Very reason I said holistic admissions is a scam and rife with corruption. No HS kid should have to start a non-profit and do a tech internship to get into college. Docs like Try Harder and Science Fair reinforce that idea.
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And a kid doesnât have to do that to go to the majority of fantastic colleges. That vicious cycle is only at those âtopâ colleges that so many hold in such high esteem.
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And no HS kid needs to do any of those things to get into college. Seems to me it would be better to educate people about that myth rather than supporting it.
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What seems lost in that comment is the reality that some kids actually participate, create or support these activities based on a sense of altruism or academic curiosity.
The view that these activities are all a means by which students game a corrupt hoax of a system is not just incorrect and cynical but diminishes those that are sincerely well intentioned and their efforts.
I will agree that deciphering authentic from contrived is not an exact science but it is also the case that when sincere these activities can be harbingers of future ambition, determination, or contribution to a community.
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@Leigh22 absolutely. But as I posted above, 7 out of 8 SCOTUS went to Yale or Harvard. So, it is natural to conclude that if you want to become a SC justice, you should go to one of those schools.
@saillakeerie One would not need to educate anybody about such perceived myths if we got rid of holistic admissions. You want to go to a top school? Take the entrance exam and if you do well, get it. If you do not, go somewhere else.
@Catcherinthetoast I respect that sentiment and I am sure there are some kids that do that. I also know of a kid that attended seminars in Europe to learn about why poor people are poor. That kid is full pay and goes to a T10 school now. I know another kid that goes to a public ivy that started a non-profit, which is languishing now. And another one, T5 school. Same story. Now that I think about it, I do not know a single kid that started one to actually do meaningful work. My children walk rescue dogs with me at the shelter. And DD worked in a soup kitchen.
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Almost nobody will be a SC justice regardless of where they go to school. And most people who go to elite schools will have normal careers (although they may make more $$). Further, even with an entrance exam (not going to happen) there will be too many qualified students for the # of available seats. The numbers donât work regardless of what admission criteria you use. Finally, I agree that the ECs are out of hand - many kids do stuff they have little interest in just to look good. Itâs a waste of time. However, I do know one kid that started a great, state recognized, non-profit during high school- a venture she has continued (and expanded) during her time in college. But she just goes to our state flagship -not an âeliteâ school.
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I am thankful that your experience is inconsistent with mine. Which is why I view anecdotal commentary as a representation of preexisting bias that typically only seeks to confirm the accuracy of the commentators Pre conceived beliefs.
My observations and experiences of kids taking their ECs to a new level in college are no more purposeful then your failure to see such things. As such we are probably both well served to avoid generalizations or pejorative terms like hoax.
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@Catcherinthetoast @1dadinNC @Thorsmom66 - just came across this post on A2C:
Passion Project Ideas
âSo I found out very recently that passion projects are becoming one of the main things that set applicants apart (a couple of my friends applied to harvard and were told after acceptance that their grades were irrelevant, even with almost perfect grades, and that it was their passion project among other things that set them apart). Any ideas on what I can do as a long-term passion project being in my sophomore year and wanting to involve 50-60 of my friends so they can put it on their application as well? Whatever the idea is, as long as I can get major brownie points for the ONLY college Iâm interested in (FSU) Iâll do whatever it takes to get it started regardless of money or effort.â
I get that this poster is probably an outlier. Also interesting that some kids think this level of effort is also required for non-tippy top schools.
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Sad.
Hopefully someone tells the kid to just take challenging courses, do well in them, and prep for the ACT/SAT (that requirementâs not going away at florida publics. Ack)
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I disagree with a lot of the assumptions in this thread. I emphatically do not believe one has to game the system in order to get into a âgoodâ college. (Though I too would judge any kid/family starting a bogus not for profit or similar-- if I knew any families where that was the case â I donât).
âGoodâ schools want smart, engaged kids that will contribute to a community. Thatâs the bottom line. They donât want little automatons regurgitating what they read, or ticking off a checklist. Think outside the box! Itâs all in how what the kid is doing is presented.
There are so many ways to show that one is engaged! (Presumably your academic record shows that youâre smart).
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FYI these are all real kids and their stories.
The young entrepreneur who in HS started an online support group for her mother who was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She wrote about her sense of helplessness and the inadequacy of resources for these patients and her desire to use the resources of a school to do more. She is a senior in college and has founded a company that works with manufacturers in the design of under garments designed for women undergoing treatment. These items are sold on website which also serves as a resource for thousands of families.
There are the numerous kids who wrote their essays about the lack of access and affordability of healthcare and pharmaceuticals and are building companies that are intended to address these inequities.
There are the kids that saw their elder grandparents fall through the cracks of the Medicare system and wrote about it on essays. While in college they discovered one of the biggest causes of such issues was a lack of information sharing and have founded a company that has created a central data base and a flag system in an attempt to avoid others experiencing what their families went through.
There are the kids that wrote essays about their concern for the disenfranchisement of rural and underserved communities when it comes to elections who have created a company that actively engages in these communities to ensure their voices are heard.
The kid who wrote about Operation Smile and wanted to be able to do more for international children in need of medical treatment who is now going on to med school so they can go back and help and has done numerous medical aid trips with greater and greater responsibility.
And yes I know many who have also just fluffed their resumes, but letâs not generalize. I would much rather a system that values and supports these sorts of kids and perhaps a few slackers get by then the alternative.
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That wonât happen. At least not for the college we are talking about here. They want to be able to put their fingers on the scale to admit who they want to admit. That isnât changing. So if that is your solution, you need to find Plan B. Its just reality.
Oh yes, I very strongly applaud - and cheer for - those types of students.
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I didnât mean to imply you were against quality and affordable health care or voters rights etcđ
Sorry!!
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Yes â And a kid does not have to do any of those extremely impressive things to get into a good school. (If they do them, of course thatâs fantastic!)
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Strongly agree!
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I, too, applaud students who pursue their genuine passions, who help their communities, or who overcome adversities. However, thereâs a problem when young people are incentivized to do these very good things because of college admissions. In the college Covid thread, posters linked to stories in campus newspapers about cheating on exams during the pandemic. There were dramatic increases in cheating at UPenn. At both Harvard and Yale, about a quarter of all students surveyed confided to the school papers that they had cheated. The actually numbers may even be higher. For many of these students, their first experiences with the lack of honesty probably started with their college applications. They may have faked their interests, exaggerated their accomplishments, or worse. If someone is rewarded for dishonesty, wouldnât s/he be encouraged to tell more lies down the road?
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Maybe they become POTUS.
I completely agree. Unfortunately I donât have a solution and have observed that in most aspects of life dishonesty can lead to enrichment.
We have all heard that integrity is what you do when no one is looking. As applied to college applications and most aspects of life people are looking and it still doesnât deter large portions of society from embellishment.
So once again I wouldnât take actions that harm those that are earnest.
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They attended Harvard/Yale for law school. This thread has been primarily about undergrad â not law school. Even if attending Harvard/Yale for law school is relevant, doing so does not require attending a particular college for undergrad. Instead law school admission is well correlated with LSAT and GPA stats, such that applicants with similar LSAT/GPA stats tend to have similar admits rates from both less selective and more selective undergrad colleges.
The existing supreme court justices also attended college decades ago, in one case as early as the 1950s for undergrad. Colleges and the world in general has had many changes in more recent decades. Career outcomes from 30+ years ago are not always a good predictor of what will happen for more recent grads. The youngest and most recent judge might be considered the most time relevant example, and she attended Rhodes (for undergrad). Rhodes accepts the majority of applicants and is not known for its eliteness, so an alternative conclusion could be, it is possible to be supreme court judge, if you attend a not super elite college, like Rhodes.
However, rather than conclude that you should go to Rhodes if you want to be a supreme court judge, the bigger issue is causation vs correlation, particularly with the miniscule sample size. This is true for other outcomes of extreme outliers besides just supreme court justices. Instead extreme outlier outcomes tend to involve a combination of unique circumstances, background, ability, and being in the right place at the right time. The college name is rarely the primary cause, even if the extreme outcome is more common among grads from some colleges than others. However, such outcomes arenât going to be possible for typical grads, regardless of where they attend college for undergrad.
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