Myth busters to the class of 2012 and beyond

Colleges & Universities Washington University in St. Louis
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<p>The number of high school seniors is growing faster year after year making harder to get accepted in the top 25 colleges because there isn?t room for all the better than ever applicants.
If you are going to apply to a top 25 institutions, keep in mind than thousands will go to do the same and it?s very competitive, so expect the unexpected.
There is no such thing as overqualified students in any of these top 25 schools. Let me explain that.</p>

<p>Xmen University says:
SAT range 2000/2400, unless you got 2401, you are not overqualified
SAT II is not required, even if you were lucky to get 800 in ten of them, it doesn?t make any difference, and they are not required.
GPA top 10% of the class, no chance with that to be overqualified</p>

<p>Extracurriculars and volunteer work could make a difference is you are beyond the average. Almost everybody is in a sort of Honor Society, it could be National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, Latin, French, you name it. Many kids play sports and every athletic senior makes it to the varsity teams. Debate teams, Math Teams and other scholastic teams are getting part of the curriculum of the top students in any school. It is very difficult for the admission officers to distinguish one kid from another because all the applicants are exceptionally good.
Nowadays, most of the seniors do or did in the past volunteer work during the high school years. There are many kids, as an example, that worked on summer in Habitat for Humanity and unless one kid makes sure to admissions that he shoveled more gravel than the rest of the kids, in paper everyone looks alike. The same commentary goes to other volunteer work.<br>
How an Admissions Officer could tell apart? Write in your essay that you are special, tell them how important was to you to be part of that program, tell them how you matured by doing that and the difference you made in the people around you, show passion, commitment. That for sure will make you be different from the rest even if nobody before saw your face. If you have the chance to interview with admissions, be yourself, don?t be shy, show interest for the college and make sure the one who is interviewing you gets you real one.</p>

<p>There are also ?hooks? mentioned in every ?applying to college? book. There are race hooks, if you are part of a minority under represented in the school, you have a better chance to be admitted, but if that year many kids from the under represented minorities apply to that school, you no longer have that hook, you are competing to a much larger number of students.
If you are Tiger Woods but the school doesn?t have golf, you have no hook at all. If you are the math star in your high school but you are applying to a Culinary Institute, you have no hook. So have in mind what the school offers and guess what it is looking for before showing too much enthusiasm in areas that the school doesn?t care.</p>

<p>And always remember, you are not overqualified to a top 25 institution, if you feel that your are superior to the rest of the applicants that were accepted before, don?t bother to apply there, you won?t fit.</p>

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<p>an excellent read cressmom</p>

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<p>cressmom: I hope all those kids who feel they are overqualified read your post. If you read some of my comments on some other WU threads, you’d notice how mad I was getting at some of these kids. I felt they were arrogant and as one poster commented, it diminishes the accomplishments of those who were admitted.</p>

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<p>I would like to add one more comment, inspired by a conversation with a mother of an 11th grader, just last night. If you are the oldest child in your family, and especially if your parents are a bit older than average, explain to your parents that the world of elite college admissions is very different today than it was a few decades ago. I think a lot of parents who attended highly selective schools some time ago have failed to catch on that a kid with a record equivalent to theirs may well have a much harder time of it today. I’m going to guess that parental miscalculation may be behind a lot of the disbelief being voiced on the Wash U threads.</p>

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<p>midmo: That’s an interesting thought. I do see a lot of that with parents where I taught and with whom I associate. I wonder how big of an impact it has?</p>

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<p>An interesting thread. When I was in school, things were different - I applied to one college (a good one!), knew I would get in based on my stats, never had an interview and never had to write a lot of essays. When my acceptance came, it was expected. I think you are right that some parents today anticipated that kind of reception for their child and don’t understand why it didn’t happen!</p>

<p>Also, as I just wrote in another thread, the people who complain about not being accepted are frequently overlooking the “hook” angle. As I told my D frequently during the process, if you play the violin brilliantly but they don’t have an orchestra, your hook just disappeared. Everyone seems to be trying to compare stats, and many of them forget that each applicant is a total package, not just a GPA and SAT result.</p>