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Will he? He’s spent almost a year now not writing that thesis. His GPA is south of a 3.0. Not sure how far south. My sister-in-law is still 20 years later an incomplete short of graduating from U of Chicago.</p>
<p>…and my D. had easiest time in her Honors college English and while many would say that writing is not important for pre-med, I disagree. First, English / writing has been her hieghest score in every standardized test well compensating for low Reading score. One need a decent overall score to get accepted. Second, she nailed those long tedeous science lab reports (all of science classes have labs, Chem, Physics, Bio…). She worte grant proposals and received grants for her research at Med. Research lab. She wrote numerous essays for various scholarship applications, and not the least, her application to Med. Schools. Fast writing and very well writen paper has been a huge plus for my D. and I bet that it will always serv her well. However, while she seem to have certain natural ability, she definitely polished her skill by working extremely hard writing and re-writing her papers in HS, including those numerous application essays (many for Merit scholarships), there is no doubt about it. So, my advise is to do it while they have time in HS, there will be no time in college and beyond, they will have to be much faster there.</p>
<p>I think hiring a counselor depends on your individual circumstances. Personally I think financial counselor is more important. What I am struggling with now is how to target my DD to best schools based on our circumstances. I read a lot on CC, but always worry that I might be missing something. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>A lot of kids graduating from top schools cannot write well enough to do entry level jobs that require to the point writing. My oldest has s job that requires a lot of writing. His field in college was Technical Writing, and he struggled with it at college. But he learned to write the way one needs to do so in business, and according to those at his firm, it’s a rare thing. They always have a hard time filling those spots and have a number of young college grads that had to be placed elsewhere in the company because they could not “get it” fast enough to do the writing part of the job. An old friends’ DD who is a Columbia Journalism School grad after getting an English degree an a great LAC has a similar position, and she says the same about that part of the job at her firm. Finding those who can meet the mark after being trained is difficult. She feels it’s ridiculous that someone with her writing credentials is what is needed to fill those positions, but at the same time, she sees that young college grads from some great name schools are not able to hold their own in the field. DH has the same problem in his consulting practice and young people.</p>
<p>Lacrossemom, finding a financial advisor who is savvy about college nuances and practices, getting down to the nitty gritty of which colleges do things which way is very difficult if not impossible. My excellent accountant knows less than I do about college financial aid issues except as tax items Start talking PROFILE and his hands go up into the air. I don’t guess his clientele include many families who worry about EFC. But he can whip an analysis as to which federal/state tax credit or law can work for one’s particular situation. There is a marked abyss in the field of knowledge of financial aid and college planning taking the college aid/scholarship picture in to mind. Those firms that advertise and offer scholarship finding services are truly lacking in the whole picture in this area, at least I’ve yet to come across one that has it. Heck, if one exists, I’m personally interested enough to hire one to tutor me through situations, as this niche is one that I find very interesting, as all of you on CC well know from my presence on the financial aid boards.</p>
<p>Ana1 - the activities list you mentioned in post 49 is written in a cringeworthy manner. It’s awful. It is overwrought and stilted and treats the reader like an idiot. The kid was a production assistant or stage manager for XYZ play put on by ABC theater company. That’s it.</p>
<p>cpt I agree with this about the financial counseling available. Parents just aren’t getting good information on this in general-I know of a couple of situations with people who I am very friendly with who are now in the awful position of having their kids get into their top choice school but not being able to afford it-the school was great with the academic advising but gave little information on how to pay for it.</p>
<p>I wonder how they will chose. If they don’t want to disappoint their kids they are going to put themselves in so much debt that I am concerned for them-but this happens a lot and it really shouldn’t.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, I’m glad you weren’t saying writing isn’t important, which is what it sounded like. It’s all very well to say a student should learn to write in high school, lots of schools aren’t teaching writing very well. (Whether colleges do any better is an open question…) As to writing fast and basically handing in your first drafts, for most people that’s not going to be good enough.</p>
<p>I don’t know the answer either Pepper. Our family is pretty much out of the picture for financial aid. I guess we would qualify for about $5K for the one year that we have two in college, if both went to top priced schools and that would be from FAFSA calculations. A little subsidy on the loans is all we would get. For a lark (well, really because I wanted to get information and learn), I went to financial aid sessions for which my kids’ independent school paid. getting an outside professional/specialist to give this information because the school’s college counseling office was so bereft of any such info. That “expert” was not useful at all, zero. Kept referring everyone to “your private accountant” as though people who need financial aid have any such thing as a matter of course. I understand that she could not give tax advice, but she should have been able to narrow the material down so that an accountant could see the issue. I told her right to her face that there is no accountant I know who could manage that material in that form and answer those questions. There was a lot of college financial aid rules stuff that she needed to address and put together so then the focus would be the tax question which could then be directed to the matter at hand. SHe had no idea what I was saying, and I’ll tell you, her advice and the information session was complete waste of time. More information from most any general financial aid article one could have gotten in a minute flat from the internet.</p>
<p>You are right! My husband and I are both CPA’s and we didn’t know the nitty gritty of this. </p>
<p>We are not trained in this area and there isn’t enough volume at a typical firm to spend a lot of time on this.</p>
<p>I think what I might try and do is talk to the local HS and offer to go in with my husband and speak about this-starting next fall-my daughter will be a HS Sophomore and I know the parents would get a lot out of it. I already saw with my son’s friends how the finances are more often than not the deciding factor of where the student ends up going-not the academics.</p>
<p>Of course the academics are very important for where you can get accepted but the paying part just doesn’t get the attention it needs because in the end that is many times the deciding factor. We had a presentation at his school in Junior year and they talked about the FAFSA and CSS Profile but not in the real terms parents need. They told you apply wherever you like-the money will all work out somehow-I know if you’ve been to one you know what I mean.</p>
<p>We used a college consultant for 1 purpose - to identify schools that matched our children’s particular needs, interests, goals, etc. We found a very knowledgeable gentleman who was low-pressure and did his job superbly. Our children ended up at very different schools that matched each to a T and, to be honest, schools I never would have thought of and, in one case, had never heard of before. </p>
<p>Couldn’t be happier (them or us!)</p>
<p>@pizzagirl, “The kid was a production assistant or stage manager for XYZ play put on by ABC theater company. That’s it.”</p>
<p>That is exactly the mistake that people make. Many students do not do anything on their ECs, just go there, or perform minimal duties. The description of the EC validated that she was an active participant in the EC and demonstrated the individual skills/virtues that this student has. This description is what differentiated her from another student who just listed the ECs without offering brief descriptions of what they did.</p>
<p>mathmom,
I was saying that “writing fast” could be only achieved thru ton of practice, which my D. had at her HS. English (and another one - History) were the most time consuming classes in her HS. I really do not remember her doing much of anything else in her Junior / Senior years…and I am talking about future pre-med. Constant re-writing of her papers…to the point that sometime I simply had to put the end to it, then she would switch to endless History discussions with her father. Well, somehow it did not kill her love for writing but did not overcome her hate for History.<br>
If they do not write for hours and endless hours in HS, I do not believe that they will learn how to do it well and fast in college and beyond.</p>
<p>Is this about college consultants or about kid’s ability to write?</p>
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</p>
<p>It was HORRIBLY written. As I said in the earlier thread, it would be like putting down you were a waitress and saying, “To help people with accessing food, I brought them menus. After they decided, I wrote down what they wanted and gave it to the kitchen staff. To make their experience better, I served the food in a timely manner. Afterwards, I thanked them and brought them the check. Additionally, I said goodbye when they left.” Terribly written.</p>
<p>I agree with Pizzagirl that the activity description was horribly overwrought and cringeworthy. </p>
<p>Being an assistant director for a play isn’t an unusual activity. Adcoms have an idea of what that means and what ADs do, so there’s no reason for a student to waste the adcom’s time with a redundant description. What the student should be doing is either mentioning things that are out of the ordinary (working with fireworks :)), or showing how the activity was unique, either in terms of the contribution the student made to the activity or how it affected the student. A kid who’s an actor or budding playwright who works as an AD to get a better understanding of the entire dramatic process–that’s compelling. Writing explicitly about a passion for all things theater just squashes the sentiment. It’s like writing a personal ad where you say you have a sense of humor. OK, maybe a 17 year old doesn’t know these things; isn’t that the entire purpose of the consultant?</p>
<p>Compare the writing samples that Hernandez gives versus the examples in Harry Bauld’s (much more enjoyable) book on college essays. No contest who is eliciting better writing, with a more genuine voice. </p>
<p>There was some really good discussion of how to expand or describe an activity in that link to the Hernandez activities list thread. No one suggested going with the awful description that Hernandez listed.</p>
<p>My son with under a 3.0 average and a 1300 (2 part) SAT was admitted to a number of selective schools that floored a lot of people except for the fact that he was a Performing Arts applicant. But he did not get into the programs of choice and was accepted to the Arts and Sciences parts of some schools, as English, THeatre, Liberal Studies, etc major. That boy had a set of essays that made your hair stand up straight, and that example could have come right off of his activities resume. He actually got phone call, notes comments about his essays and supplement: they were so over the top. His college counselors just read them in shock at his school and tried to get him to redo them, but that was him. I joke now that his stuff was probably the only interesting reading in the batch, as he had to attach an “explanation” packet to his application due to his disciplinary issues in high school. You had better believe the adcoms read them/ </p>
<p>But there is risk at doing these sort of things because you can offend just as easily as you can dazzle and it often depends on who is sitting there reading your file. You write about the joys of running, and your reader is sick and tired of the subject having read 3 other essays like that one and having a soon to be ex who loves running better than her, and you are going to get a different outcome than if your reader is an avid runner himself.</p>
<p>I worked at a high school where the typical student could write better essays than most highly educated 50 year olds. And as an admissions officer at an ivy I read many brilliant ones. So really, I don’t think there are many readers who finger essays as “written by adults”. Isn’t that what the applicants are?</p>
<p>Many if not most of the applicants are 17, so no, they’re not legally adults. Functionally, they’re mostly not adults. </p>
<p>“Written by adults” here isn’t a compliment. It’s an accusation. :)</p>
<p>My kids went to such a high school, Waverly. And many of those kids’ essays were finely crafted and edited to a point that it is difficult to say who wrote them. And those kids have very high acceptance rates to the most selective schools, so I don’t believe the admission officers BS about being able to pick out essays that are over edited. </p>
<p>If you want my opinion, the essay in the writing part of the SAT should be carefully examined. That’ll give a sure fire example of a kids’ writing.You never know who the heck fills out the appliications, essays and resumes these days.</p>