<p>The only thing I have to add to the conversation is that for some student the EC or hobby they have does produce more studying and more work. Just the opposite of laziness. At least this is the case with my kid. Just going to school and “hitting” the books for the next test or quiz and then drill himself some more just did not work for him although he is considered a good student (not the A+ kid but not a B kid either). Although I agree to an extend to what is being said by GFG ( I myself come from a different ethnic background) I have to say that for some learners an alternative way is a blessing. Actually is because of his EC that my kid is still interested and clinging in STEM, otherwise based on math drilling he would be out long ago.</p>
<p>Yes, exactly, lookingforward–I hope that the university does identify the students who have pursued their interests deeply in a scholarly way. There are fields where it takes a long time to reach the point of doing meaningful research–which is what I would think of as actually “proving it out.” If going well ahead academically, but still just via taking classes or reading independently, is sufficient to attract the attention of “top” schools, then I am super-pleased by that!</p>
<p>My thoughts align very well with TheGFG’s recent post. I think the “getting A’s in their sleep” applies much more at the high-school level than at college level, though. Very few people get A’s in their sleep in university STEM courses. </p>
<p>Since QMP is about to complete a graduate degree, and all of the cousins are either in college, graduated, or not going to college at the current time, I don’t have any direct self-interest in this issue. I am concerned about the overall educational system, though, when at a university like mine (a reasonably good one) standards have to be lowered for American students to keep the composition of the entering Ph.D. classes at 50/50. TheGFG’s comments about the composition of the engineering classes at the flagship resonate with this. While I realize that the admissions practices of the “top” universities are just a small influence on the educational system overall, I think they do have some impact.</p>
<p>Part of the issue as I see it is that (in realistic career terms) American students have only the time until they complete a Ph.D. to become genuinely competitive with students who received their early education in other countries. Playing catch-up is not easy. It would be easier if the students gained some ground during high school, beyond the level required to “get A’s in their sleep.” That in turn would be promoted, in my opinion, if it were clear that “top” universities valued those efforts.</p>
<p>Perhaps the statement that juggling cats while riding a unicycle is no longer useful for college admission could bear repeating a few times on this form. </p>
<p>I’d point out that the very good exercise of interviewing someone in your hoped-for field for advice how to excel in that field is separate from the question of what adcoms need to see you show about yourself, for them to see your prep and potential, maturity and thinking skills. (At schools where those matter.)</p>
<p>There are fields where it takes a long time to reach the point of doing meaningful research–which is what I would think of as actually “proving it out.” QM, you always drop some truth, change the focus ever so slightly-- then of course, folks agree. Of course it takes time, determination, smarts, and more.</p>
<p>But that’s not the question here. This isn’t about honing the strengths, skills, depth of an advanced college major, nor what it takes, in the end to succeed in that field. It’s about how to “show, not tell” adcoms what they need to let you though the gates, those gates, in the spring of your senior year of high school. </p>
<p>You’re complaining that “standards have to be lowered for American students” at your “reasonably good” uni (a point you have made before,) but also that the standards I am aware of are unreasonably high, something (however you wrote it) imposed by 40 year olds. I say see if you can do something beyond the high school club context (and Discovery Channel.) You twist it into “Don’t do, dear, just think.”</p>
<p>Hmm. How does that bright kid with a potential interest in, say, Stem, show an adcom she has both interest and determination, the academic experiences needed to succeed in the early college courses in that major, the personal attributes to dog it and so on?</p>
<p>But also, this isn’t simply about QM’s classrooms. This isn’t the cinder block building where nothing but work in your major goes on. Not the old Bolshoi where it’s all about the work, from early childhood on. You are applying to a complex and organic campus community.</p>
<p>Someone earlier mentioned “initiative.” Yes that matters- what does it look like? What shows a kid has determination? Too much talk on CC about “passion” and not enough about oh, for now I’ll call it, substance.</p>
<p>Don’t confuse your dismay, QM, with some of your students, with the real efforts of adcoms in schools that can cherry-pick, with finding the ones professors want, who also contribute to the community vitality and, in various ways, influence, sometimes lead, sometimes follow/engage. </p>
<p>QM, why exactly should talented American students want a place in your graduate program? That’s the problem I am seeing. It’s not that smart, hardworking, intellectually curious students are getting frozen out of good colleges. They may not have their pick to the extent the used to (assuming, back then, that they came from relatively wealthy, sophisticated families), but in large part that’s because there are so many more of them in the competition pool, not because their mix of qualities is so less valued.</p>
<p>But once they get to college – and, for that matter, as we see all the time on CC, to the extent they are paying close attention, before they get to college – a hundred things tell them they are patsies if they pursue a PhD in almost any field (except, perhaps, for joint MD/PhDs). Of my kids’ dozens of friends (and including my kids in that group), five are currently pursuing PhDs: two in life sciences (one of those an MD/PhD), two in English, one in Anthropology (Archaeology). Entering college, there would probably have been at least three times that many who said that was their ambition, including both my kids. The ones who most met QM’s description when they were in high school? Well, the two life sciences ones did (one was a research star from a very young age, and was a principal author of a paper in Science at 19). But the others are in business school or law school, or working for management consulting firms, or investment firms, or Silicon Valley software-type companies (e.g., Google). The STEM student everyone in my son’s high school class thought was dazzlingly brilliant, and who was admitted to Harvard and Stanford (the only places he applied) with barely a hint of ECs and no “achievements” to speak of, is a first-year law student. The most egg-headed one of all – a woman who could have written a great thesis proposal on medieval Latin poetry when she was a senior in high school – has a great job at a major museum, and isn’t thinking of graduate school. </p>
<p>I have a friend in the career services office at an Ivy League university. She tells me they can’t keep a full complement of social science grad students – they keep getting hired away to do data analytics in Silicon Valley. But increasingly people are getting the high-level statistics as undergraduates, and not bothering to spend time in grad school on their way to Big Data.</p>
<p>Very, very few of my friends, or my wife’s friends, from college got PhDs other than in conjunction with MDs. I wanted to get a PhD in literature, and I was in a great position to do it – I knew a lot, I had skills, I had great sponsors. But it wasn’t hard to notice that grad students in lit were miserable all the time, and it didn’t get better when they were hired as faculty. Even the tenured faculty was miserable. And those people were brilliant! So I pulled the cord and went to law school, and guess what? All but one of my buddies who did start in PhD programs followed me to law school within a few years (and that one, who has had a decent career in academia, was probably the least impressive of the group). What’s more, a huge number of the junior faculty who taught me in college followed me to law school. At one point, early in my career, I was part of a process for hiring recent law graduates for a very prestigious job, and I reviewed applications from the person who had taught me Introductory Philosophy and the person who had taught me Microeconomics.</p>
<p>I come from a family where mainstream achievement is highly prized. Growing up, I had regular contact with relatives or close family friends on the faculties of Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, Vassar, SUNY Buffalo, UCLA, Georgetown, Swarthmore. Right now, I have two cousins and a cousin-in-law who are in their last year of university or college teaching (at not-so-impressive institutions: a directional public, a Deep South flagship, and a top-40 New England LAC), and when they retire there will be no one in my family with a regular non-adjunct higher-education teaching position. (On my wife’s side, there will still be a couple, both over 60.) In all my vast family, I know of one person under 50 with a PhD (and a STEM one at that), and he works for a financial trading firm, in a job he did not need the PhD to get (although, realistically, he would not have thought to apply until he had changed thesis topics a few times). Several of my contemporaries have PhDs, but all of them left academia a while ago, and all but one is under-employed.</p>
<p>So why is anyone surprised that there aren’t enough high-quality American applicants for QM’s program? As a society, we tell our best students to do other things.</p>
<p>
I also think this is true, at least in high school. At my kids’ school, which was an IB magnet, there were a number of kids who had top grades and a lot of other impressive activities. They did not have to study for hours upon hours a day in order to get those grades, including in math and science. Those kids had very good college admissions results.</p>
<p>There were some kids who did study hours upon hours, and some of them also had good results, but not all of them. Some of these (in my opinion) didn’t really need to study as much as they did to make grades, but they did so anyway because their parents demanded it, and as a result their ECs were lacking.</p>
<p>Also, while I’m sympathetic to QP’s idea that colleges should be interested in the kid who reads and thinks deeply, but doesn’t “do something,” this puts a pretty big burden on the admissions process. Already we see that some of the most successful kids are those who have some other outside measurement of achievement, like prizes.</p>
<p>
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<p>It’s funny, but I didn’t really see that at all in real life. In my kids’ circles, it was really a mixed bag. Some of the kids with great admissions results had all the competition victories and validation and leadership, but some didn’t. Among my son’s friends – so this was 7 years ago – the ones with the best admissions results (highest success rate at single-initial universities) were not publicly flashy at all. If I think about the top four, only one had a conventional portfolio of ECs and leadership positions, but they were all school based. What they all had in common, apart from great grades and test scores (but not the best of either in any case) was that their peers (and I would guess their teachers, too) had enormous respect for their intellects and their characters. Two were STEM-oriented Asians (one Asian-American, one with a green card whose family planned to return to their native country, neither Han Chinese or any major South Asian ethnic group), but no one considered them grinds or drones at all. The one with the ECs also did well in two upper-level French literature courses at Penn during high school.</p>
<p>About one, my son said, “X just processes information better and faster than anyone else. I know more than he does, a lot more – he’s kind of a space cadet. But if I tell him what I know, he can do more interesting things with it than I could.”</p>
<p>About another, he sobbed, “Why would anyone pick me if they could pick you instead?” (And she responded, “Don’t sell yourself short! I had the same cry about you a month ago!” What a lovely person!)</p>
<p>The third: “No one can believe that Yale took her and deferred all the geniuses and legacies who applied. But everyone likes her so much that no one resents it at all.”)</p>
<p>About the fourth, this from my older child, then a college sophomore, who met him at a party before his senior year in high school: “You know who has turned into a really interesting person? My brother’s old friend Y. M and I just spent two hours in a hot tub talking to him, and he’s really smart and has a unique take on all sorts of things. I would have thought he would just be a spoiled rich kid by now, but that’s not him at all.”</p>
<p>Very interesting post, JHS. QMP remarked about the history grad students at Yale that it appeared that committing to a history Ph.D. was the kind of thing that would “make you want to gnaw your paw off” to get out of the trap. So, yes, the apparent misery of a lot of Ph.D. students that the younger students encounter provides a good reason to get off this path.</p>
<p>One of my friend’s daughters is in a Ph.D. program in the humanities at Harvard. She wrote an email message that her mother forwarded to a few of us. The people who had not been through Ph.D. programs were truly worried about the daughter. My thought was, “It sounds as though she is in a Ph.D. program.”</p>
<p>When I had just finished a B.S., my aunt and uncle invited me to dinner with friends of theirs. The husband had a tenured faculty position in history at the University of Wisconsin–the sort of thing that I aspired to, though in a STEM field in my case. He had decided to pitch it in, to go to Harvard Law School. That’s a single instance of the larger pattern that you are seeing.</p>
<p>So, why would any good American student in his/her right mind enter our graduate program? (My department isn’t math, incidentally, but the same domestic/foreign issues apply to a lesser extent.)</p>
<p>It depends on the person’s values, of course. But the academic route is one of the few opportunities that a person in a STEM field has for unfettered exploration, with the possibility of a real discovery. I have discovered a few results, where the discovery has caused me genuine ecstasy. Early on, my spouse and I did consider the law as an alternative career. It would almost certainly have provided a good deal more in terms of financial resources. But I don’t think that I would have been happier practicing law, even so.</p>
<p>Apologies to lookingforward and others that this is off the original topic–but I thought I should not let JHS’s post go unremarked. Back to the regular discussion in the future.</p>
<p>My other posts have been addressed to the question: “What ought to be a hook?” This does shift the focus slightly on the thread (for which I apologize), but I think that the question of why the hooks are not more transparent was given quite early on: that there is a fear that anyone who could adopt the “hooked mode” in the application would do so. Then the “real deal” applicant would be harder to distinguish from the phony-hook-crowd-follower, and ultimately the supposedly transparent hook wouldn’t be a hook any more.</p>
<p>Combining a few thoughts based on the posts of lookingforward and JHS: Does anyone else care that the students at the “top” schools, who are undoubtedly smart and who are enriching the campuses with their vitality, continue with graduate work in their fields in relatively low numbers? </p>
<p>If other forum contributors don’t care, that’s ok. I’d get that viewpoint. But it does, I think, cause some problems for the future of American academia.</p>
<p>My point with regard to admissions philosophies is not so much about honing the strengths of advanced college majors, as it is about the extent to which admissions philosophies cause students to direct their energies toward accomplishments that increase the odds of admission to “top” schools, but that don’t serve them well as the desirable high-school age basis for subsequent advanced work. (If this seems like a shift, it’s just that I haven’t been expressing it well.)</p>
<p>Thinking about QMP’s circle of friends, relatively few of them are in Ph.D. programs. They are not just the caliber of student that my university can only hope to see on rare occasions–they are overall, the caliber of student who would be a positive addition to the graduate programs at Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley . . . </p>
<p>Do you think that the lack of interest in grad school among students admitted to “top” schools is disconnected from the admissions philosophies? It’s possible that these two things are totally disconnected. But I wonder whether they are actually connected?</p>
<p>As an aside: I was attributing the statement, “Don’t do, dear, just think,” to my own viewpoint and not lookingforward’s.</p>
<p>In addition to the “real deal” versus the “phony hook crowd follower” issue, there’s also the issue that colleges want a little from column A and a little from column B. Winning Intel, or being student council president, or being the violinist in the state orchestra, or the newspaper editor, or raising prize-winning sheep, or juggling cats while riding the unicycle can never be a universal hook because no college wants a student body of <em>only</em> Intel winners, student council presidents, violinists, editors, sheep-raisers, or cat-jugglers. They want some of each.</p>
<p>The whole concept here is something that makes you interesting and stand out from the crowd of very smart people applying. But it’s not one uniform “thing” that if you can identify, poof, you can do. The point is differentiation. QM, rest assured every top college wants, admits and is happy to have on campus some of the cinder-block-nothing-but-research types that you love so much. They just don’t want an entire campus full of them. </p>
<p>Quite a few of my daughters friends from her lac are in or have finished Phd programs.
Of course, that is what her school is known for and some have been pursuing their Phd, for years. Seemingly through no fault of their own.</p>
<p>I know this will bother many, but if one kid does x during hs because of a genuine interest and the savvy to pursue that-- and another does it mechanically, for the impression-- assuming they are both bright, accomplished and capable of making it through a program, then does it matter why each did it? Each had that experience. Adcoms try to sort some of this out. Really, holistic is about all the parts, the sum, that fuller impression. Either one could have flubbed in another way.</p>
<p>(This is one reason I hold back on giving too many specific ideas, things that make some think there really is a formula. Prefer to get kids thinking. I’ve learned with kids that even if you give solid specific advice to one you know personally and like, digest for them, they either get it or they don’t, they either now get revved up, see more clearly, get empowered- or they don;t and keep at the same old patterns.)</p>
<p>@QuantMech, I don’t think this is because of colleges pushing certain sorts of EC accomplishments on high school students. I think it’s because of the huge time and opportunity cost of pursuing a PhD followed by a very competitive and uncertain job market for jobs that don’t pay all that well considering the talent and effort required to get them. The kids with top qualifications can be successful in many high-paying fields, and many of them choose those instead. </p>
<p>PG, if what you say is correct from the standpoint of people in admissions, that’s fine. I’ll even go along with admitting some cat jugglers, if they are ASPCA approved. And–hey!–one of the walls in my office is drywall, and another is plaster (+ two cinder-block walls, just as you surmised . . . sigh).</p>
<p>I’d like to see more bright kids with solid potential in their fields go for PhDs. But I’m a tough judge - and depending on the field, there may be zip of consequence available for that PhD, after it’s done. In some fields, it really IS a matter of where you got the PhD, which means being competitive for that school. And most kids I know in life or on CC, don’t understand the process it takes to apply to enter a PhD program. </p>
<p>On CC, I love a few college kids who are keen observers, thinkers, processers- and balanced in their perspectives, empowered, etc. But so many, as in hs, are limited to the contexts they are already familiar with. (Not to worry, I like kids a lot.) So it’s hard to just say, X is bright enough, she should go for a PhD, the world will be better for it, even in small ways.</p>
<p>extent to which admissions philosophies cause students to direct their energies toward accomplishments that increase the odds of admission to “top” schools, but that don’t serve them well as the desirable high-school age basis for subsequent advanced work. QM, whenever we speak of most competitive schools, these most deserving kids, by and large,can do the academics, the hs peer engagement, the music and sports- and have time for cultural or compassionate hours. Even lower SES.</p>
<p>“Does anyone else care that the students at the “top” schools, who are undoubtedly smart and who are enriching the campuses with their vitality, continue with graduate work in their fields in relatively low numbers?”</p>
<p>My initial reaction is no, quite frankly - but I’m in business, not academia, where a PhD is regarded as interesting navel-gazing but not much more.</p>
<p>But I hear two different things on CC – it’s oh-so-competitive to get into PhD programs because so many students are chasing so few opportunities (and ultimately only a handful of professorships) and if you didn’t go to (insert elite school), you’re really screwed … and now you’re saying these students are continuing with graduate work in relatively low numbers which implies a shortage. The two things seem rather inconsistent to me - which is it?. </p>
<p>"PG, if what you say is correct from the standpoint of people in admissions, that’s fine. "</p>
<p>Why wouldn’t you believe this? The colleges say this (in essence) OVER and OVER again - that they want all different kinds of people with all different kinds of talents, both academic and extracurricular. There is no shortage of brainy-academic-all-I-do-is-study types at any of the top schools.</p>
<p>Given that there are too many PhDs even now than positions for them, I think perhaps kids have the right idea. I know my kids look at their father and the stress of being dependent on grants for your livelihood has not made the prospect look very attractive. Even back in my day I didn’t know too many who went for a PhD. One roommate in history who was never interested in anything else. One who wanted to be a museum curator, but was told that getting a PhD and then curating shows was a better more interesting way to go. She actually published a book (on an architecture subject before going to grad school), one of the most driven productive people I know. She’s written several books and has done a museum show to go with each one of them. Of course I know lots of biology PhDs from dh’s days at Caltech - most are doing research, some went into industry. Oh my physics major boyfriend is a prof at BU so I imagine he got his PhD!</p>
<p>Well as for the phony hooks - I think it tends to come out in the essays or the recommendations. But maybe I’m just being overly optimistic.</p>
<p>With all of the discussion of cat-juggling unicyclists here, I wanted to report that several years ago a child of friends, who went to the same school our children did then, was accepted at Harvard and Deep Springs, as well as a few other places. Among his arsenal of interesting qualities was a unicycle act that included juggling (but not, unfortunately, cats). It was entertaining and really impressive; riding a unicycle, much less doing tricks at the same time, is not something that comes naturally to human beings. If nothing else, it proved focus, discipline, and dedication, not to mention excellent balance. He also spent a lot of time in challenging wilderness environments, along with other members of his extended family. He had excellent grades, of course, although not necessarily the best in his class, and he had deep intellectual curiosity. His main hook, however, was really advanced, mature serious music composition, for which he had received a fair amount of recognition. </p>
<p>No one was surprised at all that Harvard would want him, or Deep Springs, either (where all admissions decisions are made by current students). He was a very interesting guy.</p>
<p>^^ I love this discussion, but I think what comes through to adcoms even with quirky ECs is that is exactly what the student loves to do. The basic message is the best way to increase your chances is do not be a fake or at least be a damn good one.</p>
<p>It seems that unicycle pops up so often that it is not unusual anymore. From Cornell’s web site:</p>
<p>A Sampling of Personal Characteristics
NASA Space Program
Nationally Ranked Figure Skater
Glide Pilot
Formula One, School Tech Challenge (World Championship)
Competitive Videogaming
Celtic Dancer
Professional Scuba Dive Master
Boeing Intern
Calligrapher
Author
Pole Vaulter
National Finalist of Team America Rocketry Challenge
Junior Statesman
Stem Cell Research
Unicycle Club
Guppy Breeder
Cancer Research Lab
Puzzle Club
QuestBridge Finalist
Alpine Ski Racer</p>