<p>^^^Whatever. The percentage of people who go to top schools that do something really amazing is probably only about 33% judging from the people at Yale. The rest of us were just really good students.</p>
<p>Granted I don’t go to Harvard, but I think Yale is pretty comparable :P, and the only impressive thing I did was play with some photons. It is not impossible to get into top schools.</p>
<p>Dbate, don’t be modest. I bet you have lots of great stuff going for you and that you’ve accomplished a lot.</p>
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<p>Well, that’s more than most people.</p>
<p>I think people should drop the false belief that you have to cure cancer to go to a top school. Although one of my friends here did develop a method for treating colon cancer using some type of citrus fruit. </p>
<p>Which is really funny now that I think about it.</p>
<p>We’re not talking about stopping terrorism. There are many, many kids, who through their activities, made a genuine difference in their communities and beyond.</p>
<p>Mmmm what constitutes genuine?</p>
<p>One reason I can think is that the economy may be having an impact. I don’t know if more top students are opting to go to schools in state these days and whether that translates into schools having to dig somewhat deeper in order to get geographic diversity. I know that before the economy crashed it was getting a LOT harder for the traditional east coast feeder schools to get kids into certain schools because of the increasing geographic diversity both nationally and internationally. </p>
<p>NSM, The student may not have shown it, but when you casually mentioned your S’s “involvement” in that club , I wouldn’t be surprised if that student knew s/he had blown it then and there. A friend of mine, who interviews students for a local school scholarship program, had something similar happen. In her case, the student tried to tell her that he had a leadership role in an activity that she just so happened to run. Talk about putting your foot in it.</p>
<p>“NSM, The student may not have shown it, but when you casually mentioned your S’s “involvement” in that club , I wouldn’t be surprised if that student knew s/he had blown it then and there. A friend of mine, who interviews students for a local school scholarship program, had something similar happen. In her case, the student tried to tell her that he had a leadership role in an activity that she just so happened to run. Talk about putting your foot in it.”</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t think the student ever realized she blew it. Our interview was late in the admissions cycle, and I later heard that the student had an EA admission by then from a top school that she ended up attending. I imagine she may also have had some likely letters from good schools. </p>
<p>The student actually called me to let me know that she was never offered admission from my alma mater’s waitlist, so I don’t think she realized she blew the interview. </p>
<p>Now, I always wonder if the student who lied about his favorite book ever realized that I knew he was lying. To my surprise, a year later, he ended up being one of the people present at a workshop I did on interviewing people. It included how to know when people are lying. :)</p>
<p>Do all the people that Harvard rejects end up going to good schools? (Harvard reject here).</p>
<p>"I have a question for Northstarmom. The head of regional interviews for Harvard personally called me on my phone and told me that Harvard was interested and that the admissions committee really wanted to get my interview done, but later I was rejected. What is up with that? "</p>
<p>What’s up is that Harvard asks the head of the regional alum committee to make sure that some students get interviews. Harvard does not give a reason for wanting to make sure that student is interviewed. Indeed, Harvard makes it very clear that there can be a variety of reasons and that the student may not be accepted.</p>
<p>Consequently, you should not have been told that Harvard had some kind of special interest in you.</p>
<p>I’ve guessed that the reasons for Harvard’s wanting to make sure the student is interviewed could range from: the students’ being a strong contender for admissions; the students being a legacy; the student being a the best candidate from a high school that has sent some students to Harvard or that Harvard wants to encourage to continue having students apply; the students being a URM or of low SES or in some category that Harvard wants to recruit.</p>
<p>Not getting in doesn’t mean you blew the interview. Remember, 85-90% of the students who apply to Harvard could succeed academically at Harvard if there was room for them. Excellent applicants may be rejected so that Harvard can meet its goal of creating a well rounded class.</p>
<p>When I was head of my regional interviewing committee, I got those kind of calls. Most of those applicants were exceptional in our pool. Most still didn’t get in to Harvard, but typically landed at other top 10 colleges.</p>
<p>I was a URM, so maybe that was it. I am happy were I ended up, I was just a little mad that the lady got my hopes up only to have them be deflated, LOL :)</p>
<p>“And to be honest, very few high schoolers have accomplished anything worth mentioning so it is logical that they exaggerate.”</p>
<p>There are plenty of high school students who have accomplished impressive things. I personally know students like this and one example was the student who was redesigning the web page of a community organization.</p>
<p>S was the main organizer in his high school of a fundraiser for tsunami victims. I saw S start doing this. We were watching the coverage on TV and he called his best friend and started talking about wanting to do something to help the survivors. That resulted in the first school-wide fundraiser that had been held in recent memory at his school. It took more work than anyone would imagine, and the students had to overcome a lot of setbacks. Although S was shy and had never done anything like this before, he persisted because he really wanted to help the victims.</p>
<p>Another person I know got all of the high schools in our district to help build a Habitat for Humanity house. Nothing like that ever had been done before here. He had to work very hard to do this including having to convince the school board that it was possible.</p>
<p>Another student I know helped create a week-long summer camp. The student was in high school and did it with 2 college students. This included creating the content, publicizing the camp (including making a short film about it), soliciting donations to help support the camp, recruiting adult volunteers, and serving as the counselors.</p>
<p>The only reason that some students feel they have to exaggerate about accomplishments is that they were too uncreative, unmotivated or too lazy to accomplish things in their own community. </p>
<p>Because I’m very involved in community service, those are the examples that I gave, but students who are passionate about research or other activities could also accomplish impressive things in their home communities. What they need is passion and creativity.</p>
<p>I know lots of young people and adults who have those traits. Their problem tends to be underreporting what they’ve done. They tend to have friend like themselves, and as a result, they think that their accomplishments are no big deal – that anyone might have done what they’ve done.</p>
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<p>Idk, the only community service I did was tutor some kids in biology and physics and I didn’t even list that on my app so I don’t know how much community service matters. </p>
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<p>I guess I was more of the latter. I taught myself aspects of quantum mechanics and then developed an equation to model the probability for photons to undergo quantum tunneling for science fair. Although I didn’t do it because i wanted to get into a good college, I just liked physics. I was planning to attend my state flagship until my biology teacher who went with me to the science fair competition told me that I should apply to top schools. </p>
<p>It seems from being here at Yale, that the students who are admitted were students who did what they wanted and didn’t do things to get into college. So maybe the advice people should give on CC is to just do things for fun. I know I never gave a thought about getting into any Ivies until my junior year and by that time I had wasted most of high school doing stuff for fun.</p>
<p>“I guess I was more of the latter. I taught myself aspects of quantum mechanics and then developed an equation to model the probability for photons to undergo quantum tunneling for science fair. Although I didn’t do it because i wanted to get into a good college, I just liked physics. I was planning to attend my state flagship until my biology teacher who went with me to the science fair competition told me that I should apply to top schools.”</p>
<p>A great example of what I was talking about: a smart student who creatively pursued their passion. What you said before was silly – that you got in because you were a URM. Unfortunately, many people – including URMs-- think that’s how URMs get to places like Ivies, which simply isn’t true. Ivies aren’t going to take URMs just because they happen to be URMs.</p>
<p>“It seems from being here at Yale, that the students who are admitted were students who did what they wanted and didn’t do things to get into college. So maybe the advice people should give on CC is to just do things for fun. I know I never gave a thought about getting into any Ivies until my junior year and by that time I had wasted most of high school doing stuff for fun.”</p>
<p>This is the advice that many of us give students: Use high school to pursue their own interests. Don’t do things to get into college. Look for a college that’s a good fit for yourself and your interests. </p>
<p>Too many students on CC are trying desperately to make themselves into what they think Ivies and similar colleges want. They are wasting their time. Ivies and similar college want smart, creative, independent students who have passionately and successfully done what they liked to do. They don’t want students who’ve been forcing themselves to fit into what they think Ivies want. </p>
<p>If students avidly pursue their own productive interests, they’ll end up at colleges that fit them, and they’ll also have skills, knowledge, and experience that will help them be successful in whatever fields they choose. They’ll also have the background to be fulfilled with their hobbies and social interests for the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>“Idk, the only community service I did was tutor some kids in biology and physics and I didn’t even list that on my app so I don’t know how much community service matters.”</p>
<p>It’s a fallacy that one needs to do community service to get into a top college. In general, unless one has good stats and is a multimillionaire donor’s offspring, one needs to do something with passion and success to get into Ivies and similar colleges. That “something” doesn’t need to be community service. However, because places like Ivies want to admit students who’ll serve their communities in some way no matter what their jobs are, the Ivies tend to shun people who appear to care only about themselves. That’s why, for instance, at Harvard, Phillips Brooks House – the campus wide community service organization – was one of the campus’s most popular organizations with literally dozens of student-run service organizations. Students there genuinely like to help others. They didn’t do community service in high school to impress colleges.</p>
<p>I wish parents of freshmen and sophomores - and the students themselves - would read this thread. I don’t want to see any more “which activity would a college prefer to see me do?” threads!! Read Northstarmom’s posts, and do what you enjoy! Do what you’re passionate about! Don’t stay in band because you think colleges like it. Don’t play a sport that you hate because colleges need fencers or swimmers or whatever. Do what you love, and do it well. </p>
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<p>BINGO!</p>
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This was my older son to a t. (In fact to such an extent that he thought it would be more fun to go to Carnegie Mellon than Harvard.) He pursued computer programming because he loved doing it. As he got good at it, people began asking for his help - everyone from local med school professors, to online gaming friends (he worked on a very popular mod), to people who were willing to pay him for work. </p>
<p>Even my younger son - who had much less obvious expertise - manage to parlay an interest in origami and a job helping organizing the neighborhood archives into two really good essays. I believe that these essays are one of the reasons he’s got one acceptance in his pocket already.</p>
<p>Dbate, you’re the proof that high-achieving kids really don’t think they’re so high achieving, and so they sometimes forget to mention their achievements!</p>
<p>" I just liked physics. I was planning to attend my state flagship until my biology teacher who went with me to the science fair competition told me that I should apply to top schools. "</p>
<p>I hope you’ve thanked your bio teacher for that excellent advice. I also hope you drop by or drop that teacher a line now and then to tell about your adventures at Yale. I’m sure the teacher would be delighted to hear from you.</p>
<p>I wrote her a letter at the end of the year thanking her and stopped by to see her during Christmas. I was SO appreciative of her advice that I made sure she knew it.</p>
<p>Exactly. If you want to see a place where over a thousand kids (most of whom have done some pretty impressive stuff, just for fun) gather, just visit ISEF some year. </p>
<p>I didn’t start thinking about which college I wanted to go to till maybe october senior year. I was too busy worrying about stuff that was much more fun to think about.</p>
<p>I am baffled by the multiple comments about the task of “redesigning a community web site”, and that this is some proof of “impressive” achievement.</p>
<p>Such a task is far from being that. Even the most impressive of “redesigns” is a task that a competent graphic designer can achieve, or any student in interest in the web can take on effectively. It’s a task that is done daily by technicians without a deep “college” education.</p>
<p>The same holds of the variety of “community service” tasks that have been used as examples of exceptional candidates, such as fund raising etc.</p>
<p>What is impressive in my mind is the application of the academic cornerstones of high school (e.g. english, math, science) in ways that indicate deep understanding of the academic discipline, an ability to apply what was learned and creativity. And that happens infrequently. Hence the search for other “proofs” of candidates being exceptional.</p>