<p>Is he interested in being a ski instructor? I have no idea what colleges would think, but that, in addition to ski patrol, sounds like a job with some leadership and responsibility to me.</p>
<p>I think it is great that you are here learning at this early stage. It is easy to get obsessed, but many of the things people are mentioning in this thread are good to have a heads up on in advance.</p>
<p>Re: rigor, yes it is important. I have a video game playing son too (two of them actually and here was my older son’s thinking – it’s OK to not get the top grade in a weighted honors or AP class because it is rigorous and will get weighted higher for the GPA calculation. What he did not consider is that there are plenty of people who DO get the top marks in those rigorous classes. But everything turned out fine for college admissions for him and I am actually glad he is the sort of person who can put things in perspective and not get overly stressed or grade obsessed.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s necessary to start a national charity or a business just to get the attention of top schools. Certainly there are students who do these things, but it’s not some sort of requirement. I like collegealum314’s suggestion of expanding on a dear to the heart EC and looking for ways to help others involving the EC, improvements in methods, etc. My S played baseball from t-ball through varsity, and he also was a paid umpire, volunteer coach for youth, and he developed an interesting and useful tool for coaches. I think this kind of depth and breadth catches eyes. </p>
<p>All sorts of students are accepted to top schools with experiences and interests beyond the olympiads and academic competitions. I like to see kids very involved in their local communities who really put themselves out there in terms of effort and time. This sort of thing doesn’t usually require as much from parents or adult mentors either, so they learn a lot that can be applied to life in general. Kids like this tend to get great recommendations from local folks who really know them, which is an added plus.</p>
<p>It sounds like the OPs son will be a tippy top student in terms of rigor, grades, and test scores, so the difference will be in EC accomplishments. Even for kids like this, there are still 24 hours in a day, so there needs to be some sort of comprehensive plan, which can evolve over time, that makes sense (and is fun) for him.</p>
<p>And guess what- there are still kids accepted to HYP who work at a pizza store after school and write a killer essay on getting promoted to “Assistant Night Manager” after a year of extraordinary effort mopping floors and replacing the toilet paper in the rest room. I even know one of them. No hooks. </p>
<p>I don’t think kids need to start a foundation or cure malaria.</p>
<p>I think whatever the kid does in his spare time needs to be because he enjoys it.</p>
<p>Not every kid picks their EC’s with an eye towards college admissions (there are still stamp collectors and Civil War re-enactors who get admitted to top schools every year- how un-cool are those EC’s?) but the authenticity of these interests is what sets the kid apart from the typical “I play three sports and two instruments and love puppies” kind of applicant.</p>
<p>OP-- enjoy the ride. Your son only gets one childhood and you only get one shot at being his parent. Don’t let college planning absorb and suck the joy out of being his parent. If he wants to cut back on his activities so he has time to read or daydream that’s ok too.</p>
<p>EC’s should be a passion/interest for the child not a strategy. EC’s are where I found my D learning the most real life skills. How to organize, plan, talk to adults, and to lead. All of D’s EC’s were taken on by her and I just nodded and smiled, and sometimes argued there wasn’t enough time in the day for all she wanted to do. (Of course, we were not thinking HYP) Real life skills, and real growth come from EC’s, not just admissions. </p>
<p>Take a breather. Make sure he studies, gets enough sleep, and takes challenging classes- not because of HYP, but because that is where he will learn and grow.</p>
<p>I guess what I am trying to say - I was trying to look into the qualifications of the Harvard accepts from my son’s school. There’s about one every year. There are definitely parents at our school who spare no expense/ coaching to get their children advantage to the point where what I am seeing is that from our school, the Harvard accepts ARE the Siemens winner, heavily heavily involved in the community, extraordinary EC-types. I am seeing now that my kid is going to be competing with that kid. </p>
<p>And it is probably as it should be - Harvard takes 1600 kids a year, why shouldn’t it take the extraordinary ones? </p>
<p>Coming from his school and his parents, my kid will not make it to HYP writing an essay about working at the pizza parlor, nor should he. He will be a long reach if he has good stats and good but not outstanding ECs, mostly due to legacy. With a good but not outstanding resume, he might be more of a match if he applies to Penn especially if he applies early again because of legacy. If he wants to go to H, my son needs to be amazing - and I think that facing that truth squarely will help us make the best decisions.</p>
<p>We may decide that he would rather have fun sailing and skiing, and dabbling in all sorts of EC at a good but not extraordinary level, so he has time to read and daydream. In fact, I have a feeling that is probably what he will decide to do. But I think I owe it to him to let him know about ways to get national recognition for things he enjoys doing to see if it “lights his flame.” He has a good sense of what he needs to give up to pursue an interest - he chose not to sail and ski during the school year because of his other commitments. If he passes on the heavy CS work, science or math work outside of school, or even pursue sailing or skiiing to a national level - in short, if he doesn’t have the “passion” - folks on the thread are right, Harvard would be wasted on him. Let someone else have that spot. But I’d still like him to have the choice.</p>
<p>Just a thought, but if your son is interested in CS and math, shouldn’t you be looking more at schools that are strong in those areas and not necessarily the Ivy League?</p>
<p>Good thought - assuming he maintains an interest in CS/Science, I think MIT will be a good reach, along with Caltech, and then CM, HM, UM. He of course doesn’t have legacy status at any of those schools except UM. We’ll have to see what he thinks and this is of course without any research on my part and who knows what he will want in four years. I’m sure there are more schools that might be a good fit for him.</p>
<p>But I think the first question for us is how to approach the high school years. As a previous poster said - keep the end in mind… so if we’re aiming for an elite-ish school in his current academic interests, he will need to try to develop those interests. I’ll point him to opportunities and see how far he wants to take it. And hopefully the journey will be fun, too, as many posters have already said. It can be hard, and I hope he doesn’t shy away just because it’s hard, but he does have to enjoy it on some level. And if he ends up getting national recognition in high school for an EC because his interests take him there, then maybe we can talk about H more realistically when that time comes.</p>
<p>Have you considered encouraging him to take up reenactment as a Viking, Goth, Hun, Vandal or some other barbarian and dressing him up as one so he’ll be prepared for that Ivy/elite peer interview? </p>
<p>Maybe he can pair that up with learning to play a thunder lyre(a.k.a. electric guitar) and do an impromptu demonstration for the adcoms on campus? A good suggested work to perform would be to dime all volumes and play Blitzkrieg Bop by the Ramones. :D</p>
<p>He’ll certainly stand out from most applicants…regardless of race. :D</p>
<p>[/<em>For the humor impaired</em>/ This is meant to inject some levity in this thread].</p>
<p>OP- I say this with all kindness and humility- you are greatly over-estimating the value of Legacy unless you have been donating to H in the six figures consistently over the last 20 years, or are prepared to make a 7 figure donation this year. I don’t have the stats for H- but I am a Brown alum and I interviewed for them for many years. Legacy counts when coupled with something else very desirable- living in Wyoming, mega donor, published novel, Olympic level athlete. Legacy means your son’s application will get a very thorough read- and perhaps a third read-- if he is the “typical” legacy, i.e. grew up in a household surrounded by books, parents valuing education, opportunities for EC’s and travel, etc.</p>
<p>Do not eliminate good fit schools because your S won’t have legacy status- other than Penn ED I don’t think it will make a bit of difference for your S unless there is a Novimom Biotech lab in the offing at H.</p>
<p>I think the National Recognition thing is a mistake. There are hundreds of kids admitted to each elite school every year without it. Thinking that you can mold your S into a “national recognition kid” seems like a well worn path to a not very happy household for the next few years. I know the kids who end up “not my first choice college” after the years of being told (not explicitly, but by inference) that it’s H or Y or Penn or bust. They are miserable and surly teenagers when they get dropped off at Middlebury or Wesleyan or Brandeis or Tufts. (fine and world class institutions in their own right.)</p>
<p>You need to dial all of this talk back (and banish it from your brain.) If your son wants “national” anything it will evolve out of his own love of the sport or activity. But to stage-mom him when he already sounds so fantastic is a nice way to set the stage for a rebellious couple of years- or a compliant couple of years where he follows the path to greatness only to get denied at the holy grail of admissions.</p>
<p>You seem to be both trying to dial it back and ramp it up simultaneously. There are indeed plenty of normal, haven’t cured cancer yet kids at H. Unless you are prepared to move to Wyoming, just focus on enjoying what makes your son special and delightful and college will surely be part of the equation. There’s a kid in my town who ended up at JHU which his parents had told everyone was his safety school (double legacy at Harvard; parents devoted and hard-working alums in the volunteer sense although not affluent people so I doubt the donations were getting anyone’s attention in the H development office.) It’s sad to see this kid- now a junior and still comes home on vacation looking like he’s been sentenced to 30 years at Attica. I know his parents love Harvard- but they surely love their son more, and he’s internalized their attitude that he’s won the booby prize which is really sad.</p>
<p>Special and smart kid; I hope that at the Phi Beta Kappa ceremony or whatever other academic honors he may get at JHU he can decide to be proud of himself.</p>
<p>Novimom - our S was double legacy at a top 20 school. The best thing we ever did was - we took it off the table. We said - no pressure to follow in mom and dad’s footsteps. It’s a big world out there, here, let’s go look at a whole bunch of schools, which we did. </p>
<p>The August before senior year, HE came to US and wanted to put it back on the table. He had real, clear reasons that he could articulate as to why it fit him, and we couldn’t help but agree. The coda is that he got in and now attends, but that’s not the point at all.<br>
The point is - don’t let the school become the end goal. If it is right for him, let it naturally emerge from HIS desires. Not yours. Who even says Harvard is right for him? He may have a completely different set of tastes.</p>
<p>And the best thing you can do for him is speak well of a bunch of different schools. And not just Ivies or top 20s. Make him the kind of person who knows that smart, thoughtful people and great opportunities are found in many places, not the kind of person who thinks they are all concentrated in a dozen schools and that all others are sloppy seconds. Such parents and kids do exist, and they aren’t pretty.</p>
<p>I agree that focusing on one school is stressful and likely to make everyone unhappy.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I very much disagree that it will make her son unhappy to work toward a national level accomplishment. It is actually deeply satisfying to achieve a high level of mastery. While parents can’t force this upon their child, there are many things they can provide when the child shows that they are interested, e.g. peers, mentors, equipment, time carved out to practice… Even if the goal isn’t quite reached, the students experiences more than if they had never dreamt big in the first place.</p>
<p>I think this is a worthwhile pursuit. The experience of mastery in one domain confers all kinds of benefits besides just college admissions.</p>
<p>If UM is Michigan, Maryland, or Minnesota, they are good schools for computer science and math. No need to obsess about Harvard, MIT, and other super-selective schools.</p>
and here was my older son’s thinking – it’s OK to not get the top grade in a weighted honors or AP class because it is rigorous and will get weighted higher for the GPA calculation. What he did not consider is that there are plenty of people who DO get the top marks in those rigorous classes. But everything turned out fine for college admissions for him and I am actually glad he is the sort of person who can put things in perspective and not get overly stressed or grade obsessed.</p>