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<p>People like LoremIpsum’s son don’t need the extra mile to get an exceptional score, but few people are like that.</p>
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<p>Trying not to “put words in your mouth,” but are you implying that while it’s okay to be “just plain brilliant,” kids who “spend too much time in the library” are geeks and nerds? Sheesh. Why do you care if a particular kid spends ten minutes or ten hours to get an A? Is there somehow a greater value assigned to the kid who doesn’t have to do as much work? From my considerable experience in life post school, those who understand the value of hard work do tend to reap greater rewards.</p>
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<p>I should also note that perfect scores are neither sufficient nor necessary for these top schools. If a student can find a way to stand out of the crowd, either through a national award, an unusual accomplishment, or by developing a creative community service solution, that student has a good shot at getting into one or more of the top schools even with average stats for that school. I really think the key is to get away from the pre-packaged cookie-cutter opportunities most high schools provide, and to follow one’s own path.</p>
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<p>A female at MIT is a URM; females are accepted at twice the rate of males as MIT attempts to gender-balance its incoming cohort.</p>
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<p>Perhaps this is true, just like males at LACs.</p>
<p>Does ethnicity make a difference? The young lady is Asian.</p>
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<p>Absolutely, though the edge at most top-10 LACs is only a couple of percent. The edge in state colleges is even better, where females out-number males 57-43%.</p>
<p>In any case, wise applicants in today’s cut-throat environment should look to play any legitimate edge that they can get.</p>
<p>Agree LoremIpsum.</p>
<p>It was clear from past acceptances at my D’s school, that girls have an edge with respect to MIT. Although D is a science/engineering kid, try as I might, I could not get her to apply to MIT, where I thought she had a great shot with 2250+ SAT. Too techy, she sniffed. Oh well, at least her friend got in to MIT!</p>
<p>It is likely notredame didbt accept these 2400 candidates and vals b/c they knew they dould getandaccept better offers…it would be inpractical of notre dane to excitedly fill an admitted class with all vals abd hav none matriculate</p>
<p>Kylerblood wrote: “…It is likely notredame didbt accept these 2400 candidates and vals b/c they knew they dould getandaccept better offers…it would be inpractical of notre dane to excitedly fill an admitted class with all vals abd hav none matriculate …”</p>
<p>This better not be true with all the schools, thinking these kids have better offers… The 2 kids I know with 2400, top students besides grades/stats with plenty of other talents and ECs, got rejected from every Ivies they applied; they both are in state school now. In fact, I was told they consistently setting the curves at UC Berkeley.</p>
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<p>Asian = ORM at MIT (26% of undergraduates).</p>
<p>Be a Boss 10 char</p>
<p>@#123</p>
<p>It’s okay to be a geek or a nerd. </p>
<p>It’s okay to be brilliant. </p>
<p>For my kids, trying to get an extra bump in GPA or standadized tests, isn’t worth any additional effort they’d have to put in because of diminishing returns. That is for MY KIDS. </p>
<p>I’m happy with the balance MY KIDS have achieved. </p>
<p>Some kids are geeks and nerds. That’s okay too. They focus on things they are good at. You can’t blame them for that. Some kids are gifted academically, artistically or athletically or leadership and community service wise. I’m all in favor of people maximizing whatever gifts they have. Why not? That’s what free enterprise societies reward most. </p>
<p>I know one thing. I want my kids to do community service and leadership type projects and activities but I do not want them to do those things merely to puff up a college app. It isn’t always easy to do one without the other either. Being honest here, my oldest son is a bit selfish. I am trying very hard to get him to think of other people occsionally. My youngest son gets that. Neither one of my kids is going to go to Africa to feed malnourished children. But maybe they will do that here in the USA and if they do they can better appreciate the blessings they do have AND help another soul. </p>
<p>Along the same line, I want my kids to reach as high as they can academically but I’m not going to make them stop doing other things just so they can get an extra .2 or .3 bump in their GPA’s. That is a price I am unwilling to pay. We are not back to the concept of diminishing returns.</p>
<p>Asians are ORM in most top schools.</p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying, ACCecil. On your notion of diminishing returns - my kids also seem to know their limits, and when they reach the point that they are not learning much more, they call it quits, that’s for sure. Actually, I’m not aware of many kids who would sit there and slog it out for a couple of more points - perhaps those with Tiger Mother’s? I think most kids intuitively know when to stop, and when they don’t, it’s because of another type of pressure.</p>
<p>There are students, however, who genuinely enjoy certain types of academic challenges. Given the choice of playing baseball, watching a movie, or working on math sets, my son would choose the math nine times out of ten. He does the other things, too, but he is absolutely drawn to certain academics like a magnet, and he’s not working for a few extra points, in fact, almost all of his work is outside of his school curriculum.</p>
<p>A lot of people don’t even bother, but have you considered the possibility of (your son) taking the ACT?</p>
<p>Let me start out with this:
I got into 2 top LAC and 1 top university. </p>
<p>I did not take the SAT, at all. (except once in 7th grade to qualify for some Johns Hopkins thing but this doesn’t count…)</p>
<p>I did not have to take <em>any</em> SAT subject tests. Nada. :)</p>
<p>I just took the ACT (twice).</p>
<p>Check the SAT scores that are admitted into top colleges and then check ACT scores.
Top ACT scores are from 30-36 but I personally feel like there is more ‘wiggle room’. ;)</p>
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<p>I’ll take it as a lesson to be more careful of what I type. </p>
<p>Getting back to the great discussion on this thread, if one’s S or D is achieving that highly they will get into a great school. I don’t think the OP needs to worry.</p>
<p>Over the past three years or so I have noticed on this forum and in general conversation, it is a badge of honor to refer to ones kid as a “nerd”. I hear it frequently from mom’s…both of HS and college kids, and included in debates on many topics here on CC. With the kids I know, who are now proudly referred to as a "nerd’, I never once consider that kid a “nerd”. I am beginning to think this is suppose to mean the next Facebook inventor or super star student. A “Geek” is not as desirable it seems. What is the difference and why does it seem everyone’s kid is now a “Nerd”? I’ve really been wondering about this and now seems a good time to ask, since it is causing some debate in this thread- well balanced vs Nerd/Geek. Maybe “Quirky” needs be included too.</p>
<p>^And if anyone wants to whine that it’s not fair that women are accepted at twice the rate of men at MIT, I’ll note that according to Mollibatmit they got better grades once they were there, even if their stats were slightly lower. (And I say this as the Mom of a boy who was rejected from MIT.) I have no problem with this.</p>
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<p>I’d call my son a math/science geek because these subjects come ridiculously easy for him: look at the material once and move on, no drill, repetition, practice and yearly review needed; when he teaches himself a subject like calculus or the two physics C APs, it’s at a speed 10 or more times the classroom pace.</p>
<p>Yet he also has broad interests in history, art, and literature. He does well in these subjects, but often moves slower through his assignments than other top class members; to a large extent this is because he spends endless amounts of time hyper-linking to tangental facts and, beyond that, to even more tangental facts, just because it’s interesting.</p>
<p>I don’t think that well-balanced and geek are opposites on a continuum. Sure, one can have broad interests, but what else would you call the kid who regularly (and on-the-fly) shows his math teachers quicker alternative ways to solve the problems that they present?</p>
<p>@ pleaseadvise
S applied to 12 colleges - 5 stretch/reach; 3 target; and 4 safety. We defined a safety as one where S’s SATs/ACTs were above the 75% percentile for all students accepted by the college in the prior year. While this provided us with an easy to use definition or classification, in reality two of his safety schools were actually targets and we treated them as such. He was accepted at 1 (20%) or the reaches, 1 (33%) of the targets and 4 (75%) of the safeties. His two safety/targets both accepted him. This told us many things. First, the numbers alone do not guarantee anything (as has been said here often). Secondly, it is indeed possible to be accepted by a reach or stretch school. Thirdly, safeties are no longer a sure thing. Twenty years from now it will feel much better to say ‘I applied but wasn’t accepted’ at my dream school than ‘I never applied.’ Best of luck to you in this wild and complex process.</p>
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<p>All good points, englishjw!</p>