Whether the Does or the Zoe get in, it seems everyone is in agreement that Chloe isn’t going to that top tier. MIT’s comments might as well say “Only Does need apply.”
As long as Chloe’s parents don’t place an over emphasis on those top 30 schools, things are fine. When they do, she turns into Zoe.
This whole thing about telling high school kids to “pursue your passion” feels a lot like telling someone to get married to their first girlfriend. I want my kids to try a lot of things before they find a passion. If you find your passion at 14, I have to wonder if you found it or your parents picked it. I know there are exceptions to that but come on.
The report talks about meaningful service commitments. I think a lot of schools and students are already interpreting this as start your own charity which really makes me cringe when I read it. How many ineffective charities get started that the time would have been better spent working for a real charity.
No, that is not the point. It is the issue. It is an opinion. Some people agree with your opinion some disagree
We are led to believe that a lot of top schools practice holistic admissions which takes into account grades, test scores, extracurriculars, athletics, letters of recommendation and other criteria.
If one (that is your standard) student stresses beyond what their psychological and physical stamina allow, to get admitted to a top school, you say that this becomes an admissions “policy” that creates bad results. Some would say it is an unremarkable occurrence that does not flag a need for policy change.
If you think grades should be de-emphasized and athletics raised, or if the top criterion should be the letter of recommendation while standardized tests are eliminated–and that these policies would not engender their own bad results if there was one regrettable case you could cite–great. That is what we are here to share views on.
Not about whether Harvard ever admitted an overstressed nerd
It’s my impression, after a number of years posting on CC, that some parents of Zoes (and Chloes, I guess) don’t really believe in the existence of Does. They think that the way to gain admission to highly selective schools is to drive yourself (or your kid) super-hard to the detriment of sleep, friends, and everything else but what “looks good” for those top schools. When this doesn’t work, they think the process is rigged.
signal low income student with low SAT/ACT grades that they are still “welcome” at Harvard. => higher number of applicants, lower acceptance rate, higher rankings for Harvard
signal low income students that they are 'welcome" even with 1 AP => higher number of applicants, lower acceptance rate, higher rankings for Harvard
Additional emphasis in college essays on “community projects”, rather than individual; “success/struggles” => additional niche for admission gurus.
I’ve seen statistics about low-income kids with top ACT/SAT/GPA scores that were rejected by Ivys. It is sending a very bad signal to kids, signal that their academic achievements are not as relevant as some magic "spark’ that nobody could define.
“When this doesn’t work, they think the process is rigged.”
Then they band together and try to limit the AP class loads and the homework loads for everyone. Take the pressure of all of the Zoes. Doe and Doe’s parents go ballistic. Clashes and shouting matches at the next school board meeting.
Actually, I think lots of parents of Chloes (and Chloe herself) know a Doe or two and are genuinely happy for them when they land at HYPS et al. Can’t speak for the Zoes. Does anybody self-identify as a Zoe?
I think Does may not have perfect transcripts. They may be super strong in their particular areas, but not stress about other areas.
I look at the results threads for elite colleges, and I do see a certain number of Chloes getting in. Which of course infuriates the Zoes (and their parents.)
No matter how intelligent or hard working one is, there are physical limits to what the body will tolerate. The number of psychiatric problems among students enrolled at the most selective colleges has increased dramatically. Lack of sleep is so prevalent among high-achieving students–it must play a role.
When I read the report the service aspect really concerned me.
I liked when they revised the common application a few years ago to do away with categorizing activities - so the applicant could highlight what is important to him or her rather than work on filling in specific categories - or checking boxes. The new report seems to me a step backward.
It seems to me a better way to make service more meaningful is to NOT tie it so directly to college admissions.
The single largest realization that i had when i joined CC 24 months ago is that my bright, talented daughter is indeed both of those but she was not a kid who was going to get into Harvard. Or Stanford. Or MIT. She’s going to have a great life and a great career and --i hope – a life of friends and love and travel. But she did not have the innate academic spark that would land her in one of these schools. MAYBE she could have snuck in as a Zoe but she would have been miserable if she had.
My second child (9th grade) is a Flooey. In fact, I was whatever the masculine-named equivalent of a Flooey might be.
My oldest (11th grade) has very strong Zoe tendencies that she fights against—I consider it a parenting win that she recognizes that that’s not a particularly healthy way to go. As she’s developed her college possibilities list, I’ve noted with interest that one side effect of her struggle is that she’ll probably end up as one of those “undermatch” cases that some wring their hands over—she worries, not without some likely cause, that if she goes to a college largely populated by Zoes and/or Does, that she’ll naturally fall into the unhealthy patterns she’s spending high school fighting against.
So her plan, more or less, is that instead of heading to a USNWR top-20 school that her stats would give her a shot at and dealing with the resulting (social more than academic) pressure, she’ll probably settle in nicely at somewhere 60ish±20, focus on getting decent research experience, and head on with her life from there.
I don’t know what to call that result—Autonoe, maybe? (Joey, I guess, if you want something easier for English-speaking minds to remember, but I kind of like the ambiguity behind the first option—either one of the Nereids and thus a symbol of beauty and kindness, or a woman driven mad by Dionysus. Either way.)
I believe in the existence of Does. However, like @al2simon I believe that the admitted classes at top schools have a lot of Zoes, because there aren’t many Does, admission officers can’t tell Does from Zoes, and a lot of Zoe/Chloe parents want their kids at top schools.
And I believe the whole Zoe-creating system harms Zoes and Chloes. Zoes are super-stressed, and that stress bleeds over to all students.
Oh we do have a Flooey in our program. The kid is brilliant. Really, really high test scores. But has a nasty habit of deciding he just doesn’t feel like doing an assignment. Including their first IOP. My kid is a lot more chill than his classmates (or me, really…) but I’m glad he’s not THAT chill.
I had a Doe and a Chloe. Of course we were lucky that in our high school no one took every AP offered (20+) and even my top achieving son was able to be in the top 2% without taking either AP English Lit or AP English Lang. He slept eight hours a night. He had two in school ECs that probably involved about 4 hours a week, except the week before Sci Olympiad contests (usually 1 regional, 1 invitational, 1 state). He loved computer programming and had plenty of time to go through the MIT open courseware, teach himself Linux, do some volunteer programming for professors at a Med School, work part-time and play way too many video games and read a novel or two a week for pleasure. He barely studied for the SAT, got an 800 in the CR (thanks probably to all those novels) and high 700s in math. I’m pretty sure his teachers knew he was the real deal and communicated that. He got into Harvard, but turned it down for a more comp sci focused school. Interestingly Harvard must have known what he was they had the head of the Comp Sci department calling him to ask him to come. I think he learned to be a bit more of a Flooey in college. (Wasn’t on the Dean’s List after freshman year - slept through a midterm in a course he’d quit going to the lectures because the material overlapped a physics course he was also taking that taught the material better.)
Younger son was Chloe - he had more activities, one unusual one.Slightly fewer APs (though he still took BC Calc and Physic C for fun). He also didn’t study for SATs getting a similar CR score, but 100 points lower in Math. He was in the top 6% of his class. He also applied to Harvard, but didn’t expect to get in, and didn’t. He had great acceptances at very selective schools, just not the single digit ones. For what it’s worth I think he also nailed the essays and got great recommendations, asking a math teacher he loved, but I would have been leery of since his math grades were not tops. He liked Tufts better than Harvard in any event.
I know at least one Zoe who was in my older son’s class. He went to Princeton, but never graduated.
