Living a Lie

Parent Cafe
81

<p>Northstarmom: I still think it depends on the college and web development has become a common activity for teens. My daughter didn’t build a website for college. Her boyfriend’s church wanted to develop a new image to attract a younger crowd. My daughter offered to help them with a new website as the old one was not very well done. She already had an internship with an advertising company that summer so she asked for help to design a new logo for the church and design ideas for the website. Her mentor worked with her and taught her quite a bit about the marketing side of web development, which was a great benefit for her. </p>

<p>She loves to build websites, but she, like your young friend, doesn’t find building them to be a big deal. She enjoyed helping the church out with the website and she does enjoy having a skill that has allowed her to build other sites for money. Maybe this talent wasn’t a big deal because it isn’t in alignment with her intended major. She plans to study biochemistry because she finds science to be the most interesting subject. (When she interned with the advertising agency she was thinking about majoring in marketing, but three years of chemistry classes radically changed her intended course of studies.)</p>

<p>Last, my daughter never chose an activity with college admissions in mind. If you looked at her portfolio you would see a young woman with a lot of interests. Active in drama hoping to have a lead role, but never seeing that happen. Instead she learned about every other aspect of theater, including directing one of the school plays. Varsity swimmer all four years, but never good enough for state competition. She loves to read and when she signed up to work after school at a local elementary school for required service hours she found that watching the kids was unproductive so she decided to start a reading club. She met with the school’s reading coordinator and was given a set of books to get started. She organized everything and met with other elementary teachers to figure out how to increase interest in the club among the children. In the end she developed a reading club that included an art activity. Students would read, discuss what they read and do a little project about it. She has continued this club through senior year even though she finished her required hours junior year. Great club, great idea, but she didn’t talk a lot about it because she doesn’t like to brag about herself.</p>

<p>What has she not done? She hasn’t shown a specific passion. She loves to learn, she loves helping others and she is interested in many, many things, not only a few to pursue at an extremely deep level. </p>

<p>In college she will be involved, without a doubt. Now she does plan to get involved in research early on for two reasons. 1. She understands that it is important for grad school admissions 2. She is hoping a research opportunity will help her decide what she wants to do with her degree. In addition, she told me that she has had so much fun with her community service projects that she wants to join a service club, not a social club. Both our husband and I are active in our community and we instilled this mindset in our children. Fortunately, they like helping out others and will hopefully continue into their adult years.</p>

<p>The schools that she didn’t impress will have others and the school that wanted her the most will get an energetic and involved student who will hopefully continue to shine academically. Honestly, I think it all worked out for the best because the school she will be attending is the one she wanted to go to the most. Looking back, she probably wasted time applying anywhere else.</p>

82

<p>poetgrl: It wouldn’t be the top percent that got in. It would be everyone who meets the requirements in a lottery for however many spots there are. Again, once you met the requirements, going above and beyond would not give you an edge. </p>

<p>It would increase the chances that a student who followed his/her passion while living a healthy lifestyle and focusing on learning rather than applying would get in, and it would make it unnecessary to pad an application or select only classes you can get an A in or cheat, lie, and steal to be in the top whatever percent.</p>

83

<p>From Post #1:</p>

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<p>Oy. Sounds too familiar. Betcha this lab partner will become the head of a $1B+ cancer therapy. “Don’t just point at the graph! Don’t you want your stock options to be worth something? You have to say (to to the investors and analysts at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting) ‘This drug is going to revolutionize cancer therapy!” :D</p>

<p>OK, back to our college discussion.</p>

84

<p>'It was my research partner, who was experienced in how these things worked, who trained me on how to present to a judge at science competitions. I can still hear her yelling, “Don’t just point at the graph! Don’t you want to get into college? You have to say ‘This project is going to revolutionize cancer therapy!’” I remember looking blankly back at her and saying “…But it’s not.”</p>

<p>The partner may have been exaggerating the worth of that particular project, but she was right in that whenever one does a project, it’s best to take a big picture view of what it could mean.</p>

<p>As the old anecdote goes, some people are chipping breaking rocks while others doing the same job are building cathedrals.</p>

85

<p>"What has she not done? She hasn’t shown a specific passion. She loves to learn, she loves helping others and she is interested in many, many things, not only a few to pursue at an extremely deep level. "</p>

<p>She sounds like one of those rare truly well rounded students who love learning and love helping others.</p>

<p>Such students are very much appreciated by top colleges, and such students differ greatly from well rounded students who force themselves to try lots of things in order to impress colleges.</p>

<p>Your daughters learning every aspect of theater is a good example of how her interest in learning drives her involvement in activities.</p>

86

<p>There is no research (that I know of) that shows that students with amazing resumes are more successful in college than students with impressive but less amazing resumes. Colleges are choosing from huge pools of well-qualified students, trying to decide if one amazing achiever is a better pick than another. So kids continue to try to be even more amazing and thus begin to focus more on impressing people than deepening and broadening their knowledge and following their passion. And it escalates in times like these when we have an increase in the number of students applying and/or decrease in funding to colleges.</p>

<p>Students are arriving on campus exhausted, burnt out, and focused on the wrong things. Meanwhile, the student who is accomplished and fascinated and energized by learning, but who hasn’t spent a lot of time trying to impress people, may get overlooked.</p>

<p>I think the good news is that there are so many colleges that are not “highly selective” that do an excellent job.</p>

<p>I often wonder if students who don’t want to play the admissions game would even enjoy being at a school where they would be surrounded by those who did play that game.</p>

87

<p>“There is no research (that I know of) that shows that students with amazing resumes are more successful in college than students with impressive but less amazing resumes.”</p>

<p>The relatively few colleges that use ECs as admissions factors are using ECs to help pick and choose from a pool of outstanding students who’d probably be successes wherever they went to college.</p>

<p>Making a point of selecting students with demonstrated leadership and passion for ECs helps create an active, involved student body, one of the goal at such colleges, where campus EC activities are maintained by students, not by advisors.</p>

88

<p>If you don’t like the game, don’t play it. You are under no obligation to give elite private institutions your business. But if you do play the game, whining about how unpleasant it was does not strike me as a good way to garner sympathy.</p>

89

<p>Can’t agree more with Post 88. </p>

<p>Also, students and parents should not assume that students who end up at “elites,” due in part to their impressive accomplishments, were driven by college admissions goals. No matter how conscious of college a parent is, most 6- and 7-year-olds, when approaching their parents for permission to participate in two e.c.'s, are hardly doing so with college admissions in mind, :rolleyes:despite perhaps being unusually intelligent and/or precocious. </p>

<p>Like many of my daughter’s peers who also ended up at east coast “Elites,” we had no idea what an initial interest (or several) would lead to. From infancy, there were clear indications of her intelligence, but lots of very intelligent people don’t particularly care to become great students. (Refer to those with great SAT/ACT scores who can’t be bothered to study “too much” in high school, but assume that a brain scan is included with the materials sent from the GC.) She happened to enjoy studying for its own sake, which inevitably led to being academically “top” in most of those pursuits. So she was hardly “living a lie.” Those who are, however, or who have, should speak for themselves and not assume that anyone else is imitating their own hypocrisy.</p>

90

<p>northstarmom: I’m just saying that this picking and choosing that colleges do among highly-qualified students is really just as random as a lottery. The advantage of a lottery is that students who don’t get picked don’t take it personally, and students who do get picked don’t feel superior.</p>

<p>noimagination: Of course we can all look at things in our society that could be better and just go along with it. My kids played the game just fine and are doing great. That doesn’t stop me from seeing the problems around me and wanting to create a healthier system that works for more kids. I would like future generations to have a system that promotes depth and breadth of knowledge and a healthy lifestyle over competition and “playing the game.”</p>

91

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That system already exists. The vast majority of students in this country attend less-selective institutions and still have the chance to succeed.</p>

<p>I never understand why people expect elite schools to be intellectual (or artistic, scientific, etc.) meritocracies. They are prestigious precisely because they value prestige. People who are willing to play the game are exactly who they want on their campuses, and those are also the people who go on to do the things these schools want their alumni to do.</p>

<p>Personally, I don’t really want to play that game. But I don’t complain about how it is unfair because I realize that the Harvards of the world don’t owe any of us anything. As long as there is demand for what they do, they will supply it in its current form.</p>

92

<p>^^ much more than a grain of truth. The desire to be around other smart kids however is not per se prestige driven.</p>

93

<p>Thank you Northstarmom: As I said earlier, she was accepted at her reaches, just not for the big money outside of NMF offers. A lot of competition. Thank you for your comments and you ought to see her cross-stitch projects. The girl is interested in everything.</p>

94

<p>Well this certainly was an eye opening thread for a sophomore. I always say if I’m questioning why I’m doing something, why should I do it? It’s seems life, or college admissions specifically, is a game. If necessary, I’ll be the best player in the game.</p>

95

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<p>I’m not sure why everyone here has this perception that those who attend supposedly pretigious colleges were accepted because they somehow “gamed” the system and chose their schools based on prestige, but I’m certainly hoping that that is not true :/. I’ve seen many classmates who pursued the numerous activities because they truly enjoyed it, not because of college admission.</p>

96

<p>Re: post 95. That was the point of Hanna’s post too. Lets not limit the discussion to just Harvard and Yale. Include other highly selective colleges in the equation. (And where you draw the line for highly selective is up to you.) </p>

<p>If all of the high school kids who did ECs in high school did them just to get into college, then you’d expect all of them to drop them in college. Yet athletes show up and play–even at the Ivies, where quitting would have no impact on their FA. There are try-outs for orchestra and choruses with lots of talented musicians fighting for a place. There are daily newspapers at colleges where there are no journalism departments, no facully advisers, and no course credit. There are campus radio and TV stations. There are some amazing community service projects. There are mock trial and debate teams. Yada, yada, yada. </p>

<p>If so many of the kids applying ONLY did ECs to get into college, then why do they still do them in college?</p>

97

<p>I tend to agree with coureur. You can’t simply claim that people who are involved in extracurriculars or doing well in school in large part because they want to go to a selective school are unethically “gaming the system.” Consider why people want to go to good schools: it’s so they can be involved with a vibrant social and extracurricular community and take challenging, engaging classes. I don’t see how it’s an improper motivation to work hard academically and pursue interesting extracurriculars solely in order to ensure that you’ll be in an environment for the next four years (i.e. a selective school) that will allow you to…work hard academically and pursue interesting extracurriculars! That’s why so many kids do extracurriculars in college, becuase that’s they wanted to go to a selective college in the first place.</p>

<p>But what about the “honest” kids, who work hard but are not admitted t college because they are either too modest to emphasize their strengths on their application or in interviews, or pursue a lot of extracurriculars that they are interested in but don’t have much to show for it? In the former case, that’s their fault. When that “honest” kid applies for a job, he will have to prove why he is an asset to that organization and what he can bring to the table. Modestly claiming that he’s not that outstanding won’t help him. You have to present yourself in the best light when applying for anything, because there is no other way for those selecting applicants to determine who is best for them. It may seem like a lottery from the point of view of the applicants, but it is not from the point of view of the admissions committee (or HR representative).</p>

<p>As for the latter case, you again have to consider the perspective of those doing the selecting. If you have dabbled in a lot, but don’t have anything to show for it, what does that say about you? Maybe it shows dedication and hard work if you’ve stuck with something for years despite not being the best, and admissions committees and HR reps will take that into account if you draw attention to it. The key, once again, is presenting yourself in the best light and being able to explain why even though it might look like you failed, you actually succeeded. But if you’ve never placed in a math or debate competition and the guy next to you has (and you’ve both had similar opportunities*), how is it fair to him for the admissions committee to choose you?</p>

<p>Is recognizing this really unethically gaming a corrupt system? I don’t know. It depends on whether you think it’s unethical to emphasize your achievements and successes on your resume. Does this system value flash over content? Of course not. Above all, it values potential for achievement (achievement being acadeic, social, and extracurricular success), as indicated by prior achievement, taking into account the fact that achievement can only recognized if it is presented as achievement. Presentation plays an important role, but it is not valued above the potential for achievement. Is it a “perfect” meritocracy? No, but it is even less a random lottery.</p>

<p>One caveat: there is one school (the University of Chicago) that specifically looks for idiosyncratic intellectualism and above all values the potential for academic and intellectual success. Given its values and the inherently introverted nature of the idiosyncratic intellectualism it looks for, its admission calculus delibrately de-emphasizes presentation, which makes it seem more meritocratic to many outside observers than other selective schools.</p>

<p>*Modern selective and holistic admissions committees contextualize achievement, which means they consider what students have done in the context of the opportunities they have been given as a result of their socio-economic and cultural context. This is why when rich kids “volunteer in Africa” and “travel the world” it is no longer seen as a real achievement, since they have the means to do that easily and it does not mean anything. It is also why admissions committees will not automatically take an upper-middle-class white kid who has done well in debate and has high SATs over a poor inner-city black kid who has neither. You have to consider the context. This contextualization leads ignorant (and usually conservative) outside observers of the admissions process to conclude that it is not a “true” meritocracy.</p>

98

<p>Post 96: … and some of the graduates, even after college. ;)</p>

99

<p>“northstarmom: I’m just saying that this picking and choosing that colleges do among highly-qualified students is really just as random as a lottery. The advantage of a lottery is that students who don’t get picked don’t take it personally, and students who do get picked don’t feel superior.”</p>

<p>It’s actually not as random as are lotteries. When it comes to where I live and the people whom I know, only one Harvard rejection has surprised me and that is because I assumed that a Native American, IB student with V, M scores in the 1400s who was being recruited for football would get into Harvard despite having an unweighted 3.0. He didn’t even make waitlist though he did get into a less competitive Ivy.</p>

<p>I’ve never been surprised by which local candidates whom I had interviewed or knew were accepted for Harvard.</p>

<p>I don’t chance people on CC, though, because how people present themselves here isn’t the full story.</p>

<p>“But what about the “honest” kids, who work hard but are not admitted t college because they are either too modest to emphasize their strengths on their application or in interviews, or pursue a lot of extracurriculars that they are interested in but don’t have much to show for it?”</p>

<p>Those students aren’t the type of students that places like Ivies want to admit. However, there are plenty of other colleges – including highly ranked ones – that would gladly welcome them if those students have good stats. In fact, most of the colleges in the country would accept such students and some colleges would give the students generous merit aid.</p>

100

<p>For me, I definitely do less than I did before, but I hate it when people assume I did those activities just to get into college, precisely because it seems just that way. But the truth is, I legitimately burned out. I had a minor case of apathy and depression and lack of motivation to do anything, and it wasn’t like the senioritis which would under normal circumstances direct my energies elsewhere, to undergo other projects such as senior pranks.</p>

<p>On another hand, yes - I definitely did work harder with the castle of college looming over me with its cloudy and pearly white gates. My amount of sleep was less than anyone else I knew at my school. I worked hard, and now I want to take a break and take care of my health. That doesn’t mean I didn’t genuinely love what I did, or that I wouldn’t pursue it without the pressure of college over my head, but now, I’m really looking forward to a break. And I think I deserve one, precisely <em>because</em> I did so much.</p>