I think 1 essay was eh, my school has dozens of valedictorians, and few here go to ivies. Help.

[monkeyg]

<p>My rural school is one of a few in the nation that chooses valedictorians simply based on whether all A's were achieved throughout high school or not. It is an IB school, and the grades are legitimately not inflated, but every year there are about 20 people who end up with the position. Plus, the school sends only around 1 or 2 seniors to ivies + Stanford + MIT every year (last year we only had one person go to a top 20, and that was Johns Hopkins).</p>

<p>As for me, my scores, grades, and EC's are very competitive, and I am applying SCEA to Harvard. 2 of my essays are total 10's. However, the Harvard supplement, the final essay, is very average. It's not "bad', per se, but there's really no passion. I was very straightforward and my sentences seem to have similar structure throughout. Will this one essay, coupled with the aforementioned background that I have no control over, drastically hinder my chances? I know there's no way to accurately say so, but do you think my competitiveness from the EC's + grades + scores + 2 essay's will be lessened? </p>

[Belizeme]

<p>Wow, my school literally does the same thing. This year, I think we will have at least 20 valedictorians, if not 25. </p>

<p>Don’t stress too much about all these different factors. College admissions are a crapshoot anyway.</p>

[gibby]

<p>This from the College Board and Jeffrey Brenzel, former Admissions Director at Yale</p>

<p>

The most important part of your application — bar none, no question, any college — is your high school transcript. Probably the next most important are your teacher recommendations, particularly if you’re applying to any kind of selective college or university.

</p>

<p>I think it’s true for Harvard, as well. </p>

[pmmywest]

<p>@gibby but doesn’t mostly everyone get great LORs? What about kids who can’t get super personalized ones because they go to a huge high school? I don’t agree that LORs get that much attention, I would guess essays or ECs go second.</p>

[gibby]

<p>

I don’t agree that LORs get that much attention

Then you really don’t understand what colleges are looking for. This from William Fitzsimmons</p>

<p>

Recommendations from secondary school teachers and counselors are extremely important at Harvard and at many other colleges, particularly those with selective admissions processes. Faced with more academically qualified applicants than places in the freshman class, our admission officers review the two required teacher recommendations and the counselor report with great care, often commenting on them in writing on “reader sheets” in each application.</p>

<p>We often project the recommendations themselves onto large screens so that all members of the Admissions Committee can see them during the subcommittee and full committee review processes in February and March.</p>

<h2>Recommendations can help us to see well beyond test scores and grades and other credentials and can illuminate such personal qualities as character and leadership as well as intellectual curiosity, creativity, and love of learning. Along with essays, interviews, and other materials in the application, recommendations can offer evidence of an applicant’s potential to make a significant difference to a college community and beyond."

</h2>

<p>

but doesn’t mostly everyone get great LORs

</p>

<p>Everyone tries to get get great LoR, but many don’t. This from MIT: <a href=“How to write good letters of recommendation | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<h2>

**We receive thousands of recommendations like this each year. It is all positive, but it doesn’t give any real depth to the candidate. In this instance, the reader is left feeling the writer is reaching for something to say. **Honesty and trustworthiness are certainly admirable traits, but they are not uncommon among the nation’s top college applicants.

</h2>

<p>And this from Marymount: <a href=“Marymount California University's Admission Blog: When Recommendations Attack! (The Worst Letter of Recommendation We've Ever Seen)”>http://marymountcollegeadmissionblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/when-recommendations-attack-worst.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<h2>

most bad letters aren’t actually crafted in spite. They’re usually written by well-meaning favorite teachers who had no intention whatsoever of ruining your hopes and dreams. But, like Lennie in Of Mice and Men, they love you so fiercely that they squish you to pulp in the vise-like grip of their good intentions.

</h2>

<p>

I would guess essays or ECs go second.

You are correct about essays, but don’t seem to understand why colleges ask for a list of EC’s. This from Harvard.</p>

<p>

The term “extracurricular activities” covers an enormous amount of ground. We are interested in whatever a student does: in addition to school extracurricular activities and athletics, students can tell us of significant community, employment, or family commitments. There are many who spend a great deal of time helping to run their household, preparing meals and caring for siblings or making money with a part-time job to help the household meet expenses.</p>

<p>Unfortunately many schools have had to curtail or eliminate extracurricular activities and athletics, or they charge fees for participation. In addition, many students cannot afford expensive musical instruments or athletic equipment — or have families without the resources to pay for lessons, summer programs and the transportation networks necessary to support such activities.</p>

<p>**Admissions Committees **keep these factors in mind as they review applications, and are concerned most of all to know how well students used the resources available to them. Extracurricular activities need not be exotic — most are not — and substance is far more important. A student who has made the most of opportunities day-to-day during secondary school is much more likely to do so during college and beyond. This applies to academic life as well as extracurricular activities.

</p>

[gibby]

<p>^^ I ran out of time to edit the above, but have you watched this video from Amherst College: <a href=“College Admissions: Inside the Decision Room - YouTube”>College Admissions: Inside the Decision Room - YouTube;

<p>Prior to this Committee Meeting, about 8,000 applications were reviewed for transcript rigor, GPA and test scores. The top 1,000 students are then brought to the Committee and students are either accepted or waitlisted. (The assumption is that the other 7,000 students who didn’t make it to committee were rejected.)</p>

<p>Notice the comments. All the comments save one – where the Admissions Director says “This is a quote from his essay” – are comments made by teachers in their recommendation letters or guidance counselors SSR reports.</p>

<p>So yes, essays do matter, but Admissions Officers rely heavily on their high school counterparts to tell them the truth about an applicant’s strengths and weaknesses. Consequently recommendations are exceedingly important in the process.</p>

[lostaccount]

<p>someone is doing an awful lot of cut and pastes of links-how annoying is that? Colleges know how rigorous you high school is. If 4.0 students from a school routinely have SATs in the 600’s (rather than 800) it says something about the school. So if you go to a school like that, with umpteen valedictorians and few scholars, you better have things that show you are a scholar-and just high scores won’t do it. National or international awards could do it. You would benefit from anything that shows that people outside your community have rated you as extraordinary in some area. A bunch of ECs won’t do it but national awards paired with the ECs might.</p>

[BldrDad]

<p>@lostaccount - I think you are out of line and should offer @gibby an apology. Gibby (a Harvard parent) consistently posts interesting and useful information on this forum. These posts were of great help when my daughter was applying to colleges, and I am sure they prove useful to many others.</p>

[gibby]

<p>@bldrdad: Thank you, but if you look through lostaccount’s previous posts, they are filled with flippant, irreverent, pushing the boundaries comments – all in the name of humor. Let’s hope s/he did not use the same “trying-to-hard-to-be funny tone” in their college essays, as I’m sure AO’s will not be amused. </p>

[compmom]

<p>The valedictorian situation does not matter.</p>

<p>An important thing to remember is that applicants are evaluated not so much as individuals but how they can contribute to the larger whole of a class and on campus in general.</p>

<p>Letters from teachers or mentors outside of school can make a big difference too, but call admissions to check if those added letters are okay to submit and how to submit them (in a supplement most likely).</p>

<p>Ivies like Harvard are big on “character,” and there are many ways to try to assess that, not all of them effective. I know plenty of smart kids with amazing character who didn’t get in. Either they were not savvy in their application or the college already had someone admitted who offered a similar picture, I would say. You really cannot control your chances beyond a certain point.</p>

[rhandco]

<p>The transcript is important for rigor as well as GPA.</p>

<p>A poor essay means the student did not spend time on it nor feel that it was important enough to get guidance on. There is a chance that you are not a great judge of essays, and your Harvard supplemental essay is better than you thought .</p>

<p>A LOR which has “top 5%” in all categories but the teacher has no comments is suspect. A LOR that gives a few examples of what the student is like is better.</p>

<p>My understanding is exactly as the Amherst College college process is noted. Once a college sets a minimum cutoff for rigor, grades, and test scores, no fantastic essay, no special circumstances, no amazing LOR will get your app out of the trash heap.</p>

<p>That is <em>not</em> to say that Ivies, for example, don’t consider legacies, athletes, and URM separately, and use much lower cutoffs, such as 3.0 GPA vs. 3.5 GPA or 1300 CR + M instead of 1450 CR + M. But if you are none of these three categories, and you are applying to any Ivy, your 3.0 GPA will result in no review of your specific situation.</p>

<p>Colleges do make decisions about whether they want every single accepted student to be completely sold on their school. Some are more that way, some are less. If you are SCEA to Harvard, and your Harvard supplemental essay is okay but not great, they need to decide if that’s okay or not. What other reason would be compelling to them to take you?</p>

<p>Your chances to get into Harvard are poor like everyone else’s. I agree that the valedictorian thing is meaningless. If your school is known, colleges know that they have a zillion valedictorians and don’t care. Note that the point is to have one student give the valedictory, the speech at graduation, so having more than one is an odd choice and does point to both grade inflation and trying to increase their students’ college chances (with little result you report).</p>

[lostaccount]

<p>Sorry didn’t mean to offend. Got 4 kids at various colleges so I’m not really writing essays these days. Sorry you don’t like my posts.</p>