<p>In some ways this is unfair. My h is super-bright, 800 math sats, but was bored to death in high school and was not working to his potential at all. When he had interesting college courses he did fantastically. If it’s a competition of “who played the high school game” best, that’s one thing. If it’s “who is interesting and has potential” it’s another thing. Maybe this kid did neither, of course I don’t know.</p>
<p>Wait–who was doing the critiquing. Participants or adcoms?</p>
<p>redpoint, in your shoes I’d have an extra letter of recommendation from one of those college teachers. My older son’s AP biology teacher thought it was funny (in a good way) that my son spent all his spare time in class (after he finished a lab, or when others were doing extra-credit) reading what interested him, a computer theory text at the time. As it happened he didn’t get asked to write a recommendation, but one can only imagine what he might have said. On the one hand my son was clearly going beyond the curriculum in his area of interest, on the other hand, he did enough to ensure his A in Biology and not one second more.</p>
<p>We visited BU two months ago and they told us that demonstrated interest is very very important to them. They keep a file for each applicant and they record every single email, visit, local information session etc. Was this brought up at all?</p>
<p>My kids HS hosts an event for juniors that is very similar to the event at BU. Adcoms from U of Chicago, Sewanee and U of Dayton brought 3 real applications each. One applicant was accepted, one wait listed and one denied. The kids had no idea which was which. They then put 4 kids with the adcom and went into classrooms and went through the process of evaluating the apps. The kids then had to decide which applicant was accepted, wait listed and denied. They then had to defend their choice. Each kid got to see and participate in the procees with a highly ranked national university, a private LAC and a mid-size private university. The experience was really effective at getting the kids attention. My D really felt like she learned a valuable lesson about the inner workings of the admission process. BTW, her group nailed all the right answers with one exception. They flip flopped the wait listed and denied kid at U of Chicago.</p>
<p>I think most parents and some teachers who “help” with the essay do more harm than good. They end up editing out the real voice of a KID. </p>
<p>My D was one of those who refused all help. Her essays had spelling and grammar errors in them. I would never have let her turn in one of them if I had read it. Yet, when I did read it after results were in, I knew that was the one that was amazingly authentic. Nobody but my kid could have written it. Some of the things it revealed about her were close to cringe-worthy, but they were real. </p>
<p>I think the idea that low grades and high test scores is a turn off for colleges is a lot of nonsense. “A Is For Admission” says that it is and that’s been my experience. Sure it’s better to have high test scores and a high GPA. But given a choice between the kid with a 3.3 and a 2300 and a kid with a 3.3 and an 1800, colleges take the first kid. </p>
<p>I think it’s especially nonsense for the kid with a genuine passion(s) who just isn’t all that interested in other things. It’s a long time ago now, but there was a kid who graduated from my offspring’s NYC public magnet with a 79 average–put him in the bottom 10% of the class. The kid was a computer science genius. The CS teacher wrote him the world’s most glowing rec and he had a long list of some pretty impressive accomplishments in that field. He got into Dartmouth. He majored in something else with a minor in CS. He went on to a Ph.D. program in CS. Dropped out after getting his MS and now is a software engineer. </p>
<p>The kid who claims to be bored out of his mind in high school and who doesn’t do anything else isn’t going to have great admissions results. The kid who is bored out of his mind by many courses in high school but genuinely excels in some area AND has a lot of “beyond the school” recognition or a real record of accomplishment will do just fine, IMO.</p>
<p>Kid in question had almost no As on the transcript, so no area of academic passion or interest, but a lot of passion for an outside project. It is easy to armchair quarterback thus, but the review did seem comprehensive, and not just fixated on a few numbers. Maybe this student should go straight into entrepreneurship.</p>
<p>Jonri- I agree that plenty of kids submit college essays with no input from adults and do fine - my husband was one, and he went to a top school. But there’s a risk of self-sabotage - my nephew, who is brilliant and had a stellar high school record, wrote a negative essay that he didn’t show anyone till it was too late, and wound up at his safety – where, I might add, he excelled, so ultimately I don’t know that it made a difference. I don’t think adults should be rewording applicants’ essays - that does do more harm than good - but rather helping students to assess whether they’ve done what they set out to.</p>
<p>forgot to answer who did the reviewing: we were a large group. The admissions counselors stepped us through the applications so we were all on the same page (literally, ha ha!) and they asked questions what we thought of this and that and essays. In the end, it was somewhat contrived, but they had us vote on who to admit. At the end they revealed the actual decision.</p>
<p>Forgot to mention one thing the winning applicant forgot to do – did a very poor job answering the short essay prompts. If you are applying to BU and they ask you “Why BU?” do NOT say its because you love Boston because there are 60 colleges in Boston. Explain why BU, specifically, appeals to you. Mention programs you are interested in, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, twogirls, demonstrated interest was definitely brought up more than once. I think I mentioned it was considered important in my opening post on this topic. They like to see that you have made contact with the school in multiple ways. I don’t blame them, considering they got something like 51,000 applications this year.</p>
<p>Hmmm, BU’s profile in [CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com) lists “level of applicant’s interest” as “considered”, not “important” or “very important”.</p>
<p>Was the “winning applicant” the one expected by most of the people there?</p>
<p>The winning applicant got the most votes, but number 2 got a respectable number. The last one got few if any. If I didn’t have to choose just one student as their admittedly unrealistic exercise required, I would have picked 2 out of 3. The winning applicant took the most rigorous courses and did the best in them. The fact that this winner messed up on the supplementary essays was not really counted that badly in the end, though I suppose in a more borderline case, it may have counted against more. The second place applicant had a lower GPA but an upward trend in school performance, but kind of took an easier courseload senior year, and they would have rather seen the tougher courses continue. (They said they like it when a student takes all 5 academics – english, science, math, social studies, foreign language either all 4 years of high school or up to the top level course the school offers.)</p>
<p>Our second place applicant, they said, may have gotten in if s/he checked the box saying you are willing to be considered for BU’s College of General Studies, but the person did not check the box so they were forced to deny admission. It is too bad because the student stated BU was their absolute top choice.</p>
<p>(Attendees at this event were parents and older high school students.)</p>
<p>“once you have a unique concept aren’t you half way there already?”</p>
<p>No. You’re not even one-tenth of the way to a good essay when all you have is a unique concept. Most unique-concept essays fall flat on their faces. (That’s not the fault of the unique concepts in particular – most essays are terrible.)</p>
<p>Chances are, 99% of the published books and magazine articles each of us has ever read has undergone a more thorough, aggressive, and transformative series of edits than the essay of a well-coached applicant. We usually don’t have a moment’s hesitation in considering that sort of piece the author’s work. Of course, both books and college essays can be ghostwritten by unethical people, but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here.</p>
<p>I haven’t read thru the whole thread so I apologize if this comment is not flowing with the current part of the thread…
We had a similar session that was done with a bunch of ad coms from LACs and a bunch of pvt HS. We broke up into maybe 12 groups of 10 people or so. Had 4 apps and had to admit 2, WL 1, reject 1. Basically each of the 12 groups had a different set of 2 that they wanted to pick. There was one applicant that I though was far and away the best given 1st gen college and obstacles overcome, yet amazingly, not everyone agreed with me (how can this be ;^D. it was hard for people within each group to agree which 2, and then there was no consensus between the 12 groups. Thus, one kind of got a sense that it was kind of like a lottery.</p>
<p>Later we had to narrow it down to 1 accept, 2 WL, 1 reject. Everyone debating etc. It’s difficult.</p>
<p>Did anyone suggest considering yield management? That sound like something a CC poster would suggest. :)</p>
<p>Hanna-
I will have to disagree. ALL of the essays that I have seen featured various places as “great” college admissions essays have a creative component that grabs the reader’s attention. I still believe the idea is half the battle, perhaps more. Maybe if you have a hard luck story you don’t need to be creative, but not everyone (fortunately) at 17 has had to deal with major adversity.</p>
<p>To take this further. The very first line of the essay often time makes or breaks an essay. Adcoms read thousands of essays, so grabbing their attention from the get go is huge.</p>
<p>My D recently wrote a mock college essay. The first line was…“I stare at people”.</p>
<p>Her teacher told her that he was hooked and couldn’t wait to read more.</p>
<p>"He ended up writing another very weird essay that this teacher approved. It didn’t get him into the Ivy League or Georgetown, but a slightly twisted version of it got him into Chicago. " - Mathmom</p>
<p>Love this.</p>
<p>Right after my DS’14 and his classmates took their AP English exam, their College Counselor took over the class for the rest of the year. She lectured the students on what colleges like and dislike in application essays and then assigned each student the task of writing first drafts of 2 of the 6 Common App prompted essays. On the last 2 days of class she went over the draft essays with each student and then gave them all revision assignments due the first day of class senior year.</p>
<p>I agree with jonri–kids with low GPA’s and high test scores have plenty of worthy options, and offers of merit scholarships! Heck, my kid was even named a State Scholar, which could only have come from his high test scores. He also wrote a great essay that talked about himself and has strong EC’s. What is perhaps missing from the group reviews of applications is that a few adcom’s that interviewed DS mentioned how much they enjoyed talking with him and that he asked interesting, not predictable questions in their one-on-one. Between showing interest by visiting and being a sensitive, interesting conversationalist, I think he showed why he managed to get very high test scores. I’m sure he still can’t explain why he didn’t care too much about his grades, so no one has that answer, but he apparently stood out and made a good impression nevertheless.</p>
<p>I agree on the interview being a decing factor in some cases. Although my D got into BU without one–she has a good narrative that fits her major–her GC strongly recommended she interview. Why? Because schools will like and remember her. She’s a bit quirky, in good way, teachers always say she’s a pleasure to have in class, and one teacher told me she’s “a breath of fresh air”.</p>
<p>Of course, given the parameters of the discussion in question, I can see why they couldn’t involve interviews. But, there are some people who present better in person than on paper, and kids on the bubble shouldn’t be discouraged.</p>
<p>The couple of kids I know who flamed out big time in college (not including a few with health or mental health issues) were those with high test scores and comparitively mediocre HS GPAs. </p>
<p>They were very bright kids. Bright enough to be able to slide through high level HS classes while maintaining… Ahem… Extensive non school sanctioned extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>When they got to college they crashed because the work got harder, they chose to … Ahem… Continue to fully live life outside the classroom, and they could no longer pull it together at the last second to get a decent or even a passing grade.</p>
<p>Their college trajectories were suprises to their parents but not to anyone else who had known them in high school. Their parents were convinced their less than stellar high school grades were due to their bright kids being bored and that once they were properly challenged in college things would change.</p>
<p>Nope.</p>