<p>Trust the system, yes. But understand how it works first. That’s why cc is so valuable.</p>
<p>Just remembered a great Amherst admissions story.</p>
<p>A few years back, a student at D1’s school was putting together his applications when his parents suggested that he apply to Amherst. He refused. No interest in the school whatsoever. The parents persisted. Eventually, the son reluctantly agreed, realizing that he could just throw together another application for less effort than it was taking to argue with his parents. He also decided to have some fun with the “Why Amherst?” essay. That ended up being about how he wanted to Attend Amherst because they had the hottest women, compared to similar LACs. </p>
<p>He got in. I can’t remember where he matriculated–it was to another excellent school, but it wasn’t Amherst.</p>
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I think this is the key point. I suspect that the vast majority of essays don’t go against the grain at all.</p>
<p>My D recently had an essay prompt for a competitive program that asked the student to describe a conflict and how she resolved it. She wrote about issues with the sport team she had been on, and how she resolved the conflict by quitting. It apparently went over well, because she progressed to the next step and got an interview.</p>
<p>I disagree with comparing the college admissions process to applying for a job or finding a spouse! In both those cases you get to interview/date the person who is going to ultimately accept/reject you! You’ve got a chance to have a conversation and present yourself in person!</p>
<p>In terms of the job applicant- you send off a resume and maybe get called in for at least one interview. Sometimes I had three interviews until I reached the ultimate decision maker. I always got a call back on the final decision and could ask about what qualifications I was lacking or for honest feedback. If it was something subjective, I knew pretty quickly if the interview wasn’t going well and if I didn’t click with interviewer, the job or the work atmosphere. Dating, on the other hand is another story. I usually didn’t want to hear what a date didn’t like about me…</p>
<p>I feel for these kids. They are told to jump through hoops and pour out thier souls in essays and yet never get any response as to why they didn’t make the cut. They’ve been advised and sometimes ill-advised by parents, teachers, and GC’s, since middle school for many, to take the hardest courseload, be committed to your EC’s, show leadership and give back to your community. Become a varsity athlete, enter competitions and so on…and in the meantime have given up alot of their teenage years…all to get into an “elite” or selective college. My D was asked by the “gifted” counselor at her school if she could take her charity project on a global level this fall to improve her application. OK… We laughed about how she would have the time and funds to do this while working on her “unique” college essays and taking 6 AP’s and an independent study. Her charity project was to work with an existing organization that has art students around the US paint portraits of children from int’l refugee camps and orphanages from their photos. It’s really a neat thing and very simple. But I guess my daughter was supposed to found her own non-profit and fly there in person? </p>
<p>These children see their peers who are less academically qualified, who sign up for clubs but don’t participate and who haven’t taken the hardest classes get a spot. It doesn’t make any sense to them. To tell them it’s because of something intangible at the end of the process- is just rotten. They should have been told that at the beginning of high school so they could decide whether to sign on to the craziness or take their chances and instead enjoy high school and do the things they want to do by not worrying about what colleges want. But as the Amherst adcoms admit, they can’t verbalize what they do want.</p>
<p>Let’s be honest- if it were all so subjective- why are so many of us on CC asking for advice and trying to figure out the most prestigious best summer programs, the best SAT prep books, etc. We want to give our kids all the advantages we can so hopefully they will have the best outcome in this process, whether that’s getting into an Ivy or just finding the right place where they have a great 4 years to expand their mind and find something they love to do (and hopefully be able to support themselves). </p>
<p>My D had a large group of friends over the other nite and I heard their bewilderment, disappointment and rationalizations as to why someone who never was involved in school or community projects got into a “selective” school when someone else who was just as academically qualified and genuinely talented and passionate about ECs was not. Maybe it was one line in their essay? I guess I could’ve told them “life isn’t fair.” I couldn’t do that because at 51- I still want to believe in meritocracy and fairness. (Idealistic, I know) And I want my children too also.</p>
<p>Instead, I told my D’s friends that the person who has pursued what they were interested in is far better off in the long run because they have developed life long skills of community involvement and leadership and learned more about themselves that will serve them in the future. I also reminded them that “success” in life is not determined by the college to which you are accepted. I think they thought I was trying to make them feel better. </p>
<p>These are not arrogant nor entitled kids. They acknowledge those who are exceptional and genuinely congratulate them on thier acceptances,awards and scholarships. In fact, my D wants to write U of Chicago for her friend who is waitlisted on her behalf. She thinks she’s so perfect for the school. Most of them are just trying to get into our state flagship which touts a “holistic” approach - but basically takes the top 10% with legacies, development cases, URMs or faculty children below that margin. In fact adcoms from this school offer a workshop on how to write the unique college essay. Then the student who is the 3rd decile goes home to write the most unique essay thinking that’s the ticket.</p>
<p>So as much as we adults can rationalize the baffling results with “that’s life”- they are 17 and 18 years old and aren’t as thick- skinned or cynical as we are…yet. </p>
<p>I think this college process has become really nuts. This NPR interview confirms it. The parents and kids feel incredible pressure. Interviews like this will just fuel the craziness. I see more freelance writers advertising for editing college essays. Could be really lucrative for them.</p>
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<p>This is where the joke was lost on me. I’ve had several surgeries and it never once occurred to me that the moment of recovery was an opportunity to say something profound.</p>
<p>Even very sophisticated, bright parents I know “let” (YKWIM) their kids write essays about how they felt when kicking the soccer goal that won the state championship, or how they learned we were all brothers under the skin when they went to New Orleans / Guatemala / Kenya to build houses for the poor, or how sad they felt when grandpa died (and the essay turned into an homage to grandpa which didn’t reveal anything about the student). Don’t you think adcoms are bored senseless by these, which is why the Chicken McNugget thing stands out – as something a real 17 yo would say?</p>
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<p>The essay is your equivalent of presenting yourself for the job interview, IMO. It’s just on paper versus in person. You know I’m good enough to study at your school / do the given job – but how interesting / compelling am I? </p>
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<p>Because sometimes there IS no reason. I’ve turned down perfectly qualified candidates for jobs simply because I sparked to others who were equally qualified. No other reason.</p>
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<p>I submit that these children should spend less time worrying about / comparing how their peers do. You also have no idea what that student did outside the school. My kids’ biggest EC’s were a) outside their school and b) completely invisible / unknown to anyone except maybe their very closest friends. And that was just fine. It wasn’t anyone else’s concern.</p>
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<p>A friend of my D’s was waitlisted at Penn (father, brother went there) and she’s enlisting the school in a letter-writing campaign on her behalf. I think it’s a complete waste of time. With all due respect, why should the Penn adcoms care what students at XYZ school think and why should the Chicago adcoms care what your daughter thinks?</p>
<p>I think kids with top grades and scores get into excellent, highly selective schools as long as they apply to a sensible mix of schools, and enough of them. They may not get into all of them, or their first choice, but we really shouldn’t shed too many tears for a kid who is rejected by Amherst and has to “settle” for Wesleyan, or Skidmore, or Colgate, or St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Do you think the kid who wrote that he is only fascinated by music now has to attend West Podunk Junior College? I very much doubt it.</p>
<p>“One word: Chicken McNuggets” sounds like something written by the highly paid college consultant, not an actual student.<br>
The article actually nauseated me. The criteria for getting into a selective college shouldn’t be whether or not the admissions committee finds you amusing. Makes you wonder which geniuses of our generation might have been turned down for not being funny enough or amusing enough. I read something recently (Oh, it was Crazy U) where the college consultant says that it’s easier to get in if you’re an extrovert, harder if you’re an introvert. Depressing – given that probably a lot of future Nobel prize winners are introverts.</p>
<p>Who’d want to go where they aren’t wanted? It’s a lesson we learn in kindergarten when we don’t get invited to that one kid’s birthday party. C’mon people…wake up! Help your kid out!</p>
<p>The highly selectives can take their PC-ness, and their quirky selection process where the sun don’t shine. My D will be attending a highly selective, and more power to her. I’ll support it. But my alma mater ( state, football factory, land grant) produced the following.</p>
<p>Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, Warren Buffet, John J. Pershing, Willa Cather, Aaron Douglas (leader of the Harlem Renaissance), Marie Sandoz (author), Ted Sorenson (Kennedy speechwriter who wrote "Ask not what your country can do for you…), Patricia Wirth Wirth was named the first woman fellow at AT&T labs in 1997, Marjie Lundstrom Lundstrom won 1991 Pulitzer Prize as national reporter for the Gannett News service</p>
<p>Yep. I’ll take my University of Nebraska sheepskin proudly wherever I go, because I know that you get out of college what you put into it. And the well-rounded kids at Nebraska make it a great place to learn and excel. And, you don’t have to wear polos either.</p>
<p>And many Nobel prize winners in science could write pages of chemical or mathematical equations but can’t express themselves well in words.</p>
<p>“I think kids with top grades and scores get into excellent, highly selective schools as long as they apply to a sensible mix of schools, and enough of them. They may not get into all of them, or their first choice, but we really shouldn’t shed too many tears for a kid who is rejected by Amherst and has to “settle” for Wesleyan, or Skidmore, or Colgate, or St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Do you think the kid who wrote that he is only fascinated by music now has to attend West Podunk Junior College? I very much doubt it.”</p>
<p>Right on. Our S cast a fairly wide net. Harvard, Princeton and UChicago rejected him; WUSTL and Lehigh waitlisted him. He “settled” for choosing among Vassar, Oberlin, Tufts and Davidson, and several other more “safe” schools. He and we felt very fortunate and that it all made some sense.</p>
<p>Frustrated parent venting here: My child has a 1450 Sat, is a Natl merit finalist, 5.3 gpa,
600 community service hours, and leadership experience but is not ethnic and not a need based candidate. This active, bright young person did not get into any of the higher level schools. Seriously…</p>
<p>We see all the time here on CC kids who get rejected from several super-selective schools, but admitted to others. We also see kids rejected from super-selective schools, but admitted to slightly less selective schools. It is extremely rare for a kid with very good stats to get shut out from all the selective schools, as long as he has applied to enough of them with a range of selectivity. So, don’t apply to just Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Flyover State (or Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore and Dinkieville College).</p>
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Imagine how you’d be feeling now if he applied to Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, and Lehigh (which must have looked like a pretty safe school). Your approach was smart.</p>
<p>Hunt,</p>
<p>Thanks to you and others who help on CC, we figured things out along the way. S added apps to Vassar and Lehigh in late-December 2009, when we realized he should have more “matches” on the list. In the end Vassar and Davidson were the finalists - he is loving life at Davidson.</p>
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<p>If CC had a like button – I’d use it for this. Very well said.</p>
<p>Seven minutes and forty-six seconds is an eternity in radio broadcasting, so why did NPR confine itself to the anecdotal college admissions war stories we’ve all heard before? A more useful commentary would have asked Amherst admissions officers to describe the breakdown of Amherst admissions: how many of its 1,000 places actually remained active after legacies, siblings, recruited athletes, URMs, and big donors moved to the front of the line. The Chicken McNuggets stories abound in hundreds of itierations, but at the end of the day they add nothing to the big picture. Read Andy Ferguson’s Crazy U for anecdotal evidence and hard data in one slim volume.</p>
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<p>I would have no reason to believe that Amherst legacies are a “weaker” group of students than Amherst applicants as a whole. If anything, they may very well be a stronger group of students than Amherst applicants as a whole, insofar as SAT’s (etc) are correlated with family income and Amherst-educated parents are likely more well-to-do than the average Amherst-applicant parent.</p>
<p>What 4everamom wrote:</p>
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<p>Though – I would not say that my daughter gave up her teenage years because she has genuinely enjoyed high school. </p>
<p>Cast a wide net is great advice, and we did that, thank goodness, and she did get one of her “safety schools,” for which I am immensely thankful, but how many thousands of dollars on application fees are parents supposed to spend as this process gets ever more competitive and more random?</p>