<p>We’re still talking mostly elites, right? You can either articulate your interest or not. No one formula, except to be genuine. You can love the architecture, but loving the campus isn’t what’s going to make your app compelling. Make it one point, not the whole.</p>
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<p>Certainly not if that is the only point being made. But if you know you want to major in X, shouldn’t your first filter be schools providing an outstanding education in X? It was for my son.</p>
<p>Then you go on to elaborate on how prefer a small town/rural/urban environment, the type of organizations the campus has that appeal to your interests, perhaps the collaborative environment, exceptional peers, anything that as an aggregate shows that:
- You spent the time learning details about the school; and
- You could be happy there because numerous self-defined needs would be met.</p>
<p>By contrast, if you refer to current research or a given professor’s work, you never know if that professor is about to retire or otherwise be uninvolved in working with fresh undergrads.</p>
<p>I’ve been playing with some numbers. You know, coming from Montana might not be a great hook, after all. Look at this: [Where</a> Does Your Freshman Class Come From? - Facts & Figures - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Interactive-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=166027]Where”>http://chronicle.com/article/Interactive-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=166027)</p>
<p>Harvard. Figures for 2010. The interactive feature shows how many freshmen hail from each state. Compare the figures to this: [Table</a> 14. Actual and projected numbers for public high school graduates, by region and state: School years 2003–04 through 2021–22](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2021/tables/table_14.asp]Table”>http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2021/tables/table_14.asp).</p>
<p>Three freshmen in 2010 came from Montana. Montana had (roughly–using 2008-9 actual figures, rather than 2010 projections) 10,000 high school graduates in 2010. Thus, each Montana Harvard student was one out of 3,333. </p>
<p>Miss Weiss hails from Pennsylvania. 48 freshmen hailed from Pennsylvania, out of a graduating cohort of 130,000. Thus, each Pennsylvanian Harvard freshman was one out of 2,708.</p>
<p>New York? 202 freshmen, graduating cohort of 180,000. One out of 891.</p>
<p>Massachusetts. 210 freshmen, graduating cohort of 65,258. One out of 310.</p>
<p>So, to get into Harvard, don’t move to Montana!</p>
<p>Of course when an EC is brand new and original, it’s more impressive. All the same, it seems to me that a college should have articulated certain markers that make an applicant a good fit for their school. Let’s say they decide a candidate should have had some cultural exposure. Enter the student who wrote about his service trip overseas, and they remark, “Ahh yes, this student has traveled outside the US and has been broadened by that experience. We can check off the cultural exposure box.” So why should it matter if ten more students got their exposure the same way if the goal is the actual culturally broadening experience? Now if the attribute were creativity, I can see how there’d need to be something else besides the same sort of trip lots of other students do.</p>
<p>Periwinkle, It’s obvious that you’re referring to me, but you clearly missed my point.</p>
<p>The point assumed that the same quality of student and school would be advantaged if the local competition were less intense and similar to himself/herself. That premise in itself assumes that particular school X (in Montana, Iowa, South Dakota, etc.) had established a reputation with the Elites enough to get noticed.</p>
<p>On the contrasting end to this, my best single student (in my estimation – the single most intellectual and brilliant of them) was the first person in her school’s history not to be outright rejected in the early round, by a top 3 Ivy. Instead, she was deferred. It was and is clear to me that it was her school’s location under the radar that accounted for her not being accepted Early. (And she was accepted to a few Ivies, including Columbia, RD.) In terms of HYP, she suffered from the nowhere’s-land syndrome of her surroundings.</p>
<p>The two-edged sword of the dense and over-educated regions is that the competition is unreal, but that at least one is likely not to be ignored if one’s high school has a decent profile. When the calculus balances so extremely in the direction of competition vs. the profile of the high school, the returns have diminished already. </p>
<p>Hopefully, a few other people DID get my point.</p>
<p>Also, it has ALWAYS been true that educational institutions of all levels will acknowledge some proportionality in admissions, relative to applications. While some institutions still nsist, for example, on even gender splits, many more do not; the offers will tend to reflect the proportions of the applications, or at least a compromise in that direction.</p>
<p>Both of my daughters could give a very convincing why NOT most of these schools, though they certainly had the stats and ECs.</p>
<p>Not all kids want to go to these places, and, I’m suspicious that many of the kids who are applying don’t have a clue as to what they really want or where they really want to study or why. They just “know” that everybody wants to go to X and work at Y, and I think this is more of an issue in the Northeast and in California. </p>
<p>As to companies hiring out of the Elites only, again a problem only in the Northeast and occaisionally in California. Not many other places. But, I can say with complete confidence that if you go to UMich or an B1G or UVA or UNC, you will be able to get an excellent job.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of mythology on CC, much as I love the sport of college admissions.</p>
<p>ETA: I think the lottery issue comes from the schools themselves who insist on repeating the fact that they could fill their schools four times over from all the qualified apps. If this is not true, they ought to stop saying it is.</p>
<p>The above discussion is exactly what I mean by capricious. Isn’t it ironic that we have here a group of intelligent parents, who are interested in the topic of college admissions, and yet there is no consensus on what is an appropriate way to answer the “Why our school?” question. One poster recommends mentioning X professor and his expertise, and another feels that’s not wise because the prof could retire. Is it any wonder the kids don’t know how to answer these prompts either? Some of you are very confident in your proclamations of the rules, such as “Don’t mention the weather or the architecture.” How did you figure out that was a no no? Did some adcom tell you they are sick of hearing those comments? Weather is a huge issue for a lot of kids, and so I’m sure plenty of them talk about it. My D did. She personalized her weather reason, but she most definitely mentioned it. Why didn’t we get the memo it was a bad answer?</p>
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<p>Wondered if anyone wrote a targeted essay recounting the times they’ve had a gallon of yogurt dumped on them from above and how that was an edifying experience. :D</p>
<p>GFG, one reason for overseas service projects was that for some students and populations, it has been their only venture outside of personal, self-absorbed goals, and it was organized for them, along with being supervised, with a group with whom they had a lot in common, etc. IOW, it looked attractive. I’m serious when I say that for a lot of these students it has been the first time they have done something for someone other than themselves. The downside was that it was so “organized” and so many did it (i.e., not original); the upside was that for very many of those attending such trips, they actually began to care about someone other than the one in the mirror; they became genuinely passionate about giving, and expressly chose that feature (that opportunity) in college campuses – such as campuses with a strong local service outreach.</p>
<p>Now, a few seemed unmoved by the experience, and more cynical about the use of it for college admissions, but more (in my encounters) have profiited from them, even though I completely understand if colleges have become satiated by them.</p>
<p>I’m neutral about them. My own children have not needed such mass organized outings; their service was local and opportunities were abundant, including those suggested by their high school & made possible by the h.s.</p>
<p>I am not an adcom but I’ve been interviewing candidates for large corporations for over 20 years and there are likely some parallels. There is no right answer to the question “why us” but there are dozens of wrong answers. </p>
<p>I’ve had mid career professionals lecture me on what our company does and why it’s important and actually get their facts wrong (they are describing another company entirely.) I’ve had new college grads tell me that they’re moving in with BF or GF and they’ve already got an apartment a few blocks from our office so they won’t have a bad commute. I’ve had people tell me they’ve investigated our benefits package and since we cover adoption (with a generous benefit )and they are infertile they need to get a job with us. And I had a candidate tell me last week that he’s going to get deported from the US unless we can get his paperwork through “the system” quickly.</p>
<p>You hear everything (and these are management roles- entry level management on up to SVP). So my guess is that the adcom’s have their own version of “Why us Hell” which provides the hilarity at their off-sites and lunches sames as in a corporation.</p>
<p>Really? You’re getting deported so we should put you on the payroll for a 200K job as a thank you/parting gift???</p>
<p>Don’t overthink the question. It’s easy to get it wrong but anything that’s not wrong- is just fine. It’s another sorting mechanism… to weed out the kids who are too lazy to spell Johns Hopkins correctly or the kids who are too indifferent to realize that Wash U is not in Washington or the kids who write that they want to attend Columbia so they can be in the Capitol of the great state of NY (which is in Albany)… etc. Just a sorting mechanism.</p>
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<p>Perhaps you meant if … that is NOT the only point made. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I believe that your additional items are not exactly linked to your first. My take on that question is that the school does not want to hear what they already know. For instance blabbling about the same information that is printed in their viewbooks or marketing brochure is hardly a sign of having researched the school to ascertain a potentially GREAT fit or at least GREAT interest. </p>
<p>The elaboration you described goes well farther than talking about the “great reputation” of the school. Those are personal interpretation items; quite different from the “reputation” that is established by … [fill the blanks of outfits with varying degrees of accuracy] </p>
<p>You might have had something different in mind but I do not see how anyone would benefit by reciting how well School XYZ fits Candidate A because some pseudo-scientist in Shangai ot some journalists decided the school had a great ARWU or THES reputation. Or does talk about the reputation in the Gourmet report? Or is it the Mother Teresa ranking? Or the ubiquitous USNews. </p>
<p>Oh well! Perhaps it is all semantics.</p>
<p>Perhaps the point was made: the MT vs PA chances don’t vary per the number of hs grads in the state, but by the number from that region, community and/or high school applying to college X. Starts there, then other factors play.</p>
<p>OK, junior. Be yourself, and be honest about why you want to attend Harvard, except if your answer makes you sound like a prestige hound. Whatever you do, don’t say you want to go there because it’s the highest ranked school in the country. Oh, and don’t write about how much you like Boston as a city or the fact that there are so many college students in the metropolitan area, because that’s so unoriginal. Besides, the school is in Cambridge, not Boston anyway. Avoid talking about the weather and how much you love fog, slush and cold. They’ll think you’re lying. Yes, the campus IS very pretty, but don’t say that either because you’ll sound too shallow. And that physics professor whose work interested you, well he seemed kind of old. You’d better not write that you’d like to work with him because he might retire before you arrive. If you say you’ve learned more about Harvard through Jeremy Lin, they might think you’re sports-obsessed and of inferior intellect–so don’t.</p>
<p>What, you’re not applying to Harvard anymore?</p>
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<p>Well, I will answer. To help you understand the validity of the comments about the weather, the architecture, or the reputation of the school being poor elements to discuss in an application or essay, those comments do indeed come directly from directors (or asst) of admissions at some of the most selective schools in the country. No hearsay. No speculation. Directly from the horse’s mouth! The real issue is not that is “bad” to write about the weather or the architecture as much as one has only a few inches of space on the paper to “present the case” and that this RARE opportunity should be used wisely. After all, there are only a few places where an applicant can make a difference. The rest is all grades, transcripts, and letters written by others. </p>
<p>As far as the professor retiring, common sense would dictate to talk about both individuals and a department. I do not think that departments make brusk changes of direction with the addition or substraction of one or more faculty. And, the answer to the essay does not become invalid because Prof. NevergivesanA happens to be called to the White House for a few years. </p>
<p>For full disclosure, I wrote such an essay by focusing on Peter Drucker. He died before I graduated and was no longer teaching when I applied. Did not mean that his “footprints” were not all over the school. And it does not mean I did not get the chance to meet him!</p>
<p>But heck, if an applicant thinks it is best to tell Stanford he or she wants to go there because out of love the palm trees, the Taco Bell architecture, and the peanut-free restaurant, the weather, the proximity to San Francisco, or that the school just became the most selective in the nation … be my guest!</p>
<p>Are those comments published in an article or website somewhere, or were they made during an information session?</p>
<p>Directly from the horse’s mouth as in … one on one meetings. </p>
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<p>Oh, Gawd. You can mention you like the looks, the fact kids hang in the quad, that the dept offers depth and breadth in your sub-interest or programs devoted to whatever. You don’t want to parrot or sound generic. Or guessing. Or wrong. Read the darned web site. Figure it out. Be genuine. Know why you’re applying. </p>
<p>And don’t be presumptuous. Don’t come across shallow or bored or confused. Or say you decided in first grade X is your dream school. </p>
<p>The weather may be a real reason you want a school. That doesn’t make it wise to say so. Can sound lame. It’s a college app.</p>
<p>Xig, want to name the horse?</p>
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<p>The NMSQT has state-level quotas (gasp!) to ensure that the number of National Merit Scholarship semifinalists in each state is roughly proportional to the number of high school graduates. The PSAT cutoff scores by state are at [What</a> PSAT Scores Make the Cut for National Merit? | College Compass](<a href=“TestMasters Official Site: Professional Test Prep Since 1991”>TestMasters Official Site: Professional Test Prep Since 1991) . For Massachusetts the cutoff was 220, for Montana 210. A higher fraction of Massachusetts than Montana kids is Harvard smart, because the former state has a knowledge-based economy (higher education, finance, consulting, tech, biotech, medicine) attracting smart workers, who have smart kids etc.</p>
<p>The College Board publishes state-level SAT group score reports, which show how many students scored in the 700-800 range on each section. The number of students each state sends to HYP should be compared to the number of students in this range, not the overall population.</p>
<p>^ In my opinion, those are indeed excellent reasons to choose Stanford, LOL. In fact, in all the Stanford vs. ______ threads here on CC, the most common reason suggested for selecting Stanford is weather and a common reason why not to, is the ugly architecture. But one mustn’t be gauche and admit loving the year-round spring temperatures.</p>
<p>So now kids also have to compete against students whose parents scored one-on-one meetings with the HYP directors of admissions?</p>