<p>Something of interest if you haven’t seen this new thread and the attached WSJ article:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/717296-report-rips-sat-prep-courses.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/717296-report-rips-sat-prep-courses.html</a></p>
<p>IloveLA, I just so your post about Nortwestern. Thanks for posting. It’s on S’s list. I did not think about that school until the counselor mentioned it.</p>
<p>I will post more later, but a few quick updates.</p>
<p>Had a workshop with Tufts admissions guy last night where he gave us stats from ten applicants and we had to make an admissions decision, admitting only three. We were the gatekeepers! Even the terminology and methodology seems very similar to the book! I will say my results were awesome, I had two I definitely wanted to admit and they were, then two I was on the fence for, one was admitted and one was waitlisted but was from this guy’s region and he had fought hard for her. It was interesting to hear what other parents had to say for things they liked about kids who were denied. I will post more on this excellent workshop later. I have also increased my following of parents who are my admissions groupies impressed with my knowledge and coming to me with questions. (don’t see a tongue in cheek icon, but it is interesting when someone wonders something and have the answer for them, and tell them to consider aspects they hadn’t, this one was in regards to test date conflicts)</p>
<p>Also my brag news is that D had her Girl Scout Gold Award project approved last night. After doing the project which she will do this summer, it should be just a rubber stamp to getting it. I think this seems different than YDS’s S who had his review at the very end, they have already gone over all her steps leading to this point and signed off and given approval to proceed.</p>
<p>I will join in the beaches thread and say I will be at the best beach for me, on Cape Cod, this weekend, not that I would be swimming yet or anything that crazy. But I love being at the ocean, so relaxing!</p>
<p>jackief:</p>
<p>That workshop sounds very interesting and you likely learned something from it, unlike the “after the fact” chances thread that seem to be popping up now and again on CC. It’s May, isn’t it? We look forward to your update on this.</p>
<p>Congrats to your D!</p>
<p>I told me S that due to the CA ballot issues going down in flames, the school year could be shortened by up to seven days. He got all excited until I told him this would be for NEXT year, when he might enjoy it more as a senior. I’m seeing the days between now and when school ends/internship begins, are starting to drag for him.</p>
<p>jackief–now we know who to send our kids’ chances threads to! 
Would love to hear more about the workshop when you have a chance.</p>
<p>Congrats to your D!</p>
<p>On the edge, I should clarify my post about Northwestern and subject tests: the part I quoted was specifically for the Integrated Science Program which requires 3 subject tests in math and science. I don’t know how many Northwestern requires for prospective students who are not applying to that particular program.</p>
<p>Congrats to Jackie’s D!</p>
<p>jackief: That is great to have a pre-approved award! I am sure it will make it more enjoyable to do the project. </p>
<p>In happy news, the daughter of a friend got into Harvard off the waitlist yesterday. We had all been disappointed for her because she had got several rejections and/or waitlists from top schools on April 1st. It had been a sobering reminder to my D (and us parents) about exactly how competitive the process is. This kid is super talented and super nice. Nice to see that sometimes people do get off waitlists.</p>
<p>Clarifying the Eagle process …</p>
<p>The is a presentation before the troop committee where an Eagle project is approved, like jackie’s dd just did. The candidate has to have a detailed plan for how the project will happen: budget, funding, sign-off by the benefiting entity, etc. After all the work is done and approved by the beneficiary and the Eagle adviser, then the candidate has the big hairy Board of Review, which actually may have very little to do with the project. He had to get letters of recommendation and write a Life Purpose statement, in which he details his life goals, etc. Then he presents it all to the members of the BofR, who are troop leaders, district leaders and people of the scout’s choosing. They can ask about all kinds of things – his project, his Scouting experience, his schooling, his college plans, etc. Like a very intimate college interview!</p>
<p>Here are some more details on the workshop. They will be mostly stream of consciousness, I didn’t take more notes because I thought we would get more handouts before we went “into committee” but we didn’t.</p>
<p>Our school runs a workshop like this every year, this is the first year I think the Tufts guy has done it. I know a rep from Holy Cross had done it at least once in the past. The presentation we got was one he also gives to alumni interviewers. He said that often the interviewers get upset that the great kids they recommend don’t get in. Its purpose was to give them an eye into the reality of admissions at a highly competitive school which hie defined as one which accepts 30% or fewer kids, of which he said there are only about 40. Side note- the alumni at Tufts interview about 9k of 15k applicants, it is not held against them if they do not interview.</p>
<p>The things they look for are categorized as follows- Data (ex gpa, test scores), Talent (sports, music), Voice (essays, recommendations, etc), and institutional priorities. This last one they don’t have much control over, it is the outside forces telling them they need that oboe player etc. Later in the talk he also talked about how if they are starting up a new department in near east studies, they would look at interest in that area to beef up that area. Also a new performing arts center makes them want to take more kids who would use (and showcase) it.</p>
<p>The application is given four grades. This part was very similar to the gatekeepers for those who have read that book. The grades are for: academics, ECs, Personal Qualities (PQ), and overall. Overall is not an average, but just an overall rating of the applicant. Personal qualities I was surprised included things like race, ethnicity, and demographic info as well as the more obvious recommendations and essays. The grades are on a scale of 1 being the best to 7 being the worst. They have added 3.5 and 4.5 this year because of too much of a bunch in the middle. The definitions of the grades are something like 3=admit with committee approval, 4=waitlist/deny plus. 4 and 5 were also called qualified but not competitive.</p>
<p>The grades between the 10 applicants were all in the ball park, he told us he had normalized the school differences in the data he gave us. They don’t recalculate GPA, but they do take the differences and rigor into account when they give the academic grade. I had never thought of this aspect before, makes perfect sense.</p>
<p>The then went through a summary of the ECs and PQs for each applicant, I should have taken notes here because we didn’t see these again. I did put checks next to the people whom I thought were compelling. One boy was an Eagle scout, and some other leadership ec, and some other stuff. One girl worked 12h/week, she got an internship over the summer. Those were my two strong admits. There was one boy who had the highest grades/scores and had also won a science prize. Many of them just had lists of activities without showing anything compelling to stand out.</p>
<p>The PQ section and a comment about how well the essay was written which seemed more stressed than the actual topic of the essay. Some were said to be formulaic, young, disconnected. The writing style was mentioned prominently. A line was written to summarize the teacher recs and the gc rec. Side note, doesn’t penalize the kids from the megaschools, but with our small school they expect good recs which show they know the kid. I don’t know what I really focused on to give a plus to some candidates, I liked the essays deemed strong and if the recs seemed to tie into an other activity or passion.</p>
<p>So at the end he showed the four scores per kid and the decision.</p>
<p>As I said I looked for non-run-of-the-mill items in the ecs and leadership and initiative. I think the third kid I admitted was one who started a business. The girl I liked who was waitlisted was an independent type who did her own thing and seemed to be less packaged than others. The boy with the high scores and science prize wrote very generic essays and he was denied. One girl that a couple people liked was quiet introverted, her essays were “young” but the gist from the recs was that she was about to bloom in college. Didn’t get up to the bar in my mind since we could only pick three. One parent picked out a photo interest and that was important to her. Tufts guy said everyone will have their biases, which is why they go over everything in committee. He said the eagle scout (for example) mgiht be important to some, be no big deal to others (and I thought and a negative to some) and they all seem to know what pushes the buttons for their coworkers. The girl I liked who was waitlisted was from a rural school, I mentioned that was a factor for me liking her, he said that is important to him personally as he is from a rural area. </p>
<p>That’s about it. I would say I didn’t learn any big lessons, but I did see things weighted a little differently and saw some clues into the Tufts way of doing this. It seems to be similar to other competitive schools, since it closely followed Wesleyan in the gatekeepers.</p>
<p>thanks for the clarification YDS, we don’t have an equivalent step. (waiting 60 seconds after my tome)</p>
<p>Thanks for that summary jackief. Interesting to see how all the quantitative data are mixed in with qualitative data to arrive at a (subjectively assigned) numerical score.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting. Was there any discussion about how likely the applicant was to matriculate? Did anyone ask about this? Yield protection and showing the love, etc.</p>
<p>Yeah, did anyone ask about Tufts Syndrome?</p>
<p>A big awards night tonight! Do you mind if I brag on DS? I think why I’m particularly proud of him is that when he started 9th grade, he wasn’t excelling academically or athletically. Even in 9th grade, he struggled. He took a couple of honors classes and a couple of regular ones. He got an 80 in honors science.</p>
<p>Less than three years later, and he’s the top runner on the track/XC teams and got the following awards tonight:</p>
<p>-Plaque for making high honor roll (all grades above 93) the first three quarters of the year. He was one of three students out of 180 to get it.
-Dartmouth Book Award (afterwards, the presenter asked him to consider attending the school!)
-Silver Award for Latin II exam (he just started Latin I this fall, and moved up to the Latin II class in January).
-Brownze Award for Spanish IV
-National Honor Society</p>
<p>Now I feel kind of bad for all the times I’ve yelled at him to get his homework done, but maybe that helped a little! He’s been lagging lately - I told him to hang on for another month!</p>
<p>Thanks for listening. There aren’t too many places I can brag about him!</p>
<p>MaineL:</p>
<p>You know the '10 list is THE place to brag or kvetch. If we get too lopsided on the kvetch, jackief lets us know and then we need posts just like yours. Way to go for your S and an upward trend, too!</p>
<p>That’s wonderful, ML!!! Doesn’t Dartmouth know it doesn’t have a chance? Hook 'em!</p>
<p>MaineLonghorn brag away! (and congrats!)</p>
<p>Thanks, guys! You’re the best.</p>
<p>Whoops, I meant “bronze” and I can’t find the edit button! Weird, because I see the button for THIS post.</p>
<p>The edit button goes away after a brief period of time. Congrats on the long list of honors!</p>
<p>ML: Don’t you know this <em>is</em> the designated brag thread? My only problem is that you put all those awards into one post. I think each award deserves several posts to do full justice 
Congratulations to your son!</p>