<p>I think we’ve fallen into the trap of overanalyzing the misguided comments of a 15 year-old to the point where we’re even trying to justify our actions and intentions regarding our children.</p>
<p>It feels as though we’ve strayed off course from the original well intentions of trying to provide some useful advice to the OP because the thread got hijacked by someone who is trying to rewrite reality to fit his circumstances.</p>
<p>Perhaps, we should call it a day.</p>
<p>Agree. </p>
<p>"I think we’ve fallen into the trap of overanalyzing the misguided comments of a 15 year-old to the point where we’re even trying to justify our actions and intentions regarding our children.</p>
<p>It feels as though we’ve strayed off course from the original well intentions of trying to provide some useful advice to the OP because the thread got hijacked by someone who is trying to rewrite reality to fit his circumstances.</p>
<p>Perhaps, we should call it a day."</p>
<p>Friend my original post was to help OP, it is due to everyone’s theory that you must have perfect grades and test scores in order to attend Harvard that we became sidetracked. I will keep explaining, and you will keep not believing, and we are not going to get anywhere. This reminds me of school, several years ago one teacher I talked to told me that in order to go to Harvard, you MUST have National Honors Society and great grades. After 30 minutes of arguing, we never went anywhere, with my easily verified statements and outlined explanations, and her being the ‘adult’, thus her word is always superior to mine etc. I also see some of this here, the post that I linked squeezed in the misguided comments of a 15 year old, almost as if my age gives me no right to a fair argument. I thereby request that age and status in society be ignored for the remainder of our mission to educate OP on his task of heading to Harvard, because I could care less if your rich, poor, a 50 year old man or woman, because these things do not mean a damn when it comes to arguments. Everyone has equal rights to argument and freedom of debate and explanation, because I can just as easily say that the posters here are all ignorant adults who have their heads so far up their *** because their little angels went to Harvard, and that their way is the only way, which completely inaccurate.</p>
<p>I will repeat myself again, the best advice we can give to OP is to have a positive grade trend, and ( I quote this ), decent enough grades to not be immediately removed from the pool. I don’t demand of OP to have perfect grades, because quite frankly some people have different ways of using knowledge, which does not involve absorbing random jargon and regurgitating when needed. Your way DOES work, again I will say that your way DOES INFACT WORK. I say this because your children accomplished the task this specific way, thus not even me can argue that your way does in fact work. However some kids are like oceans of ideas, they seem to think whatever they please and come up with completely out of the box explanations and solutions to problems. I will also say that the grades of these students will suffer, mainly because they will solve problems and come up with solutions that the teacher has no idea about, thus can’t grade accurately, and generally get’s an F due to ‘off topic’ of some other BS excuse. </p>
<p>OP is not a student that can do the things that your kids do, and thus we must come up with radical new ideas and suggestions in order to help OP, and many other students who simply can’t get good grades due to their neural map. Some people say that I ‘hijacked’ this forum in order to sabotage the good posters giving excellent advice (which mainly contains no you will not get in), in fact, I decided to assume leadership and lead the posters in order to use our collective intelligence to come up with a radical new idea in order to get OP into Harvard.</p>
<p>One crucial flaw that we committed when we let our ego’s get the better of us is actually focusing on OP. With the exception of track, we have no idea what EC OP does, EXACTLY what his academic stats are, (we can assume GPA from grades he has posted, but it is very vague and does not give much info), or even who OP is as a person. We do not know of his personality, as posters repeatedly put him down and caused him to stop commenting on his own post, nor do we know of any significant abilities or gifts that OP has that can help us with placing him in Harvard. We let him down, and we must make it up to him by actually coming up with a plan that molds to OP, and will play to his strengths and reinforce his weaknesses in order to compete with the other applicants.</p>
<p>I also wish to give advice to you, many posts nowadays are very negative/appeal to only extremely high achieving schoolchildren. One OP posted ways in kids went to Harvard, he was replied with many ways (not very helpful), and gibby basically told him to go find out yourself. If someone is posting a post, he or she expects that this community will answer his question and whim, and if that proves difficult, work with OP to formulate an effective game plan for his goals. Some kids don’t post because they believe that they won’t even see the gates of Harvard because of their sup perfect grades, some assume it’s full of nerds and don’t bother, and some simply see it as a over inflated piece of paper that get’s you into the family and thus a free ride to riches. This epidemic of negative advice is hurting both poster and OP. </p>
<p>One person here said that he would not let his son apply to Harvard if his test scores did not go up, because that will mean that he is not good enough for the competitive environment. I take pity on this because poster likely does not understand exactly how learning is supposed to work. In the future, if my children tell me father, I want to do…, but I don’t have this or that, I will promptly show him the value of hard work. If you have a person who struggles in school, the best thing you can do for the student is put him in an even harder situation. I have seen that AP/Honors classes have more open minded topics, encourage you to think outside the box to solve the difficult assignments, and most importantly demand that you QUESTION the material taught, and to innovate and replace inferior material with more advanced material. Schools are very afraid of letting kids take AP/Honors classes tho, I had both guidance and teachers lie to my face and make a whole conspiracy before I knew the truth on getting in. They tell me I MUST HAVE AN A+, and that I MUST HAVE A RECOMENDATION from the teacher. This allows docile/teacher pets to go to honors and AP, and more radical minds such as myself to stay in CP and regular classes and be fed more bull**** that won’t even help me in my future. I later learned that I am a teachers worst nightmare in these classes, likely because my ideas will likely erode at his, and my skill at getting students to join my side (charisma, football popularity), makes life difficult for them.</p>
<p>Luckily I was very good friends with one teacher, and she told me a little backdoor method to get in, and needless to say I am going into 2 honors and 2 AP, I think the ooly student in my class doing this in such an early age (entering soph). The teachers begged me and implored me, concerned for my future and my ‘Harvard aspirations’. I had them in my pocket, and It was fun. But before I begin a tangent I will like to head back to our plan for OP.</p>
<p>First, OP needs to give much more info about himself. I assume that you know quite abit about me in these posts that I have been writing, we need to learn more about OP than you know about me in order for plan to work.</p>
<p>We need to come up with ideas for OP, how can he raise grades a tad bit higher, how to best remember tests, best things that he can do to stand out etc.</p>
<p>And last but not least we must GET ALONG, NO MORE BULL**** AND ARGUING ABOUT WHO’S PLAN IS SUPERIOR. No plan survives first contact with the enemy/problem, and every plan that I have can easily be destroyed, and the reverse is true for other posters if we get different kids of students. We must work together, for the sake of OP, to get his *** into Harvard.</p>
<p>Any concerns or ideas, post away for OP and us to see.</p>
<p>Paul, I’m a teenager, and so I won’t be talking down to you on the basis of age, or discrediting you with ad hominem attacks (although I’m not convinced that anyone has done that to you anyways). What follows are my speculations- based on logic. No, I have not been admitted to any college yet (applying this year), so ‘no’, I have no experience as of yet.</p>
<p>I think that there are two major issues with your ‘strategy’ that need to be addressed:</p>
<ol>
<li>You’re right when you say that you don’t need ‘perfect grades’ or ‘high scores’ to be accepted at Harvard, theoretically. If you were to cure cancer, then yes, I’m relatively sure that you’d be accepted irrespective of your scores/grades. However, the problem is that Harvard only has ~2000 seats, and they receive well over 6000 (guesstimate- but I think I’ve seen similar info elsewhere) applicants with very good grades/scores and exceptional achievements. Even if your hypothetical applicant with a 3.2 GPA wrote two published novels- odds are, Harvard can find a kid with a 3.8 GPA and two published novels in its applicant pool. Alternatively, Harvard could even just accept a super-accomplished musician with a 3.9 ahead of your hypothetical applicant. </li>
</ol>
<p>Yes, you can theoretically be exceptional enough to be accepted ahead of everyone else, but I don’t think you realize how high that bar is set. It’s just not viable to set ‘exceptional accomplishment’ as your Harvard acceptance strategy, as I’d guess that the odds of achieving something remarkable enough to differentiate yourself in that applicant pool and compensate for poor grades/scores are low enough that you’re better off taking a shot with the Harvard acceptance rate. The achievement would have to be truly remarkable. Generally, it’s also true that such an achievement will never be possible if the goal is only ‘Harvard acceptance’. Truly great doings are borne out of passion and talent.</p>
<ol>
<li>You still disregard ‘fit’. There are people in this world who aren’t intellectuals. They aren’t less valuable, but they’re undeniably different. These people should probably not apply to Harvard. This isn’t because they don’t ‘deserve’ Harvard, but more because Harvard appears to foster a culture of intellectualism and a genuine love of learning, and people who don’t share these ideals won’t fit in, and they’d probably be screened out during the applications irrespective. </li>
</ol>
<p>One shouldn’t be choosing Harvard four years before college applications and then building a ‘Harvard CV’. One should be doing what one loves, achieving in areas of interest and living life to the fullest. Then, a year before application time, one should allow some time for introspection, evaluate one’s true interests and talents, and then decide where to apply. If one discovers, a year before application time, that the GPA is just uncompetitive- then, odds are, one isn’t much of a fit anyways. I’m not sure why the situation of ‘my GPA and scores are waaay too low, but I desperately want Harvard’ should ever arise… The element of prestige has perverted the admissions process.
This obviously wouldn’t apply as much for athletes who are interested in Harvard for the sporting opportunities…</p>
<p>In the immortal words of that brilliant philosopher Charlie Brown, “Good grief”.</p>
<p>^^ That should inspire another 10 paragraph diatribe.</p>
<p>@Falcon1 </p>
<p>My comment? Oops.</p>
<p>Sorry! </p>
<p>@Bemusedfyz, don’t feel bad, we all got sucked in for a while 
</p>
<p>No, I meant my Charlie Brown comment. I should have known better :)</p>
<p>Oh well, it seems that you simply can’t have cooperation in this forum. Thank you bem for writing an intelligent response to my 10 paragraph diatribe :D. You are correct that a standout or hook will have to be immense, something that truly stands out, that’s the point of having that weight which allows you to well standout. As the fools in this thread don’t seem to listen, and I doubt they even read my response, which was long for a reason, I’m going to stick with assisting OP’s the correct way, by formatting a plan to gain admission to the college of their choice.</p>
<p>I understand your view on prestige, however Harvard offers so many more opportunities that it’s simply unfathomable to refuse it to a normal college. Some people that are not intellectuals is not the point, intellectual can mean many things, not just book smart. However one thing that I don’t understand is the you can’t fit in excuse. If you place someone who may not necessarily be a good academic fit at Harvard, he will mold and become a much more educated person as a result.</p>
<p>The reason our generation does this is because college is generally worthless nowadays excluding the top tier schools, or significant financial aid colleges (military academies are quite good aswell). To get into debt for a piece of paper that will rarely get you a job, much less pay for itself is utterly ridiculous. The schools should be teaching ways of business, ways of higher thinking so a person can create their own lifestyle and be happy, with the capital to do what they wish, and with the freedom to enjoy life, instead of grinding.</p>
<p>Fools don’t seem to understand, they think that it’s a joke that kids can go in with ‘inferior’ stats. I for one won’t stand misinformation being spread, and if anyone wishes to adopt the idea of working with the applicant and leading them, then I applaud them, however if they wish to not help people, then I don’t see the point of a helpful forum. I however wish for you to continue to try to resist, as I can sense that my version, and your version will help applicants very well, as we will both pressure them to work, and lead them to success.</p>
<p>Also, remember it’s the OP’s choice of school, they can say community college, which will make our job easy, or Harvard which will make our job much more difficult. </p>
<p>“As the fools in this thread…”</p>
<p>Oh, dear me. Now we’re fools, LOL.</p>
<p>It’s not possible to take you seriously.</p>
<p>Likewise friend, a toast to the fools in the thread.</p>
<p>This ‘fool’ visited </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profile/100217308/Paul13375”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profile/100217308/Paul13375</a></p>
<p>and clicked Ignore… Simple enough, peace on earth restored… </p>
<p>@Paul13375 Again, it’s “I couldn’t care less”, because “I could care less” means it is important… (Post #62, your first paragraph)</p>
<p>Very entertaining, this thread. Hope the OP got the advice he/she needed. </p>
<p>^ Amen, I’m sure he did. Tho it was fun arguing, I think OP has plenty of info to meet his Harvard expectations.</p>
<p>I’m ready. Let the fun begin. Thank you all.</p>