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

Applying to College
, , , , ,
61

This may or may not help, but I think it is sometimes useful to understand that in the US higher education system, what is sometimes called the liberal arts tradition as practiced by a lot of colleges means the college part of the a typical academic track is still supposed to have a large element of general education and exploration of interests. As in you might have to take a lot of courses not in your major, and you might not even decide on your major until around the end of your second year.

And even in your major, real academic specialization is usually for grad school. Maybe in the last part of the major sequence you start following a certain general track or concentration, or just take certain related electives, but still most of your major is expected to have given you a good, broad foundation in that discipline.

OK, so for sure there are a lot of STEM, sometimes premed or Business, kids online these days who seem to be jumping the gun by these standards. Like it seems like they have their whole educational and work track planned out, and they see college as just where they can execute on the next steps of their multi-step plan.

And to be sure, some of that is sometimes warranted. Like, you often kinda do have to start at least in general engineering as a first year if you want to finish in four years (depending on how a college does engineering). It may help to understand med school is a possibility if you are planning out your first couple years of courses. And so on.

But I think often at least a lot of those kids are overdoing it with the pre-planning, going too far with the plan or trying to do too much too soon, before they have taken some very helpful foundational steps first.

And then it is just not really applicable at all to other sorts of paths. Like, seriously, there is literally nothing in particular you have to be doing at the start of college if you are interested in a possible legal career (other than trying to get good grades, which is sort of a given across most things). If you want to be an academic some day, you really, really need to make sure you have explored your options at the college level and gotten that solid base in your discipline before picking a grad program. And so on.

So I want to gently suggest you are kinda getting ahead of yourself, particularly for your sorts of possible career goals. Not that it is wrong to passionately dive into something you find interesting, but you should understand that at least the first part of college can be an opportunity for you to explore so many more things, and your interests and abilities may ultimately take you in different directions than you expected, and that is actually great.

And many colleges think that is great too. So, I do think you have to be careful here. On the one hand, they will love the fact you find these things very interesting, that you are not just doing the bare minimum and are actually passionate about learning and writing and so on. On the other, I don’t think you want to give them the impression you think you have it all figured out, that you are close-minded to the possibility that as you study all sorts of new and different things in college that your interests could evolve and indeed radically shift.

So that’s a little tricky, but also quite doable from where you are now.

And then seriously, try to just ignore the STEM/premed/businessy kids who seem to have everything all mapped out. It is very likely excessive even for them, and in any event just isn’t applicable to you.

5 Likes
62

@EclaireurTirailleur I hope you definitely stayed away from this kind of thing:
" I did flaunt a bit at the end that I was ‘the only person in the world to do it"
Character is very important criterion for top colleges so keep it modest.

I know you understand that there are many many high schools students with what you call “niche” interests and abilities, making an interesting mix on campus.

Also, you will not be able to focus on your specific interests in college. You will probably have gen eds (depending) and major requirements to deal with to ensure both “breadth and depth.”

2 Likes
63

I’m confused by your comment on your other ECs. Are they all related to Napoleon?

64

I’d add that the idea that no one else in the world is doing something is a big claim, impossible to back up, and will probably turn off AOs.

65

I think he meant to say he was EAing to Georgetown here, but you’re right - it’s unclear:

1 Like
66

The plan as of now is to apply REA to Harvard. I feel like that’s not a very good plan. I already submitted my Georgetown application as RD and I’m not sure if I can change it to be EA, but it would be nice to EA to Georgetown. Another option is ED to Duke.

Might make a post about that later, but I already had one up a while ago.

Right, law schools pool from schools from across the country. Someone once told me that if you went to a school for your UG, you have a better shot at Grad school there due to connections and such. I guess they were wrong.

67

I changed my circumstances essay to talk about why I am so interested in History while ALSO explaining what I did with each of my EC’s. At the end I ended up saying that I was driven by historical preservation and that I’m concerned with declining rates of students who are interested in history and that I want to preserve the beauty of history for others to enjoy it :slight_smile:

68

I edited my essays and I tried to make it seem less stiffy and more organic. So yeah I did stay away from that. I think my comment was a bit dramatic though it wasn’t that flaunty.

True, but I also plan to major in history. At Georgetown, SFS gives you the ability to concentrate in a particular aspect of International History - which I plan to turn into a B.A. in French history since the 17th century. Duke has a similar program where I can concentrate in European history. I hope it’ll be pretty close to my interests, but I get your point.

69

That’s what’s pretty cool about it, I am the only person in the world to do ‘it.’ The last person to talk about Otello wrote about him in the 1830’s. If you looked up his name before 2020, you wouldn’t have been able to find a single online article, book, etc. This guy is the definition of overlooked.

70

Weltseele and NWDT are Napoleonic related. FMHM is American History related. Francolina is French history related. Everything else is community service/school club. The vast majority of what I’ve done is history related though.

71

I genuinely have no idea where to EA/ED besides EA’ing to public schools since normally REA/ED doesn’t affect that. But that’s not the focus of this post I suppose. As of now the plan is REA to Harvard but people have told me that’s a bad idea so that might change. EA to Georgetown would be nice, but it might be too late for that.

72

@EclaireruTirailleur again, I think this is overstating any potential role you might play in terms of the rate of history students or preserving history so others can enjoy it. You don’t plan on working in historic preservation, right?

Also your BA won’t be specifically French History since the 17th century. It will be a BA in history most likely.

There is no way for you to be able to make this claim:

That’s what’s pretty cool about it, I am the only person in the world to do ‘it.’ The last person to talk about Otello wrote about him in the 1830’s.

I am bowing out because I don’t want to keep suggesting the same theme for corrections.

1 Like
73

I would not ED to a school that is not your top choice.

You can always ask Georgetown if you can switch to EA, as long as you are not applying ED anywhere else. It seems very likely they’d allow you to switch. Check the portal first to see if there is any sort of option to make the switch there. Also, you can apply EA to other private universities while applying EA to Georgetown, if there are any on your list that offer unrestricted EA.

It’s not so much that they’re wrong, but the difference may be tiny, not significant enough of a factor to drive your undergrad choice. Even if you attend Georgetown for undergrad, it seems likely you would be applying to several other law schools, those in the T14. Just speculating wildly here, but my guess is that if you want an extra edge beyond the numbers game (LSAT and college GPA), post-college work experience would probably be a bigger plus than having attended the university’s undergrad.

2 Likes
74

Right. I got my BA in History back in the dark ages and, although I did have a concentration in European history (with a focus on France, as that was where I spent the entirety of my junior year as I was also a French major) my degree just said History. I’m not sure many US universities offer a major in French history (let alone French history from the 17th century to today).

75

Op- you sound like a fantastic person and someone I’d love to have dinner with!

I wrote a senior research paper in college about a papyrus fragment which had zero citations, except for a microfiche “photograph” (this was the 1970’s so there was nothing digitized). It won awards from my university and from the department. I translated it differently than the common understanding of a phrase (my translation was technically accurate but with a different meaning). I thought it was cool to bring something new to an overlooked piece of history.

Since I wrote the paper, there has been nothing written about this fragment, at least that I can find using the typical academic search engines. My conclusion- just because this ancient work was overlooked, doesn’t mean that it’s historically significant enough to attract the attention of thousands of scholars of antiquity who have worked in the field since the 1970’s.

I learned many lessons from this research exercise… but the biggest was “don’t get high on your own supply”. Which is a very dated reference from the 1970’s- before cannabis was legal, but it still applies today.

What is cool about your varied interests is NOT that they are overlooked, not discussed, don’t have volumes written about them or a History Channel 6 part series narrated by Morgan Freeman. What’s cool about your interests is that you love history, love talking and writing about history enough to make it come alive for other people, and are going to go to college to deepen your understanding by learning from subject matter experts who are both deep and broad in areas that you have just begun to explore.

Keep this in mind as you continue your applications. You don’t want to be the historical version of the 17 year old whose applications claim to have cured cancer who makes every adcom’s eyes roll! Otello is one of hundreds of obscure historical figures from this time period. The fact that you find him interesting is terrific. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you can singlehandedly rewrite the story of this era in history… or maybe you can- but after a few years of college!!!

7 Likes
76

I note I believe the OP is talking about the International History major at SFS (Georgetown), aka IHIS:

It is pretty flexible when you get to the specific major requirements, although it isn’t a complete free for all (like you need approval from the IHIS dean). But I gather the OP’s plan is to focus those courses on their current area of interest.

Which is fine (although again plans change), but I think it is important to evaluate all this in context. Georgetown has a two-tier core curriculum. So you have to do the shared core regardless of school:

And then you ALSO have to do the SFS-specific core:

So those major-specific requirements for IHIS are relatively limited, because they are filling more the role that just the advanced concentration/track/focus sort of courses would be filling in the curriculum plan for a History major in a normal Arts and Sciences unit in a college with a less heavy core plan.

Which doesn’t mean it is not potentially a good choice for the OP anyway, but I hope they are clear about all the things Georgetown and SFS would require them to study in addition.

77

I had the opportunity to talk to Professor Leonore who leads the history department at Georgetown last year, and she clarified what my schedule would look like as a student. At the end of the day, its only a handful of classes that would change based on what I would ‘concentrate’ in, but I think being at SFS itself would be pretty cool.

1 Like
78

I do understand this, I think I’m just having a hard time getting it into words. I now recognize the importance of not throwing a million things in AO’s faces and expecting them to care.

79

Try pretending that you are explaining your passions to a really cool 6th grader. That might help you find the right words!

1 Like
80

They do care – but they care about learning why it is important to you and how your passion will make you a full member of the college community. They don’t care particularly about the actual details of the content itself.

1 Like