It seems the three schools attract a lot of attention here. However, many on CC would argue that neither the schools nor their students are more special than the next x number of schools. What would parents of HYP students say, not their stats or ECs but their characteristics that non-parents don’t see? Share if you know some kids as well as their parents do. They must be a group of wonderful young people.
There isn’t a formula for getting your middle schooler into an elite university. There’s a lot of good information in your other threads about this topic. You should revisit them.
I don’t think being so hyperfocused on what characteristics might lead to an elite school admission is helpful for your child. There isn’t a recipe to follow and trying to create one will be stressful for all of you. Why not just let him develop naturally and find schools that are good fits for him instead of trying to make him fit into whatever your perception is of what elite schools want? There are a lot of great schools out there. He can thrive wherever he ends up if he, and you, are open to what they have to offer.
One of my kids was admitted to (a couple) of the single initial schools, and she attended one of them. My second kid was rejected from the same couple of single initial schools. There is no difference in my mind at all in terms of their intelligence, drive, character, or any other characteristic. My second kid is thriving at his current college.
Not sure I totally understand the question, but I’ll take a stab.
I’m the parent of a HYP freshman who is incredible in every way. I have loved her since the second she arrived and am so blessed to be her mom. Here are some of her secret attributes that set her apart from the pack: she is physically unable to snap and incapable of learning despite periodic snapping instruction intervention; even if her life depended on it, she would not be able squeeze a tube of toothpaste without making a mess; and she has a nervous habit of shredding her paper napkin when she eats breakfast.
She’s a very special snowflake - one in a million - and clearly different from (read: better than) all the other snowflakes who were attend “the next x-number of schools” you specified.
@austinmshauri I was thinking about what only parents can summarize in a few words about their kid(s) that are not what others can emulate. Other than parents, parent-aged relatives/close friends and counselors, I thought few had anything to say except for some who dug up past relevant quotes given here. As for my middle schooler I’m more than happy for who he is.
But you see – there are tens of thousands who who were rejected from HYP and there is nothing different about them than those who were accepted. There’s a huge amount of randomness when it comes to that upper tier pool.
Of course, I acknowledge that not all applicants are the same – but the kid who gets admitted to Chicago, Stanford and Columbia but rejected by Princeton — isn’t included in your survey? See what I mean?
I’m calling into question your filter of “HYP parent” I applied and was accepted to Yale. I also was accepted at other (non HP) Ivies and top tier engineering schools. I am under no illusion that I was no different than any of my cohorts who attended those other schools that I chose not to attend.
We have a LOT of family members who went to H, and Y. And friends who went to P. Guess what? They are regular people just like others. No halos, no golden aura around them.
You would have NO way to know they were HYP students unless you specifically asked…and they would probably reply “why do you want to know THAT?”
@GnocchiB , hilarious! @T26E4 - A good friend went to Yale. He is certainly intelligent. He is a talented musician, but IMO, has bad taste in music, so thank goodness for his wife. He is short and looks a bit-gnome like, but in a nice way. He drinks beer and and is good-natured. I can’t think of anything that makes him special or different, apart from his musical ability. Maybe you know him? If you live near me, maybe you ARE him? Lots of special snowflakes in my area. Haha! A dear friend attended Oxford. He is meek, he is clumsy, he is totally uncool in every way, but boy, he is smart.
On a more serious note, OP, I know a kid who is going to Brown. He is exceptional. He has always been exceptional. It is safe to say that this student is the most intelligent and gifted kid I have ever known, and it was apparent when he was in second grade. Amazing musician, amazing athlete, hyper-smart. When a kid is truly gifted, you know it. I think my daughter is exceptional, but I am blinded by love, and even back then, I knew that she was not like this boy. This boy could have gone anywhere probably, but he wanted to go to Brown so he applied ED and got in. My point being, that the really exceptional kid is rare. I am not talking about the many talented kids who are in GAT programs at their schools. Those kids, and even kids who arent in GAT programs go to top 25 colleges too. Or they go to other colleges. There is no one personality type. Maybe the ONLY common denominator is intelligence. Who knows? Who cares?
Take a look at this thread which catalogues the stats of Stanford applicants in the EA round. Tell me what distinguishes Accepted/Deferred/Rejected with respect to their stats? IIRC, there is a 2400/36/4.0 student among those denied.
I agree with @Lindagaf - there are kids who have an “it” quality that can be discerned at an early age. For the vast majority of the high-achieving student population, who knows what distinguishes the acceptances from the rejections within holistic admissions. I do remember in our early stage touring elite colleges that Columbia’s info session really emphasized leadership and initiative as qualities desired in its student population. Princeton valued students with few and deep ECs and encouraged arts supplements. It may be that there is no one-to-one correspondence between those presentations and what the admissions office does. But I suspect there is some correlation.
As others have said, encourage your kids to become the best versions of themselves. There will be many colleges and universities that will admit them and where they will thrive.
Yes…many colleges where students can thrive. And they are not all HYPSM etc.
My younger son’s best friend graduated from Yale. He’s a great kid. Just a thoroughly nice guy. I’ve known him since he was three years old and hung out in our sandbox. As a kid he and my son read all the Redwall books in 2nd and 3rd grade, and The Lord of the Rings in third grade - several times. He’s a fine musician - he played bass in both the orchestra and a jazz band in high school and was good enough to play in States. He had also had a rock band that played gigs in the area regularly. He also did drama. He worked at a music camp in the summer and taught Hebrew school on weekends. He loves playing board games. He’s now tutoring and touring up and down the east coast with his current band. I’m a Harvard grad, and I would never have said he was a shoe-in. I wasn’t privy to his grades or scores, but he graduated #3 in a class of almost 700. I didn’t see an “it” factor, but he was obviously a smart and accomplished kid.
My older son (got into H but didn’t attend), was much more obviously academically unusual. He started teaching himself to read at 2. He always insisted on being the banker in Monopoly at 4. Sometime in pre-K he figured out multiplication. He played with electronic kits at 6 - and understood what capacitors and resistors did. At 7 he learned Visual Basic and started writing simple programs. He didn’t end up wildly accelerated, because we kept him in the public schools, but he continued with his interest in computer programming. He took AP Comp Sci as a freshman (and says he should have skipped the course and just taken the exam), by senior year he’d been working part time and over the summer for a company that manages databases for big name publishers among other things. He also did some programming work for a medical school professor that was used to analyze data in many papers. In school he was part of a very successful Science Olympiad team that went to States for the first time his freshman year and every year thereafter and an Academic Team that went to Nationals. It seemed likely he would get into a HYP caliber college - but nothing is guaranteed. He got into H, was rejected from MIT (his first choice) and attended Carnegie Mellon where he was very happy.
Got me…they do get window stickers…I was behind an older toyota mini-van this week and almost the entire back window was cover with three huge stickers: Cornell, Harvard and Yale. I couldn’t decide if it was aspirational, a joke or the college version of a “my child is an honor student” stickers that proliferated in the 80s and early 90s. More power to them and it certainly provided my daily chuckle, I’m sure they have an opinion about what makes their children “special.” The few kids (moreso than friends of my generation) at an Ivy League college are for the most part really great kids, they really are.
Read post # 1 as many times as it takes for you to get over your obsession with certain schools. Then let your child guide the search for colleges when the time comes. Our son refused to apply to the above 3 schools. He certainly is not an east coaster then or now. He is genuinely gifted and also liberal. There are excellent educations to be had at so many top tier schools. In fact, depending on one’s major, those 3 schools may be second tier for one’s plans. Let your child have a life. Do not pressure him/her to attend a school just because you have heard of it. 99% of equally smart kids will not attend those. And it would be horrible for you to try to manipulate your child to fit their student profile.
PS- parents are not the ones to ask about their kids- they don’t see them as the rest of the world does.
Parents know what the rest of the world doesn’t about their kid(s) and that’s what’s interesting. See what @mathmom said about her son at ages 2, 4, 6, etc.? That lets you picture an adorable kid no outsiders know. It amuses me how one can manipulate their own older kid(s) given that info. And who manipulates their kid(s) anyway?
It would nice to hear what the parent/driver in front of @momofthreeboys has to say about their HYP kids. Maybe the kids are too nice to say anything about the stickers.
“It would nice to hear what the parent/driver in front of @momofthreeboys has to say about their HYP kids.”
Whoo boy. Don’t ask my parents about my teen years. I put them through hell.
Admissions is interested in assembling an interesting class. It is all about how the individual applicant contributes to the mix.
What is your definition of “wonderful”? Why would it follow that HYP students would be “wonderful”? Everyone is capable of being a jerk, no matter how smart they are.
Like I said up stream…we know lots of grads from these schools. If you lined them up with other kids from other colleges…and told everyone to wear jeans and a blue shirt…believe me, you would not be able to pick the HYP kids out of the crowd, even after conversing with them.
@eiholi your OP reads like you are expecting folks to,say that these colleges have students who are somehow very unique and special. I hope you understand that there are uniques and special…and very smart students…at most colleges.
For some HYP is not the stamp of “success”.
OP, the problem is that we are not allowed to brag about our HYP children outside of this one “bragging thread” in the Parent Cafe.
Re momofthreeboys #11: If I had to pay tuition for Cornell, Harvard, and Yale, I would be driving an older Toyota minivan, too. And I would drive it until it conked out. Wait, we did that, with just a single child’s tuition to cover! 
A friend of mind, who was a post-doc at Stanford, bought a Stanford sticker, cut it up and put it on his car so that it said:
STAN
FORD
Stan Ford is pretty much like any other Ford dealership, but the weather is nicer.