Just re-read "The Gatekeepers" - What Admissions is really looking for

Parents Forum
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<p>You cannot possibly have an entire school full of leaders. Leaders need followers as well. You don’t have to be a leader to be a well-developed person who is capable of getting the job down. Just saying…you can lead by example and not be a “leader” as traditionally defined in the least. But I don’t think Harvard needs to accept slackers of any degree, but that isnt to say that if you are rejected from Harvard you wouldn’t have done absolutely great there. There are only so many seats in a class and once you get past legacies and athletes, etc… well, you can’t take getting in or NOT getting in as personal. </p>

<p>If nothing else… CC in general does help you manage expectations. And for those with crappy GC departments for whatever reason, this place is better and more personal than any book on the subject. For those with great GC’s and a pretty solid admit rate, you need to take some of CC with a grain of salt and a thicker skin. :)</p>

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<p>@post 40 above: (I haven’t read the book yet, but) I hope you are right that students who have part time jobs etc. can still get into top schools. My own experience a lifetime ago was that I felt like I was (almost) the only person who had worked during high school or was primarily responsible for paying for my college and grad school. Admittedly, I did not attend Harvard, but one of those schools that goes by more than just an initial. </p>

<p>NSM, I am confused by your posts. I can read the words quite well, but I am not really sure where you are going. I would be proud too if I had gone to Harvard, but… While Harvard is beyond great, obviously every fabulously talented child that applies does not get in. Many more are rejected than are accepted. This is not a litmus test for who can or will succeed in life or who will lead their communities. I don’t think H needs a sales job in this forum. Why keep telling us how wonderful it is? Can’t we figure that out ourselves? To clarify where I am coming from, I think students need to know that there are lots of places where they can get a great education and pursue their passions. BTW, although communities that I have lived in have had some “leaders” who went to Harvard, many (most) did manage to have leaders without a Harvard education.</p>

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<p>I think a lot of people get hung up on the idea that leadership is either starting your own club or being president of a club. I think admissions officer’s are much more impressed by more subtle examples of leaderships. I think it was Curmudgeon’s daughter who was working as a candy striper and noticed that Spanish speaking patients were having trouble communicating with health professionals and came up with a flash card system to help. Both my kids have been admitted to top schools without traditional leadership roles. My oldest showed promise of being a leader in computer science (but emphatically not by being president of any club!) My youngest is active in some unusual activities, but I can’t say he looks like much of a leader in the making to me. I think places like Harvard are looking for leaders in a more subtle way. I also think there are plenty of future leaders at other schools. I also think that working is always looked on favorably and a real job like at McDonald’s probably looks better than working at Daddy’s law firm.</p>

<p>I majored in art 35 years ago at Harvard - news to me it’s a new major!</p>

<p>As for stay-at-home parents, plenty of them, wherever they graduated from become active school and community leaders.</p>

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<p>"NSM, I am confused by your posts. I can read the words quite well, but I am not really sure where you are going. I would be proud too if I had gone to Harvard, but… While Harvard is beyond great, obviously every fabulously talented child that applies does not get in. Many more are rejected than are accepted. This is not a litmus test for who can or will succeed in life or who will lead their communities. I don’t think H needs a sales job in this forum. Why keep telling us how wonderful it is? "</p>

<p>???I am not sure to what you are referring to. What I said was that schools like Harvard that use leadership and ECs as admission factors – something that the majority of schools don’t do – unsurprisingly proportionately have more students and alum who do more leadership than is the case with colleges that don’t use ECs, leadership as admission factors.</p>

<p>This isn’t a brag. It’s a fact. It’s like saying that schools that use religion involvement as an admission factor proportionately would have more students and alum involved in religious activities. People’s past behavior is the best predictor of their future behavior.
A college that values students being active in their religion is likely to produce students who do exactly that.</p>

<p>I have never said that getting into Harvard is the litmus test for who succeeds in life. To me, success in life is having supportive friends and being a productive member of society, and achieving those things doesn’t depend on where you go to college or whether you even go to college at all. </p>

<p>Back to Harvard and similar schools: What differentiates those schools from others is their student bodies, particularly the fact that there are lots of smart people who are very actively involved in productive activities in addition to studying. Probably all colleges have some students like this. A relative few colleges have a high proportion of students like this.</p>

<p>This isn’t something that would be attractive to most people who may prefer colleges that are notable for their sports, parties, Greek life, beauty or nurturing environments. To each his/her own…</p>

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<p>“You cannot possibly have an entire school full of leaders. Leaders need followers as well.”</p>

<p>Good leaders also are good followers. For instance, when I was advisor for a student newspaper at a second tier college with a journalism program, it was hard to find students to take on the official leadership positions – things like being editor in chief, copy desk chief, etc. even though students would get paid for doing those jobs, and doing those jobs would help them get employed in journalism, their field of choice. </p>

<p>It also was hard to get students to find and report stories even though getting published also would help them get internships and jobs. Reporters aren’t in leadership positions, but to do well in their jobs, they have to exhibit the leadership traits of being assertive, generating ideas, working well with others, speaking up when they see problems, pitching in when there are problems and they can help, etc. They are in “follower” positions, but good followers aren’t just passive people who do what they are told. </p>

<p>By contrast, Harvard has no journalism major,and relatively few students want to be journalists. Yet, the daily student newspaper always has attracted an overabundance of assertive students, and students literally have to compete with each other to get on staff. The editors in chief of the paper included two people who became U.S. presidents-- FDR and JFK. This occurs even though no one is paid.</p>

<p>Not only do students eagerly vie to take on the official leadership positions at the paper – and spend 20-30 (!) hours a week in those unpaid jobs, but students also vie to publish articles in the paper. They take pride in trying to beat the NYT and Boston Globe on big stories involving Harvard. Even poor students use their own money to go out of town to cover stories. For instance, when I was recruiting interns for newspapers, I met a Harvard Crimson reporter who was the son of a domestic and a taxi driver and was first generation college. He literally had hitchhiked to NYC to get an interview with a controversial Columbia U professor.</p>

<p>So, it’s not as if everyone at the Crimson is trying to be in charge. What Harvard’s recruiting students with strong backgrounds of leadership and involvement in ECs means that students at the newspaper are assertive about doing their best in the positions they’re in, and they also do their best to make the newspaper as good as it can be. They do more than the bare minimum: they don’t just do what they are told; they add value by their presence.</p>

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<p>State schools don’t do, not just because they seek to educate more students, but because with a larger student body, there are more opportunities for students to become involved in all sorts of activities. It is not clear to me, statistically, that the top schools produce more “leaders” if by that one means that leaders are people who are heavily involved in their community. Hy&Y have certainly produced more POTUS and SOTUS. But that is not the only definition of leadership.
btw, I have both a Wes and an H graduate.</p>

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<p>NSM, I agree with you in large part about what constitutes a successful life. What I meant was that when you say things like H has more “whatever” than anywhere else it actually diverts people from thinking about what is necessary for a successful life. Many people get sucked into believing that if they only went to HYPSM or whatever (Cornell recently for one distraught student) their life would be fabulous. I realize that this a college admissions site, but frankly more people go to somewhere other than Harvard than go to Harvard, and it is important to realize that they want to benefit from the advice of this forum. No offense to you or to Harvard.</p>

<p>Now, while I have a minute before I go to work, let’s not say that sports or Greek life is not productive. Although much of Greek life may seem like unproductive partying (coming from a non Greek), I know that many organizations sponsor tutoring, and other community service, and that being in a Greek organization was just part of the person, and that most that I know and knew were in lots of other campus activities. As for the value of participating in sports, I only wish that this had been stressed as much for girls when we grew up, as it is in many places now. Working with a team or to improve your own skill set are valuable lessons.</p>

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<p>To go back to the issue of interviewing, what seems to have retained the attention of the alums who interviewed S2 was not his leadership qualities but his ability to solve the Rubik’s cube fast. :slight_smile:
For S1, I think it was his willingness to be part of a group that debated highly controversial issues in a spirit of tolerance. He had not organized it nor did he lead it, except on occasions.</p>

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<p>Three college dropouts who have done pretty well for themselves: James Cameron, Brian Williams, Lady Gaga. All leaders in their fields, I’d say. </p>

<p>The world certainly needs people who are good at running organizations, but we also need people who are passionate about what they do. I think this whole emphasis on “leadership” in college applications is not a good thing for our society. It just makes the kids try to be a president, etc. of whatever they’re doing in high school. Whoop de doo.</p>

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<p>"NSM, I agree with you in large part about what constitutes a successful life. What I meant was that when you say things like H has more “whatever” than anywhere else it actually diverts people from thinking about what is necessary for a successful life. Many people get sucked into believing that if they only went to HYPSM or whatever (Cornell recently for one distraught student) their life would be fabulous. "</p>

<p>That’s on them, though, not due to what I’m saying. I’ve repeated said on CC and in real life that that success isn’t getting into a certain college, and that going to Harvard doesn’t mean a person is going to be successful – however one defines success. The person – not their college-- determines who’s going to be successful. Places like Harvard produce lots of famous people because they admitted lots of fast trackers. If the students hadn’t gone to Harvard, they still would have ended up being achievers because that’s how they are wired.</p>

<p>And, certainly everyone who goes to Harvard doesn’t meet the standards of success that many people on CC hold. For instance, I don’t have what most people on CC would consider to be a successful life. I have never made a lot of money. I’ve been in careers that are low status: journalism, nonprofits, teaching college at a 2nd tier. The activities that I do now are mainly in my college town. I’m married to a professor at a second tier college. I think that many people who want to go to HPYS would cringe if they thought that they would end up like me. Meanwhile, I’m happy with my life, and I’m doing what I want to do. :)</p>

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<p>Don’t forget the most famous of them all, Bill what’s-his-name.</p>

<p>Although, now that I think about it, he did drop out from that famous school of leadership. I wonder if that enhanced or detracted from his leadership development ;)</p>

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<p>Marite - </p>

<p>I’m interested in your Rubik’s Cube comment. How did your son impress his interviewers with his cube skills? Did he take it along to the interview? I’m guessing not, but I’m curious if he put it on his resume.</p>

<p>My 10th grade son is a pretty quick solver; just wondering if he can get any mileage out of it!</p>

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<p>On one of the college websites (I can’t remember which one now!), it talked about some of the ED admits for this year and mentioned someone who could solve Rubik’s cube quickly! Marite, is this your S?</p>

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<p>Marite’s S has already graduated from undergrad, so he isn’t one of those early admits.</p>

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<p>gourmetmom:</p>

<p>My S carried his Rubik’s cube everywhere all the time. He had quite a collection.
He put down on his resume under hobbies that he liked to solve Rubik’s cube, bicycling and hiking. Somehow, the interviewers picked on the rubiks’ cube (and may have seen it on his person) and asked for a demonstration and just talked in a very low key way about hobbies, what to expect in terms of housing, classes. It was extremely relaxed.
Ellemenope is right that he has graduated. As far as I know, he has stopped carrying a Rubik’s cube everywhere, but he still has several.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

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<p>Re carrying the Rubik’s Cube around everywhere–does it help him get dates??</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, no. There’s only one woman in his 17 person cohort! :)</p>

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<p>The key to admissions is to APPEAR to be a leader. Often its just pushiness or assertiveness. There are figure heads, bureaucrats, administrators, managers and leaders all heading up school and local organizations. Leaders are in a small minority.</p>

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<p>My son has several Rubik’s Cubes as well. When he was in 8th grade, his basketball coach must have gotten wind that my S could solve it quickly because one day at practice, he threw a cube at my S and said, “This has been sitting around my house for years and no one can solve it.” In the time it took the coach to tell his story, my S solved the cube and tossed it back to him. The coach was stunned, and from that point on, he treated him with a little more respect.</p>

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<p>After a certain point, pretending to be a leader and actually being a leader are the same thing, right? If you’re doing all the work but you don’t think of yourself as Der Führer of the Greater Metropolitan Toys for Tots Program - Southern District, you’re still filling a leadership role. And in the end, aren’t the positive effects on the community the same?</p>