Uniqueness or Pure Stats? How far can uniqueness really take you? A inquiry from a future History major

Applying to College
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Hello CC! As always, I come with an existential crisis and leave feeling better, so I hope your expert advice can help me out.

I’m a Senior getting ready for college. One of my previous posts lists my stats but I’ll put them here for convenience: 1530/34, 4.68/4 W, ~3.97 UW, top 4%/520 students.

My stats are good but not perfect. My biggest question is whether colleges care about uniqueness or whether having perfect stats plays a larger part. I guess teachers and counselors always talk about ‘standing out,’ and I think as an applicant, I do, but I do not know to what degree ‘standing out’ matters.

Regardless, I do think I am quite unique. Most of my major EC’s (the top 5 or so) are all extremely unique, and to some degree, quite strong academically. For one, I published a website that has a plethora of information on the Napoleonic Wars called ‘Weltseele’. On the other, I published another website which houses information regarding the French influence on southern history, culture, and language (Im a NC resident). I also work at a History Museum, and got to give tours, not only of the museum but also of downtown and a walking tour of some historic sites around town. I also was a game developer/researcher and created a 1:1 recreation of a city as it looked in 1815, getting to work alongside some international history organizations. I’ve published 6 research papers (2 with the museum, the rest with my research organizations) and 2 biographies, one of which I wrote my personal essay on.

Anyway, I am quite confused on where I stand as a history applicant. I have heard some say that your intended major does not matter, but others say that correlation with what you want to do is very important. At the same time, I know universities will be glad to see an applicant who is not only unique but also excels at what they intend to do. On the contrary, history attracts many ‘Pre-Law’ and business students, so I’ll be completing with even more over-accomplished students who have done internships at DC, clerking, etc.

I guess my question is, how far will my ‘unique’ EC’s take me? I suppose my stats would maybe scrape me into Duke if I applied ED, but high ranked schools like that are a lottery anyways.

Do my EC’s make a difference on my chances at T20’s? Do they make me a stronger applicant overall? Or will admissions officers look over their importance.

If someone could clear up this issue for me, it would be greatly appreciated. If you want more info on any of my EC’s, I’d be happy to send more info.

For reference, here’s a list of my top 5 schools in order of preference:
Georgetown, Duke, Harvard, Yale, UNC Chapel Hill

And since this is often a topic brought up on CC, cost should not be an issue, and I will not be seeking need-based aid or any financial assistance aside from merit-based scholarships.

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Your stats are not good; they are excellent. Your stats are enough to make you a realistic contender at just about any college in the country.

Apart from Chapel Hill for NC residents, the rest of your colleges are all “lottery” schools. They are going to look at your ECs and read your essays and letters of recommendation. That will then create a picture in their mind of what you bring to the table (stats/interests/character/personality along with other things out of your control like your geographic location or sex). Then they’re going to look at the class that they’re trying to form and see how you fit into that puzzle. Maybe your combination of skills/interests/personality/character is going to perfectly fill that hole that they’re missing. Or maybe they will have multiple puzzle pieces that are extremely similar to you and will pick a different one based on nothing you could have done about (like from a different geographic location).

Will the fact that you have a 3.97UW GPA make a difference in comparison with a 4.0? No. Will a 1530 vs. a 1600 make a difference? Extremely unlikely.

With respect to your ECs, you need to talk about them honestly, show impact, and make them sound interesting to the reader. It’s far more important to sound interesting than to sound impressive. A topic (or EC) is not interesting or boring in and of itself; it’s how you write about it that will make the reader interested in you.

Right now you just need to step back, take a big breath (or several…), and just do your reasonable best on your applications, making sure you also have at least one (and preferably more than one) school that you’d be happy to attend for four years that is affordable for your family AND that you are extremely likely to be admitted to.

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Thank you for your wonderful response. I agree with the big breath statement, I really need to step back and calm down for a bit. Application season sucks.

I dedicated my entire ‘anything not reflected’ section to talking more about my EC’s in general, going into depth as to what I did, etc. I think that shows admission officers really who I am and why I did the things I did and their significance to my life. I’m also trying to incorporate them as much I can into supplemental.

I was always worried about my comparatively low scores compared to 75th percentile and all that.

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I don’t think SAT score distribution matters that much at schools where the 25th percentile starts at or near the 1500 mark. The stats are all “past the post.”

Your story will be your differentiator. I would try to find a way to work in the value of your EC activity in places other than the “additional information” section, however. Also, provide some background to your recommenders. They can attest to what your contributions have been. The additional info section is not intended to be a place for embellishing your credentials or for adding narrative around your ECs.

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I think AustenNut really gave you the framework you need to be using. You are in fact competitive, you do not in fact know what will happen, so now you write up your applications in the most reflective and interesting way you can, and see what happens.

I will just add you can drive yourself insane with “some people say” stuff. Honestly, that includes even the people here. The only real authorities are college admissions webpages and admissions officers, current or perhaps former. And even they don’t always agree with each other. I still do my best to summarize what I have learned from such sources in forums like this, but I am not really adding any value, I am just acting as a conduit.

And at this point, it mostly does not matter anyway. Your transcript is what it is. Your activities are what they are. You have been the type of person in your communities that you have been (a rather overlooked category, I note, even though it is demonstrably just as important as academics and activities at highly selective holistic review colleges). So most advice about what colleges want to see in those areas isn’t actionable now anyway.

What is left, though, is taking who you actually are and selling it as persuasively as you can. And so it might make sense, where appropriate, to seek out competent help with essays, maybe activity descriptions, and so on. And even then, if they give you ideas that work for you, cool. If you don’t like it, forget it. These are your applications in the end, you want to feel like you wrote the best applications you could, and there is no magic formula, just various ideas.

And again, advice on who you should be, what you should do, and so on? That period is over. And I really think you should find that a relief.

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Do you think I should change the essay regarding the additional info section then? I feel like most activities are basic to where 150 characters is sufficient to explain what you have done, but when an admissions officer sees ‘Weltseele’ and some basic points about research they don’t understand the depth of what I have spent the past 4 years of my life on.

Then again, Admissions officers are unpredictable. Just a lot of unpredictability everywhere.

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Are there any links that if followed would quickly illustrate some of the points you would want to make about your websites?

No guarantees readers will follow them, but if they don’t, more words describing the website was probably not going to make a difference anyway.

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No one can answer this question for you. Academically, you are in the mix. A slightly higher gpa or test score would make no difference in your admissibility. Once the academic threshold is passed (and you do pass it at any school) they are looking at other things - unfortunately, only the schools know exactly what it is they are looking for in any given year. There is no “formula” that guarantees an acceptance. Just be your authentic self and try to convey an interesting narrative the best you can - that is really all you can do at this point. Also, I might suggest adding a couple of target/likely schools to your list if you aren’t certain that UNC would be a happy landing place for you - it is nice to have choices.

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THIS. As everyone has noted your stats are super impressive - yay you! It’s great that you have ECs that you are passionate about and committed to. I don’t think it matters that much whether the AO understands “Weltseele” or not (I don’t). It’s about making them interested in you as a person. Sure, you can do that through explaining your EC but if it’s too tough to make it understandable and interesting in a succinct essay, you can also just write about YOU.

My child wrote about a well-known movie franchise and drew parallels between some of the major conflicts points in the movies and her own family relationships. She explained how the movies helped her understand complexity of interpersonal relationships and how this understanding helped her grow as a leader in her ECs. So in her case the actual ECs (to which she was/is extremely dedicated) were sort of tangential. The point being…there are different ways to peak their interest and don’t feel like you have to explain your unique ECs perfectly for them to be interested in you. Good luck!

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I put the URL to Weltseele in my circumstances essay, but not Francolina since the link is particularly long and to be honest I am still working on finishing the website.

I suppose you’re right, but I think when you look at Weltseele’s website you understand what it is. And I believe I have enough words to describe my other accomplishments and details since I did squeeze many of them onto the activities section.

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Thank you for the response. I understand what you are trying to say. In many of my supplemental essays I am trying to pitch who I am as a person moreso than my academic achievements as well. I explain my passion for French sports and YouTube history essays and such and I am trying to keep it authentic and very personalized. I hope that helps just as well as explaining my academic achievements.

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Just to be clear, I have seen readers say they sometimes do check out applicant websites with interest. But they are often busy people with a lot of applications to get through, so if it is already clear they either will or will not recommend that applicant for further consideration, they may not.

So as long as you are happy with what they would see, I would go for it. It may or may not make a difference for a given reader, but you have made it possible for them.

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Yes, as long as the reader has the option to check it out (even if they glance at it for 5 seconds) I do believe it would make a difference, even if it is a small difference. I suppose any difference at all would help at those lottery schools.

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The current plan is to REA to Harvard and apply early (during RD) to the other schools I have listed. Then, when decisions come out in December, if rejected or deferred, I will shotgun T10’s and I have a few targets like Wake Forest and William and Mary which I will be applying to just in case I do not like Chapel/Get more aid (which is unlikely since tuition for UNC Chapel in state is crazy low, comparatively speaking)

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I recommend not waiting until December to “shotgun” T10s and targets. Your chance of acceptance to Harvard REA is very low (as is everyone’s chance!). And while you certainly can turn in applications last minute, we’ve been told by multiple college consultants that a lot of schools that care about demonstrated interest (e.g. Wake Forest) will look more favorably on early applications. Edit: I don’t necessarily mean EA, since a lot of schools don’t have that and you can’t at most schools anyway with REA. Just turn in apps earlier than last minute.

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Particularly when this is sort of “your thing”. I am not a big believer in the idea that you need one specific narrative, but if part of your core pitch is you have been really super into something, putting a lot of time, energy, and care into it, then showing and not telling that could help really make that part of your pitch more vivid, interesting, and memorable to the reader.

And I think that is another thing applicants in these discussions maybe do not always think about enough. This is often a multi step process where your application might go through more than one reader, then to a committee, possibly might be involved in more than one committee discussion, and so on.

So, for example, your first reader might sort of serve as an advocate for you at later phases, and to that end it might help to make key points in your favor really stand out to them. In fact, supposedly in some committees readers might pull up some select materials for the committee to look at (and committee members can maybe request to see certain things as well). So who knows, but a reader who liked your website and thought it really made a case for you in some way could potentially then show it to a committee. Or maybe a committee member will at some point say, “Hey, remember that applicant with that Napoleon website we saw early on and tabled–let’s revisit them because I think they may be someone we want to consider now.”

Anyway, point being I think you need to assume a reader, committee member, or so on who is basically on your side (because otherwise you are probably not going to get admitted to a really selective college). So assuming they are on your side, what resources can you give them to help them quickly pitch you to others? And this seems like a good fit for that sort of question.

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There should be no “essay” within the Additional Information section. If you feel you must elaborate on anything in that space, keep it bulleted and succinct. It’s not an invitation to write an unsolicited supplemental essay.

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OP- you sound like a terrific student and a great person. Any college will be lucky to have you!

I’m an advocate of the KISS principal- keep it simple, stupid. (not that you are stupid- that’s just how the acronym works).

Colleges which allow arts supplements do so because they understand that evaluating someone’s artistry in playing cello, for example, isn’t always possible using words.

In your case- I’d keep it as simple as possible. Use the essays to talk about your passions and what they mean to you, or use the essays to connect the dots on what makes you the person you are. It isn’t necessary for every single Adcom who reads your application to understand every nuance of your interests. 'History Geek" or “Major Francophile” or “Loves mashup of Southern and French Colonial Culture” is going to be your identity (if that’s what you want) no matter how much detail or how many links to various websites you provide.

You don’t need a show and tell here (unlike the cellist). Ordinary words, artfully deployed, will do the job. And if you have to leave off an accomplishment or two in order to present as tight as narrative as possible- that’s OK too!

The goal is not to be unique. (If it were, Harvard wouldn’t be filled with kids who want to study Econ, and Duke wouldn’t be filled with Bio/Pre-meds, and Georgetown wouldn’t be filled with Poli Sci or International Relations kids). The goal is to show that you surpass their academic bar, AND will contribute productively to campus and intellectual life. Which is why it’s ok to be editor of the yearbook, or a shift supervisor at the pizza store where you’ve worked for three years, or a translator for your grandma who speaks no English when she sees her oncologist.

You will land somewhere great!

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The vast majority of Harvard REA applicants are WL (around 80% historically). Few are accepted and it’s even fewer when you take out recruited athletes, legacies and other hooked students. So, I would not wait until you hear back from Harvard before doing other T10 applications. Also, instead of shotgunning top schools, I’d encourage some thoughtful applications to schools where you have a better chance of admission.

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Yes, I think the idea of focusing mostly on colleges the OP might like better than UNC is a good one, but I don’t see letting US News decide which colleges those should be as being the best strategy for either admissions or ultimate satisfaction with college.

History is a big field and even major departments do not do everything, certainly not in depth. So personally, if I was the OP I would be looking at a lot of departmental and faculty webpages, including course catalogs (being careful about courses not always offered). I would also make sure to look at some LACs–again, you have to make sure they had the right sort of History department, but if they did they could be fantastic.

That said, the OP already did a Chance Me, and William & Mary (recommended by many in that conversation) has been added to their list.

So personally, it is not like I think the OP actually NEEDS a lot more colleges than Georgetown, Duke, Harvard, Yale, Wake Forest, William & Mary, and UNC. I’d probably do one more in-state likely just in case, but that could be considered a complete list.

But if the OP WANTS more colleges to consider, shotgunning the US News’s favorite 10 national universities would not be my suggested way to go about that.

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