xmas:
Instead understand it and you will flourish in your life.
Some applicants can get in by just doing what they love.
Others like me, didnt get into Yale EA by doing just what they loved (doing guitar, video games, and your mom) Basically not schoolwork. For mere mortals who have dreams of HPYSM, you have to do the CC crap. NOT 2400 4.0, But you got to learn how to game. Some people game the process subconsciously simply by being who they are - they show off the things that scream ACCEPT. Others have to find what those things are and show them off EVEN IF ITS NOT WHO WE ARE. And that works to. 75% of my HS experience has been what I love - math, science, literature, music, friends, computer games. But the other 25% I had to sell out - and sell out WISELY gets you in if you can manage to appear great.
So yeah, if you want HPYS and you just flat out dont have what it takes to just stroll up and present yourself doing what you love, you gotta be calculating and do the game. Sad but true - you gotta make sacrifices if you dont belong to the small group of individuals who can just slide on into Ivies without being a part of the college crap game.
sidenote: I loved the comment about Ansel Adams and “doing the best with what you have.”
I always remember what my history teacher (and fellow guitar enthusiast) told me once:
Jimi Hendrix, SRV, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page…those guys would all still sound like themselves on a $99 dollar “beginner” guitar and practice amp. A novice still sounds like a novice on a 1967 Gibson.
"if someone asks you why you do an extra-curricular and your answer includes “it looks good for college” QUIT IT. "
That’s bs. Me and many of my friends got into our colleges of choice doing extracurriculars that were kind of fun but did mainly to get into college. Seriously, if the only extracurriculars you like doing are eating and playing against yourself in chinese checkers, you’re not going to get in anywhere good.
If you have some good passions that look good for colleges, you should go ahead and do them, but if your passions and extracurriculars won’t look good on an app, you simply won’t get in.
"In school: take the hardest classes you can in the areas that interest you. School is about learning, not college, and you will not learn unless you want to. "
This advice is horrible. The only subject I really like at school is math. However, if I only took honors math courses, I wouldn’t get in anywhere because colleges would see that my schedule isn’t very rigorous.
Stop giving such horrible advice. I don’t care that you allegedly got into mit, your advice is still harmful.
Your advice is good for someone who doesn’t really care about getting into his first coice college and just wants to enjoy himself, but the majority of cc users want to get into their college of choice and will sacrifice a little joy to do so.
Why do you want to go to the “top colleges” when you can get into a state university and do fine in life? You are white right? You are basically set if you get into a decent college. I’m Asian and of a low income bracket and I would probably have to work my ass off to get the same job or college as you (assuming that you have reasonable stats) even if I get into Stanford or some “top school.” That’s how things work in this country. So you don’t need to worry bout a thing.
if you are so poor how can you afford all of those karate lessons.
My parents negotiated with the grandmaster and I volunteer at the dojang and also help teach there. And you cut down on other stuff. For example, no gaming systems or anything like that and a pc that is kind of crappy. You make do with what you got.
This is ridiculous. Not JWs advice, but some of the reactions here. Though rejected from stanford, I have to say, i agree, and that’s pretty much how I’ve tried to be in high school. Maybe joining swing club doesn’t look good, because I didn’t create it from nothing, and didn’t hold a leadership position or spend more than a few hours each week doing it. But it was fun. I was onyl in it for 2 years, yet I’m glad I chose to do what I wanted.
And college is really just four years. Truly. Harvard is just a school: anything you can learn at HPYSM, you can pretty much learn at Arizona State, Michigan, Chicago, Lehigh, etc. If you think you’re HPYSM material, and you don’t get into your first-choice: are you going to make something of yourself wherever you go? If you’re not going to do big things at a state university, then I don’t really think you’re what ivies are looking for.
Getting into one of the big ivies is great and if that’s what important to you, go for it. But NOT getting in it isn’t the end of the world. Three of the most successful people I know (adults, over 40) went to state schools.
I agree with the OP that kids shouldn’t be spending their entire HS days worrying about college. Planning for college is an important part of that time, but it shouldn’t be the main focus. HS is about learning LOTS of things, not just Calc and Physics.
That is more important than 5 acceptances from HYPSM put together.
I can’t speak for the others in HYPSM, having not attended them, but I can say that if you manage to get into MIT by pretending to be something you are not, there’s a decent chance that you are going to be miserable and struggling once you actually get there.
People on this site sometimes (understandably) get so focused on getting into a strong school that they forget that it’s the beginning, not the end.
I find some of Jack’s advice a little bit hyperbolic - I wouldn’t say that you should drop an activity if your reasons for pursuing it <em>include</em> the fact that it looks good to colleges, though I might say you should rethink it if the <em>only</em> reason you are doing it is that it looks good to colleges - but my approach to high school was closer to his than it is to the other end of the spectrum.
Finally, I would like to point out that different colleges select for different things, and advice that might be excellent for someone wishing to get into a particular top college could be terrible for someone wishing to get into a different particular top college.
Maybe the issue here is that he drew - or seemed to draw - a dichotomy between the two. Who says you can’t have fun with an eye on college admissions? It’s not one or the other. I mean, why does it have to sound negative if, you know, someone asks me if I’d like to continue volunteering with this organisation that I’ve worked with for a long time. Maybe I enjoy the work but volunteering would mean cutting down on leisure time. If I choose to volunteer with an eye on college admissions (suppose I wouldn’t have if I weren’t applying to college), that doesn’t preclude me from having fun on the job.
I’ll admit it. These days (because I’m a procrastinator who hasn’t sent in my applications yet - note to self: get off CC after this) whenever a bit of good news comes in - I get selected for this or that, radio station wants to interview me next week, internship opportunity at local cinema opens up - I think of how I can use it to positively impact my college or scholarship applications. Doesn’t mean that I’m doing it only for college. But I can’t tell you with all honesty that I’m doing it only for myself either. There’s a bit of both, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
My son was also admitted EA to MIT this week. Of course I can’t tell you what he did that “got him in.” I can tell you what he didn’t do, though.
He never:
took a test-prep class
re-took a test
took an intimidating number of APs like you see on some posts here
got a perfect composite score on the SAT, ACT, SATII, or every AP
did an activity “to get into college”
read anything on College Confidential (that is my weakness)
became obsessed with college admissions
thought that MIT was the only place where he would be happy
became a minority or a girl =)
cured cancer
tried to take over the world
There is a lot of good advice on CC, (and the MIT website) if you can ignore the other stuff. This advice helped me encourage him to paint a fuller, more detailed picture of himself on his app. When he submitted it, I thought it was still too reserved - he is a very private, reticent person naturally. But I guess there was enough in there for them to find something they were looking for.
And again, if he hadn’t gotten in, which is a huge possibility for almost everyone, he would have been very psyched to go to one of his other schools.
This is ridiculous. Someone’s got an inflated ego thats gonna be popped like a balloon once he heads to Cambridge this fall.
^^^^ What’s ridiculous? Who’s going to have an inflated ego? Why?
^I think westsidewolf means the OP because of his advice.
I think that’s great advice, almost too obvious, but people don’t realize a sincere voice comes out of being, well, sincere. I think it’s okay to do something “because it looks good for college” if you like it, but if you don’t, you probably won’t do well in it anyways and not be actively involved…and probably might ultimately just end up leaving it off your resume anyway.
“I can’t speak for the others in HYPSM, having not attended them, but I can say that if you manage to get into MIT by pretending to be something you are not, there’s a decent chance that you are going to be miserable and struggling once you actually get there.”
Very true (I hope). This is the real root problem - that people care more about the name of there school than what will happen there. Kids (and even sadder, their parents) on CC say something like this all the time: “I (or my S/D) want to go to HYPSM. Here are my stats. I am good enough, right? I just want to go there sooooo bad.”
Where? Where do you want to go? HYPSM is not a real place. Ohhhh, okay, you want to attend an Ivy (in the grander definition). Why? Ok, because they will provide a good education. But wait. You can get a good education almost anywhere. And, by the way, what do you want to study? You don’t know, do you? Well that is fine, it is ok to be undecided. Do you like math? Not really? Then why do you want to go to MIT!? Do you want to be in a city? No? Why Harvard? Do you feel comfortable around a lot of preps? No? Why Princeton?
People, more and more, are basing their ambitions and college goals solely on the prestige of a name. There is a time to consider that for sure. If you excel in school, you want to surround yourself with people like you, so you look at more exclusive colleges. But exclusivity doesn’t guarantee that a school will be right for you. I chose MIT because everyone I met there when I visited, everything they sent me in the mail, and everything I heard from alumni (including my awesome interviewer) told me (indirectly) that MIT was a place where I would fit in. Not in an academic way - I had to let the admissions committee figure that out - but on a personal level. Everyone was super excited about robots and lasers and math and science. People loved to learn, were funny, welcoming, and excited, and were NOT anti social. I left with a smile on my face. That is how you should choose schools. If I had’ve had the same experience at my state university, I would be enrolling there.
My point here is not to discourage people from considering their futures throughout high school. It is a great motivator to strive towards a college you believe is right for you. You run into problems when you change yourself to present an image that is no longer yours. It is better to go somewhere that is good for you than somewhere people say is “good.”
Congrats on MIT, Jack.
As for starting up a club devoted to something that you are interested in , I tried that and failed (tried to revive the school’s anime club; I also tried to start a club devoted to East Asian culture). The school gave poor reasons like “We need someone to speak Japanese” (anime club) and “That’s what the International Club is for” (east asian). True, but other schools have an International Club and a Japanese, French, Irish, Chinese, etc. club. My school’s so ironclad.
Sorry for the rant guys, again, congrats for MIT!
Jack – Wonderful advice which, if heeded by all, would probably solve a great deal of the “problems” people have with college admissions. Thanks for posting the reminder. I applaud your wisdom and wish you well at MIT, where I have no doubt you’ll succeed and be very happy.