What Extra Curricular Activities (ECs) Top Schools REALLY want

DRJ4 · May 21, 2006, 3:28pm

Epiphany, et al.,

It seems I am now the “one-note” poster whose only goal is to make college admissions more transparent, which is ironic because I recall commenting on other topics, too. However, I can live with that label because it is an important topic and it makes sense to discuss it at a website like College Confidential.

Clearly, you believe my comments are neither eloquent nor convincing but you don’t need to take my word on this subject. Here is an eloquent and, I think, convincing quote from a Yale professor and former dean reported by John Fund in the 4/17/2006 edition of the Wall Street Journal online (<a href=“http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110008250):%5B/url%5D”>http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110008250):</a>

marny1 · May 21, 2006, 3:36pm

One of the earliest college admission sessions that we attended was at William and Mary when d #1 was in 10th grade. The admission staff was very clear. The type of student accepted at William and Mary was expected to take 4 years of math including calculus and 4 years of science including physics. She said that they were aware that lots of kids take AP psychology and AP statistics to meet the 4 unit math/science requirement, but she made it clear that calc and physics was what W&M wanted to see on the transcript. 
My d had already set her 11th grade program. As she wanted to AVOID physics at all costs, she had already signed up for AP Bio. With some thought, she decided to stick to the AP Bio but did decide that she would take physics and AP psychology in 12th grade. 
We learned an awful lot from that info session in 10th grade. Schools definitely look at the quality of courses the student takes. And if a student plans wisely, they can take some of the courses they want to avoid in 12th grade. This way their GPA is less affected for college admission. 
Outcome of the story- my d probably worked harder in 12th grade than any other grade and she was accepted to William and Mary- which is pretty good for an OOS student.

mathmom · May 21, 2006, 4:20pm

“I would advise against taking AP Physics at this stage. It is usually taken concurrently with AP-Calc, so your D should wait until she is ready for AP-Calc. Most students take AP-Physics (that is, the few that do) in their senior year.”

At our big public high school it is standard for honors students to take AP Physics B in 10th grade. Physics B requires no calculus. (Our school doesn’t even offer honors physics anymore.) Most of these kids are in the NY equivalent of Algebra 2. Those who like physics take it again as seniors when they take AP Physics C which does require calculus.

This has probably been influenced by the Newsweek rankings, but it seems to be working out pretty well.

marite · May 21, 2006, 5:59pm

DRJ:

It is one professor’s opinion among many professors’ opinion and not any more convincing than any other opinion. 
We have gone to two Yale info sessions, several years apart and read its admissions website. We came away with a pretty clear impression about what it takes to qualify for eligibility and also about the fact that not all eligible students can be admitted (you can substitute highly selective schools for Yale).

Some of what appears as crapshoot to a student may make perfect sense to the admissions committee, but that “what” probably varies from year to year (taking in the student interested in the crew team, or the kid from Wyoming, or the student who plays the French horn like an angel). Beyond that, there IS an element of capriciousness.

Can I explain why I like the taste of such and such beer more than another’s? And if I can, will it come across as capricious or rational? And if there IS an element of capriciousness–the adrep got to the particular applicant’s essay where he talked about the impact of Katrina on his life after reading umpteen essay on a similar topic, or the adrep was unable to articulate in committee why applicant X was better than applicant Y who was being championed by someone else on the committee–, can it be to anyone’s benefit to state so on the admissions website?

marite · May 21, 2006, 6:03pm

Mathmom:

Thanks for explaining the rationale. Maybe AP-Physics B is what is being considered here.

Marny: About W@Mary requiring calculus. S1 got into highly selective LACs without APs in math and science. He did take 4 years of math and 4 years of science but none to the level of AP. He was never going to be a math/science major and we did not feel like pushing him to take courses he would not enjoy or do well in.

DRJ4 · May 21, 2006, 6:19pm

Marite,

Thanks for your response. I’m glad you got helpful information at the Yale info sessions you attended. Too bad for the students who live in places that don’t have such sessions.

marite · May 21, 2006, 6:25pm

Yale and other schools have traveling sessions. I attended the session by a Stanford rep that was held in a MA suburb. And by and large, I think the information posted on the website does not differ by a huge amount from what is presented at the sessions.

I continue to be amazed by posters who ask what their chances are when their profile in no way matches the 25-75 percentile of admitted students at the college they are interested in or who claim they want to major in business but ask about their chances of being admitted to Harvard which does not offer the major. And who come to CC to ask questions whose answer can be found on the school website. How many of us have said: call the admissions office; call the finaid office?

DRJ4 · May 21, 2006, 6:39pm

Marite,

I’m aware that Yale and other colleges have traveling information sessions but there are geographical areas that do not have sessions. In addition, not everyone can attend a session due to family circumstances or other reasons.

lkf725 · May 21, 2006, 6:42pm

shelley14,
It probably depends on the level of Physics you are talking about, but at our hs, the kids needed to have Calc under their belts BEFORE taking AP Physics, as it was immediately assumed they new calc. Concurrent courses were of no help. One of my son’s friends, really smart straight A student, had to drop AP Physics that he took in the same semester as AP Calc, because he didn’t have enough math to be successful.

Maybe you should ask the Physics teacher how much calculus knowledge is assumed.

Now, on with the other debates!

marite · May 21, 2006, 6:44pm

As I said, their website pretty much reiterates what they say in the sessions. What the sessions allow is for Q&A but the questions can be just as well addressed by phoning or emailing the adcoms. Nothing, of course, beats human contact. But beware that regional adreps are not always the most accurate source of information! Schools, however, must stand by what is on their website.

But what some posters seem to want is a degree of transparency or automaticity in admissions that is not possible. As I wrote, will it help anyone to know that last year, a student was admitted because s/he was a prospective crew member? Maybe, if the crew team will be needing another crew member. But if not, the admission of one student one year and the rejection of another student the next year will seem arbitrary and capricious.

marny1 · May 21, 2006, 6:49pm

Marite- when you are just “another girl from Long Island”, and it is suggested that you take physics and calculus-- you take physics and calculus. For d # 2 who was not applying to the same level of colleges as her sister did, we did not have her take physics. She met the 4th year requirement by taking marine bio and forensics. She also took 4 years math- but not at AP or honors level.

shelley14 · May 21, 2006, 6:55pm

Just shows my own confusion on this winding road - I just checked and found out that D’s school offers AP Physics B.
When I first posted this morning, it was more in concern about D continuing Chinese because of the time demands just to keep her head above water. Mid-day I was worried more about Physics!
Still am on the fence over challenging courses vs. those that get you closer to that 4.0 GAP!
Thanks for all of the responses.

soozievt · May 21, 2006, 7:25pm

Shelley, I don’t know which type of colleges your D is hoping to go to some day but for a very selective school, I’d go with challenging courses more than choosing courses to get a better GPA. She should challenge herself as much as possible and as much as she is interested. Her grades will be looked at in context of the course load she took, as well as what her school offered and what is known about her school. Very selective schools ARE looking for students to take the most demanding curriculum or close to it. They WILL examine WHAT was taken, not just the grades.

As far as what colleges want, I think they make that information already known. No matter how much more they could spell out, even if it was at all possible, wouldn’t tell me if my child would be accepted. The frustrating part that DRJ mentions…the idea that the admissions at elite schools are unpredictable…STILL would be. I like Northstarmom’s analogy to choosing an athletic team. As I have a kid in theater, it really is similar to casting at the higher levels of theater, too. It is even similar to getting a job in a competitive field. Just because you have what it takes, doesn’t mean you will get chosen. Anyone entering into these processes needs to understand this, AND that it can be nervewracking and unpredictable. It goes with the territory.

The good news is that a very good student who is qualified for top schools, is going to get into some good colleges that are selective but it is unpredictable which ones will give the acceptance. Now, if one has an outlook of “Ivy or bust”, then that is another thing entirely.

marite · May 21, 2006, 7:40pm

Marny:

I understand. But that is different from what the colleges demand or expect. Believe me, S1 went against the GC in not taking AP-Calc in senior year. He’d gotten A- in Pre-Calc, so he was considered capable of handling it. But we did not pressure him to take AP-Calc because we knew he would not be happy in it and was not planning to be a math/science major. And lo and behold, he got accepted to the LACs the very same GC had suggested he apply to. The schools he did not get into were crapshoot schools. There is absolutely no guarantee that he would have gotten in had he taken AP-Calc and an AP-science.

marite · May 21, 2006, 7:46pm

DRJ;

An addition to my post. What we got from visiting schools is the kind of knowledge colleges or their reps cannot really impart. That is the feel of the college, the feel of the town, the general sense of “fit.” I found that except for the MIT session where my S discovered that he might not be a great fit for a school that prided itself on being hands-on, the information sessions were pretty much the same for the same range of schools. In fact, S ended skipping some if he was pressed for time. He would rather go talk to profs and to students. But again, the information he got from these is not what posters who decry lack of transparency and lack of information are talking about.

TheGFG · May 21, 2006, 7:53pm

Shelley,
I agree with the posters who recommend that your D take Calc. first. Despite being a good math student, my S took AP Physics BC concurrently with AP Calc, which was an accepted pairing at our HS. This was a mistake, and he really struggled. The students who excelled in the course were those with higher level math skills.

bookworm · May 21, 2006, 8:16pm

If a child is struggling to achieve a B+ or A-, why push them to take the next AP class in the sequence? Its not just the A in Honors, its less homework in a subject they don’t really love.
Several students in S’s HS chose Honors rather than AP because of the AP teacher (not a favorite for some). That made sense to me.
S never took physics at HS, but studied ther subject towards the end of jr year, after AP calc, and took the AP test.
I just can’t see making a child take a class they don’t want, with a teacher they don’t want, unless there is some very good reason.

epiphany · May 21, 2006, 9:30pm

DRJ,
I spoke about my own lack of eloquence, not any deficiencies of any other posters.

Now I see the heart of the matter: you are frustrated because you cannot “convince” me. Correct. So why do you keep trying? You obviously have a compatriot in someone from Yale. Surely that prof. would welcome any efforts on your part toward helping Y achieve greater transparency. Why not contact that professor (or the education conservancy, who I assure you you will not need to spend post after post “convincing” of your quite similar point of view to theirs)? Why do you keep demanding that I agree with you about something that I believe cannot be achieved within the realm of overwhelming application numbers & an overwhelming number of fine, QUALIFIED students?

OTOH, I don’t need “convincing” that life, from a philosophical viewpoint, is not fair. Definitely not fair that many upstanding people do not get recognized for being mensches, until their funerals. (I said that long ago on CC, not that it’s original, or eloquent.) Definitely not fair that those possibly most qualified to become President of our country lack the funds or their party’s blessing to run for that office. Yes, qualified people shut out of the process. I’m not sure why you seem to blame me, of all the people on CC, of all the world of parents seeking admissions for their students, for the “unfairness” of the admissions process. But in any case, it’s getting tiresome. There are people who possibly deserved to be picked on more; I have enough challenges with an LD daughter who will be lucky to get in anywhere. Geez!

TheGFG · May 21, 2006, 9:54pm

epiphany, for some reason I think you are misreading DRJ. If DRJ blamed you for anything, I must have missed it. Aren’t all of us simply trying to make logical arguments so as to present a convincing case for our viewpoint? This is certainly not a life or death matter for DRJ or anyone else; it’s merely an interesting diversion. At times we may be pushed into an untenable corner while playing the devil’s advocate. That’s the fun of it. For ordinary people like me (who lack the preparation many of you had at Ivies), this is a tough crowd with which to enter into discourse. It takes some courage, so please tread gently. Nevertheless, I find conversations on CC to be more stimulating than those I could have with my current cohort of friends. Although threads begin with a define college-related topic, it doesn’t take long before a philosophical debate begins!

Peace!

SBmom · May 21, 2006, 10:03pm

DRJ4, I have another analogy that gets to the problem of achieving total transparency for ‘what a school is looking for’ beyond what is already shared with applicants…

Let’s say you go to the mall with this goal: buy a pair of jeans that fit. You find a pair, you buy them, and go home.

Why didn’t you choose all the other potential pairs of jeans that would have fit?

You just couldn’t buy all 50 pairs, so 49 did not get picked, but it isn’t that they did not fit, nor anything particular, nor even something you knew you’d care about until you saw it… one pair had bad pockets, one pair felt too stiff, one was too faded, one was too low-waisted… whatever. If you had a friend along, the friend might have liked, and urged you to buy, a completely different pair than you ultimately did buy.

Well, every admission officer/committee is looking for “kids that fit.” Size would correlate with “basically academically qualified.” They have so many choices they can pick from, most of whom fit, but they can’t take them all-- so now it comes down to subjective finer points…

One admission officer will pick differently than another at the same school; one school will pick differently from another… On different days, even, the same officer will behave differently… There is no totally clear paradigm, because it is people who read these apps, people with biases, likes, dislikes, emotions, and people whose goals may shift on a weekly basis. (It is also people who write the apps-- kids’ essays and teachers’ recs; any of these can subtly influence the outcome.)

Even if you could control for all those variables, the adcom’s very mission will unexpectedly change. Imagine a baseball coach who is “left at the altar” when a star pitching recruit commits elsewhere-- suddenly a kid who can pitch just became a hot commodity from the wait list! A week earlier, maybe, this was not even identified as a need. Could be a pitcher, a french horn, an applicant from the Dakotas, a Latin major, whatever.

It is just too subjective.

What Extra Curricular Activities (ECs) Top Schools REALLY want

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