You reminded me of my roommate. She was in different major (premed). She is the best magician I’ve ever seen in person! I had a lot of fun watching free shows the year we share room. My college experience with different background and interests were fairly positive.
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That’s certainly what my kid did. Her main EC was started when she was just a little kid… way before thinking about college. But I would argue that this is not actually the answer as you suggest. I’m thinking maybe many colleges really are looking for those kids with curated and crafted ECs. It certainly seems to be the case this year.
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This article by Jeff Selingo made some good points about holistic admissions.
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Kids should explore different activities because they are actually interested in them not because there will some payoff in the form of elite college admissions. Likewise, kids should try their best in school so that they gain the satisfaction of learning something new - not because it “looks good”. I find it incredibly sad that there are young people who spend their teen years focused on getting into a certain college (usually elite) instead of learning about themselves, taking risks and exploring new things.
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Learning about yourself and doing something meaningful extracurricularly are not orthogonal goals. I am also not sure what percentage of the kids are doing it just for the sake of putting something on the college app. I suspect it will be some fairly small number. In fact kids try out some large number of clubs (like 5-10) in freshman year, slowly cut down and end up with some 0-5 by final year. Liking the activity is a major consideration in what they stay engaged in. On occasion a parent may be concerned about whether a particular activity is marketable for college. Kids don’t, because in part they are not thinking about college until at least junior year, and in part because they know that other kids that are doing random activities are still getting into college.
Some kid in our school did a study of what determines who gets into what college. The conclusions were that for the middle 70% of college placements, measured in some way (excluding the bottom 20 and top 10), grades and scores determined the college very tightly. Probably because everyone has reasonable extra curriculars, and the colleges couldn’t distinguish them enough. Only on the two extremes, there was a substantial amount of variation that was not explained by grades and test scores. The measurement of college ranking for this study was based on elo rating – i.e., if there are 15 kids from the school that both got into Harvard and Yale over the prior 5 years, and if 10 of those people chose Harvard vs Yale, then Harvard was ranked higher than Yale — etc …
Did they publish the study and submit it as an EC?
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Haha. No. It was done after he got into college EA. And incidentally a) this is not an EC, and b) this is the wrong kind of work to show into college to get credit :-).
Agree. I thought this was quite telling:
“Indeed, that’ the dirty secret I learned the year I watched admissions offices review applications: Most don’t know exactly what they’re trying to assess when they ask for multiple essays and recommendations as well as an encyclopedic list of activities. Highly selective colleges like to talk about how they “craft a class,” but let’s not kid ourselves about that level of precision. In reality, the schools are not choosing a class as much as they are sending out invitations to join a class. Not every student will RSVP “Yes.” At Northwestern, just 60 percent do so, meaning four of every 10 accepted students say “No thanks.” At Wesleyan (no slouch in the prestige department), a mere 35 percent take the college up on its offer. So despite all of that anxiety students have about getting into a certain school, the truth is that most of the elite, highly selective schools’ student bodies are just somewhat different combinations drawn from the same pool of applicants.”
Building on an idea Selingo raised in the article, I’d be in favor of a pre-screening system that potential applicants could use to get a sense of their odds at particular schools. This could be based on, say, rigor of courses taken and GPA (which could be compared to school profiles on file) or some other metrics that a school prioritizes. And regardless of the pre-screening result, a student can still choose to apply. To streamline the process, this service could be offered on Common App and other platforms, with a small charge levied that could then be applied to the application fee if a student chooses to through with the whole process.
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I have only read part of this thread.
I think people need to understand that admissions at selective schools, is not hierarchical in the sense that top scores and GPA makes an individual a better admit than someone else with slightly lower stats. This is the gist of holistic admissions. Applicants need to meet a benchmark with stats, to show they can do the work, and after that it is about other things.
What are those other things? The goal of admissions at selective schools is to assemble an interesting class, an interesting mix. Yes this is subjective. If young people can understand that it is about the whole of the class, not them, then rejection may hurt self-esteem less.
Top schools have made an effort over the years to increase access for lower income or underrepresented groups, but the fact remains that those “other things” are indeed more available to those with resources. Changes at the lower level of education, such as programs for low income teens in rigorous high school programs geared to increasing their opportunities, or conservatory prep outreach programs, or financial aid for summer programs. etc.
Without holistic admissions, college campuses would not be as interesting, there would be less cross-pollination of interests and talents, but yes, admissions might be a little more predictable. But do we really think a kid with a 780 is a better admit than a kid with a 750? And what about the variability of grading among schools. Fairness seems elusive, so I would continue to support the benefits of holistic admissions.
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Then I guess it is truly remarkable that UT Austin, which admits the vast majority of its class based simply on class rank, is nonetheless able to also have an interesting student body filled with diverse interests. In fact, just as interesting as any other school.
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You will notice that my comments were specifically about the most selective schools that use holistic admissions, and their rationale for doing so.
I might speculate that the relatively more mixed stats (though still no doubt stellar) at state U’s might make for an interesting class, yes, and with diverse interests, yes. And many academically and otherwise talented students attend state U’s for financial reasons.
I was not arguing for or against holistic admissions at all schools. I only post on this type of thread to reassure that rejection does not pass a judgment on the value of an individual, since top schools are focused more on the class mix than on particular individuals.
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Rejection doesn’t pass judgment in a process that is largely arbitrary and capricious at many selective schools.
Oxford has a very interesting class, assembled very largely on just grades and scores. I resent the frequently asserted notion that such standards lead to a class of boring nerds, and that only holistic admissions will ensure a well rounded interesting class.
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Exactly my point! Though I would put it slightly differently 
I don’t think holistic admissions necessarily results in a more interesting or diverse student body either. Most applicants are multi-dimensional in ways that can’t be measured on the Common App, and many more choose to reinvent themselves when they get to college, so the person on the application filled out a year prior may not be the same person who moves in on freshman move in day.
I suspect that many colleges have been in engaging in some form of holistic admissions for decades, without having to alert people to it or put a label on it. People get mad at it because of the ambiguity - and colleges are mum on what specific holistic measure means the most to them, leaving applicants and their parents “twisting in the wind” trying to speculate which special gift to highlight on the application (should it be the grades, the test scores, the charity work, the non-profit, the essay??) They’re also being asked to prove why they love and feel a connection to a particular college, which is hard when they’re applying to 20 of them, most of which they’ve never visited. The parents of kids who score 36 on the ACT in one sitting can no longer be confident that the 36 is enough (nor are the 15 AP’s), and that’s cause for a lot of anxiety, particularly when news of deferrals and denials come in from schools that these families deem to be a match for their kid’s stats (not to mention hearing stories of classmates with lesser stats who are admitted).
Like it or not, this is college admissions post 2020. Buckle up!
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I have always had feeling on this based on anecdotal evidence through my interviewing, friends/acquaintances and my own kids’ experiences. There are always stories about the kid that got into “Harvard” but was rejected by “Penn”, but in my observations, there are way more kids that are cross admitted to multiple highly selective schools. While it might be rare for a kid to get acceptances across the board, I think the majority have multiple choices. I know it is a big brag point with Yale’s admissions office when we have a year end download as to the cross admit success rate where the “competition” is between HYPSM. This indicates to me that there are many of those candidates who are desirable by multiple highly selectives.
People always talk about the 20,000 qualified kids that applied to XYZ school that could only admit 2,000 or less, so it has to be random/luck, good day/bad day of a reader or specific fit. While those instances I am sure happens, I think it more likely that the pool of truly extraordinary candidates is lower and what we can never assess looking in from the outside are LoR’s, essays and a real understanding of the applicant’s role in their EC’s. Those candidates consistently stand out for multiple admissions officers.
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Yes, and annually the news highlights one or more kids “accepted to every Ivy” (at which point CC folks wring our hands as to why those eight colleges were selected in the first place…)
Here’s my question. Do any of you remember an urban legend from the 1980s stating that if you apply to all 8 Ivies you’ll be rejected from all of them. This was gospel among some older students I knew, and the “recommendation” was to pick 2. Looking back, I wonder whether (among many likely origin stories for this myth) there was a connection with the anti-trust financial aid case or with certain private high schools having an internal policy regarding Ivy apps. Thoughts?
I agree with this. IME a not-insignificant proportion of apps at highly rejective schools don’t make it past the transcript review of grades, core course content, and rigor.
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Totally agree with roycroftmom. As an example, my D22 has 6 classmates who will be studying physics at Oxford this fall (provided they meet their A level conditions) and it’s an interesting and diverse bunch in terms of personalities, EC interests, ethnicities, etc.
At top UK colleges such as LSE and UCL, there’s a stunning diversity of students - different backgrounds, nationalities, extracurricular interests, career ambitions, etc. I’ve engaged directly with these students as a peer and as a teacher and it’s been wonderfully enriching.
Perhaps these students might even be more interesting than many of their American counterparts because they pursued their extra-curricular interests out of personal interests rather than to stand out for college admission.
While I am not against looking beyond GPA and test scores, the holistic admission process at (highly) selective US colleges - as Selingo and others have pointed out - is not working well (e.g., overly complex and ambiguous, misleads a substantial proportion of the applicant pool as to their real chances of admission, creates excess/unnecessary anxiety, etc.).
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I think you are correct about this – the true competition for the top 10% of applicants at a T5 school is non existent, and for the next 70% ranges between 2:1 and 4:1.
We do not have a national curriculum. We do not have the equivalent of A-levels and O-levels. The systems are different- neither or better nor worse- but different. And the parents of a “Late bloomer” in the UK do not have the expectation that there will be a college willing to admit their kid. Try telling that to parents in the US- “Your kid is not college material”. The parents of a kid with learning issues in the UK put their kid on a vo-tech track and don’t look back (take a look at the hoops required to get your LD kid any sort of accommodations in the UK).
Different.
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