<p>I agree with anon_person: It's just weird and creepy that the advice is to pour your passions, your personality, your soul into your application - and then they reject most applicants. It's sort of sadistic.</p>
<p>Maybe all you students should organize a national boycott. Only academic credentials go on applications for next year!</p>
<p>The objection is that schools don't want kids that are academic-oriented robots. That always makes me laugh. Do you know ANY kids who are achievement-oriented zombies? I've honestly never met any young person who meets this description!</p>
<p>What do all of you high school students posting here do with your free time? What do you think is healthy for your development to do during the summer?</p>
<p>If Harvard and a few others put out a policy statement in their admissions material stating that they will not view more than two AP courses positively and will give no considertion to ECs beyond a student's favorite two, many other schools would adopt similar policies.</p>
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If Harvard and a few others put out a policy statement in their admissions material stating that they will not view more than two AP courses positively and will give no considertion to ECs beyond a student's favorite two, many other schools would adopt similar policies.
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<p>If schools only look at two AP classes, then students lose the incentive to take more.</p>
<p>Willow, if you can't handle more than 2 AP classes with multiple ECs, then stay at home and let the titans roam.</p>
<p>I agree. Now is not the time for America's best institutions of higher education to go lax on their applicants, especially when the economy is so global and other nations are already ahead of us in terms of intelligence for many fields.</p>
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If Harvard and a few others put out a policy statement in their admissions material stating that they will not view more than two AP courses positively and will give no considertion to ECs beyond a student's favorite two
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<p>Why would Harvard (or any other college) want to do that? </p>
<p>Sigh. There are only 20 or so schools in the entire country that accept fewer than 20% of their applicants, and there are certainly another 20 or 30 schools that are just a bit less selective but very similar in quality to those few most selective schools where a very competitive applicant can be happy, well-educated, and just as well-off overall as at HYPMS. And you don't have to kill yourself to get in. If you believe that you can only be a success if you go to Harvard, then this process IS exceedingly difficult--but why would you think that? Last time I checked, most people (re: basically everybody) do not attend Harvard--and yet they somehow survive and even thrive in this world! I see people who say/write that you get a huge leg up in the world coming from HYPMS...maybe. But I believe--truly believe--that that is less and less true all the time. At one point, these people were probably right--there were very, very few spots for the unconnected and uninitiated in this world. That will always be the case to an extent, but as time goes by, the importance of those connections will fade as fewer people attend those schools (as a % of the ever growing population) and the overall quality of the other top tier schools rises. Plus of course, it has always been the case that the exceptional and driven will rise to the top from whatever circumstances in life. </p>
<p>brand_182, if we want to keep up with the world, we need to reform our K-12 education first and foremost. I have no interest in changing the admissions process as far as AP's and the like--it is the way it is because it needs to be like that--but Harvard going "lax" on it's applicants would not further jeopardize the US's future in the international world, in my opinion,.</p>
<p>very true. it just seems that if harvard et al were to view taking more APs negatively as this OP suggests, it would influence high school students to notbe as competitive and in doing so not be as intelligent either.</p>
<p>The truth is that there are many, many successful and intelligent people applying who could clearly do the work. With so many of these individuals vying for a limited number of spots, it's to be expected that some wont get in who are qualified. We should expect that, and we have to accept it. What we should not do is change the qualifications and competition required to get in. Some people will work harder, and obsess about getting something. But my tendency is to think that we don't make a hard sport easier just because some kids are willing to train a lot harder before they get there.</p>
<p>I agree with that. Plus, what I feel that gets lost in these articles is the fact that a lot of times, people push themselves more for their own personal satisfaction than anything. I know that's how I am, and while I know very well that many kids are doing the work and the activities for the wrong reasons, I have to believe that there are plenty of kids who are just plain driven. I think that I would be driven whether college admissions were easier or not, and I don't regret doing any of the things that I did, even though it didn't lead to THE ultimate college name bragging rights. If you're smart, you're smart, and not getting into Harvard can't take that away from you.</p>