So, my parents think I should submit one of my reports from CTY as well as the high school Mandarin course I did in sixth grade. I know it’s really late, and I’m not sure if it would make an impact- the CTY one is a year and a half old and the Mandarin one is even older. They’re both positive, though.
Take whatever I say with a grain of salt.
Many people on here have said that CTY is something a lot of applicants have done, and it won’t help you stand out. That saying, if it’s an exceptional report, like a higher score than most, it would be a better “extra” to submit.
For the Mandarin course. If you continued Mandarin, submit. Especially to schools that want transcripts from 2 years back. Assuming you’re applying to grade 9, currently in 8.
In the end, submit what you feel would benefit your application. If everything is in, there’s a chance your decision has been made already. In that case, it would do very little. Also, don’t bother the AOs right now if you don’t absolutely need to. They’re very busy.
Calling any CC moms/experts for more advice.
I’d be surprised if either of these would change your outcome. BUT sending them might make you feel better accepting a negative outcome, should you get one because you’ll feel like you’ve done everything.
If you send them, you should attach a very brief cover note explaining why you are sending them (i.e., the teachers who wrote recs only taught me remotely and this might fill in the gaps in terms of who I am in person in class.)
As to why I don’t think they’d matter, note that neither is new information so it may beg the question of why they weren’t originally submitted. Furthermore, they are recs that were not meant to be confidential. The fact that you have them is evidence of that. And these are often more positive in order to be encouraging. It also doesn’t help that they are so old. No school is looking to admit your 6th grade self.
But in the end, it’s up to you. Other might differ with me.
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Did you have a particular honor at CTY? High honors or Grand Honors? Did you continue the Mandarin? It is increasingly hard to get high scores as you get older— you might consider testing again so the scores or more recent. I was advised earlier that if I had already submitted, the same score category, the new ones probably wouldn’t stand out.
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I’m going to offer a different point of view from most here.
The admissions offices are very busy right now, processing through large numbers of applicants. While they will be very polite outwardly (“thank you for that information! we will add it to your file!”), internally they will be annoyed. They will be annoyed in the same way all of us are annoyed when we’re busy, and someone says “I need you to do one more thing.” Annoyed admissions officer = bad for your chances.
I would only submit this if it were truly exceptional, and I haven’t read that in the description.
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I had high honors, but I took the actual test in second grade- I’m talking about the report card from my Model UN and Advanced Geography course. The person was really really complimentary and awesome, and I think it would help at Exeter because we had lots of discussions and that’s mentioned, but I’m not sure.
@floating123 This might be a stupid question, but what exactly is truly exceptional? Sorry!
Edit: accidentally typed actually instead of actual
I’m going to agree with the idea that unless it’s truly compelling stuff, or breaking-news information, then I would probably not derail any admissions folks. We all have things that we think post-J15: “oh shoot! I probably should have mentioned that!” And those things are not, IMO, worth reaching out with a special email to share at this stage.
On the flip side, if you will feel better that you have “done everything you can” for your application, then I don’t think it will be the make-or-break thing either way, so nothing to stop you. (@gardenstategal gives great advice above).
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I’m just a parent, so take with a grain of salt … but I think your job is to make the life of the admissions officer as easy as possible. You do this by following their rules and giving them what they asked for, when they asked for it.
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You could have submitted this information before the deadline, and instead want to submit it a month late. To me, the AO’s main takeaway will be negative, i.e. disorganized/not planning. I don’t share the view that “it can’t hurt.” Try turning in a homework or work assignment a month late and see how your teacher or employer responds.
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If the school didn’t request (required or optional) some information, then don’t submit it.
To break these rules, I think you’d need something truly exceptional. By this I mean, something like you just won top-100 in the country in a well-known activity.
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It is quite hard to get high honors as a second grader because only the most advanced kids take that level. Congratulations. If you took it again this year or last you could have included in accomplishments. I don’t think you should submit now. We did include a lot of CTY because one application required all outside coursework and grades and test scores, so I did. One school required a graded writing sample and I didn’t have anything that fit the bill from school so I submitted an essay and evaluation from summer cty. My son had eight cancelled SAT tests cancelled— you bet I would have submitted those if I had them.
I think @floating123 spells it out quite well – you could have submitted this info earlier. (And it turns out, much earlier as I didn’t fully capture before that we were talking about stuff from years ago.) In any case, not sure if it was my comments that were being interpreted as “it can’t hurt,” but just to be super clear, I would not suggest submitting. (But I also don’t think it would hurt – or help – enough to change the outcome.)
The good news is: you sound like a really qualified candidate. Trust the admissions folks to see that without this one little thing from a couple of years ago.
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Thank you all, that’s really helpful!