<p>This is very true–I think that only 2 of the top 15/20 on my students list will give AP credit
However–we look at the AP exams as another indicator of rigor and ability --like an SAT2 and hope it will help the apps.</p>
<p>Our student’s school expects every AP student to take the national exam…and almost every student in every AP passes…4 and 5… very very few dont</p>
<p>Archie
as far as apps–the student would list the EC in full years–right? example, 4 yrs soccer, 2 JV/2V ?? If the student is say 4 yrs soccer 3JV and thinks they will make V the next yr–thats trickier…</p>
<p>Yep…that’s the case at our HS. Anyone can take APs. Freshmen can take AP Human Geography, Sophomores can take AP World History, then of course, all Juniors and Seniors can take any of the rest.</p>
<p>The Dallas TAG school got No. 1 again this year…it may be 3 years in a row. Yes, it is a public school. But it’s a magnet that selects about 168 students out of district high school population in the neighborhood of 39,000. So those kids represent the top 0.4% of the district population. Is it the high school that is so good, or the fact that they have selected the cream of the cream of the cream of the crop? I think that just about any school district would look stellar if you measured its success based on the accomplishments of the top 0.4% of the students!</p>
<p>^^ cool
kinda like a private school inside a public system…</p>
<p>The one public I am thinking of nearby–offers 27 APs…and yet the general student pop is NOT scholarly…I have subbed there and …all I can say is …oh boy…</p>
<p>The whole ranking thing and AP and hs is baloney…</p>
<p>Hey–wanta hear about MY morning–Phone rings–university campus policeman says–hello Mrs so- so…your student is OK–
We have your student’s wallet…
!!!
So I spent an hour trying to find my student and tell our student where to pickup wallet (with id, cash, debit card, dorm key, campus meal card…etc etc)</p>
<p>yeah-- so I guess this is training ME to realize once they leave home–you can’t do much for 'em when something goes awry…</p>
<p>Welcome. Enjoy the tours. Haven’t seen them all–though we did see MIT and Yale…which are really really different. Be sure to post here your thoughts AND do tour reviews.</p>
<p>Having just reviewed the “applyTexas” application form in connection with my Son’s possible transfer, I can say that some of the application forms are really poorly drafted. For example, on the list of ECs it wants a description of the activity, “position” and whether one was “elected.” There is no space for “auditioned” or anything like that. So if you were “elected” officer of the Jazz Choir (that has 14 members, so presumably you could win with 8 votes), that deserves special attention…but if you were appointed drum major or drill team captain after a rigorous weeks long audition process, you don’t get to check any special box? Makes no sense.</p>
<p>Oh, boy, here we go. Something tells me this is gonna drive me (and songbird) nuts. So much of what she does is by audition. Makes me wanna just jump into those forms right now…or go shoot myself:)</p>
<p>Fortunately, the Common App is less rigid. Also, lots of schools give the student the option to download a resume in addition to the application form. </p>
<p>The thing about the applyTexas form is that it has a very short character limit, so it’s hard to fit in much description if the activity isn’t obvious. For example, if the EC is Boy Scouts and you put “Eagle” in the description, pretty much everyone will know that although it wasn’t “elected” it wasn’t an easy position to achieve. But let’s say the student was the piano player in the pit orchestra for the musicals. Was she asked to do it because no one else would, or did she beat out nine other pianists for the job? Sometimes a student needs a bit of room to explain the significance of what she has done.</p>
<p>I was looking at D1’s resume that she’s kept current for her synagogue youth group involvement–it’s really quite something to see all those years of involvement laid out in one place. Heartfelt thanks to both the program and her group advisor for making sure that the kids keep track of all of their activities and accomplishments over the years. I told D1 that she should take a copy in to her school GC.</p>
<p>Interviews are being scheduled. First off the bat will be for a local LAC that D1 loved but which is far too reachy, so if she muffs the interview it’s no harm, no foul.</p>
<p>I find it so strange that interviews are now considered a very minor part of the college application process. In my day they were still quite important - if you couldn’t go to the school for one, you made sure they set you up with an alum.</p>
<p>Although I recall being frustrated that they weren’t as useful as I’d expected - here was their chance to see you face-to-face, and your chance to show who you really were, but so often the talk was meaningless. I went to one interview very anxious to show things that I’d done that weren’t on my application, and all the interviewer did was ask me if I was thinking about one particular EC at that school - the one EC that I never did in HS (it was like he sniffed that out, of the hundreds that I DID do). And the alum interview (to the school I ended up attending) was with a friend of my mother’s who kept saying, “Oh, yes, I know you’re wonderful - so tell me, how’s your mom, etc.”</p>
<p>So I can see where people think they’re ineffective, but in the ideal they could be so very important. I don’t know if my D will do many interviews, but certainly at her auditioned schools they’ll meet and talk with her.</p>
<p>There was one school to which my son applied that would not admit without an “interview.” So he set up one right before Thanksgiving with the local rep. The local rep met him and said, “You’ve been admitted. Do you have any questions about the school?” Thank goodness parents were encouraged to come into the “interview” because left to his own devices, Son would have probably said “no” and the “interview” would have been over in 4 seconds. </p>
<p>What a silly requirement that was! It just seems designed to let the interviewer take a look at the applicant.</p>
<p>A few schools do apparently still really really really care about the interview, which is where CC knowledge can be very helpful. For instance, I’ve heard from CC on a constant basis that U of Rochester highly values on-campus interviews. You don’t have to interview on-campus to get in, but there is apparently a higher acceptance rate for those who did make the trip out to Rochester. </p>
<p>I’d expect that the interview really doesn’t make a difference for tippy-top schools.</p>
<p>But wouldn’t you think it could? I mean, with all of those seemingly identical stellar applications, don’t you think it could be really important if the kid is funny, articulate, nice, SOMETHING that can only be seen at an interview (or, of course, boring, anti-social, a fake, etc.)?</p>
<p>It was at Harvard that all the guy wanted to ask was about that one EC. I had a huge portfolio of independent academic projects I was ready to talk about. I was polite, but left absolutely fuming. I wasn’t accepted, but it wasn’t my first choice. I also chose not to put any of my legacies on my application, only applied kind of as an experiment.</p>
<p>I think the interview is all part of “showing the love”. There are some schools,like BC, whose Admin director told us at a parent workshop earlier this year, that BC didn’t care one iota how many times you visited, called or emailed. They don’t keep track and it doesn’t influence your application one bit. On the same panel another school admin told us, his school does keep track and they do want to see you visit the campus and interview. </p>
<p>I hope to be able to visit most of the schools S is applying to, but we may not get the opportunity to visit west coast schools, unless he gets accepted and then I want him to see the schools irl before making a decision.</p>
<p>I do agree that some schools really want a student to “show the love” and others don’t care a bit. I remember reading the posts of one student who wasn’t admitted to a school that was close to her home. Because of the proximity, she had visited the campus for many events over the course of her lifetime and didn’t feel the need to do a formal visit. Turns out that it was a school that really wanted to feel the love and of course, the school had no way of knowing how many times the student had been on campus.</p>
<p>^^we have that issue with a couple of local schools. S will probably apply to BC (a big reach due to GPA). we have season tickets to their men’s bball and S has attended week long football camps there. He knows the school. Thankfully, they are one of the schools that doesn’t care if he formally visits. S did formally visit 3 other local schools he wasn’t as familar with. We are also going to try to attend sporting events there to get a more relaxed feel for the school.</p>
<p>We had thought we were done with the college tours–until a mtg with the GC --evidently 2 of our student’s matches are BIG on show-the-love and one in particular WILL NOT admit without a campus visit…</p>
<p>so have booked flights and 2 tours etc to these two schools…</p>
<p>If our student’s list changes alot–this fall could be slammed…</p>
<p>I’m no expert, so take all of this with a few kilos of salt, but I think most of the kids applying to tippy-tops ARE funny, articulate, nice, etc etc. That’s why I think the interview doesn’t really help, especially since it’s alumni who are doing the interview, not the adcoms. I read a piece a few years back by an alum interviewer for Yale or Harvard who said that every kid he interviewed was wonderful, that he walked out to tell the parents that they had every reason to be proud of their wonderful accomplished child, yet not one kid he’d interviewed for the past few years had gotten in. Clearly, applicants should avoid this interviewer </p>
<p>On the other hand, a bad interview is going to be the death knell. Unless the kid’s family donates in the 8 figures on a regular basis. :)</p>
</p>