Greetings all,
Question for the hive mind: For the parents who are in the middle of, or just finishing getting their kiddos through high school (BS, private or public), I’m curious: do you think it’s better for kids to be ‘pointy’ through HS (meaning ONLY math, ONLY music, ONLY art, ONLY debate, ONLY baseball, etc.), or is it better to be ‘round’ (meaning math, AND music AND art AND debate AND baseball, etc.)
I’ve been talking to parents whose kids have recently gone through the college admissions process and the responses have been mixed. Can you share your thoughts?
Thanks so much!
For ECs….your kid needs to do what they enjoy doing…not what you or anyone else thinks will enhance their college prospects. If they like doing sports, music and the school play…so be it. If they on,y like music, or sports, or whatever…so be it.
Let your kid be your kid.
27 Likes
I’m in agreement with @thumper1
By the time HS rolls around, kids should choose EC’s they enjoy and learn from and contribute to.
That said, the kid who does “math, AND music AND art AND debate AND baseball” is likely not doing them all well. And more probably, is mediocre in most. With exceptions, of course.
For classes, most high schools correctly require breadth. Few colleges expect, or want, applicants to specialize in high school; that’s what grad school is for. Doubling up courses in an area of interest is fine, but not at the expense of other core subjects.
Great advice, thumper1! The problem is there are only 24 hours in a day… how to choose? Narrow down to 1 focus, or 2-3 disparate activities?
Your KID chooses.
We had a kid who had been in youth orchestra for three years. Senior year that kid wanted to take a course which involved practicals every Sunday…at the same time. We didn’t make the choice…the kid made the choice. And it had nothing to do with what would look better for college.
We had a second kid who had to choose between a music lesson time and a school sport. Again…kid made the choice and it had nothing to do with college.
For the record, our kids each studied two musical instruments, participated in precollege wind ensemble and orchestra, and did one sport season per year. NOTE…not one sport per season but one per academic year.
And both still found time for the annual school plays, and outside of school activities.
And they both got accepted to the colleges of choice.
What they had when college application time came was what went on their college applications. They didn’t choose activities to impress college adcoms.
Adding…we could only drive them to so many places. A good carpool is a key!
5 Likes
I think it depends on what the childs goal is. Theres thousands of colleges in the US and many will give a good education with solid job prospects upon graduation.
I have one of those odd kids who likes to do many things. Going to a T20 pressure cooker type school would be hell for him. He likes to learn but doesn’t love anything he deems as “busy work.”
His low GPA has nothing to do with his intelligence and everything to do with his adhd and hatred of how certain teachers run their classes. He’s stubborn and bullheaded.
To sum up my kids classes: He will take only 2 AP courses and has completed a few other “honors” courses as well as a college level course. He was pushed 2 years ahead in math but stopped after precalc. At his school, his preference of continuing with band and choir affected his other course choices. Im letting him take the electives of his choice senior year and he chose leadership, autos, and an internship class because he prefers hands on type classes with real world application. He got a 35 composite ACT (36 in science). He is not taking math or science senior year.
His EC’s are all over the place: Football (nationally ranked team and multi year state champs). Track. Rugby (state champs). Skiing (raced and teaches lessons). 3 choirs (won top scores for his solo at State and sings in an acapella group). Band (has been in top 3 for his instrument all through high school). Will have 9 musicals in by graduation.
Add in worked 3 different jobs and is skilled at farm work and caring for farm animals.
End of the day he will likely choose a college that isnt in the T100 lists. He will be happy and successful regardless.
4 Likes
here’s the starting point: better for what?
For getting into a college that you/they can be “proud” to tell people about?
For growing into themselves?
And here’s the finish: how - and why- do you make a kid be what they are not? Your kid is already pointy or round or whatever shape they are. Time to lean into the kid you have, not try to make that kid be what you think is “better” for getting the right college sweatshirt.
6 Likes
This focus on making choices based on what “looks better” of a college profile is toxic and wrong.
The entire concept is based on the toxic idea that a kid’s high school education and activities are there for the sole reason of creating a profile that is attractive to the 30 or so colleges with acceptance rates of under 25%.
It treats classes as something that a kid should have on their transcript, not something that the kid should learn. It pushes the idea that it doesn’t matter whether they end up knowing anything, it only matters that they take these classes and get As on them.
It treats extracurricular activities as things that a kid should do in order to in order to rack up awards, prizes, and hours of activity. It doesn’t matter whether the ECs help the kid develop intellectually, socially, and emotionally. It doesn’t matter whether these activities help the kid learn what they are good at, or allow the kid to explore interests and mental spaces. It doesn’t matter that the kid’s social action teachers the kid to be a better person, nor does it matter whether the action actually even helps anybody. It only matters that is adds a “spike” of awards, recognition, or hours spent.
The focus of being “round” or “pointy” does not teach kids to take joy in exploring intellectual, cultural, and artistic pursuits, it does not teach kids to help and support others. No, it teaches them that nothing is worth doing unless there is an award or a prize, and that the only reason to help others is to benefit oneself in a financial or social way.
No wonder kids get to college without intellectual curiosity. Their parents have taught them that nothing is worth learning for the sake of learning. Unless it maximizes one’s chances at “getting into Harvard” (or Yale, or whatever), it is not worth doing.
No wonder our college students are so selfish. They were taught to engage in things like social activity just so that they could have “was president of non-profit” on their college resume.
Stop planning high schools with “getting into an elite college” in mind.
College is the next stage in the kid’s academic career, and any “college planning” should be making sure that kids gets what they need from high school to allow them to continue their path. If they do not actually know what path they want to take, than they should take courses that will provide them a well-rounded education. That path can be through college to to the professions, and the course selection should be dependent on this.
A kid doing their best at all of their classes should be aim and purpose of every high school student, regardless of their post graduation plans. Same for taking the most challenging classes that the kid can deal with. They should be doing that regardless of whether they want to attend college or become a master welder. The level of rigor will depend on what the academic abilities of a kid is in that topic, and the kid should take the classes with the maximum rigor in which they can still gain mastery of the class.
The point of extracurriculars is for the kids to be able to engage in activities that are NOT connected to their classwork and homework. Extracurriculars are there so that kids can engage in things that the enjoy, things that fulfill them, things that allow them to explore their academic, intellectual, artistic, cultural, social, and emotional interests and passions. These are where kids learn to be their best selves.
Planning extracurricular activities to optimize college admissions destroys all of that. It is the absolutely best way to rob these activities of the joy that they bring, destroy the kids’ passions, and to destroy the generosity and compassion that pushes kids to engage in social activism.
“Deciding whether the kid should be pointy or round” is literally planning extracurricular activities for the sole purpose of admissions to “elite” colleges.
The answer to “round or pointy” is:
It does not matter. It only matters where the kid’s interests, passions, and talents lead them. Some kids are pointy, other are round, some are oblongs, and other are tetrahedrons.
Let them be who are are, and don’t try to force them to be somebody else because you believe that who they are is not what some set of “elite” colleges is more likely to accept.
In any case, for >90% of all colleges out there, if they have the set of required courses, decent grades, and some extracurricular activities (or none), they will be accepted and get a great education.
Wisconsin, UIUC, Iowa, Rutgers, Kansas, UMN, etc, etc, etc, do not care whether a kid is “pointy” or “round”. In fact, UCLA and Berkeley don’t really either.
So aside from the issues of curating a kid for “elite” colleges, this is an issue which is meaningless for >95% of all college-bound students. So, as often happens in CC, the discussion really only pertains to around 2% of all families with college-bound kids, mostly from the top 5% by income.
12 Likes
For classes, getting a well rounded base curriculum is important for preparation to succeed at any college:
Of course, a student can choose additional advanced classes in subjects of interest within the space left over for electives.
1 Like
Thanks, MWolf! I wholeheartedly agree! I appreciate your passion!
Am I missing something? I just read this question as “what are colleges looking for these days?” Not “how do I curate my kid for optimum results?”
There are kids out there who love doing lots of stuff for fun not for glory, and they get pressure from all kinds of sources (including their peers) to prune themselves for stronger growth in one area. Starts really young, too - traveling club teams at age 8 anyone? Commit to math competitions by age 10 or you’ll never catch up. That’s a lot of pressure.
I don’t fault a parent for wondering aloud whether the pruning is a good thing. Is the trade off worth it? Does it matter in college apps? In life? It is an obvious question for the parent of a jack-of-all trades kid to ponder precisely for the reasons people point out.
My own thoughts are that pointy is in vogue right now for colleges. Not long ago well-rounded was the thing. A parent can, and should, take note of that when determining how important of a data point that is to their particular kid. And how important the college rat race is to them. It isn’t a thought crime to mull it over - the earlier the better. It isn’t the end of the inquiry. It is the beginning.
It feels awfully harsh to condemn someone for just asking the question. Especially because so many parents grapple with it.
8 Likes
Pointy has been in vogue for a while. My nephew graduated from Yale over 10 years ago and said they were looking for pointy people when he was applying.
1 Like
Could be, I wasn’t attempting to be precise about the timing. But kids used to get advice not that long ago to be well-rounded. If it was not that way across the various prestige-y schools, I have no way of knowing. Point is, pointy is in now.
For the most selective colleges, wouldn’t the answer by “both”? I.e. they expect top-end academic achievement in all of the usual high school academic subjects (i.e. “well rounded”) and also some outstanding (state or national level) achievement in something (i.e. “pointy”) for unhooked applicants.
1 Like
Both of our kids did what was right for them. My wife and I did the same thing years ago. Each of us however did very different things.
Then we looked to find the school that fit us, rather than fit ourselves to any particular school.
So far this seems to be working for all of us.
Exactly.
10 Likes
FWIW, Brown’s AO (and presumably others) seems to work from a modified version of “both”, weighting a particular EC in the context of relevance to the intended major (if declared) or general area of academic interest (LA vs STEM). So Level 10 in Violin would count for more in the case of a Music aspirant than it would for an Engineering one. Likewise, first place in the state robotics competition might not do much for the cause of a would-be Poet.
1 Like
While I more or less heartily agree with all of the above about the toxicity and futility of spending high school tailoring oneself for what “looks good” to colleges, I just want to say that hoping that your child will be accepted to one of those “elite” colleges can have meaning beyond a sweatshirt or bragging rights mentioned by a poster earlier in the thread.
At least for my kid, getting into a college that truly meets need (or one with a full merit scholarship) as well as having a fighting chance at a competitive outside scholarship was an important goal in her senior year. My kid did not shape her interests or activities around that as a sole goal. Particularly in freshman and sophomore year, she did what she wanted and followed her interests/fancies/whims (sometimes to my chagrin), but I do get the sense that she made some strategic choices at the end of 11th grade, particularly around running for leadership opportunities that she would not have made if she hadn’t been worried about college.
Did pursuing leadership in those ECs make a difference in her college acceptances? No idea. Actually, I hope not. I think she was a pretty cool kid before she became president or head of this or that. I would hate to think that it was necessary for her prove herself pointy enough or round enough. But did her college acceptances and their financial packages make a difference in our family budget and the ways that I can support her siblings? Absolutely. Being admitted to a college that gives full cost of attendance with no loans to families that make under certain incomes is extraordinarily helpful and that kind of aid package is only routinely offered by a small number of colleges (mostly elite).
So I am agreeing with the above post, but I am also saying that for families without 529s or savings or assets, chasing certain colleges and scholarships is about more than prestige.
7 Likes
That is exactly the point though: she made the choices.
Completely understand families being clear about the financial element, and even working with the student to figure out the pathways that make sense for both them and the family finances.
There is ambiguity in the question from the OP, but I submit that the question is inherently loaded, particularly with the use of the word “best”, and the OP’s follow up question on ‘how to choose’ points more to curating than theoretical musing.
‘Pointy v rounded’ is only ever going to be at the margins of college selection not least because there are only so many truly pointy kids. Further, college adcomms signal their evolving wish lists are pretty clearly- and parents, teachers & ambitious students dutifully curate the HS experience to meet those criteria.
That’s exactly how community involvement for college apps went from getting (imaginary) gold stars on your application for having community service to community service trips to starting your own charity to being a part of a continuing initiative in your own community to working an actual paid job over the course of our collegekid’s HS eras.
1 Like
Here’s my question:
How do you mold a pointy kid into a rounded one, or vice versa? 
1 Like
I think good high schools do so by requiring a broad variety of courses including athletics, art and music. One of my kids would never have considered being on a tennis team but for the school’s requirement of team participation. Though she disliked some of it, We both agree it was good for her overall.
3 Likes