<p>See, just having a few thousand dollars or taking the time to write 50k words (with no review, nothing) ins’t much measure. You’re still reducing this to what the high school thinks, the limits of what the hs offers or how peers stack up. (And leadership is still more than just buzzing along in your hs.) You get kids who say, I published or I wrote 50k words- and nearly never is there anything to support the quality. You don’t know if it shows “creative potential.” Or is even any good. It’s like saying, taught myself guitar. Ok. But not much evidence. </p>
<p>Plenty of great colleges with great programs for kids who would like to test their writing or art skills. If Harvard thinks a writing portfolio shows promise, or that the recs and ways the kid stretched herself are on target, by all means, they will consider the kid. That assumes the full app is also good. They really aren’t there to do favors. </p>
<p>Mary Sidney: In your hypothetical, I think that depends on what the essays and recs say, and perhaps what the university winds up thinking of the poetry. In today’s climate, I actually think - and maybe I’m being naive - that the poet would in fact have a better chance. By stats alone, both of those students, absent a hook or some really impressive accomplishment, would be long-shots at a lot of the “lottery” schools (and not just to the extent that everyone is a long-shot). In super-strong applicant pools, leaders of student groups are a dime a dozen, and they can get ones that look better on paper than the student you mention. They can get a team captain who is also good enough to be an athletic recruit; they can get a yearbook EIC who was a valedictorian with a 2400, or an academic high achiever whose leadership roles are a little more intellectually weighty (maybe it is my own snobbery coming out, but I don’t think yearbook is as impressive as, for instance, debating captain). And, of course, many of the people who do have fancier awards and accomplishments or other hooks will also have what has become the standard array of leadership roles.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if the teacher recommendations are of the “this is the best student of my career/ this student has a brilliantly original and creative mind and a level of insight that stands out even among other very bright students” variety; if the student writes a more than run of the mill essay that backs up the assessment, and hands in a portfolio with promising, if not yet professional level poetry, I think at that point, the poet has something different and rarer to offer, and probably has a better chance than the other student at a lot of top schools.</p>
<p>I do think the poet’s chances, even in that case, are lower if he or she hasn’t participated in ANY school activities or other organized extracurriculars at all. I think it changes if the poet’s stats are substantially lower than 2250. It also may change if the other student’s resume is, while still fairly “run of the mill excellent,” somewhat stronger than the one you’ve provided.</p>
<p>Again, I’m just guessing. But since we know for darn sure, based on the results boards here alone, that loads of students with super high stats and leadership up the wazoo are being rejected from many top schools, I do tend to believe that the still excellent student with something different to offer will have the edge, even if the “something different” doesn’t come with a national level prize. I hope I’m right. </p>
<p>My son is not a poet, but I think a factor in his acceptances at two very reachy for him colleges (Chicago, Tufts) were that the supplements allowed him a creative writing essay. His main Chicago essay “How did you get caught” and his Tufts optional piece “Imagine what would have happened if the Americans had lost to the British at Lexington” both gave him an opportunity to show a side of himself that most of the navel gazing prompts didn’t.</p>
<p>If we are talking about those few rare bird type kids, Ghostt, there has to be a way to recognize them. Some sort of “show” to match the “tell.” It’s not all on the college’s shoulders to have a crystal ball. Also think apprentice prof comes pretty close to the “whole” in holistic. If the kid is truly a budding poet (even if all that means is as a future sideline or hobby,) the thinking and judgment skills need to come trough in the rest of the app and the hs choices. Because writing is about thinking and judgment, crafting, editing. </p>
<p>Even if Harvard (and others) are willing to take some dreamy geniuses, they still want them to perform well in required courses and to graduate. So the dreamers they take will still be very able students with good grades and scores.</p>
<p>I’d be interested to know how often an arts portfolio makes a big difference to an application, especially if it’s not accompanied by achievements outside the school in that discipline. I think the most selective colleges are looking for people who are self-starters–so if you are a poet, they will want to know what you did about it–who did you study with? Where did you get it published? What prizes did you win? Did you compete (and win) as a slam poet? My cynical mind suggests that without things like this, the poetry portfolio may not get much attention.</p>
<p>Hunt, I can’t recall whether you posted on this thread or another the idea that a strong student is one who can handle the high school workload without needing to work hard, thus leaving a lot of time for demanding EC’s.</p>
<p>This would be true of the type of high school that I prefer. However, it is not true of all of them. As a diagnostic test for the type of high school: Does AP Chemistry include preparing a stuffed mole, dressed as some character or in some pun-based form? And are at least 25% of the submitted moles of near-museum quality?</p>
<p>A student at a high-production-type high school winds up investing (wasting) a lot of time on projects like this. Elaborate Rube Goldberg devices? That became optional when the teacher’s children started to hit the grades where they were required? Similarly, videos of reasonably quality take a surprisingly long time to prepare.</p>
<p>At my old high school, it was true that a strong student could finish the work faster. I think this is no longer true at the local high school.</p>
<p>Even when the assignments are intellectually worthwhile–e.g., multi-page papers–a strong student may do more background research, develop a more complex thesis, and spend more time than a weaker student who dashes the paper off.</p>
Well, maybe. My observation is based to a large extent on observing the experience of my kids and their peers in a magnet IB program. IB generates a lot of time-consuming work (some of it busy work, but a lot of it substantive). I still observed that the really top students had time for a lot of other activities–and they had very good college results. Those who spent all their time on school work, not so much. I do think some of those kids actually could have finished all their required work much faster, and done more in ECs–but their parents didn’t let them, insisting that they spend specified amounts of time “studying.” The most successful students didn’t “study,” except when a test was coming up. They did their assigned homework, though.</p>
<p>Well, never heard of a mole dressed up as a character, certainly not in hs- though so many CS classes have them program a Pong game, which the kids think is a bfd proof they are ready for CS or CE. Rube Goldberg is about thinking and problem solving, even creative juices. Right brain/left brain. Many kids do the “bridge project.” But again, that’s high school. What does it tell us about their prep for those most-competitive colleges? How they think and then apply their smarts? How expansive their vision is? </p>
<p>I think you can generalize, sure, about kids who don’t need to study much- but not how that makes them ready for an elite. That takes you back to looking primarily at results, not process (or the fuller set of drives and follow through.) The brightest lights are not settling for the minimum, not boxing in their efforts. I wish more understood the concept of 110%. They don’t. Because the thinking is circular- I have the grades, I am doing enough. I’m big dog, pres of stu gov, I am “there.” </p>
<p>You are so lucky, lookingforward! (And I see that you are not completely immune to thinking that other places are like the schools with which you are familiar . . . though I can also see why no strong student would want to mention make-a-mole on a college application.) Actually, this project seems to be endemic within a 300 mile radius of us.</p>
<p>Projects like make-a-mole were the bane of our existence for quite a few years! Truth be told, QMP managed to miss out on making a mole, due to testing out of Honors Chem and moving directly to AP Chem. Evidently, this set a trend. So to make sure that students were not missing out on anything, the make-a-mole project got moved to AP Chem.</p>
<p>One of my friend’s children was so fed up with the project-based work that when an end-of-year project was assigned in AP Econ, to design a board game based on economic principles, she came up with Selling Blubber to the Eskimos. (Should be Inuit, I think.) In any event, that teacher was actually one of the very best at the high school–but he had not been there long enough to see how many projects the students had to do.</p>
<p>These things count for so much of the grade, that taken in combination with the overall grade inflation at the school, opting out of them would have also meant opting out of the top 10%.</p>
<p>And here you go (for the fortunate): Google “chemistry make a mole project” and then click on images. Those are not the finest examples, but I am sure you can find a lot more! </p>
<p>I think the top students tend to spend less time doing homework in math/science, but more time writing in history and english classes. Even in essays, the more sensitive you are to word choices, connotations, the use of analogies to drive home a thesis, the longer it takes. In my experience, most people competitive for ivies (say National Merit Finalists) write cookie cutter essays in their classes, and this is more than sufficient to get "A"s. </p>
<p>It reminds me of this painter I saw on the news who made like 100 paintings a day on the street. They were pretty good, far better than what I could do, and honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference between those paintings and a real painting.
But the “real” painters could. And it took the real painters far longer to make a painting.</p>
<p>The one caveat to my math/science generalization is that I did know a few math/science stars that decided to do ALL of the problems in their textbooks. If you remember your calculus and physics textbooks in high school, that’s a ton of work. One of these guys was on the US physics team and is now a professor at a top 5 school in theoretical physics; he obviously didn’t need to do extra work to get 100% in his classes.</p>
<p>I’ll have to google it. A formerly alive mole? Ugh. Poor Mr. Mole. My kids did dissect all sorts of things, starting in lower school. It did take away the girly fear of such. In hs, they had an utterly stupid, semester long botany project. Far more inspiration (if that was part of the goal) and learning would have come from wandering several walking distance parks, known for their ecosystems. A few hours, a few times, local awareness- versus driving them around to collect samples. (One of mine had some early pickings start to grow mold. You know that affected her grade.)</p>
<p>Such is pre-college education. Nope, never saw a kid mention the mole. Selling blubber seems wildly creative- think I’d like that kid. :)</p>
<p>“I find it attractive in a kid that he’s willing to run track and always come in fourth, because he likes to run; that she’s not good enough for ensemble singers, but she likes to sing in the chorus; that his family goes camping in the summer instead of sending him to some computer camp.” My daughter ran track for the exercise and the social aspects and she stuck with it after coming in next to last in her first year. She joined chorus just to learn to sing better; wasn’t good enough for any of the elite performing groups. And camping was one of the main activities during two of her high school summers (and led to her common app essay), though last summer she also did attend an academic program, for the first time ever. She also spent time on other interests which she felt were not something admissions would care about or she wasn’t talented enough to bother mentioning (eg. drawing). </p>
<p>She spent her high school years doing what she wanted to do, and in particular did not do extensive volunteering (that did hurt her because it made her ineligible for most of the scholarships she might have had a shot at). She did not do “leadership”. I don’t think she has a single title. One of her main passions is math and she forgot to join the math honor society. She participated enthusiastically in things that she found interesting and worthwhile and she was a leader in the classroom–prepared, participating, always with something to contribute, despite being an introverted, shy kid. Actually, we both noticed at a recent admitted students event at a top college that she was asking many of the questions and many of the kids seemed too shy to say anything, not just to faculty but even to undergrads. She didn’t log too many formal hours tutoring at school (many of those kids didn’t show up) but at home she often got calls from kids needing help and would drop what she was doing to work with them, sometimes for hours. All in all, she wasn’t able to check many of the boxes you are discussing. She still got in to most of the highly competitive schools she applied to and overall is happy with her choices. I hope it is not true that she won’t find many kids like her there.</p>
<p>Just wanted to dispel any thought that real moles (of the animal variety) were ever used in the mole project, live, formerly alive, mole fur . . . Nope! None of that! No moles have been harmed in the celebration of Mole Day! More like points in AP Chemistry for sewing and stuffing Elvis Molesly, holding a small flask that is “All Shook Up.” A great deal of chemistry is no doubt learned in the course of this project. </p>
<p>With the Rube Goldberg project, when it was assigned, the directions specifically suggested choosing times to work on the project when parents were available to help! I was definitely going to assist with the use of power tools! We looked online just to get the “lay of the land” and found many fine Rube Goldbeg devices, such as one constructed by Purdue engineering majors, who only spent 1400 hours on theirs. </p>
<p>Actually, I believe wacking Oswald Mosley like a wack-a-mole would have actually improved his mental faculties…along with providing entertainment to Britain and the rest of the free world. :)</p>
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