<p>Thank you to simpkin for that. I am long past this stage, now (except for graduate school, which turns out to be maybe worse, because everyone has a sub-10% acceptance rate). But I remember feeling exactly that about one of my children. Despite his “leadership” posts, he was not really a true leader, nor was he a paradigm-changing thinker. He was a smart guy who worked his butt off and did everything anyone asked of him – parents, teachers, employers, friends. He knew perfectly well he was not the intellectual star of his class, but he had plenty of intellectual curiosity and drive, coupled with (at 17) an almost-desperate lack of direction masquerading as a desire to be a doctor. </p>
<p>I love him; I respect him; I want him to get what he wants; I want him to be happy. I couldn’t will him into Harvard or Yale (not that I didn’t try). I felt so awful this week four years ago. Things worked out fine, though. More than fine, great.</p>
<p>I agree completely with what xiggi said, except for the part about the majority attending their first or second choice college. The majority of my kids’ high school classmates attended their first or second choice college for the simple reason that the majority of my kids’ high school classmates only applied to one or two colleges, ones where they were assured of admission (sometimes actually, sometimes virtually). If you looked at the ambitious, academically successful kids at the top of the class, however, only a few of them attended their first or second choice college. But it didn’t matter, because their third, fourth, sixth, seventh choice colleges were all great colleges. (And I’m not talking about kids who applied to eight Ivies, here.) The system really does work tolerably well, as long as you have a short memory for the traumas of late March.</p>
<p>In #164, I was saying that “did everything asked of her” would not be viewed as a wholly positive statement by a recommender, because the buzzwords these schools are looking for would be more like “innovative,” “proactive,” “self-starter,” etc.</p>
<p>And my other point is that every high school has a top student academically, and very often that student is also a leader in the school. If he also has a high SAT, people will expect him to “get in everywhere.” But there are a whole lot of kids like that, so they can’t all get in everywhere. This comes as a shock to the kids and their parents, because they (rightfully) viewed the kid as a superstar–in the local environment. You will also see this with kids who are interested in music school, musical theater, etc.–there are just more superstars than you might think.</p>
<p>This is why I think the very most selective schools appear to value measurable achievement in an activity outside the high school.</p>
<p>This is a good characterization of a big problem in the admissions process - students (and their parents) think they should choose activities and interests baseed on what other people will think of them later on. Finding a college fit should not be about picking the college first and then trying to mold the student to fit an imagined profile of what that college wants.</p>
<p>There are students who take hard courses and do amazing things in their communities because they find these things interesting, rewarding, and fun. They don’t see themselves as giving up their teenage years, but as having a great time in their teenage years. Some colleges are looking for students like that. There are plenty of other colleges that value other kinds of experiences and accomplishments. It doesn’t make sense to try to construct a profile that isn’t your own - how happy would you be at a school where the assumption is that you actually like doing all the things you did just so you could get in? This is probably preaching to the choir, sorry.</p>
<p>After hearing that segment on NPR, I said a small prayer of thanks that my very intelligent daughter bucked her mom’s pre-conceived notion that she would attend a small New England LAC a la Amherst, Bowdoin etc and looked instead to large OOS highly ranked public universities. What an incredibly self-important, pompous, bunch of malarchy on the part of that admissions committee. Amherst may “know it when they see it” but I can recognize baloney when I hear it too. Bottom line is that it is a crap shot on whether or not a kid gets into this kind of school - Chicken McNuggets or join every religious club. If that is what it takes, no thanks. </p>
<p>I’ll take a school that wants high SATs, class rank and GPA any day of the week. Those requirements are evidence of hard work, intelligence and dedication - traits not to be overlooked or undervalued in favor of being clever or quirky. That is just a form of intellectual snobbism. My daughter with her 8 acceptances with an abundance of scholarships, honors programs and paid internships has (yet again) proven herself to be wiser than her mom.</p>
<p>Amherst could fill its incoming class with kids who have high SATs and GPA and who also have red hair. They have the luxury of looking for quirky kids if that’s what they want.</p>
<p><<<Amherst could fill its incoming class with kids who have high SATs and GPA and who also have red hair. They have the luxury of looking for quirky kids if that’s what they want.</p>
<p>That’s my kid! Not quirky, but she does have lovely red hair.</p>
<p>Sorry, this board moves fast. I tried to quote you, failed, thought better of the whole thing. I understand what you meant. I am just feeling very over-protective of my DD today.</p>
<p>fast forward a few years and maybe this board will have parents discussing their kids’ tenure review … which is really really subjective sometimes…</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I think you misunderstood me. I am sure U of Chicago would not care a hoot about what my daughter thinks and that wasn’t my point at all. I was trying to show, not tell, that these kids aren’t trying to out do each other- they want to help each other out. They all know where they stand and they are not “worrying” or dissing those who have gotten in where they want. Most of them have some good choices and are happy. Some are disappointed and naturally are trying to make sense of what seems to them a very random process, but will eventually move on. I’m glad they feel comfortable talking about it. I agree with you about not having the complete picture of a classmate and I had pointed out to them that there maybe some outside activities or talents no one knows about.</p>
<p>I was commenting on how brutal the process can be on kids who haven’t had knowledgable parents, proper GC advising or access to CC over the years to even know that they should be “quirky” in their essays. In fact, many of them were told by the adcom that gave the essay workshop that if they aren’t naturally funny, humor is too risky in an essay. (I don’t think the McNugget thing is that funny either)They’ve all dealt with rejection in the past and will get through this too- expressing disappointment and befuddlement are part of the process before moving on and re-calibrating their goals.</p>
<p>In my D’s case, she wants to support a classmate who confided in her that it’s her dream school and when we visited she realized how well she’d fit the school. My daughter also wrote a letter of recommendation for her friend who was accepted at Dartmouth, who by the way, uses a peer recommendation instead of a supplement. So maybe in her limited experience she thought she could help. BTW this classmate hasn’t recruited a mass email from her class -quite the opposite- she’s kept it really quiet.</p>
<p>I am still really really aggravated my science kid was waitlisted at MIT. And still imagine something strange happened there. Meanwhile he is trying to finish up whatever counts as a dissertation in science. Really really aggravated. I am sure I’ll get over it some day.</p>
<p>Absolutely, positively not so. Nobel winners are well known in their professional communities. They’ve spent years communicating their results in papers, and by giving talks at conferences and seminars. They know how to work a crowd. Yes, they have to be brilliant and hardworking. They also have to know how to communicate with others, how to sell themselves and their research. They write multiple grant proposals every year doing exactly that. </p>
<p>One of the most brilliant individuals (BI) I know should have been part of the Nobel prize award, but was pretty much shut out of a share of an award because one of the project leaders–who knew much better how to play the game–implied that BI’s contribution was minor. Like heck it was–the project would have otherwise failed, and there’d be no Nobel awarded to that project.</p>
<p>alh, a friend of mine is still annoyed with her son’s sophomore year bio teacher, who told the kid that he didn’t seem to have much talent for science and should probably go in other directions instead. He went to college, majored in computer science, worked for a few years, and then got a PhD in molecular biology from Cambridge University. He had not taken a science class between 10th grade and starting his doctoral program, and his mom thinks this was in large part because of the teacher’s comments. She always said she would send a copy of his dissertation to the teacher, but I don’t know if she did it. She definitely is still annoyed :-).</p>
<p>I agree with this. For me, part of the process is the admissions committee confirming that YES they also think the school is a match for my kids. And the answer may be for whatever bizarre reason that others may be better matches than my kids.</p>
<p>I’m a bit surprised that so many seem so outraged by the segment. Whether you like it or not, are you that shocked that this is how it works?</p>
<p>I saw the Chicken McNugget line as a soundbite. Maybe in the context of the discussion of that applicant, the line was funny. No punchline is funny if you haven’t heard the entire joke.</p>
<p>In general I agree, but there have been some spectacular exceptions. Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock didn’t get her Nobel for her discovery of genetic tranposons until decades after she should have gotten it, because nobody could understand what she was talking about. It wasn’t until recombinant DNA technology came along and others discovered the same thing via different methods that people figured it out. </p>
<p>Her writing style in her papers was so dense and convoluted that her work was largely ignored. Her poor writing almost cost her the Nobel and other honors that she deserved.</p>
<p>TatinG, I want to echo SltheyTove’s point. My son, while taking a required philosophy course with other engineering students, was told by their professor that he always requested an engineering group because he found them to be exceptionally intelligent, curious, and well-spoken. You would be surprised at the talents many of those engineers have. Unfortunately, while this article states that the admissions department say that they are looking for intellectual curiosity I believe the authors and parents who have been through the process question just how good a job they do of that.</p>
<p>Yes. Exactly. Life’s too short. You have to do what you like. Two years ago, I never would have envisioned either of my kids doing the EC’s that I think got them noticed at their colleges of choice. Which is precisely the point. They came across those things themselves, and it was a lot more genuine than some of the “packaging” I, quite frankly, was urging them to do. My S, for example, is interested in politics / international relations. I thought he should join things like Model UN, blah blah blah. He did something else in our community that related to politics. It was a lot more genuine when it was his desire.</p>
<p>By saying that the science-oriented ‘don’t express themselves well with words’ I meant that they take a drier, more fact-laden, straight forward analytical, but often less creative approach. They may be brilliant but in an essay, they won’t really capture an adcoms imagination or make them laugh.</p>
<p>You can actually write about something that is connected to you–like an event you witnessed, or a group you were a part of, or something your family does–and how it affected you or what your reaction to it was, and make that your essay. Massively more interesting and also fits the bill. I’m willing to bet that a lot of the people who got in made a substantial portion of their essay about something over which they had little or no control, and how it interested them.</p>
<p>In that case we shall have to make the tests and classes harder in high school, because they could not eliminate enough people by using the tests. Yes, there are differences, but not necessarily statistically significant ones. Should mono or the flu the second semester of your sophomore year REALLY keep you out of your dream school?</p>
<p>And I would also point out that while Jews, steeped in European culture for over a millennium, could compete, not all minorities could. At that point I do not think they were considering admitting anyone who spoke with a southern African-American dialect.</p>