Wow, seriously?
I’ve interviewed approximately 300 applicants to my alma mater, and read interviewer reports of probably 20x that. There are all sorts of questions that can be asked that get to this, as is done on the regular. And in fact, that it precisely the point, to try to get to that. And the write-ups include an assessment of same.
If you can’t discern the difference, I don’t know what to say. Agree to disagree and to cede final word to you as you seem pretty insistent upon having it.
You’re confusing motivation with outcomes. Extraordinarily different things. Your entire suppose/nowwhat/thenwhat framework is a straw man built on quicksand.
Good point!
I think motivation can often show fit.
You misunderstand. I genuinely believe that outcomes are a result of motivation. If you have subpar outcomes, it is due to insufficient motivation.
I’ve been a little confused about this discussion pm motivation so I tried to trace it back to its origin. I think that the issue of motivation came up right after InfoquestMom wrote the following:
After further discussion MWDadOf3 pointed out:
and also
I bring this all up because my (URM) children and their classmates have definitely not been told to “go above and beyond” the curriculum available at their schools by taking online classes or summer programs just for the sake of building a resume for colleges. The advice that the college advisors gave my high schoolers was that they should only pursue these types of outside of school academic activities if they were genuinely curious about the topic for its own sake. Or potentially if they had completely exhausted the curriculum offered by the school in a particular subject and they needed to go outside the school’s offering to progress. Otherwise a summer or afterschool job or family responsibilities were also fine (and possibly better) ways of spending their time.
The advisors actively discouraged more for the sake of more and didn’t seem to think it would help in college admissions. They also gave the standard advice that self-studying for AP test was not a good use of time.
Early on in the covid shutdown, my oldest did some free edX classes just because she was interested in the subject and bored out of her mind in spring of 2020 --I actually had no idea that she had done so until long after she completed them. To me that speaks to her intrinsic motivation in that subject area. If colleges are interested in “intrinsic motivation,” I think the big question is how does the college distinguish between someone who does above and beyond because she is just excited about learning/the topic vs. someone who does above and beyond in hopes of impressing an admissions office. While I don’t exactly agree with DroidsLookingFor’s suggestion that it is always obvious which is which, I do think that the extreme ends of the intrinsic to extrinsic spectrum are pretty clear. Now, should colleges care if a kid is only extrinsically motivated? I think on the extreme end yes. But I also think that many high school students aiming at selective colleges are probably somewhere between the extremes, and that is OK. I think it would be naive to think that every single choice such kids make stems from purely intrinsic motives. But I also think that most kids are not making every academic choice with an eye towards how it will be perceived by other people, particularly admissions officers. Or at least I hope they are not doing so because I imagine that eventually they might regret having ignored their own interests in pursuit of the desire to impress others.
ETA @worriedmomucb Sorry. I did not mean to reply specifically to you, but I don’t know how to fix it.
Are you sure you didn’t bring your own biases with you?
This thread is going into an incredible amount of detail, which is all good…
But from a more aerial-view perspective, I have to say that while Trevor has always seemed like a sincere guy and a true believer in his product, making a statement like this at this point (the AP curriculum having essentially swallowed the entire top end of American secondary education, at least in non-IB public schools) seems disingenuous. It feels like Walmart, having come into a small town and killed off all of the beloved family-owned businesses, then deigning to advise people not to shop there too often.
Can someone enlighten me?
I thought we were discussing motivation as in “the reason why,” so yes, I think AOs can pick out the kids that were just trying to do “more” for the sake of doing more. Like the only reason is to one up the other kid.
It appears, however, that we are discussing motivation in terms of “willingness to work hard.” Maybe I am not reading these posts closely enough…
If you are interested in checking for motivation, check for it properly. Just look at the grade. Don’t make up stuff in your head that that kid is motivated, and this kid is not, because this kid looks like the type who may not be motivated, whereas that other kid looks wholesome!
This conversation is confusing me. What is the proper way to look at motivation?
People will have you think that there is some art involved here, that you need to look into the kid’s soul, based on some essay that the kid had a parent or a consultant write up for them, and that you need to convolve the demographic the person comes from together with the outcome, and that the person needs to take less than N number of APs to be deemed motivated, because who in their right mind would take more than N number of APs etc.
It is quite simple. You just look at the person’s accomplishments, and body of work, and the stronger the person’s record, the greater their motivation. Perhaps in the context of their material circumstances – poor family / rich family.
There are people who work very hard and are highly motivated, but do not get the A, the job, the acceptance, the promotion, the volunteer position etc
What you are saying is not always the way it is.
It seems like the end of the sentence is missing or maybe I’ve just lost track of what we are discussing.
Their motivation to do what? The stronger the person’s record, the greater their motivation to get As? The greater their motivation to succeed in life? The greater their motivation to go to an elite college? The greater their motivation to learn? I don’t think any of those statements are always true. Though I imagine they are sometimes true.
To begin with, because some people have poor outcomes, you can’t punish the people with good outcomes. The people with good outcomes do have good motivation. Setting that aside, if outcome is poor, then it is incumbent on the student to prove that it is not a lack of motivation. It is not someone else’s responsibility to make that case. Secondly, what if there are extraneous factors? Perhaps a different school is a better fit for that student so that remedial work can be done before starting the main course of study. Or perhaps this course of study is not their calling, if they can’t manage good outcomes despite being motivated.
At some level this cannot be helped.
Occam’s razor suggests that the simplest explanation is that the person is motivated to learn, succeed in life, make a living, go on to an elite college – likely all of the above. So what?
I must say that elite colleges are doing a stellar job of picking the kids with the best motivation if over half the class is going into finance or consulting. You must think the college wants this outcome. Especially because they are so good at figuring out motivations of 18 year old kids.
I’m sorry. I am really confused. I don’t understand what you are trying to say. Sorry, I know that you are trying to make a point, and it is probably a good one. I’ve just lost the thread of this conversation. I don’t know what we are talking about anymore.
That’s ok. Maybe the thread ran it’s course.
I was trying to say that I have issues with:
a) people having issues with how many APs other people can do
b) people having opinions on whether other people have the right motivation in doing whatever APs they want to do
c) people having opinions on whether other people are grade grubbers and have no interest in the subject
d) people having opinion on whether other people should be admitted into some college if those people’s quest is not pure.
e) people thinking that they can determine whether other people’s quest is pure or not.
etc …
I would never punish somebody who had a good outcome. Many students are motivated, work hard and achieve what they set out to do.
I just wanted to say that there are people who are motivated and who work hard, but do not get the outcome they hoped for.
I also lost track of this discussion.
I never said such a thing!