a slacker with tons of potential. Thoughtful, funny, and willing to take risks.

Really we all want the best for our kids, but if we do too much for them there is the danger they won’t ever know how to operate on their own.

62

My D1 had what would be considered by many to be mediocre ECs, no national recognition, no state recognition, but probably close the highest academic standing possible. Wasn’t val or sal because college classes she took senior year didn’t give out A pluses. She didn’t care. She participated in a few clubs, and just basically did what she wanted, but made it clear that her interests were academic. She got her top two choices.

I recommend that your D build the life that she wants, and when it comes time, to have some swagger and apply to colleges as a consumer. Colleges that reject her lose out. Only colleges that admit her have a chance to get her.

63

Dad, you completely missed my point about how a kid who seems destined for Yale Freshman year can end up at JHU or Muhlenberg… but did provide some context for me to help you.

Her scores- her AP’s, her dual enrollment credits- her awards- all of this is fantastic and shows that she is a terrific and promising HS student. But she’s been a Freshman for what- three weeks?

You cannot take a score and project it out four years and figure out how to plot her on some chart. She is not a datapoint, she is a person. I know dozens of kids from my kids classes, both K-8 as well as HS who really had it all- academics, athletics, artistic ability, musical training and whatnot. Really fantastic kids.

Some of them indeed end up at the tippy top colleges. And a smaller percentage of them end up doing truly amazing things- one is a current clerk on the Supreme Court and honestly- a fourth grade language arts teacher once said, “Nobody can win an argument with you- I won’t be surprised if you end up on the Supreme Court”.

But a not-insignificant number end up elsewhere. Sometimes they get dealt a bad hand- mental illness which manifests during HS. An eating disorder. Other physical/medical issues which requires staying close to home with a reduced stress educational path (like a local college, one class at a time). Or a parent gets ill and a kid opts to stay close to home for college to help ferry younger siblings and make dinner while the parent is in treatment.

And others just burn out. Plain old burn out. They’ve been running at 90 miles per hour since they were in second grade racking up awards and winning and getting sky high scores and they just fizzle out by junior year of HS. The treadmill is running too fast and they don’t want to keep that up- they want to work on the yearbook and join the prom committee and have a boyfriend and get a job at Abercrombie and use their employee discount on cute sweaters.

So my fear for your D is not that one EC is inadequate. It’s that you don’t seem to have a Plan B (either practically or emotionally) which allows for your D to get off the path she is seemingly on right now.

The truly brilliant kid from one of my children’s grades in middle school (this was a kid taking college math in 7th grade, and some grad level seminars by 8th grade) ended up at a college you’ve never heard of. He was a wonderfully lopsided kid- and his parents were incredibly supportive of his need to not have to perform at 110% every day of his HS career. So he didn’t. And they loved him more than they loved the idea of him heading off to Princeton like his older sibling. A musical prodigy from another one of my kids grades now has a perfectly ordinary career having graduated from a fine (but not HYP type) college, having spent one year post-HS on the touring/competition/performance track in Europe and Asia. The competition at this level is nosebleed level high stakes- he had the talent, did well, was on track for a conservatory but again- his parents loved him as a person more than the idea of his accolades, once he decided that this world was not for him.

Your D has a lot of growing up to do before she has to think about/worry about college. Figure out how you are going to support the D who decides she wants to attend UC Santa Barbara or San Diego for the weather and the cute guys and the surfing (if that’s what she wants), and leave the idea of how to support the Harvard attending D alone for now. The countries Gifted and Talented programs are filled with kids who are going to end up at UIUC and Wisconsin and Indiana and yes- Harvard and Yale… but you just can’t look at a HS freshman (even though you think she is the most special and wonderful kid in the entire world) and predict where she’s going to end up.

Don’t communicate- even subconsciously- that the only outcome which will work for you as a family is to have her end up at the top of the food chain. Make it clear that you love her as a person more than you love her credits and her test scores and her award winning art and her advanced standing. You love her, not the awards. And if she wants one EC- great. If she wants to try jazz dance- and not be good at it, but love it because she’s doing it with three of her friends- you need to communicate how great that is. And if she wants a sport but can only make it to the JV level, you need to support her being OK at something- the healthy and happy adults are those who can join a bridge league or be part of a book club or coach a losing little league team… and just enjoy it, not needing the validation of being top dog at every thing they do.

64

Just saying: we had been talking college with D1 by the time she graduated from 8th and she had a great idea what she wanted: to go to a school as far away from home as possible. I said, Hawaii? But she changed. They need time to get past their youthful preconceptions and assumptions and to learn what the real deal is.

This is really a sequential process. Bit by bit. You watch how they develop as individuals, how their interests trend, what they’re really willing to work for (as they pick up and drop personal ideas and goals.) How do they tolerate stress, are they leaders or followers (or isolated in their own likes, sheltered from breadth?) Do they experiment or stick with the same old/same old well trod path. How do they develop interpersonal strengths? And the biggie: no matter the grades and accolades, whether they got some title in some hs club, can they think, do they see the world around them and react with energies.

So much more than grades, head down, a couple of hobbies or talents. or scores or number of AP.

It’s not about awards and more awards. Not when you think they can aim high for college.

This is part of what I mean about hierarchical thinking. Based on the hs game, you think you can craft up some collection of “bests,” “winner,” or “better than.” And that that’s the magic formula.

Instead, think about dimension, activation, the good one does, simply because they can see the need, and what they begin to contribute to peer groups and beyond. That is, if you do think a kid is capable of a tippy top.

65

Here’s the thing. There are thousands of colleges in the USA. Where you go can be important, but LIFE is so much more important and what you do with your education, your work ethic and believe it or not, a little bit of luck, are also heavily involved in how your future unfolds.

What is OP’s ultimate rationale for all this research? It sounds like his D is very bright and talented. She can have a challenging and wonderful college experience at many different schools IMHO. If she has the interests and work ethic that OP’s posts seem to convey, she will do well in whatever she sets her mind to. Are you worried she will not get a good enough education to support herself? That she won’t find friends or peers, or be challenged? I don’t think that is an issue for a child like that - there are so many ways to stretch oneself at college if you make the effort.

I honestly think the college search can be more tricky for a kid who is more “average” because you have to find the sweet spot where he can do well and be challenged but also not be in over his head. But what do I know?

I am so happy that my kids chose to do activities that they enjoyed and where they had friends. They did not win tip top awards but my S is in a pretty good school, on his way to a dual major and grad school. And he goes to concerts, gets pizza with friends, does research and sometimes SLEEPS UNTIL NOON if he doesn’t have a lot of work. :wink:

66

@blossom, @lookingforward, @surfcity,

Thanks for your kind concerns. We do have very good and safe plan B. Also, daughter can already get enough score so I don’t need to project test scores 4 years from now. She could get 600 on reading and writing sections of sat at 9. I would be happy if she chooses to study BFA in Spatial art at San Jose State University, which was in fact our previous plan. In fact, she can choose to stop high school and get the BFA in two years if she changes her mind. UC Santa Barbara is a very good school too.

The high school thing is slowing down for her, stepping down from the treadmill which was taking up to 18 college units at a time. Some of her homeschooled friends moved on the 4 years universities, graduated and got a job by 18, etc, etc. and enjoying that life. D didn’t want it. She wanted to take it slow and enjoy the high school experience. And she is enjoying it very much.

D was a full time community college student for 5 semesters before 9th grade. She has plenty of friends still texting who are in 4 years university or job market. I can’t keep her from thinking about college. I might well be a competent adviser as well.

While we have good plan B and C, plan A is still better. Now that she is taking it slow, she want to see if she can get in to Stanford at normal age, even though it will be ok if she doesn’t. And I have been her champion of information collecting thanks to my longer life experience. Gathering information helpful for her future planning is my “ultimate rational”.

67

@SculptorDad I get where you are coming from. I also get what others here are trying to tell you… lots of food for thought.

In the meantime

I would suggest you read any of Cal Newport’s books - trust me you won’t be sorry. (I think its called “How to be a high school superstar”)

http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/03/26/how-to-get-into-stanford-with-bs-on-your-transcript-failed-simulations-the-surprising-psychology-of-impressiveness/

68

@runswimyoga , Thanks. I read the article recently when it was on this forum but ordering the book didn’t come up to my mind. I just ordered. Thanks for the suggestion.

69

" good for personal development but disregarded in college applications." - So be it - let her do that. I’m a big believer in students picking ECs because they are of interest, not to use as “resume builder”.

With some calculated EC choices (especially a traditional leadership role). our son probably could have gotten more scholarships. Also possibly an admission to the one school that rejected him (but even then still unlikely due to their insanely low accept rate). Things turned out just fine. He graduated last year from an excellent fit college and has a terrific job that he loves. The hs EC became college EC… and now life long hobbies.

70

A very wise post (#62) from blossom!

71

I had been a bit confused after reading “The Gatekeepers” but now I am back to believing that just one major EC is enough, after reading “Behind The Ivy Curtain: A Data Driven Guide to Elite College Admissions.”

I love the data driven approach of the second book! Thank you all for the help.

72

Data shall always set you free from punditry. I wish the Federal Govt started a project that required all schools taking public funding to release detailed data sets for their applicants at individual applicant level, just as one can glean from College Confidential. Then academic researches could run a proper analysis. Then college admissions would be demystified for ever.

Here is the current problem as I see it. People would say that Harvard is a reach for everyone because of it’s sub-10% admit rate. But that’s only true on average, and if you look at the whole applicant pool, it is <1% for many, and 50%+ for a few. The goal of data driven analytics would be to identify the true admit rate at the applicant level. Then kids could focus their applications to true matches, reaches, and safeties, instead of having to go by averages.

To make the analysis more sophisticated, a kid could create a portfolio of colleges and a statistician could run a model that calculates the probability distribution of getting into 0 to all of the colleges, taking into account that college admissions run in clusters and are not independent variables. This is very similar to the finance methodology of creating a basket of stocks to be beta-neutral.

Boy, that would be true college counselling. It could even be automated and based on self service. I t shouldn’t cost more than a few hundred dollars.

If this were to be the case I predict that the number of college applications would drop precipitously and the applications process would become much less stressful. Also, the cost of application and the effort needed would tremendously go down for students and their families. Perhaps kids would be even able to sleep more instead of chasing “breath and depth” in ECs, as some mentioned.

73

“the cost of application and the effort needed would tremendously go down for students and their families.”

So they would for colleges. Then they will be able to pay more attention to each individual applicants.

74

I ordered and read that book. I didn’t know what/where is data driven. I don’t see anything that’s not said by posters here.

Anyone got the data from the author to dig deeper?

75

I don’t envision a world where the valedictorian of a middling quality suburban HS who scores 710 on both math and verbal on his/her SAT’s, AND is captain of the tennis team (but not a standout player) and has 100’s of hours of volunteer work at the local animal shelter is going to believe that an application to Harvard is a “waste”.

Not happening. The problem is NOT a lack of data. The problem is the statistically challenged among us who cannot understand that their precious snowflake is going to get rejected from a college with single digit acceptances.

Cut the number of applications- sure. So now the admit rate is 14% instead of 7%. This kid is STILL not getting into Harvard, and this kid’s parents are STILL not believing the numbers.

76

“So now the admit rate is 14% instead of 7%. This kid is STILL not getting into Harvard, and this kid’s parents are STILL not believing the numbers.”

That could mean 15k applications to review instead of 30k for Harvard, and applying to 5 schools instead of 10 for kids. Personally I think that’s a good thing by itself in terms of not wasting so much resource.

“The problem is NOT a lack of data. The problem is the statistically challenged among us who cannot understand that their precious snowflake is going to get rejected”

Could it be possible at all that the lack of data is contributing for us being unable to understand?

And the statistically savvy among us might understand that the general single digit rate means little when as, @1Wife1Kid pointed, it may be <1% for many, and 50%+ for a few.

77

^no. The problem is the parents of "snowflakes "
do not want to BELIEVE the data.

78

Believing a data has nothing to do with making an informed decision if the data is too general to be useful.

It would be advantageous for the parents of “snowflakes” to look for more specific data to understand the system better, which I believe that CC is essentially for.

Knowing that the general chance is 7% is not very useful. But if you can find out if your personal chance is 1% or 20%, you can decided to quit or continue. And if you can see what can increase your chance from 20% to 40%, and it’s not hard to do, then you can choose to do that.

I believe that college admission is often subjective or not transparent. It would not be an effective way of using the data if I say, “Well, then lets just leave it to the luck.” Which I sometimes feel that some parents are suggesting to do.

On the other hand, if I can only see a few dozens of admitted samples with 70% of them having only 1 strong EC at 80% of selective colleges, I can use the information to say to my “snowflake,” that she doesn’t need to build another strong EC for college admission unless she wants to, and feel free to just dig in her sculptures.

79

For EC’s, keep the big picture in mind. You want to use this section to highlight leadership positions (doesn’t matter what), spikes in interests (depth not breadth), and a few different areas to show student will be an active, engaged participant in many campus opportunities. Ivies tend to like musical talent also. Remember, quality over quantity, and s/he’lll be good.

80

Common data set information shows in great detail, the percentage of acceptances broken out into deciles, bases on
SAT scores, GPAs, etc.
colleges are never going to break out the percentage of acceptances based on the number of EC’s , because there are too many different EC’s that students could engage in . And all ECs are not weighted equally .
That’s just an unrealistic suggestion.