My youngest son will be graduating from Harvard in the spring and my older two children graduated from Dartmouth and Brown. They are normal kids that happened to have all right things fall into place upon applying to those schools. I’m not really sure what kind of information the OP is looking for. All three kids were happy with their choices.
I think it is the holistic approach. I will give you an example. I met a girl who came from a family with little money . She spent 2 and half hours each day on a train by herself going to a top notch public high school. She was also very involved in governmental service at a young age. You got the feeling from talking to her that wow she could be a US Senator some day. That is the wow factor that HYP is looking for. It is not a formula but it is also not a crapshoot.
Son went to top ranked NYC public HS. Close to 1/3 of the graduating class of 180 accepted to IVY+S+MIT most years, so pretty large sample to draw from. Probably close to 95% from intact 2 parent homes with parents who tend to be successful, well educated professionals (MD’s, lawyers, Columbia U professors, NYTimes and WSJ writers, etc.) highly invested in their children’s education - more SAHMs with their careers on hold until the kids graduate HS then one would expect. Lots of tiger moms and dads. The HYPMS kids were virtually all National Merit Semi-Finalist or higher, uniformly well written and spoken, tended to present quality over quantity in extra-curricular activities (musicians played at Carnegie Hall, writers won Scholastic awards, scientists published and did research at top research institutions, Intel and Siemens semi-finalists, RSI and Olympiad attendees, etc.) where they demonstrated a passion. Very, very high GPA’s, SAT’s and 5’s on AP. Bulk of the acceptances, particularly at HYP, were EA. For H and Y, probably close to half in any year are legacies. When meeting them, they seemed to be extremely bright, well mannered, shockingly well behaved (particularly for teenagers), but only one or two a year really fell into the scary smart category.
DD, who chose S over Yale, falls into the scary smart category. But this does not mean to imply that I, as her mom think this is the reason she was accepted everywhere she applied except Harvard. She is also an extremely hard working kid who learns very quickly. She feels this was an asset to her in the application process, but I also think her outgoing personality, and true sense of empathy for all people, shined through in her essays and rec letters.
It probably helped that she was a true standout in a public HS - making the most out of her limited opportunity.
In my opinion, and based on those I know who have made it into the “super-elite” category of schools, the thing that often sets them apart from the equally qualified kids who didn’t get accepted is pretty basic—likability. They seem to share a sense of self that comes across as confident rather than arrogant and uppity. They are engaged in the world and aware of the people around them. They’re the kind of people, for the most part, that after talking to them for a few minutes, you come away thinking, “I like that person.”
Note: Obviously, being likable is not enough to get you accepted into Harvard, but I definitely think that it is something that makes some kids stand apart.
My sibling went to one of the alphabet ivys listed in the OP. My sibling is a clod. Add that to the data collection here. One more data point.
Keep in mind that there is a whole group of students who might be “HYP-worthy” but whose families could in no way have justified the cost. Then there are those who applied and were certainly worthy, but who were rejected because there are just not enough slots for everyone who meets the acceptance criteria. And those who were accepted (or could have been) but chose to attend elsewhere for non-financial reasons.
@tdy123 wrote:
Agree with all that, and think it applies similarly to HYP kids from good-quality suburban publics. Similar for high-quality privates, except that you get even more legacies and wealth in the mix (often kids at these schools are similar to those described above and also are legacies with money, which is one reason why Ivy admit rates at high-quality privates can be crazy high).
My kids did not attend HYP, but rather Stanford and a different Ivy. I think the single thing that distinguished them from peers–and often equally bright peers–was their drive and work ethic. As an example, when my son was around 3 and 4 years old, he’d wake up every morning with a goal in mind, eg. organize all his baseball cards by RBI stats or something, and then would proceed to accomplish his plan. When D was only 3, she already had a need to be first. She wanted to be first up the steps, first in the building, first to the plate of cookies, first done the puzzle, etc.
I have one at Princeton and one who has no interest in “single initial schools”. Both are intelligent, good students. One is not smarter than the other (although they would disagree, strongly, from different points of view). Both were involved in a number of different activities throughout high school. The kid at Princeton is just more purely intellectually curious. He is far more interested in knowing stuff just to know stuff. The other kid really couldn’t give two cents about stuff she is not interested in. She will delve deeply into those areas of interest, be they math or music, but she is much more narrowly focused than her older sibling, and much more practical in her interests. It is akin to the difference betwen the guy who likes to tinker with his car and the guy who just wants to keep track of when he needs to take it in for service. That is the biggest difference I have seen between a single initial kid and one who will not be. YMMV.
And I have three stickers on my car. One from each of their high schools, one from Princeton and hopefully one at the end of this week when ED results come back. People want to get their nose out of joint because I am proud of my kids and support them in what they do, that is on them. If they are that insecure it is very likely I wouldn’t want to talk to them anyway.
And for another tiny data point my kid who didn’t get into H. (Though U of Chicago recognized his diamond in the rough qualities and he got into selective colleges just off the tippy top tier.) NM commended not finalist. Top 5% of his class not top 1%. Interested in many things, but his ECs were not the sort where he was getting letters saying he was doing the work of grad students or people who had majored in the field. He had an interesting hobby/business. He did well in Science Olympiad. He’d been in two orchestras all through high school - but was only Concert Master freshman year. OTOH he’s much better with people than the older kid. He’s great at strategic thinking. He spent college doing interesting stuff - freshman year he interviewed people in India and Pakistan about nuclear disarmament. He spent a year in Jordan. He organized a trip to Moscow and the Ukraine for an NGO as an intern after college. And he’s headed off to Navy Intelligence next year assuming his clearances come through. I actually think he’ll do more to change the world than my CS kid.
IME, the likability factor is no different from the random population at large. There’s also some prominent Ivy alums who aren’t considered likable by most…including peers back in their undergrad days.
One example is Ted Cruz(in-law overlapped with him at Princeton) who is widely considered unlikable even by many undergrad classmates during his time there and among fellow political compatriots.
Not necessarily. There were some HYP admits…especially P for whom high drive and work ethic didn’t apply and association with such terms would cause their peers and sometimes even they themselves to ROTFLOL.
For most, this was due to them being so super-smart/genius level that they could coast and still effortlessly put together the HS stats/ECs/application package to be admitted and more importantly…excel at such schools with even less effort than in HS.
For a few…especially most Princeton admits from my and the prior graduating HS class, this was due to them being legacies from well-off upper-east sider type families who didn’t feel the need to work too hard because their admission was secured and a nice plum job with the family/family friend’s firm was awaiting them at the end of undergrad so long as they graduated.
What you described regarding work ethic would IME, be much more applicable with students who were admitted and attended colleges like MIT/Caltech/CMU, Cornell, Reed, UChicago, JHU, Swat, Harvey Mudd, Gtech, etc.
The valedictorian from D’s class is at one of those schools and is there jerking the place up right now. He was never a likable sort. Mean would be understating things. He will in all likelihood be successful in that sociopath/CEO mold. His academic resume was impressive and that will always count the most.
To counter, the three HYP grads I still know from my HS days are stellar people, well accomplished, but only one was top 0.1% smart.
Like @TheGFG my son attends Stanford which I think is at least as selective as HYP. I encouraged him to apply to HYP but the weather was a deal breaker. I asked how it was being with all those academic superstars but he told me something rather surprising. He said there are about 20 percent of super academic kids like his roommate( perfect SAT’s, concert pianist, from New England boarding school, all state tennis player) but the rest of the kids(very good students but average) would all say that they were surprised to get accepted and a few that were lazy with poor work habits. Or probably roughly the same percentages and any other top 30-50 school in the nation(although those schools may have fewer of the super elite kids).
Most of the HY admits from my and prior HS graduating classes and afterwards were super-smart genuine geniuses I’d tip my proverbial hat to. Then again, most of them were non-legacies from lower-middle class/lower income backgrounds with many being immigrant and/or first-generation college students.
That’s only applicable to 3 P graduates I’ve known so far out of dozens…one HS classmate who wasn’t a P legacy, an older P alum who was so disenchanted with his undergrad experience there that even his close friends mistook him as a triple MIT grad because of how gung-ho he was about MIT(he went there for his MS/PhD in EE), and an in-law who overlapped with Ted Cruz.
It’s gonna tell you a lot more about the parents, imo.
Looking at how parents evaluate their children is going to depend on the parents as well. College educated? Grad/professional school? Socioeconomic class? Etc etc etc.
Not to mention blinkered parental cluelessness. I was thinking about two siblings who attended high school with one of my Ds’. The parents were a power couple who’d both attended one of the single initial schools mentioned in the OP. The siblings both ended up attending a different single initial school mentioned in the OP. I remember how one of the siblings was grounded for a summer because their grades (at a seriously grade-deflating and demanding high school) weren’t straight A’s. The following year, this student was known by fellow students to be cheating on tests, in order to avoid the same punishment. (and just to blow up the assumptions you may be making–Caucasian family).
How do you think those parents would be evaluating their children, hmmm?
Or another student from that same school who attended another single-initial school not mentioned in the OP. This student was praised to the skies, was actually written up in a major national business magazine as a budding young entrepreneur as an undergrad. Meanwhile, it was an open secret among the high school students that this particular individual was making bank as a dealer.
Somehow, I doubt that the student’s parents had any idea about all of their very successful student’s activities.
Meanwhile, another student from the residential high school co-located with this particular D’s high school was named a Rhodes Scholar. Parents were undocumented immigrants. That student graduated at the top of the class at their highly regarded but non-single-initial private university.
Consider how the evaluation of this final student by their parents is going to compare with the other parents mentioned above.
“It’s gonna tell you a lot more about the parents, imo.”
THIS. I went to school with several kids who graduated from HYP (and similar schools including service academies). They were great kids … smart and involved in many school-related activities. None accomplished anything out of the ordinary in regard to national awards, establishing sustainable charities, or saving the world in high school. Out of my friends who graduated from HYP, only one went on to accomplish anything fabulous above and beyond our classmates who went to state schools.
My point … yes, parents of HYP children should be proud of them. But I think the parents who are going to gush and gush and gush about their childrens’ accomplishments are typically going to be the parents who are living their lives through their children and are seeing the world through rose-colored glasses rather than acknowledging the fact that there are many, many successful children who went to state schools. HYP is only one path to finding your way in the world.
It’s very interesting how many folks forget how much adolescents/teens tend to conceal some/most aspects of their lives from their parents once they become parents themselves.
In my case, my parents still don’t know about many aspects of my HS/undergrad life as it would cause them even more grey hairs than they already had.
Also, my father and I were on such bad terms due to how he reacted to my genuinely subterranean HS GPA that he never had a clue about my undergrad/grad academic performance until nearly a decade after the fact.
And he was quite shocked at how well I did in the latter considering my HS record though he may have had some inkling considering neither he nor mom received a single tuition bill for the entire 4 years.
I don’t have an HYP kid so maybe not qualified to answer but… Our local very competitive high schools send several kids to HYP each year along with 4-6 to Stanford and another 40-50 to UCB and USC and UCLA. I’ve known a lot of these kids since kindergarten. One thing I am confident of is that there really isn’t any difference between the HYP kids and the other high achievers who didn’t make the cut. If I put 100 of these kids in a room, gave you all their test scores and academic credentials, let you spend an hour with each one, and then had you guess which ones were at UCB, or USC, vs H or Y or P or S, you would whiff 9 times out of 10. When I look at the absolute rock stars among the recent grads, two are at UCB, one is at USC on a massive scholarship, and another is at UChicago with my son. Not a single HYP acceptance among them. A couple never even tried so don’t know for sure how they would have fared. The kids who did get into HYP and S are all awesome but nobody that has spent time with these kids would have pegged them as being any better or any different than the rest of the group.
After considerable experience with people from elite schools, including HYPMS, my conclusions are:
- There is some difference between the so-called "top elites" and even other elite schools, in that they have more than their fair share of the truly off-the-charts remarkable students.
- Truly off-the-charts remarkable students are only a small percentage of the student body at any school, including HYPMS.
- The average student at these schools is quite bright, but not brilliant, and not markedly different from the average student at any number of less competitive (but still elite) schools.
- Even the students who are brilliant rarely seem all that different from any other 18-22 year old if you don't happen to be evaluating them in a specialized academic context. Certainly, they don't have any special moral quality or social magnetism.
- It speaks well of a student to have been admitted to HYPMS, since admission to these schools requires both considerable intelligence and considerable effort.
- There are plenty of students just as bright and hard-working who do not get admitted. There are also plenty of students whose circumstances and family background made it far less likely that they would ever be in the running for schools of that caliber, even if they do have the intellectual chops.
- I cared about all of this a lot more when I was 18 then I do now that I'm pushing 30.