<p>Xiggi–what exactly is your point? Certainly different schools have different roles and mandates. Is that a problem and what does that have to do with the fact that highly selective schools looks well beyond pure academic stats for many good reasons from their POV? Your sarcasm seems sadly misplaced in order to make a point that was not related to the issue at hand but only serves your own small-minded agenda so often expressed here. Maybe you can adopt a new cause like job creation or something else more useful.</p>
<p>Bay, I was not saying anyone “should” apply to an Ivy to have something to crow about- only that she would have felt a great pride if she had been accepted. And, since few get accepted from the local area, it would have been magnified. In a sense, my point was some kids do look to Ivies for the prestige and, like my dau, would probably make a better fit at a different sort of school. I am not even sure she would have gone there, since she liked the LAC so much. Because it’s local, she did not want to be so close to home, running into me and Dad. At the same time, she and her friends spend a lot of time on the campus and she would have been proud to have been selected. That’s all. Sorry for confusing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No one forces you to make your kids apply to highly selective schools. They’ll change their practices the moment that their “product” is no longer desirable. Sorry, I’m sick of all the whining about “but it isn’t faiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir” accompanied by the expectation that of course my kid belongs there and any adcom who sees otherwise just isn’t making a fair decision. </p>
<p>Hunt nailed it – it is “any attribute my kid has should be what they look for” and “any attribute my kid doesn’t have shouldn’t be relevant in the process.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh please. The elite schools most certainly understand the context of being at a boarding school.</p>
<p>Time to pull the McNuggets out of the vat before we have a fire on our hands.</p>
<p>Alka-Seltzer, anyone?</p>
<p>My son is at an Ivy, and my observation is that he is surrounded by a lot of very interesting kids.</p>
<p>As for whether they are “gamers,” I guess that is intended to refer to those who game the system. I don’t think so. Many of them have really interesting and impressive personal achievements that aren’t fake–and they continue doing the same sorts of things in college. Anyway, when I hear “gamer,” I think of people who play video games all the time. My son’s gamer friends from high school went to big state universities.</p>
<p>Here they go to DigiPen.</p>
<p>to DRDOM. I get like that occasionally. But you have to stop down, and say…if everything is b.s. then why do anything? You actually have to in the end, put some skin in the game, and play it. Play the game! Your choice to withdraw if you like…however you define withdraw. Attend school that accepts simple application. don’t attend any school. Do online/for profit college? Lots of choices out there. But in the end a person has to make a choice, and play the game. OTherwise? what? be a hermit, and join a commune in Bolinas, CA.?</p>
<p>Gamers? No probably not. But “gunners”? yes. that is kids that are ALWAYS on, always thinking about the next EC or activity, and where it well get them. Always thinking about what the next friendship will bring in relationship to their contacts and career. Nothing wrong with that. It’s type A on sterioids. And with a campus full of type a on steroids, look out. I would not choose that to be my college experience. Clearly for those that do, many succeed, and attain leadership positions in many fields.</p>
<p>lookingforward, I hadn’t thought before about how a kid involved “just” at the school level appears to adcoms. Many of my D1’s classmates are heavily invested in school level activities, but they’re of the major time commitment type. They are doing Science Bowl or Aca Deca or Robotics because they really enjoy them. It doesn’t hurt that the teams do well at competition. If they weren’t also seen as being something to put on a college application, those activities might wither away. Still, these kids aren’t of the serial joiner variety. What would/should a student with broad and genuine interests in many things do to avoid looking like a dilettante, only interested in filling up EC spots on the Common App?</p>
<p>D1 was one of the few kids in her class who wasn’t involved in school ECs. At one point, she worried that if she didn’t have any that it would hurt her college admissions chances. Meanwhile, friends were pulling out of some of her ECs (eg synagogue youth group) because their parents were concerned that those ECs wouldn’t look good on college applications. So D1 ended up with a list of ECs that were unique in the context of her high school. For her, it turned out to be the right choice both in terms of college admissions and quality of life. Your mileage may vary. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sounds just like Harvard. 
Which is not to say that there aren’t students at Harvard who are more introverted or less competitive, just that the general vibe of the place is more aggressive, pressured, and so forth.</p>
<p>This has been a very interesting and entertaining thread. A lot of the comments about a more transparent, formula driven, or stat driven process make we wonder … how many people making those comments have made a lot of hiring decisions. After 25 years involved in hiring I absolutely believe that attributes beyond the resume drive (and should drive) hiring decisions …even the dreaded “it” that some candidates have that I know when I see it. Hiring is certainly a far from perfect process but I absolutely believe a hiring process without the human/holistic elements would be much-much worse. And then why would I believe college selecting students would be substanially different?</p>
<p>One veteran manager drove this home to me. When I made one of my first hiring decisions (having just replaced this senior manager) he called me and was surprised “John” had not gotten the offer and was interested what “John” could do better in the future. As it turns out I had not even intereviewed “John” because he was cut off by HR by their resume program filtering for qualifications. I met “John” for lunch and realized he would be a great fit for the position and asked him to apply the next time we had an opening … I also had a meeting with HR to understand their filtering process (which was facinating itself) and convinced them to broaden their filters so my group and I could see a broader range of candidates and base decisions on broader criteria then having checked off certain background experiences on their resume. And yes “John” was my next hire and was a terrific employee in my group … (when he hired everyone who talked to him mentioned what a great “fit” he would be in the gorup and how he had “it” and how we could easily bring him up to speed on the missing qualifications).</p>
<p>A second anedote. While I was working for a retailer as an internal consultant I worked on a project to understand why some districts consistantly had much higher customer service scores than the company average (this is Fortune 100 company). There were a bunch of reasons but one common one … each of 3 had independently decided to modify the corporate hiring practices for retail customer facing employees … and how did they modify the hiring practices … they placed much less emphasis on the qualifications on the resumes … and much more on the staff’s feeling about “fit” for the candidate and if they thought the candidate had “it” to service customers … and that while hard to describe it they knew it when they saw it in a candidate.</p>
<p>A final anedote. For years I interviewed for my undergrad school … candidates with similar stats on a summary page certainly were far from similar in person … some were much more than the applications and some much less.</p>
<p>So for me … I hope my kids pick school that believe in holistic admissions, “fit”, and that some candidates have “it” … because I certainly believe they have it right.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Adjectives I would not use to decribe D’s Ivy class are:
aggressive
competitive
extroverted
self-promoting (Especially not this)
driven</p>
<p>^ Obviously this is one example only!</p>
<p>Adjectives I would use to describe many rigorous private & public high schools (by contrast) – since I interface with a lot of these-- are:
competitive
driven
high-pressure (especially this)</p>
<p>There are differences among Ivy campuses, as ST notes about H! :)</p>
<p>
Again, this is not what I see with my son’s peers. A lot of them are intensely focused on their activities, but I don’t agree that it’s all about what it will get them as far as the next step. They join ten musical groups because they like to play music.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think the problem you are having is perspective. How can you possibly assume that all or even most HS students have parents that monitor their every move. Have you ever stopped to think that some non BS kids are extremely independent? You are spending way too much time worrying about something that you assuming is true.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not all kids are taught to game the system. They are naturally talented and their skills market themselves. I think you’re focusing on a very narrow group of kids/parents and not seeing the whole picture. Your perception has been skewed by your limited experiences with HS kids (not trying to be snarky) and by what I presume only those in your social circle have been telling you.</p>
<p>What’s funny to me is that in my view, the kids who are most compliant to parental pressure are making many of the wrong moves if what they want is to get into the most selective schools. They are pursuing very standard ECs (such as playing violin or piano), aiming at the same academic areas (premed and engineering), and dropping interesting ECs in favor of SAT cram courses. I just don’t hear much about parents forcing their kids to practice the accordion, to study Old English, and to take up curling–things that really might get them into top schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And for good reason. :D</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think one of the important jobs as a parent, if your kid wants to apply to the uber top schools is to explain what a < 10% acceptance rate means. I was very blunt with D1 and I will be with D2. I told her that she was certainly qualified to be in the admit pool, but that with the school getting 20,000+ applications and only having room for 1,500 freshmen the odds were slim. But that she couldn’t get accepted unless she applied. </p>
<p>It’s kind of like after Don Corleone gets shot in the Godfather. From the script:
Tom Hagen: Your father wouldn’t want to hear this, Sonny. This is business not personal.
Sonny: They shoot my father and it’s business, my ass!
Tom Hagen: Even shooting your father was business not personal, Sonny! </p>
<p>College admissions are part of the business of higher education. And if your kid gets rejected/shot, you have to remember (and explain to them ahead of time) that it’s business not personal. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, yes of course that what it is. Reading all those apps between the app deadline date and when final decisions are required? Not sleeping well because you’re working 12-14 hour days. Probably not eating well, or exercising normally either. Plus since they’re people & not robots, dealing with family, friends, etc. Anything I’ve ever heard or read sounds like adcoms take their jobs very seriously and really feel for the kids represented by each application. But by March they must be fried. Just like CPAs are exhausted by April 15th, and people in retail collapse on December 26th, etc.</p>
<p>MitchKreyben–good points!</p>
<p>I don’t think that was what Harvard was like 30 years ago, when my DH was a teaching fellow/resident tutor there. But I get the impression things have changed.</p>
<p>When our D started looking at colleges a few years ago, the first thing the guidance counselor did was direct us to the book “The Gatekeepers”. For anyone who has read this book the NPR story was no surprise. Before reading this I believed that the best method would be a pure meritocracy…best GPA and test scores = admitted student. After reading the book I see where they are cooking a stew and the key is to combine a group of quality (those with the tools to succeed in college) and complementary (socio-economic, cultural, ethnic, etc.) students who help shape each other’s view/outlook while mastering the subject matter taught by the school.</p>
<p>Which is not to say that there aren’t students at Harvard who are more introverted or less competitive, just that the general vibe of the place is more aggressive, pressured, and so forth.</p>
<p>Which could have something to do with Harvard’s higher-than-average attempted-suicide rate among undergraduates.</p>