<p>as parents new to this admissions game, what a shocker. Between "consultants" charging thousands to "assist" the kids with their essays and aps, to kids who have a million extracurriculars (and who can possibly be passionate about 20 different clubs/org. at the same time?), SAT tutors, and 6.0 GPA's, i have to say it's been an education.</p>
<p>my daughter applied to a LA college ED. today's the day we find out. she did her own applications, wrote her own essays, and belonged to exactly two clubs, art and surfing. she's been understudying with a pretty well known bay area artist for a year, and has worked hard for her A's and B's in some pretty hard classes. she refused to play the game, and it's not like we could have afforded to even if she wanted to. Her attitude is "mom, if they really want me, I'll get in. I'm not going to play the games.</p>
<p>seems to me these "superacheivers" have done everything but cure cancer and found the solution for world hunger. i'm so proud of my daughter for focusing on what she truly cares about. on the brighter side, the LA college asked for our W2's and pay stubs, and tax returns a month ago, so ya never know.</p>
<p>Like most things with a subjective selection process, there are certainly out of control elements. But bear in mind that there really are teens out there who are doing sophisticated cancer research and putting big dents in the hunger problem. It's a win-win for all of us when they get into schools at which they'll be challenged by cutting-edge faculty alongside equally-committed students. The excesses you reference come from applicants who aren't in that population trying to develop a paper trail that suggests they are.</p>
<p>Most college admissions directors are not impressed a moment with long laundry lists of ECs. The time spent on an EC and the quality of that time are what interests them. Most importantly, does the EC something that the college hold dear and wants ? That is what matters the most in getting admitted with the EC being a big factor.</p>
<p>Actually, surfgirl123, a few of these superachievers have in fact cured cancer. They just don't want to share that knowledge with the world yet so that next year's applicants have something to strive for. ;)</p>
<p>Sounds like your daughter is pretty focused. She'll go somewhere worthy of her.</p>
<p>On a lot of these "chance me" threads, my eyes just glaze over the standard 25-item list of disarrayed and disconnected ECs, and I frequently think "so what?"</p>
<p>I can only imagine what Admissions Officers do when they've read their 10,000th application with the standard 25-item list. That's 250,000 ECs.</p>
<p>Yawn.</p>
<p>Instead, show me an applicant who was material in finding a foster home for for one abandoned baby, and who fund-raised and arranged for one needy family's meals for the first quarter of 2008. Now that's an extracurricular list worth reading about.</p>
<p>exactly. it's gotten so out of hand....i had no idea how things were until my daughter started this proccess. and you know what? she'll be successful no matter what school she gets into; if she has what they want, they'll take her, if not,,,,there always somthing else</p>
<p>I think this week is an anxious one for a lot of parents and students and she's just seeking some reassurance that everything will be fine in the end, no matter what happens with her daughter's ED notification today.
It's been a surprisingly rough week at our local high school, with many kids viewed as superstars getting rejected and deferred at their ED choices.</p>