<p>I don't buy it, Northstarmom. Harvard accepts plenty of packaged candidates. All of their prep school kids are packaged. That's what they are paid to do. And remember Ivywise-plagiarist-girl? </p>
<p>Perhaps the key is to be WELL packaged.</p>
<p>I don't view prep school applicants as being packaged. Sorry, just don't buy it. When I went to Harvard (from a public in a small Upstate NY town), I knew prep school students, and was very impressed by their work ethic and by what they had been expected to do in high school, which was far more than I was expected to do even in a regionally excellent public school.</p>
<p>Important to realize, too, that the top prep schools are very competitive for admission, so their students are way ahead of most students who aren't attending similar schools.</p>
<p>When I was a Fortune 500 H-R person recruiting summer interns, one of our best prospects was a prep school grad who was at HPY (I can't remember which one). Very impressive young man, who had done impressive things on his prior internship, at his college student newspaper, and in prep school, where he was a top executive at an impressive independent newspaper.</p>
<p>"And remember Ivywise-plagiarist-girl? "</p>
<p>Is that the one whose professionally-published book was plagiarized? "Packaged" when it comes to students who have published things typically would refer to students who manage to get their writings published by a vanity press -- the kind of press that publishes anything that a person is willing to have published. Her book, however, was professionally published. Unfortunately, parts of it were plagiarized, which indicates her lack of ethics, not packaging.</p>
<p>I realize we're just playing a conjecture game as an exercise in learning. So let me try this out: suppose a Guidance Counselor penned a sabotage phrase about the nature of the parental overinvolvement that torpedoed the application at some schools? Meanwhile, other schools decided he could do the work once away from his parents' daily influence.</p>
<p>I doubt that a GC would include such info. I do think, however, that the info could come out via a recommendation or during the interview. </p>
<p>I can imagine that the student and his family would have thought that colleges would be impressed by the extent that the student's parents were willing to sacrifice their lives to give the student every opportunity to shine. That, however, wouldn't impress places like Harvard, which are far more interested in the sacrifices that students do on their own to pursue their passions.</p>
<p>Obviously, the student is smart enough to do the work at any college in the country, so I don't think the student's capabilities were an issue with any college.</p>
<p>I think, however, that places like H place much more emphasis on intellectual passion and self motivation than do most other universities in the country. That's because places like H want to have campuses that are vibrant including in terms of student-directed ECs. A student who appears to have been pushed into ECs or greatly enabled in ECs by their parents, may not be an active campus participant once away from their parent's control, even though the student may still get excellent grades.</p>
<p>Since the majority of students applying to H have the ability to graduate from H, whether a student is smart enough for H isn't typically an admissions consideration. What is important, though, is whether the student is self motivated to be a very active participant in campus ECs, and whether the student's EC interests are likely to help maintain a campus with a diverse group of ECs, not just ECs related to medicine.</p>
<p>"Is that the one whose professionally-published book was plagiarized? "Packaged" when it comes to students who have published things typically would refer to students who manage to get their writings published by a vanity press -- the kind of press that publishes anything that a person is willing to have published. Her book, however, was professionally published. Unfortunately, parts of it were plagiarized, which indicates her lack of ethics, not packaging."</p>
<p>Well, that's not exactly the story. Her parents paid something like $20,000 for IvyWise Consulting. She got a half-million dollar book deal in large part because of the connections of her IvyWise consultant before she had even written the book.</p>
<p>Most non-academic EC's can be "packaged" or manufactured. (However, in this case you could argue that this was an intellectual EC since she wrote a book.) The exceptions are athletic performance and getting elected president of the class or something like that.</p>
<p>"student-directed ECs" != "intellectual passion"</p>
<p>Just a thought: Caltech doesn't interview, whereas HP & MIT do. I don't know about the other colleges.</p>
<p>The Ivies don't surprise me; Plan II rejection does.</p>
<p>No one has mentioned that he's an ORM. Could that figure in?</p>
<p>Could it be that this kid is not a U.S. citizen, and was in the international pool at all of these schools?</p>
<p>I suspect the GC or a teacher might have included a post-it note/postcard of some sort to the effect of "Call me". It doesn't go into his file but the problem with the student can be discussed on the phone with less legal ramifications. </p>
<p>Alternatively, his lack of passion or his pre-packaged nature "shone" through in the interviews.</p>
<p>At Texas, Plan II is both a major and an honors program. My recent understanding is that if you are applying for a job or to graduate school in Texas, it is considered to be prestigious to say "I majored in Plan II Honors at the University of Texas." </p>
<p>All of the honors programs at Texas (business honors, deans scholars/honors for natural science program, turing scholars/computer science honors, liberal arts honors, Plan II honors) have essay requirements; some also require interviews. My theory is that he did not particularly <em>want</em> to major in Plan II Honors (a humanities/liberal arts type major) at the University of Texas and that this somehow came through on his UT Plan II Honors application. </p>
<p>I think Cal Tech sounds like a better fit for him, with his interest in engineering. But a kid who loves math and loves learning would probably love being a Plan II Honors and Math double major at Texas, for example. And UT gives money to national merit scholars.</p>
<p>All of the honors programs at UT offer special classes and special programs and help the kids find their way in a college of 50,000</p>
<p>
[quote]
He plays the piano, is a first-degree black belt in Kung Fu and got a perfect score on both the SAT and ACT college entrance exams.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This cannot be accurate if, as others have posted, this student’s name does not appear on the Presidential Scholars candidate list. The PS candidate list this year included every student who earned a single sitting 1600 CR + M on the SAT (Writing is not part of the equation for PS) as well as every student who earned a single sitting 36 on the ACT (142-144 points). It probably even included every student who earned the “highest” 35 on the ACR– 141 points. (After people complained this year, the PS folks consulted this concordance table, Data</a>, Reports & Research, and discovered that a 141-144 on the ACT is equivalent to a 1600 CR plus Math on the SAT I. So they expanded the pool to include all 1600s plus all 141-144s.)</p>
<p>Perhaps this student is not a U.S. citizen?</p>
<p>My guess is that he got the 2400 on a test date that was after the test date cut off for the Presidential Scholars list for the Class of 2008.</p>
<p>Re the quitting work and the shuttling: I certainly agree that quitting one's job to devote full time to shepherding a kid through the college process is goofy. But shuttling? Until he got his driver's license, I shuttled my son like crazy to all manner of lessons, rehearsals, meetings etc., often adjusting my own work (and play) schedule to meet his needs. It was my job and my pleasure.</p>
<p>OK...go away for two days and a thread like this crops up!!</p>
<p>I'm not a math/techie person...so for those who are, please don't get offended. My guess (and it's only a guess) is that this student's application came across as single dimensional...techie oriented math and science sorts of activities. I didn't see anything about GROUP endeavors...everything was solo (piano, kungfu, research). Where were the humanities interests? Where was there any indication of the ability to work as part of a group? And lastly...what about the writing?? The tech schools "may" have looked more heavily at the "tech" sorts of pursuits this kid had. Thus the acceptance at Cal Tech (which I agree can be harder for some students than the Ivies). </p>
<p>Still...he got accepted to Rice and Duke, both fine schools. Did he get any scholarship recognition from either school? That would be interesting to find out.</p>
<p>Re: the Presidential Scholars...I didn't note anywhere that this student got his "perfect scores" in a single sitting.</p>
<p>Midwestmom:</p>
<p>That's a thought.</p>
<p>The cutoff date was October 2007:
Presidential</a> Scholars Program: Eligibility</p>
<p>But the article reports perfect scores on both the ACT and SAT. If your theory is correct, he would have to have aced both tests after October 07.</p>
<p>A few observations:</p>
<p>1) the article states that he was waitlisted at Yale, not rejected there. Yale is not going to do a "polite courtesy waitlist" for this kind of candidate, so it's seems likely to me that his application was probably very strong across the board (good essays, strong recommendations, etc.) I don't think it's appropriate to leap to the conclusion that there was anything wrong with his essays, recs, or interviews.</p>
<p>In a less statistically competitive year than 2008, he very likely would have been accepted outright rather than waitlisted. If he had come from a less well-represented state or less-overrepresented ethnic group, he very likely would have been accepted outright rather than waitlisted.</p>
<p>2) This is a year when colleges may be using their waitlists more than in the past, due to the uncertainties surrounding elimination of EA/ED at Harvard and Princeton and the new financial aid price wars.</p>
<p>I don't think his father is helping his son's chances of coming off the waitlist at Yale by giving media interviews and telling a reporter that his son was "devastated" at not getting into Harvard.</p>
<p>3) It's interesting to note the difference in language in the quotes in the article from the father and the son. </p>
<p>The son seems very low key and just says it was "disappointing."</p>
<p>According to the dad, the son was "devastated" and decided to stop studying for the night when he heard the Harvard news. The dad also says that he himself couldn't sleep all that night.</p>
<p>Also, as far as omission from the Presidential Scholars candidate list: those candidate lists do have omissions. For example, some students list a particular graduation year at the time they take the exams (because of possible plans to accelerate or not) and later they change their plans and graduate earlier or later than originally planned. The posted candidate list is based on information directly obtained from the testing companies.</p>
<p>It's also possible he isn't a citizen, as other posters have pointed out, or at least that he wasn't a citizen at the time he took the tests. (In the latter case, he would be able to request that his name be added to the candidate pool.)</p>
<p>First of all, it is statistically possible to get rejected from all of the "ivies" or any group of highly selective schools. Just do the math. It may be a very small percentage, but it is possible. Even with perfect test scores. From what I know about admissions, the top schools do not even bother to highlight perfect scores. They group test scores so that someone at the bottom of a category is assessed in that areas exactly the same as someone at the top. In other words, if a school considers 2300-2400 as their top category for test scores, they'll give everyone in that category a "10" on their assessment pad, with no extra points for being perfect. </p>
<p>As for not getting into a state program, the smartest guy I know did not get accepted to his state school. He applied to a very selective program----on the late side. The seats were filled, and they would not accept Einstein once that happens. Many kids with much less impressive profile were accepted in October. The pickings were slim in December. Rolling admissions works that way. At our school, a very good candidate was not accepted to Michigan when a number of far less impressive kids got in there. The difference is that they applied as soon as the admissions gate opened and she sent her app in as an after thought after not getting into her early dec/action choices. I could write a shocking story about that situation, but if you look at the details, it makes sense. </p>
<p>As for HPY, he joins the many kids with phenomonal profiles that are not accepted.</p>
<p>Just as an aside, my son who does not have these great stats and killer ECs, got a tremendous amount of attention about his research project. He could not get anyone to sponsor him for the Siemans or any other such program, and did not get much fanfare for what he did until the colleges got their hands on it. Upon discussing the project with admissions personnel, and other university folks, they were much impressed. You see, his was not a canned project. It is straight from the heart, all his and very obvious to anyone. The limitations of the project are also very clear. There is no sign whatsoever of a heavy hitter helping the kid out. In fact, there is a noticeable absence of any adults. He has gotten some grant money from an ivy and some other prestigious programs to further pursue the questions he was investigating. Honestly, I didn't think his paper was going to make a smidgeon of difference anywhere. I was pretty jaded and thought that the admissions folk had seen so much flashier, more impressive--heck, the Sieman's topics blow me away. But not just one, but three schools were very interested and clearly took the time to read the report, discuss the topic with him and render judgment. A little scary to me too, that they go into this much detail. The "childishness" and simplicity of his work along with the thoroughness and originality truly caught attention whereas here in Sieman's country where we live, many much more impressive research projects did not catch anyone's eye.</p>
<p>"My guess is that he got the 2400 on a test date that was after the test date cut off for the Presidential Scholars list for the Class of 2008."</p>
<p>Yes, and he probably sent it to colleges, which already had gotten multiple SAT/ACT scores from him that more than likely already were extremely high. This helped colleges like H flag him as a student who was far more interested in resume polishing than learning. </p>
<p>In checking an Internet board in which it appears the dad has posted info about his son, I notice the student had an extra recommendation from someone who'd known him since childhood. Adds to my guess that more than likely the student's research internship was with a family friend. I'd also bet that family friend is a former co-worker of the father, who from what I could find on the Internet, appears to be a biochemist who may have been a university professor.</p>
<p>Student is not international, but definitely is in the over represented category both in terms of race as well as interests -- classical music, biochem. Also probably falls in the category of students winning math and science awards who are fortunate enough to have parents who are experts in those things, and who probably have been steering the student to follow them since childhood. Is from an ethnic group that does tend to steer their kids into math/science-oriented fields. The students of that ethnic group who go into the humanities and social sciences are the ones who stand out most easily in admission except probably at places like Cooper Union and Cal Tech, which definitely want lots of high scoring, high stat students interested in science/math.</p>
<p>Interesting that although the dad quit his job 3 years ago to help the student get into Harvard, the student was applying for financial aid.</p>
<p>Only leadership the student seems to have demonstrated was through organizations like Quiz Bowl, which are very small, and tend to give leadership to seniors. </p>
<p>The student comes across as someone who probably was a grade grubbing, score grubbing, resume polishing robot with the controls held by Dad who was overseeing the student's every move, and probably would have been visiting teachers who gave any grade less than an A. I don't know the student or his dad, so clearly this is conjecture. However, I think that admisisons officers for places like H and Y and interviewers would read things the same way.</p>
<p>After all, this dad told the newspaper that he quit his job to help his S get into college. Imagine what else the dad did that wasn't included in the article! And I notice that it was the dad, not the student who posted the student's acceptance/rejection results on a public Internet board. </p>
<p>It's also interesting that Stanford rejected the student EA.</p>
<p>I still don't understand, however, why the student was turned down by UT's honors college. That is the biggest puzzlement of all. Seems like this high stat student would have been a big catch for them, and one that they would virtually have to make an offer to. Public universities don't make decisions based on interest, but they make decisions based on factors like stats that they can justify to the taxpayers who fund them.</p>