^ Lol. I’m ashamed (a bit) to admit that, for a while, I thought the M in HYPSM was Mich.
“My daughter has shared with me a kid that was amazing (national science awards, president of class, etc, 15 AP’s) get into Harvard…that makes sense to her, no matter how much she works, she will never top that student. Then another, very underwhelming, few AP’s, mediocre student, who’s only EC is the same one my daughter is in, and hasn’t been a leader in that EC, get into UCLA, one of my daughters dream schools, then the % are confusing (if she can get in, then I should be a shoe in) After I asked her a few questions I am pretty sure the girls parents didn’t go to college…so I had to tell my daughter that she was probably first generation, so she can’t compare her.”
Well, and
- UCLA isn’t has difficult to get in to as Harvard
- UCLA likely doesn’t use the same admissions criteria as the top privates. For one, it would matter what major you apply to at UCLA.
“wondering who N, P2, R, and G are”
Northwestern, Penn, Rice, Georgetown??
"“wondering who N, P2, R, and G are”
Northwestern, Penn, Rice, Georgetown??"
that makes sense, especially Penn (oops, forgot about them), although I think you need a W to round that group out ;-).
Sure, add NDJHWCMVVUCLA
UCLA and UCB also used to say a tale of overcoming could score. (Don’t know if this still applies, after some recent changes.) But my impression was this applied to kids with real life challenges, not just a sad event or two.
But again, just looking at awards, titles, APs, and the like misses that there’s a whole app. Any two kids, if they have identical stats and activities, aren’t likely presenting the same narrative in the rest of it.
And as a now-gone poster used to say, how do you know exactly what another kid has been doing through hs? There may be non-hs activities they didn’t chat about.
“Sure, add NDJHWCMVVUCLA”
I get Hopkins and UCLA, but adding North Dakota, Washtenaw Community College, Ole Miss, Valparaiso, and Valdosta State might be going a bit too far.
Just for clarification, I use HYPSM + C with the C for Caltech, but many posters have said that it should be Chicago or Columbia. Caltech is not for everyone, but for a certain type of student with an intense interest in science and a healthy ego it is an outstanding choice. I think it belongs in the group on the basis of the caliber of the undergraduate student body and the selectivity of admissions (not necessarily on a % of applicants basis, but in terms of the qualifications needed for admission).
Everyone seems to overlook the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople (courtesy of Peter Schickele, alias P. D. Q. Bach) or Dismal Seepage College (a favorite of my high-school debate coach).
Also, in terms of unexpected rejections, I think it really needs to be recognized that different readers will have different reactions to the same application. I have seen this play out many times, not in undergraduate admissions, but in decisions on undergraduate scholarships, awards, and graduate admissions. There is still more disagreement than you might think, even when everyone is supposed to be applying the same criteria.
To give one example from this thread, lookingforward has referred to being unimpressed by a hypothetical student with 4000 hours of community service (probably an exaggeration for effect), if the student did not reflect appropriately on the motivation, what was learned, and what was changed as a result of his/her involvement. If I really saw an application from a student with 4000 hours of community service, I would be quite impressed by that datum per se, since it is equivalent to two years of full-time work (at 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, 2 weeks for vacation). I would probably not look very critically at how the student presented the experience.
To give another example: I have read enough “You are there!” essays, with everything in the present tense, by students who start out somewhere in the developing world, on a dirt road on a mountainside, leading to the Health Care/Gerontology/Birthing/Dental Clinic, where they will engage new mothers/80-year-olds/newborns/people with dentures in soccer games/brick-making/water purification, etc. that these don’t make an especially positive impression on me. It is not that I discount service trips to developing countries. I admire the students for going on the trips! From reading CC over time, it appears that I value these service trips much more than many on CC do. I also don’t mind if the parents have to pay for them, or if they are church-sponsored, and the student has not done anything personally to raise money for the trip. I don’t mind if the conclusions that the student draws from the trip are pretty banal, as long as they are authentic. It’s the breathless use of the present tense that I really don’t like, even though it probably fits the dictum, “Show, don’t tell.” To someone encountering essays like this for the first time (no one on this thread, just a new reader somewhere), they probably have a strong, positive impact. I have seen a few that are so well written, I have to admire the form. But a lot of the essays seem to have been taken from the book “Sure-Fire Essays that Impress Jaundiced Admissions Staffers,” with minor personal tweaking. (Not a real book.)
Third example: I don’t mind formal writing and I would actually be quite charmed by an essay that was a proof, if the proof was good enough.
I didn’t say, “if the student did not reflect appropriately on the motivation, what was learned, and what was changed as a result of his/her involvement.”
I did say, in context, “They [ top colleges] want to see your interest [in them] reflected in what you learned about them, how you matched yourself, that you think and take care about the process. That’s A vital part of ‘demonstrated interest.’”
4000 hours petting the kitties at the shelter? Doesn’t matter how you “reflect” upon that.
lookingforward, I see that your comment on this thread (immediately following the 4000 hours of volunteering) was directed at what the colleges wanted in terms of interest/match/care, rather than the necessity for the student to indicate what was accomplished by the volunteer project/s.
However, in that comment, you did not write “4000 hours petting kitties at the shelter.” You wrote “4000 hours volunteering.” Again, I am sure that the hour figure represents exaggeration for the sake of effect.
But if a student had a more realistic level of effort, say 400 hours of volunteer work, I would still accord the student respect for that. I would not put it on a list of items that the applicants imagine would be impressive to colleges, but aren’t, in themselves. (I would also be interested in how they had fit the time in.)
It seems to me that elsewhere, you have emphasized that a student can’t just write “x hours of volunteering” but needs to show impact, either on him/herself or on the people (or kitties) being served. Perhaps I have some of your posts mixed up with someone else’s.
My overarching theme is that readers are different, and they respond differently to the same essay, and the same element in the essay or application. This has been true of all of the committees I have been on. Unanimity has been the next thing to nonexistent. It’s not just me–more typically, about half of the committee agrees in any particular instance. College admissions committees may be special in having a higher level of accord–the readers might be trained or selected for their viewpoints.
Does it make a difference if the kid wants to study ecology or zoology, work in a wildlife preserve or become a veterinarian?
I have always thought Caltech is the best and most rigorous school for science-oriented kids. @QuantMech
Caltech is a really wonderful undergrad college for those who fit! Observing from a distance, I think that it takes a special kind of student to fit: not just extremely smart and science-oriented, but also possessed of a high level of emotional resiliency and the willingness to spend a large fraction of the time working (a fraction that most would consider absurd). Of the people I know who have been students there, those who went to Caltech as grad students were much happier, on average. But I agree 100% that it is a superb place for those who fit.
“Does it make a difference if the kid wants to study ecology or zoology, work in a wildlife preserve or become a veterinarian?”
Good question. I’m guessing that’s one of those great unknowables that varies hugely between not just schools but AOs within a single school, so it depends on whose desk the app lands.
I’ve been thinking about this one after reading the thread from the mom asking which internship would be more helpful for college admissions, one involving a supercomputer and one that sounded like the zoo version of petting kitties at the shelter. My reaction to that one was that the zoo thing was not very interesting or developmentally helpful no matter what major the kid was interested in and struck me as being fun fluff rather than anything meaningful, but it appears that others felt the zoo one might be helpful if the kid was a biology major. I think that’s an example of how the same activity might strike different people in entirely different ways.
It’s been over a year now since I read it and I still think back to an essay that a mom posted as an example that got her DD into a top selective school. The essay was well written, but I was personally very turned off by the essay since to me the theme seemed to be “don’t hate me because I’m not just incredibly pretty but I’m smart, too!” But obviously that wasn’t the impression the top college got since they admitted her.
Bottom line - a reasonable chunk of this is subjective.
“if the kid wants to study ecology or zoology, work in a wildlife preserve or become a veterinarian?”
Don’t you think she or he would do more than pet the kitties? This is where the “passion” excuse kinda sinks. If it were my kid, I’d tell them to volunteer at the shelter, sure, as a first step. Then move forward, take on greater challenges and responsibilities related to their interests. Evolve.
I didn’t see the zoo thread, but it sounds good to me, for a kid interested in any sort of animal or environmental management. That’s really not selling tickets, if that’s all the kid does (if
Think about it- what is a good EC? It doesn’t have to be flashy. It needs to make sense and show the attirbutes a highly competitive college cares about. Sorry, but that’s not just empathy.
In contrast, say the kid has a real drive to be a lower school teacher. Then it can make sense to have ECs involving little children.
It doesn’t matter what any one of us thinks. Maybe someone will say, “But I love kittens and would love to meet a kid who vols at a shelter.” Ok. But what matters in apps is what the colleges want to see. (My D1 loves kittens, lol.)
I take this harder line when we discuss what can stand in the way of app success, at the more competitive colleges. You aren’t robbing your childhood, padding, or denying other interests, if you also work toward your future goals. Think about it- we don’t tell stem kids not to take an AP math or science. Whatever.
OMG how sad this world has become that a student’s volunteer hours must be deemed “meaningful” and must lead to specified goal.
…and we wonder why stress/anxiety/depression are at plague levels.
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@Quantmech I would agree. DH studied bio-physics at Caltech as a grad student. He felt the undergrad experience was too intense. But the kids there do also seem to find time to blow off steam - there’s a tradition of pranks and senior ditch day. The students were also proud of a culture that honored the honor code. We loved all the murals on the dorm walls. (Painted by kids.) Sadly lots of them are gone now that many of the dorms have been fixed up. My older son - who is way, way more intense than either parents thought it was great. My then 8th grader, who is not intense, but is nerdy, thought it was the perfect school if only you didn’t have to study science! (I did actually know slightly a woman who ended up majoring in humanities there - I think she went on to do science writing.) I always tell kids they must visit.
I’ve read lots of essays from kids who applied to top schools and they didn’t do anything for me. They rarely tell me where they got in so I can’t say if my impressions match those of the average AO.
I think if a kid is doing a large amount of volunteer hours - there should be something somewhere else in the application that talks about what they did. Even if you are petting cats, maybe you make observations, or you realize that the shelter or zoo has some niche need you could work on filling.
An example of a sort of stupid volunteer activity that turned into a good essay topic - my son volunteered with the local neighborhood association to scan old papers into pdfs. They indexed some key words I think, because he had to read every piece of paper. His essay was about how he would follow certain issues, things like should the school keep its open classrooms, or should the playground have a key that neighbors could have so they could use it after hours. He would seem minutes, letters to the school etc. In at least one case, the end of the story was never recorded. He knows they must have lost the open classroom fight, but no one ever wrote that down. He wrote about how he felt like a real historian as he read these 1st person accounts, and realized their limitations.
“How sad?” Come on, if you want a highly competitive college, become a competitive candidate. If you want to just hang, go to any college, fine, different expectations. If you want to avoid stress, skip AP classes and exams, and don’t insist you want a highly competitive college. Know thyself. You don’t want the responsibilities? Don’t make a list of colleges that expect to see you responding to challenges, stretching. Easy.
And I don’t think we realize how often we do tell our bright kids to stretch. We look at the course schedules, hope they prep for the standardized tests and do well. We set family responsibilities that may not be their preferences, root them on, one the playing fields. Many adults on CC steer kids to the CDS to see the stats bar- isn’t that some pressure? It’s just that, when it comes to other sorts of ECs, we melt??
Again, sorry. But I’m talking some planning, some awareness, not just “love the college that loves you.” Not just going your own merry way. I know I’m tough. But so is the competition. Every time we have a thread like this, some take the convo back to stats- “but he had a 4.0 and xx scores, was leader of the X club.” It’s not just that.