" If you have subpar outcomes, it is due to insufficient motivation."
This is one of the funnier things I’ve read on CC in a long time.
I’d love to dance in the Bolshoi ballet, but I promise you that my insane motivation as a kid and a teenager, PLUS extreme hard work, could not, could never change the genetics of my body type. It is LUDICROUS to suggest that subpar outcomes is due to insufficient motivation. There are tens of thousands of “would be” Yo Yo Ma’s out there dutifully playing and practicing the cello, whose motivation is second to none, who will NEVER have anything but a subpar outcome in the world of orchestral music. A hard working, highly motivated average musician will never achieve what a genius can and has achieved. The world is littered with the “highly motivated”.
There is an incredible story told about Isaac Stern when he was rehearsing after Carnegie Hall had rebuilt its stage and redone its acoustics. He complained bitterly that something was wrong, and even showed the engineers the place where the sound quality was subpar. They measured with all sorts of equipment at different times of the day- it was fine. They went back to their schematics- all done according to plan. They explained to him that he must be “hearing things”. He went on to play his scheduled concerts- brilliant, critics raved, etc.
Years after he died, there was a heavy rainstorm and some moderate flooding in the main concert halls. When the workers ripped up the wooden panels on the stage to dry out the sub-floor, they discovered… a hammer. A metal hammer which had been left behind during the construction, located underneath the spot where Mr. Stern had complained the acoustics were off. His hearing and ear were MORE acute than the equipment used to try and find the problem.
You’re going to claim that every teenager who devotes him or herself to the violin morning, noon, night with intense motivation is going to achieve what someone with Isaac Stern’s gifts could achieve?
Motivation is great. Hard work is great. So is genius.
I see. This explanation helps. I do think your definition of motivation is pretty different than mine. I don’t think there is a direct relationship between your list of concerns and the way that I define motivation, but I have a better understanding of your earlier posts now.
Family support (including financial) makes a big difference in opportunities and barriers that any given K-12 student encounters.
In the extreme case, a development relation can be admitted to a highly selective college even with a level of achievement that would otherwise be uncompetitive.
So as referenced above, Harvard College was in fact sued over its critical “personal” factor, essentially on the theory this very subjective factor was allowing anti-Asian bias to creep into the admissions process. And so far, Harvard has won that lawsuit–even though there was evidence that objectively more qualified Asians were not getting the necessary personal scores at the same rate as other ethnic groups.
Regardless of what one feels about that, Harvard is therefore apparently sticking to its use of this factor (and very likely so are many other “holistic review” colleges in some form). Indeed, among other things, on its What We Look For page . . .
What about your maturity, character, leadership, self-confidence, sense of humor, energy, concern for others, and grace under pressure?
Would other students want to room with you, share a meal, be in a seminar together, be teammates, or collaborate in a closely-knit extracurricular group?
And, most relevant to this discussion:
Where will you be in one, five, or 25 years? Will you contribute something to those around you?
What sort of human being are you now? What sort of human being will you be in the future?
Do you have initiative? Are you a self-starter? What motivates you?
I note that last question is in the “Growth and Potential” category, where Harvard also lists questions relevant to academic achievements.
That said, I don’t think Harvard would discount academic achievements due to poor perceived motives. Instead, they would look for positive indicators of what they see as good motives. And then they might admit an objectively less impressive candidate with such indicators, and not admit an objectively more impressive candidate without such indicators. But they would claim, at least, they are not punishing the latter, but simply valuing the former.
I don’t think that is true when it comes to elite college admissions - there are lots of talented, motivated, brilliant students who aren’t going to make the cut because demand outstrips supply by a wide margin. When I see some posts here from high flying kids who have given it their all (with truly impressive ECs and academic achievements) I would hate to chalk up their disappointment to lack of sufficient motivation.
The same goals can be presented better, but I am not sure they will ever be well received, because the application readers (often young people from the same college) have made other choices, and accepting these explanations would mean they have to question the rationale for some of their own choices.
There is value to a well functioning financial system, and there are vast developmental differences between countries with well functioning financial systems and poorly functioning ones.
Neela, how do you explain the VAST majority of admits who are NOT interested in working for their alma mater in admissions- but whose interests in astronomy, chemical engineering, urban planning, medicine, etc. would mean that a reader had to “question the rationale for some of their own choices”?
Honestly, your POV flies in the face of facts. Does every kid interested in robotics challenge the world view of someone who has made “other choices”? The numbers suggest otherwise.
Kids on campus (whether working in admissions or not) have unexamined biases about finance. Because the field is vilified in the media over the past few decades.
Frankly it is a neutral field. Provides a service and gets paid. Large parts of it operate in competitive markets by the way. Once could say that the pay is fair.
If anything the medical field is supply constrained by the AMA and you could therefore quibble about medical salaries etc. Likewise you can look at different fields clinically and come to careful conclusions about who is paid more than a “fair” wage and who is not.
I’m not debating the value of functioning capital market systems and their value to society. I’m questioning YOUR POV that an adcom cannot separate the choices that he/she has made from the applications that he/she is reading. There would be nobody on college campuses studying robotics, quantum mechanics, environmental engineering, etc. if every adcom was projecting their OWN life choices onto the applicants. Which is clearly not the case.
To say that adcoms are uninfluenced by their own opinions is being naive. If that is the case, you may as well have a machine scoring these applications. A human is being placed in that role only to exercise their judgment. And you would have us believe that they are expressing a value neutral judgment, somehow, if such a thing were possible :-).
I mentioned the AMA only to argue that some industries get away blatantly (and manage to have a good public image) even after placing a thumb on supply and pricing of their services.
Because finance is essential, it has more power over the rest of the economy. Sometimes, it gets ahead of necessary regulation to force the rest of the economy to socialize the risks it takes for its privatized gains. When the risks result in losses, the entire economy suffers like in 2008-2009.
Congress has to bear a reasonable part of the responsibility for the 2008 mess. The mandate for banks to lend to everyone is given by congress.
The repeal of Glass Stegall was blessed by Congress and Bill Clinton ( I am sure lobbied by the banks).
The government wants the banks to be an instrument of their policy, and therefore want to retain control of them, and at the same time push the blame on the banks for macro failures such as 2008.
They shouldn’t have rescued Citi back in the day if they wanted to send a message. Or even rescued SVB this time.
Just to remind people to stay on track - the topic is AP classes, academic, rigor, and admissions. Other topics, while important, should be discussed in other threads.
Moving back to the topic, I think this is a free country. People should be able to take whatever is available. More should be made available than less. As we make arguments that less should be made available, we also decry our kids falling behind the likes of kids from China, Singapore etc. You can’t have it both ways. You are in a global marketplace for skills and jobs. You are not just competing with Joe from two desks over.
And whatever people say about life long learning, the period of primary focused learning mostly ends at 22. The more you manage to learn until 22, the more you can leverage your time when you start working after 22, and the more productive you can be with your time. And there is no reason to be on the backfoot until you are 22 either because you want to present a “cool” image to an adcom that you are not some grade grubbing person or whatever. I can’t think of any legitimate reasons to not learn as much as you can when you have the chance.
Our school’s policy of allowing 6 APs beginning junior year (along with classes through Syracuse etc) works for our students. This does not mean that districts that allow more are getting it wrong. Those students should do whatever they want to do.
I disagree that my kid and her HS peers were somehow behind in their learning because they only took 6 APs. They were not. They went on to top schools, competitive degrees, grad programs, jobs etc. My daughter went on to complete TFA in a Title 1 school, and if that doesn’t provide a learning experience and reality check I don’t know what does. The learning that took place in the years following college helped her carry grueling grad school interviews, 8 hours long x 4 months.
Falling behind does not begin in HS. It begins way, way earlier in childhood. But that’s another discussion.
