<p>I have noticed that many people seem to think that Harvard will only accept abnormal people with "passion" in a subject (something I would call a college whore). Although there are a few with genuine passion, the majority are college whores. </p>
<p>Do schools like Harvard ever accept the guy down the street who just does his homework everyday (and pulls of top notch grades), works out, and hangs out with his friends with the rest of his time rather than "doing groundbreaking research" with his local college professor (who may not give you the most intellectually demanding work to do), or devoting all of his free time to a homeless shelter (which is certainly abnormal)?</p>
<p>Does Harvard ever accept people of normal temperament, but abnormal natural academic ability?</p>
<p>Harvard has hundreds of student-run clubs including a daily newspaper that is run by students even though they don't get paid and Harvard has no journalism program. There also are several other student publications even though students get no course credit for participating in them.</p>
<p>When the yearly "First Arts" weekend festival is held, each hour, there are about 8 different student music and dance performances mostly by students who sing, dance, play instruments simply for fun, not because they plan to become professional musicians or dancers.</p>
<p>Each year, there are at least 60 student theater performances even though Harvard has no drama department.</p>
<p>Harvard has more NCAA division one athletic teams than does any other university. In addition, many students participate in intramurals.</p>
<p>Phillips Brooks House is a student-run community service organization that is one of the most popular activities on campus despite the fact that Harvard has no community service requirements. It provides CS throughout the area including some projects that students create and obtain grants to run.</p>
<p>So -- in answer to your question -- Harvard is not looking for normal people who want to spend the bulk of their time just hanging out with friends. Harvard looks for very intelligent Type As with excellent grades whose idea of hanging out with friends is working hard with their friends in a school club or other productive activity,.</p>
<p>True, there aren't a lot of people who fill that bill, but Harvard can find enough to fill up its classes. No matter how much students on CC and elsewhere think that they can fake passions, they can't. It is very easy to tell by essays, recommendations and interviews who is truly interested in their activities and who's doing those things just to try to impress adcoms. There are very few students with excellent stats and a passion for academics and at least one EC.</p>
<p>That's why one hears about students with sky high stats who feel that Harvard made a mistake by rejecting them. There was no mistake. In many cases, the students were what you call "college whores: who didn't have what it takes.</p>
<p>wait, wait, sai2004.</p>
<p>so your question is basically: "will harvard admit people who don't really do anything outside the classroom?" - i'm assuming that "working out" and "hanging out with friends with the rest of his time" aren't EC's that you would write down.</p>
<p>personally, i'd rather admit a student who insincerely participates in a bunch of impressive activities than someone who doesn't care enough to do even that. getting really good grades is no huge accomplishment. thousands and thousands of people who apply to harvard have the requisite grades; there's no shortage of qualified candidates. what you do outside the classroom determines if you're worthy of admission</p>
<p>From another thread that the OP posted on:
"My passion is sitting on my butt and watching adult videos or playing games, but I have to pretend I like to volunteer instead for colleges."</p>
<p>Harvard is not looking for people like that, and due to the overabundance of applicants with high stats AND productive, impressive ECs, doesn't have to bother accepting "normal" people.</p>
<p>With all due respect to everyone going to Harvard, etc.</p>
<p>There are many, many normal kids out there with high GPAs, IQs, SATs, etc., etc., who aren't "college whores" or anything with outstanding passions about artsy stuff, saving the world, etc., These are regular people. Don't you think that you would be happier in a "regular" school? In other words, if you attended Harvard, who do you think you would be friends with? If I were you, I'd rather go to a regular school (BC, Villanova, BU, Lafayette, UDel, etc.) which aren't the upper escialon schools, but they have NORMAL people.</p>
<p>I think your college years, plus your "connections" later on in life would be more interesting and perhaps better if you attend a regular school and meet regular people. It is the regular people who are running the big businesses. Attend a regular school and join a frat or whatever, and you will have lasting great memories forever....and real friends for ever.</p>
<p>Just my two cents, which I am sure I will get bashed for.</p>
<p>You only get one life to live. Live a good life, but also live a life of fun, with friends....that's what counts in the end.</p>
<p>momwithquestions:</p>
<p>i'm not trying to bash you. i swear that this is an honest question.</p>
<p>i'm thoroughly confused as to why "regular people" or "normal people" would necessarily make better friends and be more loyal than people who DO have "outstanding passions." why is it that one should necessarily have a more interesting, happier college experience if one is kept away from people who don't vigorously pursue their interests? while i disagree with your statement that only "normal people" run big businesses, i genuinely don't understand how one could possibly conclude that "normal people" make better "connections" if, by definition, they don't care about anything outside the frat or the social circle?</p>
<p>i'm not trying to insult you; i just want to the rationale for exalting people who are essentially shiftless.</p>
<p>I sympathize with the OP, if only b/c the people on this forum sometimes seem so incredibly fake wiht their 2000 hrs of community sevice in addition to captaining multiple sports and winning state and national awards in everything they do. I am sure there are a few people like that, but surely not everyone at HYP can be that way. I personally think I have a passion for politics. But since I live in the middle of nowhere where my Congressional District is gerrymandered to the other party and I hate both gubernatorial candidates, in addition to not living in a presidential battleground state, there is no good way to show my passion on an app. I am in the political group at school, and I spend at least two hours a day reading political commentary and news. I read good literature and non-fiction. I do a couple of activities fairly well (and some not so well) and hold down a part time job, and even then sometimes I feel my time is crunched. My town is fairly poor, boring, and unconnected to the outside world (we don't even have things like debate, chess, academic decathalon, and certainly not scientific research). I may not be a super-volunteer, national medal-laden star athlete, but I think I would bring more to a campus (at least in an intellectual sense) than most of those who are.</p>
<p>
[quote]
That's why one hears about students with sky high stats who feel that Harvard made a mistake by rejecting them. There was no mistake. In many cases, the students were what you call "college whores: who didn't have what it takes.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Northstarmom, to say this would assume that there were just enough applicants in every pool to fill up the freshman class, and that those rejected didn't show passion. The one's who don't make it into Harvard, regardless of their sky-high stats, don't necessarily fail to show passion. In many cases, there just isn't enough space.</p>
<p>that bravo was to drummerdude.</p>
<p>Muraski,
I stand by my words: It's the "college whores" who assume that Harvard made a mistake by rejecting them because, after all, they had excellent stats and ECs that they did to impress Harvard.</p>
<p>Other rejected students -- the ones with excellent stats who did ECs out of real passion -- have the good sense to understand that Harvard lacks space for all of the students who qualify. They also don't feel that they wasted their time by pursuing ECs and getting good grades because they truly enjoyed doing those things. They weren't gritting their teeth and faking interest in activities to impress Harvard.</p>
<p>" But since I live in the middle of nowhere where my Congressional District is gerrymandered to the other party and I hate both gubernatorial candidates, in addition to not living in a presidential battleground state, there is no good way to show my passion on an app. I am in the political group at school, and I spend at least two hours a day reading political commentary and news. I read good literature and non-fiction. I do a couple of activities fairly well (and some not so well) and hold down a part time job, and even then sometimes I feel my time is crunched. My town is fairly poor, boring, and unconnected to the outside world (we don't even have things like debate, chess, academic decathalon, and certainly not scientific research). "</p>
<p>It's great that you are working and also are in a political group. You could show passion by following-up on your political reading by, for instance, starting a newspaper or blog site or getting your political group involved in debates.</p>
<p>Admissions officers have a great deal of interest in students who created some interesting activities for themselves to do even though they live in small, boring towns in the middle of nowhere. Such students would stand out more in the admissions pool than would students who took advantage of the myriad of activiteis in big cities and top high schools.</p>
<p>also, drummerdude, your profile says that you live in sterling, illinois, so if you wanted to do debate, you could drive to chicago every now and then. chicago has a ridiculously active debate scene.</p>
<p>Harvard does not accept normal people who hang out with friends... I'm sorry, its one of the top schools in the world</p>
<p>i've noticed that many mothers spend their time on this site. interesting.</p>
<p>Nice ideas, but driving 2 hours (or more) each way through heck knows what kind of traffic every week or so just to do some debate? That's just a little over-the-top in my book, and expensive, and I wouldn't even know how to go about doing it. Northstarmom also has some nice ideas, but they would never work at my school. I know, because I've tried. We can't get more than 5 kids to show up to our Republican and Democrat clubs, and all they do is meet maybe 4 times a year in the morning and have one little debate. I had a political blog for a while, and I thought I made good posts, but, because no one cares about or understands politics at my school, absolutely no one read it. I've also toyed with the idea of starting a newspaper, but since our school is in the process of going bankrupt, there is no funding for anything of the sort, not to mention the fact that I would be the only one who would write something for it. It is not like I haven't somewhat tried the "college whore", excuse me, "passion" route occassionally, it's just that no one else in my school is motivated to do anything except sports. We are failing state testing standards, and the best school anyone goes to is UIUC for that most part. No one is like me, no one has the same interests as me, and no one wants to learn for learning's sake like me. I think I might want to major in Econ, and our school doesn't even have an Econ class, or Stat, and we only offer Spanish and French (now going online) as languages. That is why when I explore my interests or have a "passion", it more often then not finds it's outside the EC realm.</p>
<p>It's fine if your passion is outside of a school club. For instance, a good blog atttacts people from all over, not just from your school.</p>
<p>Good clubs also tend to have only 3-5 committed people who are doing most of the work. That's true of professional adult organizations as well as student ones. People who give up because only a few people show up are people who'll never get anything going. With most activities, lots of people will show up for the fun: Few will show up for the hard work behind the fun. Even fewer have ideas that lead to to the fun.</p>
<p>Also, one doesn't need to just rely on your school to have a debate club. It could be affiliated with other teen groups or schools or done in connection with a book club, political organization, etc.</p>
<p>The top schools want students who'll rise to the kind of challenges that are facing you because the top schools want to attract students who'll be leaders on campus and later in their communities, companies, organizations, churches, etc. Taking on leadership -- the real kind of leadership that impresses top colleges -- means having the passion, organizational skills and creativity to solve the kind of challenges that you are facing. </p>
<p>Frankly, most people don't have those abilities, which also is why most people, even very smart ones, aren't able to get admission to top colleges. One of the rarest things to see in students who apply to top colleges is students who not only have the stats (which most applicants to top colleges have), but also have the passion, organizational skills and creativity to achieve some kind of leadership that had real impact despite the inevitable challenges that every leader faces.</p>
<p>Yeah yeah I get the point. But I don't really believe it in my situation. Bringing George Washington himself couldn't get my schoolmates to care about or pass history. A book club? Are you kidding me? There aren't enough kids that read past a 5th grade level, let alone anyone besides myself who would actually be interested. Great leaders can do a lot of things, but instantly motivating and educating a bunch of Neanderthal teenagers without any personal gain for them whatsoever is a bit out of the realm (just ask our teachers LOL!). I don't think my ECs lack leadership, it's just that extra-special "I formed an active club of 50 people related to my passion" that 'taint gonna happen even if I was Julius Caesar.</p>
<p>Hell. If only you were at my school drummerboy. Although I am not a diehard politics junkie, I would certainly want to join an form of political club, even Young Democrats. Interesting stuff.</p>
<p>In reply to Northstarmom, </p>
<p>I don't plan on applying to Harvard, but I find it disgusting that there are people willing to be dishonest for colleges. I can't say I like volunteering, but it is a nice change of pace. Besides, reading to kids and seeing new things is fun.</p>
<p>It would be awesome if I could get UC Berkeley or UCLA Regents though. That would be great. UPenn Wharton would be awesome as well.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Other rejected students -- the ones with excellent stats who did ECs out of real passion -- have the good sense to understand that Harvard lacks space for all of the students who qualify. They also don't feel that they wasted their time by pursuing ECs and getting good grades because they truly enjoyed doing those things. They weren't gritting their teeth and faking interest in activities to impress Harvard.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You misunderstand me it seems . . . I never said anything regarding college whores . . . nor did I claim that those rejected from top schools feel that their ECs were a waste. All I said was that those rejected didn't weren't necessarily fake.</p>