@juillet People on CC may be focusing on her race and ethnicity but does that really matter? She’s done well for herself. That’s all that matters.
No one is saying she isn’t qualified and only got in because of her ethnicity. The perception is that her great application and wonderful essay definitely could have been expected to earn her admission to 1-3 of the top schools. But when kids run the table and it’s publicized, it seems that what they all have in common is the added hook of being a URM. Maybe that’s just who gets publicized, and maybe things are different for the top private prep schools. But at even your excellent public high school like mine, the top students (who are not white, but not black either) don’t get into more than one or two of HYPS.
“Add in those students who have been artificially removed from the ‘white’ student account and white students are even more represented.”
My husband was reading a book yesterday, an old school reader, “The Color of Man,” and he came upon a sentence which made him look up and ask how, if, as the book attests and as was the old way of speaking in this country, “if a person has one drop of black blood they are considered black,” is that same person who has one drop of white blood not considered white.
It is all artificial, if we’re talking strict racial assignments.
@TheGFG I agree it is rare, but that is not so much because students aren’t accepted to all the Ivies but because it is fairly rare to have someone apply to ALL of them. At the same time, I’ll admit that we would have fallen all over ourselves to admit a highly qualified URM, first generation student or one from a low-income household. But then again, we also fell all over ourselves to admit Gates Scholars, Intel Scholars, incredible musicians etc.
" I’ll admit that we would have fallen all over ourselves to admit a highly qualified URM…"
And this prevalent thinking is precisely why so many people who do not identify as persons of color (I don’t know anyone who calls themselves a minority, btw) think all a Black kid has to do is fill out the application and the rest is gravy.
I’m going to guess that while you worked in admissions, that was in the past. The past is past.
Well, my son was a highly qualified URM with straight A’s in all honors and AP’s (13 AP’s including the tough ones), earned 5’s in all but one test and that was a 4, etc. and he didn’t even come close to running the table. He didn’t apply to Brown or Harvard, but applied to all the other Ivies plus some other top schools like Georgetown. He got into just 2, which was great. No sour grapes. However, I don’t think that for historical reasons schools feel the same obligation to Hispanics as they do to blacks.
And that much I would think, for an exceptional student who applies to many of the top schools, is probably a normative outcome.
There probably aren’t one or two kids who get into all or several Ivies. There are likely hundreds of them. The media just decide to pick up a few of the stories, and one commonality through those stories are that the students tend to be students of color. Perhaps they are more likely to get admitted to more than one, but perhaps the media is just more likely to pick up the public interest story when it’s a student of color.
I’m not talking about comments that are merely descriptive of her race or even ones that note that she discussed it in her application. I’m talking about the comments that say things like “Well, she was an underrepresented minority; even if her essay was bad she still would’ve gotten in.” It edges on some really unfortunate implications.
I never said that people assumed she got in because of her race or ethnicity; all I said is that the inordinate focus on it (not just here but in other places I’ve seen) is disheartening to me as a woman of color.
I think this is questioning is inevitable when someone gets a bump (or down) based upon something that they cannot control. While there are many such factors (legacy, income, quality of school, etc.), nothing is quite as visible as race. That doesn’t mean it’s fair, but it will continue to exist until enough high quality schools stop considering it, which shows no sign of happening.
For all the word-counters…
When I paste that essay into the CA it alerts me that I’m 3 words over, but allows me to save and continue.
I have noticed that versions of the essay at different websites each have different hyphenations, etc.
When the AdComs have over 30,000 applications sitting in front of them - being the “Costco girl” is a good thing. It is an essay they will not forget. And yes, it is obvious she wrote this herself without the input from parents, teachers or hired guns trying to polish it into a shining diamond. Instead it is a lump of coal with the promise of more to come when the “pressures” of a top school are applied. Don’t know what her stats may be, but they have to be in the range of what is acceptable to the schools or they would not have accepted her. Bravo. I would love to meet her instead of the person who wrote about digging a well for starving folk in some distant country.
A bit off topic, does anyone have any suggestions/links to other creative college essays?
Also, I wonder, did someone ever write an essay along the lines of “Dear adcom, I know you won’t accept me because I have no Olympic medals or Nobel Prizes to my name, my parents aren’t Presidents of USA of Fortune 100 companies, and my 4.9 GPA and 2390 SAT are “average”. But I really-really like your campus and professors and overall vibe. So I dare you prove me wrong and actually send an acceptance letter”
@typiCAmom
Do not write this essay.
A couple years ago, a girl wrote a letter to the editor (perhaps to WSJ?) bemoaning the fact that she was rejected at all the top schools except for Michigan. It clearly was satirical and at the same time clever and well written, but she got a lot of backlash and media shaming for it. The consensus seemed to be that she was a whiny, privileged white kid who had no reason to complain. Felt bad for her. People missed the satire completely.
So because of that - don’t write that essay
here is the link to her letter. very well written - wonder what she is doing now?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324000704578390340064578654
Thank you for the accurate information. I am amazed at the focus on something so absolutely trivial. At least all these top schools must have thought so. I think I will go with their judgement as to the importance of this issue.
@typiCAmom Here are JHU’s “Essays that Worked”:
https://apply.jhu.edu/apply/essays-that-worked/
I’ve read a few and thought they were terrific (better than Costco.)
…and only 4 out of the 32 exceeded the word count! Hahaha…just kidding. I will never count words again 
Some people are missing the point. The point is that the common app does the word count for you. Obviously that draft (apparently there are several drafts according to another poster above) that is over the word count was not the one used in the common app or it would not have been permitted. So there would be no reason for the schools to doublecheck because the only way to get it submitted through the common app is to have it meet the word count. This isn’t rocket science
That was a laugh out loud essay by Suzy Weiss. Thanks for the link.