HOBY is an honor, certainly!
I am really confused by QuestBridge emails that are constantly sent to my DD. She does not qualify for QB financially, but every month she gets emails from them asking to apply. Today she received email form Stanford QB partnership asking her to apply. Every time she hears word Stanford she pricks her ears up, so just want to make sure I instructed her right that she cannot apply to this program. Am I correct that this program has 65K or so income sealing?
I wouldnât waste money on this kidâs college. He is losing 4 years in pursuing some true passions and making serious money. 
@ballerina2016 I am not sure there is an exact ceiling for QB but i do believe you donât stand much of a chance once you start making 60k or so since it is quite income specific along with merit.
We are a bit stuck on the whole volunteering/community service thingâŠwould love some input/help from all of you. My son has a mixture of things that he has done, much of which is through things he is already involved in through schoolâŠie: (optional) band performances outside of school for things such as honor flight, fund raising for various clubs, etc.
What is okay to list as âcommunity serviceâ and what is not? What is the difference between volunteering and community service? This is a weaker side of sonâs resume, so donât want to âpadâ it, but also want to count anything that should be counted. The bottom line is that my son does not have any amazing passions that he has put a lot of time intoâŠbut he does do quite a bit of things outside of normal requirements that have taken up a bit of his time over the years.
@4kids2graduate if the fundraising for clubs benefits the kids in the club that heâs in â a trip, new uniforms, etc â I wouldnât count that. If the fundraising is for a service project to benefit others and it took effort, time and had good results, definitely yes. (Ideally, thereâd be a specific part of it that heâd spearheaded â promotion, organizing volunteers, etc.) Optional band concerts that are put on for members of the community could certainly be included, but I should think there would have to be a decent number of them to make it listable (a full seasonâs worth, or a couple each year over a matter of years.)
Typically, volunteering to meet school club requirements is considered a club activity where the hours are counted as part of that activity including fundraising while volunteering for or at external entities counts as volunteering without any association with a school related activity.
Hereâs my question on volunteering and fundraising, I hate listing what S has done because it sounds like bragging so as I write please know that through the years I have seen that all your kids have accomplished so much and are great kids and my kid is no better than anyone elseâs on here. S did a fundraiser to feed the homeless at a shelter and received an award from the city, should He list that first? What about an award from our school board for being the first student at our school to hold a statewide office for a national student organization? Should those be listed first (I guess we donât have other awards so they should). He started a a chapter of that national student organization at our school and grew it to one of the largest in the country in two years, where would that go? He is the only golfer in our area to be named to our local newspapers all star team every year of high school, should that be an award or an accomplishment? What about Mock Trial Awards? He has been the subject of two newspaper articles, where do I list those? I have never see the common app, do they have an area for accomplishments and awards? I think someone on here has said you can submit a resume, is that true?
@Mysonsdad your son sounds like a great kid with a lot of vision. I canât offer advice on what to put where, but I would suggest that you look at a paper version of the common app to see the format and what they are asking. The only way to get character limits is to actually log into the app, but you can certainly get a good idea from looking at the paper one. Itâs at the bottom of this page (some of which you may find helpful ).
https://recsupport.commonapp.org/ics/support/kbanswer.asp?deptID=33014&task=knowledge&questionID=794
We did submit the resume-- but I canât remember now if it was on the Common App or on one of the individual school applications. I think it was Common App. Itâs all sort of running together now.
As far as the volunteering, we collapsed it and a few random other things into a heading called âCommunity Involvementâ, then just broke out the most salient bits in bullet points. It was the easiest way to make his particular activities comprehensible to someone who doesnât have an immediate knowledge base-- heâs been involved in some very niche activities specific to our community.
My son has a lot of volunteering/ community service with the Boy Scouts but my older daughter (HS 2013) had none. She was extremely busy with Crew and school. Even without the community service she did just fine in admissions.
For anyone interested, we got a postcard from Yale in the mail today talking about their awesome FA and fee waivers. They say families are eligible for a Yale fee waiver if their household income is below
Family Size - Income
2 - 65K
3 - 70K
4 - 75K
5 - 80K
6 - 85K
Hope that helps someone!
You can review his whole list of activities and accomplishments and then divide it as needed between the 10 slots on the CA in order to show an even distribution. You can also stick oddball or other items into Additional Info box. As long as it doesnât cause cognitive dissonance in the adcom reader, you can slice and dice as need be. Imho.
I feel like all my kidâs volunteer activities benefited her in some way. She has been very very involved in many activities, but classic âvolunteeringâ just isnât one of them. Oh wellâthere is no way she can do anything about it now. It would be pure resume padding at this point.
@Mysonsdad I think all those accomplishments are important enough to be listed, unless he is running out of space with more even higher accomplishments in other areas.
Donât be shy - this was WASHUâs exact words. Put anything and everything that you did. Donât compare yourself to someone else - make it yours. Hope that helpsâŠ
@Mysonsdad It is very impressive list. There might be a way to add resume in the application as other people suggest.
Those are all great accomplishments, and I have no advice on order. There may be an issue on character/word limits in explaining some of them. Some schools do offer a resume option, and with others, your son might be able to work more explanation about his achievements into the supplemental essays.
Thank you everyone, but having read about all your kids over the years, you also have great kids too and I would be proud to have my S end up in the same colleges as your kids. I think I will look into the paper app.
Got NM semifinalist confirmation, so I can stop worrying that the school messed things up in that area 
Congratulations @GoodGrief16 Did anyone actually get a code to online application or it will be distributed after September 9th?
Congrats @GoodGrief16 !