Key to a top school

[foolishpleasure]

<p>For me: admission was a LOT less competitive when I applied (35 yrs ago).</p>

<p>For D: she was a legacy, applied ED and had posted DivI times throughout high school.</p>

[mathmom]

<p>sherpa, and I thought my son was doing well to be able to do a Rubik’s cube in under two minutes! For my older son I think beyond the obvious stellar grades and scores his passion for computer science got him in - ironically not to the techiest colleges on his list (MIT and Caltech) but at Harvard and Carnegie Mellon. It probably didn’t hurt that he applied to Harvard the year they announced they were expanding the engineering offerings. It also didn’t hurt to be a legacy (though we are not big donors - we are the $100 or less a year category). </p>

<p>For my younger son - just got into Chicago - his scores were fine, but his grades were marginal. I believe he got stellar letters of recommendation (he only saw one of them) and I think he had three great essays - though two of them were both risky and amusing. They really showed the fun loving quirky side of him. While I suspect the teachers talked about his scholarship.</p>

[mantori.suzuki]

<p>My son stared down a Rubik’s Cube until it solved itself.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

Your kid made to a top school, or you did just that 25 or 30 years ago. What set you apart from the rest?

</p>

<p>I applied to, and got into, 3 of today’s top 20 schools, plus 1 that is just below the top 20, using a really creative strategy – applying in 1982.</p>

[bovertine]

<p>

My son stared down a Rubik’s Cube until it solved itself.

</p>

<p>You son is Chuck Norris?</p>

[CrewDad]

<p>

On the arbitrary nature of admissions
Former admissions officer at elite, small liberal arts college in the Northeast, age 25
“One year I had a student with a near-perfect SAT score and straight A’s. I’d originally put him in the submitted pile, but then we had to reduce the list. I reread his essays and frankly, they were just a little more boring than the other kids. So I cut him. Boring was the only justification that I needed and he was out.
One night, I got food poisoning at a restaurant in Buffalo. The next day, I rejected all the Buffalo applications.</p>

<p>I got sluggish in the afternoon after lunch, so maybe I wasn’t as scrupulous about a candidate as I would have been if I were fresh. Or even if my favorite sports team was in a slump, it affected who made the cut. If the [Pittsburgh] Steelers lost a game and I read your file the next morning, chances were you weren’t getting in. Where I could have been nice, I just didn’t go out of my way — I was a lot less charitable. Those are things that you, the applicant, have no control over. Which makes it all the more funny — the frenzy that parents and students work themselves into around getting in.”
Current admissions officer, state university in the Northeast
“All in all, we’re less selective than some of the elite schools or the Ivy League. But there are still some factors out of an applicant’s hands. One night, I got food poisoning at a restaurant in Buffalo. The next day, I rejected all the Buffalo applications. I couldn’t stomach reading them.”

</p>

<p>

Stephen Friedfeld, private college admissions consultant in Princeton, New Jersey. Now works as an admissions officer for Princeton’s graduate engineering program; former admissions officer at Cornell
“The biggest surprise for me was the difference in how much more contact private-school guidance counselors had with the admissions office vs. public schools. I went back to my own public high school alma mater and the guidance counselor asked, ‘Would it be okay for me to contact school regarding a student?’ I couldn’t believe he was asking. That’s just commonplace amongst the private school counselors or affluent suburban high schools. We brought in guidance counselors from a bunch of schools, most of them private high school counselors. And we visited those schools for events. We knew the private-school counselors by name and by face, and they’ve met the admissions officers from the most prestigious universities. That’s a big advantage for students. Those counselors are pushing for them, advocating for them. I never got a call from a public school.

</p>

<p>

Current admissions officer, Ivy League university
“Any admissions director who uses the line about needing an oboe player is lying. There’s no admissions person in the country with a clue what the student orchestra needs. More likely, Mommy and Daddy gave a $1 million donation. That oboe thing is just a PR ploy.”

</p>

<p>[Dirty</a> Secrets of College Admissions - The Daily Beast](<a href=“http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-09/dirty-secrets-of-college-admissions/full/]Dirty”>The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News)</p>

[mantori.suzuki]

<p>

You son is Chuck Norris?

</p>

<p>I love that site!</p>

<p>[Chuck</a> Norris Facts](<a href=“http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com%5DChuck”>http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com)</p>

<p>End of thread hijack attempt, sorry.</p>

[ontheedge]

<p>quote
There’s an expression in admissions circles : the thicker the file, the thicker the kid.</p>

<p>A few years ago, one Adcom came to my oldest HS, and told the kids “please don’t sent us your biography”.
He had just received in the mail, a huge scrap book from a girl, and had to put it aside.</p>

[hmom5]

<p>Other tha a big donation? Great essays and unusual recs.</p>

[Booklady]

<p>I got into a HYP because I applied in 1975. There’s no way I’d get in now. I had decent grades, very good scores, and not a single EC.</p>

<p>I think D got into a (different) HYP because she had superb stats, a demonstrable passion both for learning and for a particular EC, a less common intended major (with the coursework and awards to back it up) and wonderful essays that gave a really good picture of who she is.</p>

[lake42ks]

<p>Part of a book’s title says “… Character Is the Key to College Admissions”. Do those who made into top schools have unique character, personality, or whatever they call it? I heard of an extreme example: 2 kids with stellar records, i.e., straight A’s, 12-16 APs with 5s, 2380-2400 SAT/35-36 ACT, one got accepted by the top 5 schools in the nation, the other made into a top 20 school. Interesting, isn’t it?</p>

[marite]

<p>Nope. The adcoms have no way of knowing what an applicant’s true character is. And much as I love my kids, they do not have “exceptional personalities.” One is passionate about his chosen field of studies and the other is a wonderful young man, caring, etc… but he did not eradicate poverty, cured cancer, or did anything that would have made him stand out. And yet, somehow, he did. He did write a nice essay, though.</p>

[shawbridge]

<p>I’d say that there is a small number of kids maybe 500 who are so superb that they are bound to get in virtually everyplace (perfect grades, board scores, have set up an NGO that has solved the problem of hunger in Botswana, can do the Rubik’s cube blindfolded underwater with no breathing equipment, has proved a conjecture of a famous mathematics professor made 50 years ago that has eluded the mathematicians of the world until this HS kid did it, national chess champion of Russia, etc.). They tend to spread themselves across HYPMCS. At that point, I think there is a gigantic crapshoot among the top 20 schools for everyone else who all have great grades, SATs, and ECs. If you play a sport, are a URM or have a legacy, that increases the probability. But at that point, although the adcoms go through all of the holistic stuff, there is so much randomness. Did your kid follow a similar kid or a bunch of kids on that day. Did the adcom officer have a bad breakfast? Do they already have a bunch of kids from your kid’s HS or state? Did they have a bad experience with a kid from your school. If there’s something that makes your kid stand out, it can help in some places and hurt in others. But, my suspicion is that below that top group, it would be very hard to find meaningful causal factors to distinguish Yale from Williams from Dartmouth.</p>