Packaging an applicant with disparate ECs/interests

NiceUnparticularMan
Sun, 16 Jun 2024 02:17:54 +0000

I’m not sure I understand what “packaging” means in this context.

I do get the concept of “marketing” (at least I think so), and this is one of the marketing contexts in which I sometimes like to think about the concept of an elevator pitch, a short, simple, and compelling summation of why someone should buy your product or service, or sometimes hire you, or in this case admit you to their college.

But to me, often a great college admissions elevator pitch–not least for LACs–is precisely about a few strong but different aspects of the applicant that together come across as particularly interesting.

Like, suppose a candidate is an A student who was captain of the soccer team (not recruited) and is thinking premed but also loves French poetry. Just hearing that, I want to meet that kid! I want to admit that kid! Nice elevator pitch.

It sounds to me, though, like you think that is maybe a bad elevator pitch? Because premeds are not supposed to love French poetry maybe? But that is not actually strange, or at least not strange for an LAC kid. And in fact, LAC folks will be the first to say that the things you learn from studying French poetry could well make you a better doctor some day.

So if you embrace that mindset yourself, and communicate that worldview in your application, you are going to be doing the exact right sort of elevator pitch for a whole bunch of great LACs.

OK, so in this case, I am hearing A/A+ student who loves writing, linguistics, and robotics. As others explained, this is not even a particular stretch as a whole bunch of really cool stuff in the area of robotics is intersecting with linguistics which intersects with writing. Or you can directly intersect robotics with writing through, say, science fiction. Or so on. So again, this is pretty much an LAC elevator pitch that writes itself.

But what I am hearing is you think they will do things like see an interest in robotics, and then say kids interested in robotics should be on the most advanced math track at their HS, and then reject her because she is not?

And who knows, maybe if she was saying she knew wanted to do CS at a highly selective tech college, that could be an actual thing admissions might think (although even then I am not at all sure).

But for LACs? With a person looking to explore before committing to a major? They are not going to think she has to be the most advanced math student at her high school in order to have a passionate interest in robotics, they are just going to think that is cool. Because robots are cool–at least that is what LAC folks tend to think.

But again, I am not saying it is wrong to think about how to market this. I just don’t see any reason to shy away from it. Pitching yourself as an A/A+ student who is into writing, linguistics, and robotics IS good marketing, at least for many LACs.