Resilience
@bearcatfan That’s part of why I am asking for opinions on this forum, to see if people notice any new developments as this admissions cycle unfolds. Many students can rattle off pretty unrealistic service activities- are AOs becoming more savvy assessing genuine service as opposed to resume fluffing? Are they dinging the kids who don’t have time for “meaningful” community service because the applicant is deeply committed to his/her sport (or academic EC), and the lack of time to commit to service might now potentially put them at a disadvantage? For this example I’m not talking about the recruited athletes, just the vast majority who love their sport and spend so much time playing for their school or local club team. Just wondering out loud.
Serenity…
So I can learn from her!
@Clementine7624 I know once a kid gets in there minds there is no changing it but Oberlin is only 30 miles from Cleveland so I would hardly classify it as too isolated
I just want my kid to be happy. I think he will be successful where ever he goes.
However, I want him to get into a great college because I like when kids can see the correlation between their hard work and their success. And he has worked really hard, and while grades are one form of success, college admissions would be another form that we would like him to see.
@bearcatfan A while back I read an article on someone that won many national awards and accolades, went to a prestigious prep school after senior year and eventually landed a scholarship to Duke before people started to look closely at her community service/ECs.
Title: College aspirants face pressure to do ‘impossible’.
If you do a search a press reader version is accessible but you need a subscription for a direct link to the article. I thought it would make for an interesting discussion on CC at some point.
Is there even a vetting process when it comes to community service/ECs?
I’m stealing passion from a previous poster.
Happy hanukah to you too. MY DD is at a nutcracker rehearsal but took our kiddie cloth menorah to “light”!
Peace
We will find out my DD’s ED decision sometime tonight. As she looked at schools we wrote off IVYs because even though she has great stats we knew it was a crapshoot. Her ED school is one where she’s a legacy, she did a summer program there, and she’s in the mid to upper range of scores.
Lots of people told us to apply to IVys or Northwestern. But 60 kids from her high school applied to Northwestern last year and they took two. One of the parents who’s kid was rejected had a kid already at Northwestern. They told her that even though the second kid had perfect stats, they wanted more pell grant students, more international students, and by the way they were really popular because their basketball team is doing well.
I’m a graduate of a state university and state law school and I do the same job as my colleagues who graduated from Harvard and Georgetown. It’s what you do not where you go.
Going to go with “Happy” as well . . .
One word is so hard but I’ll go with…
Happy
Love the words! So hard to pick just one, but I’m going with… Confidence. In the hope that from that will flow all the rest of those amazing words!!
Late on this but big congrats @MDSparkle !! <:-P <:-P <:-P
@Clementine7624 I know what you mean about feeling like there must be some school out there that is perfect that you are overlooking. My D also has many requirements which narrowed the focus so much I feared finding even one school to match. Honestly, I don’t think we found that unicorn, but we found a nice assortment that are close enough. They are all “safeties” for her academically, and I have had the same concerns as you. I let them go. My D very specifically does not want to be in a competitive academic environment, she likes a challenge, but not too much of a challenge. :-?? She is who she is. The schools on her list will all provide her with a great education, regardless of where they sit on some arbitrary list or how selective they are or where she ranks amongst applicants. It just doesn’t matter. What matters is that she feels that she can be successful there. Beyond that, I’m letting it go. As far as USF, I don’t think you need to worry too much about kids who got rejected from their favorite UC being in the majority. I think it’s a very different kind of school and will appeal to a different type of kid than the UCs do. Not to mention the price difference! UC kids will use lower tier UCs or CSUs as their safeties. Plus CA is a big state, probably a lot of kids will be from SoCal which is practically like travelling from out of state (they won’t be headed home every weekend and the environment is very different). I would say if she is happy with it, go with that. Good luck to you both!!
@greentea3 What was the upshot of the article - that the person made up the extracurriculars?
I started keeping track of my daughter’s EC hours from freshman year because I had it in my head she needed a community service component to graduate (she didn’t). We went to add up the hours for a scholarship last year and she had 400 hours. Even I didn’t think she had that many. A lot of them were through church and ballet - nothing out of the ordinary at all, just showing up week after week lol.
She also worked a bit, for pay. I think I have more respect for the kids who hold down jobs and still do well in school than those who do poverty tourism trips and summer programs.
If I were an admissions officer, those kinds of kids would stand out to me.
I would echo what @1822mom said about distance. CA is huge. I went to a school in SoCal and the people who were there from NoCal lived farther away than driving to AZ! Lots of CA kids like to go to the opposite side to experience something different while still staying in state.
I think what @bearcatfan said is exactly why different kids get into different places. One AO might appreciate a kid with a job over one who did a lot of sport/EC during the year and something CS in the summer. I’m not a sports-y type person so that wouldn’t resonate with me as much as something else. Another one may be the opposite. Hopefully your kid resonates with the right one!!!
I can confirm NorCal and SoCal are different “states”, or at least different states of mind. :))
Our college counselor swears it is about passion. If your passion is a sport play that sport. It doesnt matter if it rec, or club etc. volunteer with that sport etc. They do not care what you are doing they just want to see you are committed to something. I my daughter plays a travel sport so she is usually gone most of the summer and cannot do an intership or much volunteer work. She has maybe 150 hours, but they are all with children a lot coaching sports. I ssked point blank if that was enough to have a chance at the super selectives and she thought so. we really won’t know because DD decided to only apply to one super selective, no ivy. The Ivy she was looking at doesnt allow double majors so that was a deal breaker for her.
My S20’s passion is Scouts. He earned 720 hours last summer and currently has about 800 hours. He felt guilty entering that many hours because his school only requires 100. I told him you gave up your entire summer to work for free you deserve to report those hours. I just hope colleges don’t think he made it up.
If you havent read Frank Bruni’s book on college admissions i would encourage you to get it. It is a quick read with lots of insight into choosing schools
Wow! Don’t read the thread for 8 hours and come back to about 125 new posts.
@Clementine7624 University of Dayton might be worth a look. It meets the size requirement without being super big. It is Catholic (Marianist, not Jesuit) and has some social justice focus. It’s within a few miles from downtown Dayton; definitely not rural. And it’s got a great, supportive environment with lots of school spirit. I’ve never met an alum who was unhappy with, or even lukewarm about, his or her experience there. They all seem to have loved it. Good luck! I hope you find what you and your daughter are looking for.