7 Tips: Elite College Admissions

@Juvenis‌

5- I guess this could be true. Although I'm sure lying and cheating your way through school will eventually catch up to you, I guess the important part is to be aware of the impression you leave on your teachers whether that is through honest or false pretenses.

6- I would be wary of reading other people's essays because correlation does not imply causation. Just because someone got into a top school does not mean that their essays were out of this world. If you want to learn how to write a good essay you should look at the best essays and study what made them great and how you can use those things to develop your own voice- which is exactly what the book I recommended does. I find that just reading other people's essays (which may be of variable quality) blindly may cause inadvertent or outright copying their voice or style instead of finding your own.

7- I agree. Notice that I said if you are at or above the average score that a college accepts, you should move on. I feel that jumping from a 2350 to a 2400 takes too much time and effort that could be spent more productively on other things like ECs.

Although the OP said that college admissions is not an intense strategy game, some people seem to act like it is (and I am guilty of this for the PhD version of it, but PhD admissions are different from undergrad ones)

@jkl0619, no offense to anyone, but it’s hard for one hs kid to tell another what works Done right, your essay idea sounds good. Sometimes on CC, adults will comment on what appears to be cliche- but that’s less about the topic and more about how you write it and what your essay shows about your personal attributes. That’s what matters.

I wish CC could eliminate talk of “passions.” If you want a highly competitive college, the idea isn’t to find random things you like and just follow your own preferences. It’s good to be open-minded and rational and seek balance, responsibility and commitment. Don’t turn down an opp because you think some adcoms will find it insincere. If you do it, you do it and gain that experience. Life’s like that.

It is very true Ivy name is not everything.

There was a study on Ivies and non-Ivies, on how successful they are in their mid-career (earning power?) On whether Ivy name help them.

It was a big study, showing Ivy name does carry higher earning power.

Except for one group.

That is the group of people who got ACCEPTED to Ivies, declined the invitation, went to public schools instead.

That group actually came out ahead of Ivies.

Go figure !

^ So basically you’re saying it suggested that acceptance to an Ivy League school is the mark of quality, regardless of where one actually matriculated? That the Ivies don’t really do any more than identify those most likely to excel?

@outlander545‌

6- True. All I meant was a lot of students (including myself at the time) have no clue on how to start or how such an open-ended and casual essay should sound or look like. Reading a few sample essays definitely gave me a feel for how mine should sound. FWIW, I drew most of my "feelings" for my essay from a sample Connecticut College essay. Still a very good school, but not as "prestigious" as HYP.

7- Oh definitely. I don't understand why some can't just appreciate that their 23XX is above the 75th percentile for most Top 10 schools and simply put their SAT portion of their apps to rest.

I think it probably helps to be able to abbreviate “Under-represented Minority” properly.

I disagree with number one. Doing something for your college application can definitely be one of the reasons you pursue an extracurricular activity (in fact it can help motivate you to become better at that activity)- it just shouldn’t be the only reason you are doing it.

@FCCDAD‌

I am familiar with that study, and the way you phrased that is certainly a reasonable description of the findings. Another way to say it is that students with the attributes needed to be accepted into an Ivy were equally successful, as measured by income, no matter where they actually received their education. It is rather heartening if true, in that it does point to merit and talent winning out as opposed to people blindly looking at the name brand of where you went to school, or the supposed contacts you made while at those schools.

What I am not sure if it took into account or not was if those same students ended up going to Ivy or Ivy like grad schools and/or professional schools in high percentages. If so, then the undergrad choice is highly diluted as a factor when it comes to earning outcomes. But even so, it would still show that attending a state school or a less admissions-competitive school can still lead to high level outcomes, as we all really should know.

BTW, the same type of study was done for b-schools, and it does matter where you go to get an MBA:
https://web.lemoyne.edu/grovewa/payoff%20to%20school%20selectivity%20application%20dale%20and%20krueger%20chen%20grove%20hussey%20el%202012.pdf

The same is very likely true for a JD as well.

Full rides are not hard to find for high stat applicants of any race.
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

But wouldn’t this end up being a huge disadvantage come application time? After all, don’t colleges look for that passion and commitment in your apps? I haven’t found my “passion” so my ECs are a bit of everything, just a weak mix. It kind of sucks because it’s not like I can just /force/ myself to fall in love with something. It’s too late for me to even FAKE a passion (not that I would). :\

@PurpleTitan‌

Absolutely. That is why I threw in the comment about grad and professional schools. I specifically pointed out that if they were “Ivy or Ivy-like” that contributes heavily to lifetime earnings.

@SippinCoffee, passion is more a CC term. The colleges want kids willing to explore, able to give their energy, try new things, share and commit- sometimes to their own interests or future goals, yes. But also to their groups and their larger communities outside hs or family. I.e., not just think of themselves and just what they feel super duper passionate aboout.

If you think your mix is weak, I’d suggest laying it all out, and then looking to see the common themes. It’s misleading to suggest kids have to love everything to make a meaningful contribution. Or that unless you “love” it, there’s no sense.

@ucbalumnus
they all had 3.7-3.8 at the time of application (although the hispanic student dropped to like a 3.6 by the time he was enrolled) so good but not exactly anything special grade wise.

Congratulations to the OP! She sounds like a remarkable young woman.
Reading her original post and her responses to the posts of others clearly show her graciousness and composure.
Best of luck at MIT!

Passion !!

Listen to what Stanford admission director says about “passion”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UYhTylqC9o

start from 2:30

^ @SteyrFWB Exactly. I’ve referred to this vid many times and you’re the first I’ve seen who went and found it. I think that when CC thinks of passion, they think of some sort of lust. “I love dancing!” or “I love robotics!” They see it as exclusionary- that a kid can skip activities she doesn’t feel as strongly about.

But the quality adcoms want isn’t “passion” of this sort, in the emotional sense. They like to see you have some “drive” (you recognize an interest, pursue it, and continue to find ways to,) but also a more general willingness to explore and make a solid contribution.

On campus, they want kids who will do that: explore, be open to the myriad new experiences offered, expand. They don’t just need kids who wait to get some big ol’ fire burning and turn down opps because, “I’m not passionate about that.”

And the way you show that is the various activities in hs and outside the four walls of the hs.

@puzzled123‌


[QUOTE=""]

Doing something for your college application can definitely be one of the reasons
you pursue an extracurricular activity

[/QUOTE]

Except adcoms are very skilled at seeing right through this, and then it’s apt to hurt you.

What hurts a kid, jpm, is when they had a pretty ordinary pattern of activities, centered around what the hs offered, and yet think it stands out because, after all in their hs, it did. For colleges looking for kids with vision, energy and follow-through, it’s not enough to be pres of stu govt, have roles in a few other clubs, do a walkathon once a year, raise a few dollars for some distant charity- and then act so assured this is all it takes. That’s limited thinking.

So the kid who goes out and does more- who’s going to see through that? You think adcoms say, crap, he wants to be a doctor and he volunteered at a hospital, he’s a big fake? Nope.

The mix-up is that, when thinking is limited, the best ideas some kids come up with are still teeny. They make a big deal and… adcoms see through that.