Family Gets Lesson in Admissions

Parents Forum
381

<p>Take a step back. You are the sole member of the admissions committee for HYPE University, a superselective college. It's up to you to shape a great student body, that will eventually enhance HYPE's unparalleled alumni corps.</p>

<p>You have set aside some applications in a pile to think about. These kids are all demonstrably smart and hardworking, and they have some pretty impressive accomplishments at a young age. But all of those accomplishments have obviously come about thanks to the sponsorship of their accomplished, well-known, often wealthy parents. Do you want them at HYPE? Will they hold their own among the other superstars you are admitting, and enhance the experience of their class over time? Can they make it on their own? Do you care? Will they add to the glory of HYPE as alumni in future years? Will they and their dads be candidates to fund a linear accelerator or concert hall in a few decades?</p>

<p>So, do you accept them or not?: John F. Kennedy. George H. W. Bush. George W. and Jeb Bush. Indira Gandhi. Al Gore. Sofia Coppola. Ron Howard. Vanessa Redgrave. Michael Douglas. Michael Tilson Thomas. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Randy Newman. William Kristol. Andrew Cuomo. William Gates. Brian Roberts. Edgar Bronfman. Lachlan Murdoch. Katherine Meyer (Graham). Arthur Ochs Sulzberger. William Ford. William Shakespeare. J.D. Salinger. Christopher Buckley. Martin Amis. . . .</p>

382

<p>in addition to what curmudgeon's said..... </p>

<p>The father in this case co-published one of the most popular health and nutrition books on the market today. Again, I won't put names here on open forum, but there are enough keywords for anyone to google if they want to know more.</p>

<p>Again, my point is...</p>

<p>The 'idea' part becomes questionable when such close parental involvement is clear. Also, getting it published isn't such a feat when your parent is a best-selling author....the 'opportunity' part of my argument.</p>

383

<p>Cur:</p>

<p>Oops, I overlooked that bit.</p>

<p>JHS:</p>

<p>A lot of these folks would have been interesting to have around, even without the future benefits. I can't imagine that Bill Kristol did not have plenty to say for himself as an undergrad (look at our own FS). Peter Sellars cut his teeth on Harvard productions; Martin Amis was an enfant terrible (and remained so long past Oxford). As for Shakespeare? Hmm. is it established that he really existed? We don't want phantom undergrads. Mozart? Socially immature. Tell him to take a gap year and re-apply. J.D. Salinger: No: too much of a recluse, won't add to the community here.
I'll let others play adcom with the other names.</p>

384

<p>Some random thoughts:</p>

<p>1 -- I must have really recalcitrant children, because I couldn't get them to write a book about a subject their dad and I are interested if it were guaranteed to be a best seller. So, I think she gets some points for actually doing such a thing.</p>

<p>2 -- I like Cur's second point about college admissions. One of S1's early favorites waitlisted him. I pointed out (with all the motherly wisdom I could summon) that if they didn't see how wonderful he is, they didn't deserve to have him! If any kid has to change the essense of who they are to get into a particular school, it's just not a good fit!</p>

<p>3 -- I always enjoy Drosselmeier's posts. You must be a wonderful Dad!</p>

385

<p>she probably got into Princeton on her own steam for she is probably a very smart young woman. She also has other things going for her that would have been hooks: world famous father (celebrity, developmental admit). However her admission in to princeton is not up for discussion but the fact who her father is opened a few doors for her regarding getting a book deal.</p>

<p>Look, we are going to talk about this agian next week because the kid is going to be on GMA and is kicking off a book tour with some sponsorship from Clinique, so lets just put it out there. In addition there have been numerous articles from the local paper, to amazon.com to forbes, publisher's weekly etc.</p>

<p>Daphne Oz, daughter of famous cardiologist, Mehmet Oz wrote a book the dorm room diet with a forward by her father.</p>

<p>snippet from Forbes.com:</p>

<p>Of course, it helped that she was able to get advice from her dad - a cardiac surgeon and best-selling health author who's written the foreword to her book. </p>

<p>As Oz explains it, she was able to put herself on a new path in college, working with her dad, Mehmet Oz, to apply nutritional knowledge to lose the pounds. Along with Michael Roizen, Mehmet Oz had written the best-selling "You: The Owner's Manual: An Insider's Guide to the Body That Will Make You Healthier and Younger." </p>

<p>Daphne Oz also has two grandfathers who are cardiac surgeons and a grandmother who's a nutritional adviser. </p>

<p>Even with the wellspring of advice from family, Oz says she was overweight from age 7 to 17. At 5-foot-8, she was sometimes carrying 175 pounds. Because of her large frame, most high school peers didn't notice. But she did. </p>

<p>"For any girl, any figure that is at 175 pounds is intolerable," Oz said Wednesday. </p>

<p>After researching a nutrition project in high school, she felt motivated to lose the weight. Oz says a book contract that she had signed with Newmarket for a teenage health book eventually morphed into a book on health in college. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2006/08/23/ap2969431.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2006/08/23/ap2969431.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>From Publisher's Weekly:</p>

<p>What do you get when you cross a bestselling author’s daughter with a unique book concept and a savvy, youth-oriented marketing campaign? If you’re Newmarket Press, you hope you wind up with a bestseller.</p>

<p>The Dorm Room Diet doesn’t go on sale until Sept. 6, but Newmarket has already made two trips to press and is up to 40,000 copies. The guide to eating healthy on campus is written by Princeton University junior Daphne Oz, daughter of Mehmet Oz, who co-authored You: The Owner’s Manual—which spent 29 weeks on PW’s bestseller list in 2005. Clinique has joined the publisher in a cross-marketing effort that includes promotions, giveaways and a tour to college campuses.</p>

<p>Newmarket publisher Esther Margolis learned about Daphne Oz through her father, who happens to be a colleague of Margolis’s husband (a physician) at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Margolis told Mehmet Oz about Newmarket’s success with Lynda Madaras’s books on teen health, Mehmet Oz told Margolis about the book his daughter was writing, and a publishing contract was signed (that is, once Daphne Oz turned 18—she was 17 when she began writing the book). The book has received positive pre-pub coverage, and PW’s review called it “a great book to pack between the extra-long twin sheets and study lamp.”</p>

<p>On the pub date, Daphne Oz will appear on Good Morning America and on Sept. 7 will be on Fox & Friends Sept. 7; features are planned to run in Reader’s Digest and Teen Vogue. She’ll tour at bookstores on the campuses of Princeton, Rutgers, Georgetown, American University, George Washington Univ., Columbia, UPenn, Harvard and other schools, and promotional materials for the book will be stuffed into students’ shopping bags at Follett and Barnes & Noble stores on 25 major campuses.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6363863.html?display=breaking%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6363863.html?display=breaking&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

386

<p>good old to-the-point sybbie. You are right, it's all gonna be obvious next week.</p>

<p>I want to veer from the point a minute and take issue with the 'for any girl, 175 lbs is intolerable' statement she made. That doesn't really smack of health and nutrition expertise. At my most fit, when I worked out 5 days a week (and didn't sit on my derriere at the computer), I was 5'8", 150 lbs and wore a size 4-6. Focus on health and fitness, rather than weight should be the first thing her dad stressed to her. So, hey, maybe he didn't write (or even edit) the book for her after all..hehe.</p>

387

<p>
[quote]
Would you be willing to post your kids' EC's?.... In other words, good student-type, top 10%, contributes to his school, but a regular kid.
Would his straight A's in the most rigorous courses the school offers and high standardized test scores get him into one of the top twenty schools?

[/quote]

It worked for my S. He had no superstar ECs, warmed the bench in his sport, did no publishable research (well, no research at all outside assigned for class projects :), no apprenticing to Byzantine are iconographers... He wasn't even totally straight A's. Had a couple of music and science awards that might go beyond what your kid has, but balanced out by being just BELOW the top 10% and SATs that folks here would laugh off the planet. Accepted to some (but not all) of the top-20 schools where he applied.
[quote]
Am I about to push him to do things he wouldn't think up himself just for a good resume? I wouldn't dream of it.... Let him enjoy his teenage years a little. Jeepers.

[/quote]
Hear, hear. I think that's what most of us on this thread feel and do. What is special about your son will shine through on his applications and he will end up at the right place. If a top-20 school is what he desires, I think he has an excellent, although never guaranteed, chance.</p>

388

<p>Re: getting help from your parents, and how an "admissions committee" might view it, I just remembered a joke we used to tell in my family apropos of my sister's then-boyfriend: </p>

<p>"What's the most perfect profession you can imagine for a prospective son-in-law?"</p>

<p>"Medicine?"</p>

<p>"Nooo . . . too hard."</p>

<p>"Law?"</p>

<p>"No, of course not. Better than that. Perfect!"</p>

<p>"Ummm . . . I give up. What?"</p>

<p>"Managing his family's money."</p>

389

<p>HH:</p>

<p>I think the "J" story in USA Today illustrates perhaps that HYP (and I mean specifically HYP) are operating on their own separate level when it comes to college admissions, but the other top colleges, like every other college in the country, are mostly looking at applicants in view of their POTENTIAL. Not what they have necessarily achieved at the age of 17. I truly believe that people should not assume that the level of ECs described in the USA scholar article are the norm for what all "top" colleges expect to see in applicants today and if you don't match up to that level of uber-EC, you may as well not spend the money on the application. </p>

<p>Even if your son's ECs are weak or merely ordinary, top-20 colleges with be interested in your son, and take his application seriously, if they see potential shining through in other areas of the application: high grades in difficult classes, high standardized test scores, committment to his activities even though there are no national or state awards, recommendations from his teachers, and how he presents himself in the essays. Depending on the college and what they're looking for to build their freshman class, adcoms can find enough potential in these areas to earn a "yes" without patented research or global community service. (And it probably won't hurt that he's a he.) It was true for S1, who put far more time into being with friends than into ECs, but he had great recs and NMF to speak for his potential; he was admitted to 8 of the 10 schools where he applied, including the two top UCs and one Ivy.</p>

390

<p>Jazzymom:
I'm not so sure that there is that huge a difference. I think the schools know what they want / need and admit accordingly. My son (no URM, no tips)
didn't have anything beyond the ordinary in EC's. A few club offices, piano, trumpet, a capella (no awards), Habitat, etc. He did what he liked and he didn't hide that his favorite and most time consuming EC was reading. While he did have great grades (but not top in class, school doesn't rank) and top SATs, he was rejected by some in the HYP and accepted by others while getting an early write from one out of the SWA LAC's and rejected by the other (applied to two out of these three). Who the heck knows why? He did have some nat'l and int'l awards, but absolutely nothing in the sciences. I think that sometimes the admissions officers know more about how a child will fit into their school than we do and they make a tough decision that ultimately becomes the best decision for all involved. My point here is that it doesn't take extraordinary things to get into HYP, it just takes having whatever it is that each school happens to be looking for that particular year. And the applicants and their families will never know what that magical combination is.</p>

391

<p>


I really like the way you put that, jazzymom. It's what so many of us believed was required to get into a school of your choice (notice I didn't say "the" "Dream" school). We then hear stories of 17-years olds performing at near Nobel-laureate levels and begin to think that's what may be required to enter the most selective schools. Those uber-achievements might be one path, but I think you have outlined another that still seems to work, praise be.</p>

<p>I certainly think that's what worked for my S - good grades in demanding classes and teacher recs, which I never saw but I believe may well have been his tipping point. I do also agree with sewbusy that we families and our kids will never know what the magical combination was. If more families were content to let their kids just be who they are and neither package them nor groom them from the pram, we would all be better off. There will always be the prodigies, the passionate kids with extraordinary adult-level accomplishments - but they will have been self-starters, not "bought-and-paid-for," branded and coached into existence. The schools at all levels would have space for both types.</p>

392

<p>


That's really the essence of this particular sin, isn't it? Pretend paid-for packaged prodigies from the pram. Pretend prodigies. That's what it is that ticks some of us off the most, isn't it? Thanks, jmmom. </p>

<p>Some folks pretending little Johnny loves to do this or that when in fact Little Johnny doesn't even like it. Left to his own devices and desires in ninth grade he'd be playing ball, jamming with his rock band, trying to get a peek down Nancy's shirt. </p>

<p>I just want to put the genie back in the bottle and I don't think it's going to happen. :(</p>

393

<p>Some of it is the Tiger Woods story. We've all seen Tiger at three on TV. Well I saw a dude parade a kid out on TV last week at age two that claimed his kid was hitting the ball further than Tiger was at 3. It was sickening. </p>

<p>For every Tiger , there will be 999 in therapy forever. And I ain't even that sure about Tiger. </p>

<p>For every true prodigy following his dad around the lab, loving every minute of it - there are 49 more being drug around that would rather be fishing.</p>

394

<p>Cur, I do agree with you about kids who are pushed and molded from toddler age on to be something "great"...it has a disturbing quality to it.</p>

<p>But I'm not sure that's an analogy to these h.s. students who get involved in a parent's field, and use a combination of their own intellect and parental connection, advice, whatever, to do something unusual. I'm not sure that these kids can be pushed to do the the kinds of things we've been talking about. I always think of the son of my son's mentor...father always exposed to him to the lab, he worked there summers, but he never had the desire or inclination to take it further...just not his thing. The amount of dedication and interest that these things take is, I think, virtually impossible to force.</p>

395

<p>Well, it really depends on the kid. There are kids who are very bright but also very compliant and willing to follow another's lead. These kids often also do very well academically -- since they are willing to work hard, and a good part of their motivation comes from the approval of others, such as their parents and teachers. So yes, it is possible for kids to be developed and packaged by ambitious parents, whether in athletics or academically -- it happens all the time. That doesn't mean that it can be done all the time -- other, more strong-willed, independent minded kids will balk or resist, sometimes just for the sake of resisting. But the brilliant, creative, independent-minded kid may also have a harder time developing his own talents into something that is going to look impressive in high school, because he may have to go through a lot of steps toward finding appropriate mentorship and support that are already in place for the kid who is more compliant or whose natural interests simply happen to mesh well with a parent with well established credentials.</p>

396

<p>
[quote]
There are kids who are very bright but also very compliant and willing to follow another's lead.

[/quote]

Do you know where I can trade mine into for some of these!?</p>

397

<p>I'll repeat a comment a heard some years ago.</p>

<p>"The problem today is that there are no normal or average kids. Everyone's child is either gifted, or dyslexic."</p>

<p>I'll second the above poster who notes that about all you can take from the story is that Duke is different from Princeton or H or Y. Before they took the Hoxby data down, I recall that it showed that 1500+ scorers were admitted at HYP at about a 35% rate. At Duke, (and others like Dartmouth, as well), the admit deny rate was flipped, so that about 65% of those scorers were admitted. Those data were from the late 90's, and I'm sure its changed some, but that was a big difference not that long ago.</p>

398

<p>...where every kid is above average</p>

<p>Lake Wobegon... meet the world.</p>

399

<p>And don't forget..... we act as "project managers" for our kids.... everyone else's child gets "packaged".</p>

400

<p>Blossom, I agree! People are assuming that those who have some excellent credentials in their background, were "packaged". Believe it or not (and I know you do), there ARE kids who excel in various interest areas because they are passionate about these areas, not because someone came up with some game plan to get into college. While there are stories of packaged kids, for sure, it is going beyond to assume that every accomplished kid is packaged or did something unfairly or had an "in" or what have you. Frankly, for some endeavors, I can't imagine making a kid do them since they involve a great deal of time and effort. </p>

<p>Another point is that it is not necessary that a kid has done some absolutely amazing unique thing at the stratospheric level like publishing a book, discovering something through research or winning a big science contest, being in the Olympics, and, well, you get the idea. Just speaking of my own children, they exceled in both academics AND ECs and had accomplishments of note in these areas, beyond the local level but NONE of their activiities are utterly unique at all and are not unlike what many strong candidates have done. They certainly had done a lot and had achievements to match but the actual activities are common ones. None of them were chosen with college admissions in mind as to what would look good or unique. They chose these areas of interest when very young and have stuck to their passions regardless of college admissions and even if their passions (sports, performing arts, etc) are NOT unique. They did what they WANTED to do and achieved in their areas of interest and when it came time to apply to college, documented these things, simply put. They are still engaged in these activities in college because they want to be very much and no admissions are at stake.</p>