<p>I'll admit Byerly Harvard gets a disproportionate number of the best debaters and speechers in the country.</p>
<p>If you say so.</p>
<p>"how do alumni tell the difference between students who are very enthusiastic and students who have a lot of leadership but have just done it for the sake of college?"</p>
<p>Easy. It's in the quality of the answers.</p>
<p>Eg. Question: "How did you choose to decide to become NHS president?"</p>
<p>Answer from student A: "I thought it would help me get into college."
Answer from student B: "My friends told me to apply."</p>
<p>Follow up question: "But why did you follow their suggestion?"</p>
<p>Answer from Student B: "We had been best friends since 9th grade and take most of our classes together. They were running for the other offices. I figured we'd have a lot of fun working together and we could carpool home after meetings."</p>
<p>Answer from Student C: </p>
<p>"I had been disappointed in what our NHS chapter had been doing. It's supposed to be an organization for students who have high grades and do service, but basically it was just for people who had high grades. Next to no one came to meetings. Last year, we had only one service project -- a car wash. Only three people showed up. Theofficers didn't even show up. I was not an officer last year, so it was hard for me to make a difference. I decided to run for president to make a difference."</p>
<p>Question: "What did you accomplish as NHS president?"</p>
<p>Example answer from student A: "The NHS president is automatically the school's nominee for Optimist's Club's $1,000 scholarship. Because we're the best school in town, our nominee usually wins. I learned that I won last week!"</p>
<p>Student B: "I had a lot of fun with my friends. We even got to go to the regional convention together. We got the chapter to sponsor us. I met a lot of people there, and had a great time. That was my first time visiting Boston. I loved it. That's why I decided to apply to Harvard."</p>
<p>Student C: "I am really proud of the fact that the chapter did 4 major service projects this year. When I ran for office, I said that if elected,
I would put "service" back in NHS, and that's what I helped do. </p>
<p>"At first the other members were reluctant because it had been so long since members had really been expected to do anything, but I appealed to their self interest, telling them that doing service would help them get into college.</p>
<p>"I knew that service was important for far more than that, but I figured that I would start where they were. After they started doing service, however, they saw how much fun it was and started doing service for its own sake.</p>
<p>"Our first project was a car wash fun raiser. I was a little disappointed that only 6 of our members came, but after the car wash, we went out together for ice cream and had a great time. At the next meeting, I made sure to compliment those who came and to let the others know about the fun that they missed out on.</p>
<p>"As part of the next event -- planting a butterfly garden at school -- I built in that NHS members who came would go out for ice cream later. To my surprise, even more NHS members came to help, and it seemed that a big draw was going out for ice cream together. I guess doing a social activity like that made NHS seem more friendly.</p>
<p>"The project that I am proudest of was suggested by one of our juniors. She had volunteered with her church at our local homeless shelter and noticed that the children there had nothing to do. When she talked about this at our meeting, we had a brainstorming session to figure out how we could help. </p>
<p>We ended up collecting used childrens' books and bookcases and making a small library for the children there. Every Tuesday evening, some of us go over there and read to the kids. We are really making a difference. </p>
<p>What also makes me happy is that the student who suggested that project plans to run for NHS president next year!"</p>
<p>Anyway, this is what I mean that passion can't be faked.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, you're weird</p>
<p>what do you like record ur interviews? thats like, not right if you do it without the applicant knowing. </p>
<p>what r u doing on here anyways? you must really like it cuz i find it amazing that you spend so much time on here for no real reason other than to help us. that's amazing and i guess we should all be thankful. so, thanks! :) </p>
<p>i apologize for my earlier post its just that everyone was criticizing me on my topic so that made me mad and i sorta didn't understand that you were an adult who liked to help and such. </p>
<p>well, once again. sorry [:(]and thanks [:)]</p>
<p>northstarmom, you actually get answers like student A and B? that's pretty crazy...</p>
<p>answers like student C could still come from kids who just did it to get into college</p>
<p>Holo, apology accepted. :)</p>
<p>Encomium: I made up the examples because I didn't want to embarass anyone whom I had interviewed who might read this site. However, yes, the examples are very realistic.</p>
<p>Think about it: It's very hard to fake for long genuine interest in something. Similarly, if one is asked questions about one's interests by a person who truly is interested in hearing what you have to say, it can be hard to stop talking.</p>
<p>No, the answers like C are truly hard to fake. I suppose that one could try to fake it by memorizing a script, but what one said would come off as canned, which would raise suspicions. Why would a person have to memorize an answer explaining their interests?</p>
<p>There also would be an absence of telling details because if a person lacked passion in an interest, they would not have a clue about what people who have passion for that interest might say. One also would be unlikely to accept good advice from someone like a parent or paid consultant.</p>
<p>For instance, older S is a brilliant, high scoring person who happens to hate formal academics though he loves learning on his own. He never could not understand why anyone likes school. In fact, he assumed that anyone was lying who said that college or high school was the happiest time in their life.</p>
<p>When he applied to college and had to write answers about why he applied, he always said something like, "Going to college is the only way to get a decent job in this world." </p>
<p>He thought that I was nuts to say that this would not impress adcoms and alum interviewers at places like Ivies. No surprise to me that he was rejected by the Ivy that he applied to. State universities that accepted people mainly based on stats, however, happily accepted him.</p>
<p>I think you have figured out that I was a lot like older S in my day. Sure enough, I attended a state university. :) My oldest S seems to take after me in that he doesn't like letting the pursuit of grades get in the way of personal learning goals. I do encourage him to SET personal learning goals, when he is in a graded classroom situation, in such a way that he can obtain the genuine satisfaction of learning while performing the work necessary to earn a top grade. Best wishes to the young people in today's generation of high school students and recent graduates who want to seek excellence while following their own drummer.</p>
<p>all of these are like the admission threads on this forum- but with adjectives like "amazing or brilliant" embedded in to the information. haha :)</p>