<p>but hey....my kid is an URM, who happens not to be poor and downtrodden, and Harvard turned her down...so the URM thing will only go so far.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I agree, it is a hook. Not a hook that I respect
[/quote]
I didn't know we were supposed to respect hooks, except when they were in our favor! :)</p>
<p>Actually, I do respect some hooks, for example diversity is important for the benefit of all students. Same with having great sports teams, orchestras, etc. Those things provide enrichment for all students. Having a checkered past does not enrich anyone's life, IMO, unless you become a counselor for AA or something like that.</p>
<p>All 'hooks' are accidents of birth.</p>
<p>Students were born with the money or the talent.</p>
<p>All the talent and $$ in the world will not turn natural aptitude into a hook, Cheers. That takes hard work, and that is what is rewarded. If one's talent fills a need, it's a hook.</p>
<p>
Actually, my son's hook wasn't an accident of birth. He developed an INTENSE interest in infectious diseases at around age six, and that interest only deepened and expanded over the years. At age nine, he wrote (in pencil, in longhand on notebook paper) to a local internist whose practice had slowly evolved into the region's more renowned AIDS treatment practice. He wanted to meet with her and talk about the subject of HIV/AIDS. This amazing woman developed a mentoring relationship with my son over the years, and she was more than happy to write a letter of rec for his college apps.....something she had never done before for a high schooler (only med school students!). </p>
<p>Of course, it didn't hurt that in the interim between when he first became acquainted with her at age nine and the time that he graduated from h.s., this woman became the Chair of the Board of Regents of the American College of Physicians! :D All that...with a degree from Wichita State University and her med degree from KU! Talk about a success story!</p>
<p>By a very bizarre stroke of fate, the wonderful doctor had actually saved the original letter my son had written in a childlike scrawl (his handwriting is actually still bad! <em>rofl</em>) at age nine, and she attached it to her letter of rec. Really a super special letter that spoke strongly about this kids long-standing passion.</p>
<p>The kicker??? Elite schools weren't even a speck in this kid's mind when he did all of this...it was done out of the pure passion of a remarkable nine-year-old kid! :)</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>StickerShock~</p>
<p>Well said! :)</p>
<p>Cheers:</p>
<p>I do not think that the kid of a $10k a year would be a shoo-in at Harvard, though it would be at many other schools. One million might not even get you a look in unless your kid was very strong to start with. But just qualified, as 16,000 other applicants are qualified? I doubt it.</p>
<p>Every admit to private primary school, secondary school and university is assessed for donor potential.</p>
<p>So- while I perhaps would admit that for K-12, but if a college is need blind- are they really going to admit the above?</p>
<p>I guess that makes my daughter- a kid of a blue collar worker & a high school dropout,acceptances ( & aid) to the same primary school that the Gates & Bezos kids attend, to the prep school that kids of CEOs ( including national companies) fight to be admitted to ( and incidentally- though it isn't * Lakeside*, Lakeside both runs summer programs for "challenged youth" and has for decades, as well as offers good aid to families), and her acceptance at an expensive college, where her grades and test scores were below the median- and where she needed lots of help to even consider affording- even more notable?</p>
<p>As more schools now consider other things besides grades and scores ( and I expect if Gorejr flunks out- it will be in the papers-) how many times did JFK jr have to take the bar for example?, but I don't think anyone would say, he wasn't extremely intelligent/motivated- may he RIP):(</p>
<p>Those who need aid, but have "youthful" transgressions are discriminated against- with FAFSA, its true.</p>
<p>( but how do all those jailhouse lawyers get made?</p>
<p>I would argue that we are better off in general by broadening access to education-even if that access includes sons of notorious liberals ;)</p>
<p>[Someone</a> who commits a murder or armed robbery is not automatically barred from financial aid eligibility, he said during last weeks press conference. But if you have even one non-violent drug conviction, you cant get any aid for a year, with longer bans for people with additional convictions.</p>
<p>Souders original law was written broadly. It was not clear that drug convictions had to occur while a student was receiving financial aid, and did not provide the Dept. of Education with information on how to handle the 800,000 students who would initially leave the question blank on the 2000-2001 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).</p>
<p>Ultimately, last year 270,000 students never answered the question and the Dept. of Education granted their aid. However, the approximately 8,600 students who answered yes lost their aid.</p>
<p>](<a href="http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=567%5D%C2%93Someone">http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=567)</p>
<p>By a very bizarre stroke of fate, the wonderful doctor had actually saved the original letter my son had written in a childlike scrawl (his handwriting is actually still bad! <em>rofl</em>) at age nine, and she attached it to her letter of rec. Really a super special letter that spoke strongly about this kids long-standing passion.</p>
<p>That is great :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
and I expect if Gorejr flunks out- it will be in the papers-
[/quote]
The newspapers would have to be waaaay behind the times- he graduated a few years ago. Someone posted it earlier in this thread.</p>
<p>Passion and hook are two differnt things, b. Your son is from Kansas......hoooooook! His 'passion' might not have seemed so special coming out of Bronx Science. He would have been one of a coupole of dozen 'passionate' kids with special mentors. It's great that you are so proud of him, but even his rise contained a certain amount of luck. He enhanced that luck--but it was luck all the same that he was born into family with a mother with a Master's degree. That she chose to stay in Kansas rather than go to NYC? Luck again.</p>
<p>$10k a year over 25 years with the promise of bigger donations would be a tipping trunk. Would be my opinion. Mind you, I'm not saying unqualified--but at H $10k steadily would be a tipping factor. If you look at $10k donors --it's not that big a category.</p>
<p>Make up your minds folks! Either kids are getting advantages from their parent's $$$ or they are not. I say they are--as are athletes, musicians and mathmeticians whose parents can afford to pay for programs.</p>
<p>I think most everyone agrees that $ equals tip. But we got into the topic of kids with troubled pasts/police records/drug use getting in with that tip.</p>
<p>And there is a difference between someone who gets busted at the age of 13 or 14 and someone who gets busted as a senior in high school. Just like there's a difference between someone who does poorly, gradewise, in 9th grade and then improves, vs. someone who is slacking off in the 11th and 12th grades. The latter shows a current problem.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And there is a difference between someone who gets busted at the age of 13 or 14 and someone who gets busted as a senior in high school.
[/quote]
Huh? Why? Does the first mean he was stupid and got his act together later, or does the latter mean he might have been using all along and just got caught in his sr year? I dont follow that logic at all.</p>
<p>Ohh.... I almost forgot.... great post, cheers! Well said! You go girl!</p>
<p>Same reason someone who keeps their driving record <em>clean</em> for a certain number of years gets reinstated as a "safe driver". </p>
<p>Sure, it doesn't really mean they are safe driver. It could be that they just haven't been caught. But I think the policy assumes that people should, at some point, be allowed to move on if they keep themselves on the up and up for some period of time. OTOH, if you've been caught speeding lately, you have demonstrated for sure that you are currently an insurance risk.</p>
<p>
Actually, would have chosen to stay in my home state of Texas if my hubster had not been laid off along with 10.000 other engineers at the same time from a defense program that went under suddenly. No choice involved in moving to Kansas....it was where my dh could become employed again.</p>
<p>Speaking of, I knew someone who moved their kids to Alabama from Fla during hs to get them into NMF.</p>
<p>Honestly I might take a chance on a "stoner". The biggest pot-head I knew in college graduated summa cum laude in mathematics and has gone on to perfectly respectable adulthood.</p>
<p>
[quote]
" Not a fan of Al Gore
Didn't he claim to invent the internet also? Among his other accomplishments."</p>
<p>People should be ashamed of perpetuating lies. It just makes them fools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Sorry, it was on the news. Even his fellows congressmen was joking that they too invented the paperclip.</p>