The Curse of the Chances Thread

BlueJayBJ
Thu, 21 Nov 2013 14:45:20 +0000

Here is advice maybe late for some but early for others.
No one cares if you are in high school, if you truly have a fascination and passion for a topic pursue it and you will find many people in the field will want to help you on your path. It doesn’t have to be at a university. If you are interested in Art History and have a local museum, find some way to get involved. Start a correspondence with an academic. The one thing that pleases an academic more than anything is seeing a young eager mind want to explore the topic they are an expert on. A friend of mine’s bf was from Kansas but had a 3 year correspondence with a professor at Wharton. This kid in high school was already enamored with finance and devoured everything he could on it. He reached out to the professor not for anything, but just to start a chat. He had read an interview the professor gave and disagreed with some of the points and wanted to discuss them. The professor was so impressed with this young man that his Sophomore year in high school this professor invited him to be his assistant for the summer. Junior year he spent the summer in Penn again working with the professor. This guy’s grades were great but not perfect. My friend says when it came time to apply for college the professor encouraged her bf to apply early to Wharton. The story goes his SAT scores were way below the desired for Wharton and bursted into tears when he told this professor because he felt there was no way of getting in. The professor’s response was “Just write the truth about yourself on your application.” He did apply to Wharton ED and got in. Not just that but he received two very personal letters from the dean of Wharton and Admission. The letter from Wharton’s Dean said that the professor did not lobby for him besides the rec letter. What got him in was that he showed he had the ambition to reach out to an expert and pursue his passion. That dean stated it was students like him that made the dean less cynical. The admissions dean wrote they were beyond impressed with his research when he was with the professor and even though he was thousands of miles away was still courageous enough to do what he did.