What Extra Curricular Activities (ECs) Top Schools REALLY want

marite · May 21, 2006, 11:57pm

I do live in a different world. It’s called a high school with good GCs. As I posted, I did not even know what SATs were when time came for S1 to think about colleges. But he had a good GC who suggested courses to take (some of which my S did not take) and colleges to apply to. 
I’ve heard of GCs that are overworked, are do not possess up-to-date information. For example, there have been GCs who steered their students toward HYP ("you’re a shoo-in for Yale for sure). It would be great if all schools had an adequate number of well-informed GCs. But how is that the responsibility of colleges?

curmudgeon · May 22, 2006, 1:56am

Out here on the ranch, we just call that little place “The City”. But we do have sat-L-lite TV . That’s how they probably heard about Harvard . We have had some experience with the elites and their products. In fact, my D applied to Yale because she had always liked their padlocks.;)

I spent the evening with the parents of a star athlete who had been strung along by several mid-tier D1’s only to find himself now completely without 4 year scholarship options at any scholarship level and of any quality. Piecing together the story it appears they heard the possibilities as probabilities and the probabilities as promises. They believed what they wanted to believe. And now a very talented kid who would be a star at most 1-AA programs will be sitting in the stands for a while. They shot too high and they blame the high school and college coaches for their lack of transparency, and leading them on to the point that lesser options held no allure.

I believe many parents here fit the same category and aren’t that different than the jock parents I was consoling tonight. “But Yale recruited him , sent him letter after letter, said he was who they wanted, inviting him to campus. I don’t know what went wrong”. Same thing that happened at Duke for my kid. A great kid got selected. It just wasn’t my great kid.

TheGFG · May 22, 2006, 7:42am

Piecing together the story it appears they heard the possibilities as probabilities and the probabilities as promises. They believed what they wanted to believe.
“But Yale recruited him , sent him letter after letter, said he was who they wanted, inviting him to campus. I don’t know what went wrong”. Same thing that happened at Duke for my kid.

So, curmudgeon, are you saying it was all the parents’ fault, or are you placing some blame on the school as well? Sounds like you went through it yourself.

On another thread a girl (not an athlete, though an excellent student) told her story about having gotten letters and phone calls from Yale in which they told her how much they wanted her. She applied and was ultimately rejected. Maybe she misunderstood their intent, but I doubt anyone could say she shot too high! That would be really unfair.

marite · May 22, 2006, 7:59am

Curmudgeon’s message is about a practice that I deplore. It is indeed misleading. Although students and families ought to be more cautious in interpreting letters, invitations, etc…, I place most of the blame on the colleges for leading the students and their families on.

TheGFG · May 22, 2006, 9:27am

One more time, here it is:

People think they have researched a college if they’ve checked for SAT and GPA range, made sure the school has a good department in the major they’re interested in as well as has a professor or two well-versed in a specific academic interest, has the clubs or sports they’re interested in, and if they have visited the campus and spoken with kids who attend. Most directories and college websites give the kind of bland statistical information that’s easy to find everywhere and people DO look at this information. What alantamom and others are saying is that that this type of research is not enough, but parents and students don’t do more because they don’t realize it’s not enough. Of course, they also attend those high school guidance sessions, but the need for in-depth admissions research isn’t suggested there either. It’s really not accurate to characterize these people as negligent or stupid or lazy or deluded–they truly think they’ve done their due diligence.

Perhaps there are are some school-specific resources for the elite schools that I haven’t seen. But since this thread relates to ECs, I’ll comment by way of an illustration about “research” that when we were researching top schools, we never saw it stated on Ivy school literature that the Ivies like to see state and national level achievement in an EC. (If they had said “like to see”, they’d still have wiggleroom to accept a student without it.) Reading acceptance profiles on CC as well as generalizations made by CC parents who’ve been through the process, now we can see that this is a pretty important indicator. Most Ivy-accepted students seem to have achieved this. But I didn’t learn that fact from a college directory or school website. As far as the Gatekeepers book, I had seen a review for it; it seemed to be a history of Harvard admissions practices with a focus on the prevailing social motives such as the exclusion of Jews. While quite interesting, I wouldn’t have thought it relevant to our present college application process. To suggest parents should have read it as part of their college research is a stretch.

Since we’ve mentioned Yale recently, during the admissions info. session we attended on campus, what was explained was that the adcoms like to see a progression in your EC’s. Then they gave this example: if you play soccer, we like to see that you moved from the freshman team, to JV, to Varsity, and then to varsity captain. Now for the average person, let’s say a parent who hadn’t attended college himself or at least an elite college, that did not give the impression that anything so very exceptional was needed as far as EC’s. Of course, the parent should certainly have borne in mind the low acceptance percentages for these schools which, yes, they should have learned about in research. But I’m not convinced that knowing those percentages would have been sufficient to prepare them either. How does one get an idea of how many of the rejected applicants truly met the criteria for admission? Just because the colleges like to say they could fill three classes with qualified applicants doesn’t mean it’s so! That statement could easily be interpreted as a polite comment designed to let rejected/unqualified kids down gently.

As far as diversity, would someone please show me where on a college website or info. book a school actually comes out and says it will consider a candidate from a minority background with lower qualifications? They do say they will consider the applicant in the context of his background, but again–that’s not exactly the same thing.

Ordinary research does not give one a sufficient understanding of how competitive this process is. Reading the press releases with low admit numbers didn’t do it for me either, frankly. What might be more helpful would be to list profiles of accepted students such as what can be found here. Only when I read some of that did I fully realize how extremely accomplished Ivy kids are.

marite · May 22, 2006, 9:38am

GFG:

Neither of my Ss did anything at the state or national level. They both got into top 20 schools. It’s not right to suggest that extraordinary ECs are required. Nor are extraordinary academic achievements. S1 got into Wes as a top 10% but not val, sal or top 5%,; he was not captain of anything, nor did he have umpteen ECs.
He was of the class featured in the Gatekeepers, btw.

TheGFG · May 22, 2006, 9:46am

Marite: Hmm, so if I’m a new parent right now reading this thread, what conclusions do I draw? That, in a nutshell, is the problem I’m addressing.

I admit that I’m by no means as well informed as some of you, but I guess the point is parents don’t think they have to be. But their kids are then surprised come May 1. The closest things I’ve seen to truly helpful resources were the Claremont McKenna article featured here on CC, and the posted student profiles under each Ivy school in which kids list their stats, EC’s, hooks, etc. The latter is what really showed me what it takes to get in a top school, but I found it too late. I didn’t get that perspective from a college guidebook, elite school website, campus tour or info. session, etc.

CC should be required reading!

soozievt · May 22, 2006, 10:03am

A couple of things…

A rejection at Yale doesn’t imply that a student reached too high. Yale cannot accept every qualified candidate. My child was deferred EA at Yale and ultimately denied (her only denial) and I do not believe she reached too high by having Yale on her list. She knew, as did we, that the odds of getting in were REALLY low even though she qualified to get in. Just being deferred implies she was considered and not just taken off the pile right away. She never came away from that decision as “I reached too high or I wasn’t good enough for Yale.” She just knew that her turn wasn’t picked at that reach school. She got into other reaches so surely she wasn’t reaching too high. You can’t win 'em all. Clearly, as can be seen on CC alone, there are students who were rejected at Yale who got into Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, Williams, MIT, or Stanford, for example, and so the rejection at Yale doesn’t mean he/she reached too high. Odds are, that a top student will get into some very selective schools, but not necessarily all of them.

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The Gatekeepers is not about what you summarized, GFG. The Gatekeepers is written by an education journalist, Jacques Steinberg, who was given unprecedented access for a full year to an admissions committee. It was at Wesleyan. The book has nothing to do with Harvard, or historical patterns with Jews, etc. It is a close up chronicle of what goes on inside an admissions committee at an elite college. The reader gets to read about deliberations about specific candidates and how the process works. It is most enlightening. I know your son has already been through the process but I think you would enjoy this book. It is written like a story, and it is not a resource book.

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As I wrote on this thread already, I do agree that many are ill informed about the selectivity of the top schools and do not fully understand it. I mentioned that teachers or guidance counselors at my D’s school felt she could name her school and get in anywhere but we knew better because we read about college admissions. We knew that schools with admit rates below 20% do not accept all qualified candidates. Take Yale…If they accept 11%, clearly some of the 89% who are denied are still qualified to get in. I realize many do not look into this that closely but they should. I don’t think this is the colleges’ doing. We did buy about three books about college admissions. Reading any article or book about this would give an idea about what it is about. Even reading CC is an eye opener! Some students go to schools where there are informed GCs. We love our GC but he clearly does not realize the state of elite college admissions today. He is dumbfounded that our D did not get admitted to Yale, whereas we are not dumbfounded and never expected it, not because she wasn’t qualified but only because statistically speaking, the odds were long. I think if one’s school or GC isn’t in the know, then one needs to read what they can on the topic of selective college admissions online or in books.

I don’t think colleges hide the fact that it is difficult to get into the schools that are highly selective. I don’t think colleges are going to say you must have state or national recognition because they do admit kids who have not had that. Some kid may be an entrepeneur of some sort and started an organization or business…and be a very attractive candidate and that doesn’t fit under state or national recognition. However, read any book on elite college admissions, or read CC, and it is clear that top schools want to see commitment in ECs over time and in depth where the student has made a significant contribution to the activity and/or led something, or achieved something of note. Limiting the description of which ECs and which achievements would be inaccurate.

soozievt · May 22, 2006, 10:10am

The GFG…we did not just visit schools and get the guidebooks/directories, and college brochures. We also bought a few books ABOUT college admissions. That’s where we learned about the process. Books like Getting In by Paul, The Truth About Getting In by Cohen, The Gatekeepers by Steinberg, A is for Admission by Hernandez, Panicked Parents’ Guide to College Admissions by Rubenstone (of CC) and American’s Elite Colleges by Berry (of CC) and several others do give information about the selective college admissions process and some also give information about how to go about the admissions and application process as well. I realize not everyone buys a book or reads CC, and thus, I do realize many are not well informed. I don’t see this as the colleges’ fault, however. For instance, some high schools, like ours, could do WAY more to educate students and parents about the college admissions process. Otherwise, consumers who are looking for a place to send their child for four years at great expense, need to research both the schools AND the process of admissions.

marny1 · May 22, 2006, 10:28am

soozievt- You don’t even have to buy the books or even leave your house. If you spend about 10 minutes on the Princeton review website and collegeboard website, you can get all the statistical data you need. At Almost every info session we attended, it is always made clear that most of the kids who apply have the grades/test scores that fall within the range of their accepted student profile.
In under 5 minutes, I saw that Cornell takes about 27% of those kids that apply based on info Princeton review and collegeboard websites. I can also assume, based on admission sessions at the colleges- that most of the 73% of the kids that were denied admission had stats that fell within the 25%-75% range. 
What can’t people grasp. The vast majority of kids who have the stats, are not going to get into their college of choice when the apply to Ivy or other very selective schools.

TheGFG · May 22, 2006, 10:38am

sooz: the context of my earlier mention of the surprise Yale rejection was that Yale had wooed the girl (a poster on CC) through letters and phone calls–not merely that she was well-qualified, applied and was rejected. The latter is understandable and perhaps expected, the former not.

marny: the statistical information doesn’t tell the picture of who are the rejected applicants and whether your kid looks more like them or more like the accepted ones. Without that sense, it’s hard to judge the odds for YOU or YOUR KID personally. For example, isn’t the number of Ivy cross-admits pretty high (I have to look for the percentage later when I have time)? Thus it could seem that of the 15,000 or so applications received by an Ivy, it may not be the case that there are quite that many students who are equally qualified and equally Ivy-worthy/desirable as the accepted students.

curmudgeon · May 22, 2006, 10:52am

I apologize. I was unclear. I have no idea why I phrased my response as I did to allow the suggestion that the Yale (or in our case Duke) applicant , and certainly not ALL rejectees, shot “too high” like the athlete. Poor job on my part. In the case of the athlete I believe it to be true, but it was not essential to the post and should have been omitted for clarity’s sake. I am sure there are those academic parents and students that fit the category of “shooting too high” but that is not who I was talking about, nor is it who I think y’all are talking about. (I certainly do not think my D was shooting “too high” for Duke.)

The rest of it is where I was going. That the parents and the young man really stopped looking at less selective choices because of the attention focused on him by the most selective programs . The less selective programs were suddenly chopped liver .

I really wasn’t as interested in whom to blame but as I think about it the parents and student/athlete also had to rely upon the high school coach (the GC in this case, as it were) to advise and the advising was poor, as it is in some of the academic cases. It was the lack of good fit “football” safeties that I was deploring and I think that the kid, the schools, the parents, and the high school advisor all blew it for him.

SBmom · May 22, 2006, 10:55am

Remember the kids all know people from their own High Schools-- who was and was not admitted. In my area, Brown takes somewhere between 9%-12% in a given year. At my D’s HS, there might be 10-20 kids applying, so that’s one or two getting in. Every year, all the juniors watch their senior friends get denied. The juniors know lots of smart and qualified kids are not admitted.

The kid who would not have reasonably good anecdotal info about admission to elites would be the one kid at Podunk High in South Dakota, or Inner City High, some school that typically never sends any applicants-- but that’s the very kid who may have a shot as an outlier.

SBmom · May 22, 2006, 11:03am

PS. the very reason I came to CC was having heard about a blowout at my D’s high. One WINNER kid applied to 10 schools, and got 9 denials & WLs.

Her one acceptance? Harvard.

That’s when I knew this was a VERY tricky and capricious process.

doubleplay · May 22, 2006, 11:06am

I know this is a little off subject (ECs) but…
My son was “pursued”, somewhat, by several regional top tiers. By that I mean glossy brochures, letters, post cards, invitations to apply for scholarships and honors programs…all totally unsolicited. He was above the 75 percentiles in SAT and GPA and had excellent ECs, the whole bit. I imagine they got his name from the SATs. He applied, but didn’t get in (I guess he didn’t fit into their mosaic), and that’s OK, but I wish they hadn’t sent all that stuff. I talked to the counselor at one school that waitlisted him, who enthusiastically encouraged my son to send in the card to seal his place on the list- basically assuring that he would get in if he did so. I felt like asking why they didn’t take him in the first place. Needless to say, he didn’t send the card in- why bother. After being courted and rejected once already, why should we trust them? Now my second is receiving letters and brochures (she made the initial Merit Scholar cutoff so I guess they have her number too). We’re a lot more worldly wise this time around.

marite · May 22, 2006, 12:00pm

GFG:

CC is a wonderful resource; but there is also lots of misinformation floating about, especially regarding the value of ECs and the type of ECs that will be a plus for an applicant. Looking back at my S’s experience, he had 3 ECs. 1. piano since he was very young-- no award whatsoever. 2. one sport since first grade, not competitive, so no state or national award. 3. a discussion group for 2 years. No real leadership role except that in the second year he became a “discussion facilitator.” He wrote one essay about learning to accept other people’s viewpoints and ways of being and how enriching it was to learn from their various experiences; in the other essay, he enthused about a teacher he’d had in a lower grade. And that was it. He got into 3 top 20 colleges with that profile and those essays (and to repeat, no AP math or science). But, we never took it for granted that he would be admitted everywhere he applied, or even most anywhere. The GC suggested one college as a safety, and S got into there as well and would have happily attended.
I think that some posters on CC feed into the paranoia (your list of ECs stinks; what, no Calc-BC?) while others feed into excessive confidence (ur in!).

soozievt · May 22, 2006, 12:00pm

Doubleplay…here is one thing you need to know…the sending of college brochures that are unsolicited, is not an indication of being “pursued”. That is an inaccurate understanding of the brochures. My kid got piles and piles of brochures (like most kids likely do) and it just came across to us as random mailings of colleges sending out their information to prospective students, nothing more. We didn’t see those mailings as her being pursued or that she’d get into those schools. It was like getting brochures about cars for sale. Some we like, some we don’t; some we can afford, some we can’t. I don’t see such mailings as indications that one can get into those colleges but merely the colleges want you to know about them and consider them. Most get on those mailing lists via the PSATs. So, colleges will put out mailings to those who score within range. But as we know, not everyone who scores within range is admitted. By the way, my second child did not get the flurry of brochures (thankfully) because she did not take the PSATs (had to miss them unexpectedly).

GFG, yes, I understand your point that the girl was encouraged by Yale via contacts from them and so that made it much harder to accept the “denial” of admissions. However, even with athletes (she may not have been one, I realize), a college will talk to many potential students whom they encourage but that is not a guarantee of admission. I do realize it makes it harder when the admissions doesn’t come through when folks at the college seem to reach out and try to encourage you. I have a client this year who went to the summer program at a college that is directly related to the major she was auditioning to get in ED this fall (BFA in Acting). The summer program seemed to love her and were overly encouraging her to apply there and she did, ED. She was denied and devastated. This is very difficult. I guess the lesson there is that nothing is a sure thing until it happens.

Also some read into things more than perhaps they should. I have read some students on the Musical theater forum who claim that at their NYU/Tisch audition, they were told that they were going to be admitted and then they were not admitted. I find some of those stories very doubtful. My child applied/auditioned there and is attending and has done 8 college auditions with positive results, and not a single auditor ever indicated her chances of admissions. In fact, at NYU/Tisch, only 50% of the admissions decision is artistic review and 50% is academic review and so no auditor could predict a kid would be admitted based on just the artistic review. As well…there are thousands who audition and so there is no way on the spot they can tell who will get in. One kid on CC who told such a story admitted he had a GPA that was 2 point something (clearly not in range for NYU) and another parent admitted that NYU was a far reach academically, yet applied anyway and claims that the kid was told IN the audition that she passed muster artistically. So, I don’t believe every claim I hear. Some read into what is said more than what was meant by the college official. I am not discrediting whatever story you shared but I don’t think anyone should assume they will be admitted until the letter comes!

soozievt · May 22, 2006, 12:09pm

Marite wrote of some posts on CC:

“I think that some posters on CC feed into the paranoia (your list of ECs stinks; what, no Calc-BC?) while others feed into excessive confidence (ur in!).”

I TOTALLY agree! CC is great and there is so much I have learned here from the collective wisdom of others, viewpoints, and shared experiences. But one must be very wary that these are posts by lay people. And the “what are my chances” threads can be very very very inaccurate. It is just as you say…some will say “no way” will you get in…you did not win the Intel or an Olympic medal!! and others will say, oh, sure, you can get in…you have 1550 SATs and a GPA of 3.9, no problemo! Have we seen the essays? the recs? the interview? the school profile? the rest of the app pool? etc? No. As a college counselor, I collect way more info. on a student than what is posted in a stats chances post. Even THEN, I can classify schools as far reach, reach, match, safety but I can’t predict for sure where a kid will get in. And surely at the top schools, I can’t predict at all. I can say if a student is an appropriate candidate but can’t guarantee admissions at a top school. I can assume a tippy top candidate will get into at least one selective school but not predict exactly which one will say yes. People need to realize you have to choose schools where you are an appropriate candidate but when we are talking of reach schools (and certain schools are reaches for anyone given the low admit rate), that we cannot predict that one WILL get into a specific school of that nature. What we can do is to establish an appropriate balanced list tailored to a candidate and feel assured that the student will be getting into one or more colleges.

TheGFG · May 22, 2006, 12:40pm

While brochures mean nothing, a more direct contact like a personalized letter or phone call can understandably be taken to mean a little more–maybe not a guarantee exactly, but a likelihood perhaps? My son received a personal, unsolicited e-mail from a contact he had at an Ivy, telling him to please apply, they’d love to have him there, etc. This is quite different than receiving generic literature. He applied and was rejected, by the way. We didn’t take it as a definite that he’d get in, but I must say that e-mail gave me a lot of hope.

TheGFG · May 22, 2006, 1:03pm

for curmudgeon and whomever:

Do you know of any resources you’d recommend which address the college sports recruitment process? In particular, is there some statistical information available that could be used to assess a student’s chances (ie. the equivalent of SAT data for athletics)? I’m looking for accomplishments that are important (all-state 1st team) since I’m not well-informed about sport qualifications. Since my D is a track kid, I’d love some way of finding out the times kids were running in HS as juniors and seniors before being recruited/accepted to elite schools. You can find the results of college track meets, but I’m not sure about how to extrapolate from that several years back in time.

What Extra Curricular Activities (ECs) Top Schools REALLY want

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