I am blessed to have pups who are Does academically, but who have worked hard on their ECs, including meaningful volunteering, because they knew they were making a difference in their community.
Both had 16+ AP’s, both near-perfect SAT scores and 5+ WGPA, Val, etc… Without a doubt, my pups took the most challenging courses available and excelled at them Both were accepted at multiple Ivies and rejected by others.
There were of course times when they got very little sleep - one example was D was often too happy to help review/edit some of her peers papers when they asked (teacher wanted kids to turn in a rough draft, and a version with a peer’s comments, then a revised draft after. Eleven of her friends, in a class of 16, had asked her to help be their peer editor, and of course she had to write her own paper as well (all papers were about different biographies picked by the student) This was a valuable lesson to her, learning how to tell some of her friends that if they didn’t get it to her by 9PM she wouldn’t be able to help. But she felt she learned as much in that class as any other because she had a great relationship with her classmates.
I caught S up at 3AM one school night, I thought he was working on a paper, but it turned out he was writing a grant proposal for our community Housing Assistance Program. They had a noon deadline and he only happened to find out about it the night before. He was able to compile the needed information, as he had done volunteer work archiving some of the Program’s computer records, and he was able to give the Director a signature ready application in the morning, and 3 months later the Program was awarded a $10,000 grant. A week later he was up til 3 re-writing Mock Trial notes for other members on the team. Because these were just super fun projects for him.
Of course, Does and Zoes both work hard, and I maintain that a valuable part of high school is beginning to learn about managing your time. At Columbia and Stanford, both pups have met other kids who are chronically sleep deprived. But many of these kids are that way because they are so excited about being able to pursue their interests. When the tour guides answer the question about the most disappointing thing at school being that they can’t take 10 classes, my pups initially thought they were told by admissions to say that, but now they truly understand it.
While they ultimately had plenty of options, the biggest reason my pups applied to so many elite schools was far and away the generous need based financial aid policy. They were not chasing prestige, but they did want an affordable UG degree. I am sure that many of their peers applied for the same reasons - but these schools really do have a lot to offer, not just to Does and Zoes, but to Chloes, Joeys, Moes, Bowie’s, etc.
If the elite schools had in any way indicated to my pups that taking more than say 8 AP courses wouldn’t or couldn’t help them in any way, they probably would have taken these classes anyway. Part of their personality, but also a strategy to help in case they had to attend Safety Flagship State. I find it hard to fathom that any of the elite schools would ever consider penalizing students for trying hard and succeeding. And therein lies the problem - because Zoes want to look like Does (who on paper seem to be sought after applicants), they will be driven to do so as well.
The number of AP’s aren’t the problem. The problem is the huge disparity in net cost between the elite schools, and other great schools where bright, motivated snowflakes would also do well.
