<p>My concern for this type of situation is whether the student will be able to succeed in college without parental supervision.</p>
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Hardworking, diligent, driven to succeed, always does more than required.
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<p>There are plenty of very, very good schools that recognize that this set of characteristics, in combination with brilliance, constitutes the perfect student. If a certain Big Deal School has managed to select against that kind of student, too bad for them. I'm not crying over their foolishness. No student rejected simply because she/he was hardworking and the teachers and gc didn't realize it was a "mistake" (ahem) to comment on it should feel that the failure was theirs.</p>
<p>'nuff said about that. I'm getting all riled up.</p>
<p>"You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland. And, I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."</p>
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My concern for this type of situation is whether the student will be able to succeed in college without parental supervision.
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he did not need supervision, he needed a driver. I am sure he'll do great wherever he ends up going.</p>
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My concern for this type of situation is whether the student will be able to succeed in college without parental supervision.
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<p>What "type of situation"? There is no evidence in the stories I read that this student was simply following his father's orders. If I were into guessing, I'd guess he will be a stand-out.</p>
<p>If you are suggesting that, in general, hard-working students are not really self-propelled, that is an unwarranted, and I might even say, ridiculous, suggestion based on the students I have known.</p>
<p>Error correction: In my Post #217, I stated that Navonil Ghosh was admitted to the University of Chicago. That was a misstatement. According to the newspaper article cited by the OP, Cory Liu, Navonil Ghosh’s LBJ academy classmate, was the graduating senior admitted to the University of Chicago. I regret the error.</p>
<p>CC: The only place where being hard-working is a negative?</p>
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<p>very easy.
If you forgot to check off a box on your SAT tests that asks if you want your scores to be public, the scores never make the first cut to the Presidential Scholar list.</p>
<p>So much dissection of why this candidate was not accepted into Harvard. Too packaged etc. Several years ago, a kid in my neighborhood was accepted to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale etc. etc. He was the most ridiculously packaged kid you ever saw. His parents were obnoxious. He was forced to repeat the SAT after he scored 1550 and 1580 (old tests). His father made it his duty to be home when the son got home from school so he could supervise every moment. He had doctors notes to get out of PE so that he could take ONE MORE AP class instead. I could go on and on.</p>
<p>He sure fooled a lot of "prestigious" schools, if the thinking here is that schools can see through the packaging.</p>
<p>Come on, how many thousands of outstanding candidates are rejected by HYPS. Every year.
Perhaps this kid would have been accepted to Penn, Brown, Dartmouth if he had chosen to apply.
I thnk he did a pretty good job of spreading the net, and certainly has great acceptances.</p>
<p>I believe that Penn rejected the applicant as well if I remember correctly.</p>
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If you forgot to check off a box on your SAT tests that asks if you want your scores to be public, the scores never make the first cut to the Presidential Scholar list.
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<p>A clarification: The only way he could have kept his name out of the PS pool is by checking the "don't forward my name to scholarship organizations" box when he took the ACT/SAT. Not checking off a box that says "put my name on lists that will fill my mailbox with stuff from schools" has no effect on Presidential Scholars.</p>
<p>I think it already got established on this thread that he got his perfect score after the PS deadline passed - not that it matters for anything at all...</p>
<p>Oh my. After reading these posts about code words acting as torpedoes, I'm sure my daughter's letters of recommendation deep-sixed her at the more competitive schools to which she applied. </p>
<p>I thought that effort, more than ability, is what should be valued. No one can help how wrinkly their brain came, but you can certainly help what you do with it. Having both brilliance and a consistent work ethic is obviously best! Now I wonder if my daughter's letter writers might have inadvertently indicated that her exceptional performance was solely based on being a diligent, hard-worker -- apparently the kiss of death. </p>
<p>I am sure that young Mr. Ghosh's story will have a happy ending. Until then, perhaps it can function as a cautionary tale to a few parents!</p>
<p>"I am sure that young Mr. Ghosh's story will have a happy ending. Until then, perhaps it can function as a cautionary tale to a few parents!"</p>
<p>I agree that it is a good cautionary tale: No one, no matter how stellar, is guaranteed entrance to the most competitive colleges, which pick and choose to create a vibrant, active, diverse (in all meanings) student body from an overabundance of outstanding applicants.</p>
<p>His story did have a happy ending. He has some excellent choices including getting one of Rice's top scholarships (something the dad revealed in a post on an Internet site).</p>
<p>Very good! I was meaning "happy ending" in a longer-term sense. In other words, where he attends or doesn't attend college, won't determine his happiness.</p>
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His story did have a happy ending. He has some excellent choices including getting one of Rice's top scholarships
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That just proves (again) that there didn't have to be, and obviously wasn't any "fatal flaw" in his application. Just some less-than-perfect luck.</p>
<p>"I thought that effort, more than ability, is what should be valued. No one can help how wrinkly their brain came, but you can certainly help what you do with it."</p>
<p>You are right that the top colleges want brilliance plus enough work ethic to get excellent grades. If a student is so brilliant that they haven't had to work hard in high school to get excellent grades, that's fine with top colleges, which know that the student will be intellectually challenged on their campuses.</p>
<p>If a student is smart, but has to work exceptionally hard to get top grades, that is a red flag to a top college that the student probably could graduate from the college, but isn't likely to have the time to pursue any in depth ECs, something that such colleges view as an important aspect of what they offer. </p>
<p>Such students probably would be welcomed at top colleges in other places in the world, which don't value campus life as is valued in the U.S. However, here, top colleges greatly value the leadership, social and other skills that students gain by participating in depth in time consuming ECs. The top colleges here like the fact that, for instance, the biochem major who spends lots of time acting in student productions may become a top surgeon who is a major arts patron.</p>
<p>I'm sure pops could afford to quit his job. If that's he case I don't see much difference between that and a parent that works from home of is a stay at home parent that helps facilitate their child's EC's, test prep, whatever. </p>
<p>He didn't get the break, plain and simple. On the surface, regardless of his dad's intervention, he was a worthy candidate. However, it is nice for some to speculate as to why he didn't make it.</p>
<p>"We need to be careful that the argument doesn't become circular. Student X didn't get into Harvard. Reason: Student X wasn't 'noble' enough: student X's activities and achievements weren't based on innate intelligence, drive and passions but simply the result of trying to gain admission to an elite school. How do we know that student X wasn't following his/her passions etc.? Reason: Student X didn't get into Harvard."</p>
<p>I just had to repeat this again because it is SO spot on! I think we've seen this logic applied to other kids, as well.</p>