NPR College Admissions Story

Parents Forum
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<p>A lot of kids who don’t conform to a template imposed on him/her from above get into the most competitive schools. A lot of them are not Eddie Haskell. There are a limited number of spaces. If you have multiple kids with same stats: #1 I want to hike in the woods and swim in the lake and hang with my friends and just enjoy being a kid; #2* I want to do science not available at school and so found a mentor for an intel project during the summer because that is when there was time;* #3* I couldn’t do ancient Greek at school, so went on-line and found a way to learn it over the summer;* #4 (insert whatever)</p>

<p>Why do you want the adcoms to pick #1 instead of #2,3,4??
Why do you want the adcoms to pick #1 over the president of the student government?
Why do you want the adcoms to pick #1 over the quarterback?</p>

<p>And if you want them to pick the Beave instead of Eddie, I think they will have to employ some sort of holistic process.</p>

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<p>re. the horrible process</p>

<p>It is my impression there are many state schools, which accept based on formulas, which would allow opting out of anything that one finds horrible about the process, assuming one had the right grades and test scores. (which can be a horrible kind of “process” in and of itself) I have always found it an intriguing idea what would happen if enough of us with high achieving students did opt out of the process and sent our kids to in-state public universities? How that would change the look of “elite” education in this country? If enough people get on board, I’m willing to give it a try with my grandkids… assuming I have any input there ;)</p>

<p>I do understand and sympathize with being upset with a particular school that didn’t accept your kid, or with the the whole process if it didn’t work for your family. I am still very very aggravated myself.</p>

<p>and I also get aggravated if someone implies my child is Eddie Haskell :(</p>

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<p>I have a kid like this. He is absolutely outstanding at being a kid. He will probably make an outstanding adult, too.</p>

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<p>LD,</p>

<p>Just as there’s a difference a well-written personal statement and a ‘soul-bearing confessional piece’, there’s a difference between stretching yourself a bit/doing things outside your comfort zone in terms of ECs and ‘twisting yourself into a pretzel’. You start to learn things about yourself and the world around you when you move outside your comfort zone. It’s uncomfortable at times, but that’s what education is all about. It’s not unreasonable to expect high school students to do this. </p>

<p>Why has Andrew Ferguson become some sort of bible for you in terms of the admissions process? It’s one particular view, and it’s purpose was to entertain as much as it was to inform. And one way to entertain and poke fun is to hyperbolize the process (as you have done, repeatedly, in your rants about the admissions process and university curriculum). That’s doesn’t necessarily mean that the process has been accurately portrayed. </p>

<p>It looks as if you’ve got one view that makes you comfortable and legitimizes your point of view, and you really don’t need to think about it anymore. But if you really want to be educated about the process and university curriculum, you would try to find more points of views, beyond those that legitimize your own personal opinion.</p>

<p>It seems to me that in all your rants, you essentially claim that any process that expects a kid to stretch themselves beyond their comfort zone is ridiculous and unreasonable. I agree that most 18 year olds have a hard time writing personal statements, and don’t do a lot of self-reflection. That doesn’t meant that it’s unreasonable to ask a high school senior, at a critical juncture in their young lives, to reflect on themselves and try to articulate in some fashion who they are and what direction they want their lives to take. </p>

<p>The same goes for ECs. It’s great to join ready-made clubs that your friends are in. Nothing wrong with that. But it’s also a great learning lesson to really figure out what your interests are, and if they are not available to you in your school, find out ways to pursue those interests. Again, life doesn’t always drop opportunities at your feet; why not learn as a high school senior and junior how to create opportunities for yourself. There’s a big difference between ‘hanging streamers for the prom’ and deciding that you have an interest in environmental science and calling up the local river society to see if they need some volunteer help, etc.</p>

<p>It is possible to be a fantastic student, write a decent personal essay, find an interest or two that you can pursue and also have a social life. It doesn’t have to be a pressure-cooker lifestyle. These kinds of kids do make it into elite colleges. I don’t think elite colleges ask for more than this. </p>

<p>To be honest, you aren’t really challenging yourself or growing as an individual if all you do is your schoolwork, hang with friends and spend a Saturday morning filling out bubbles on a test.</p>

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<p>Thanks everyone! It was quite a horrible few days but it ended very very nicely. I do wish all these schools would issue their decisions on the same day so we could avoid the roller-coaster of emotions from one day to the next. My daughter, who is normally very reasonable and sensible, was hysterically sobbing after the first decision to come in was a wait-list: “What if I don’t get into any college???” Then she was elated to get into Hamilton. Then more disappointment of being wait-listed by four schools in a row. Then three wonderful acceptances yesterday, and we were screaming and crying (well, I was) and jumping up and down. Now we get to visit and decide, and yes, it is probably all going to come down to some kind of silly “je ne sais quoi” – was the tour guide cute? were there good vegetarian choices in the dining hall? was the sun shining that day? I already know Cornell is out because we were freezing when we visited in JULY and shuddered to think about what it would be like in February.</p>

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<p>^^^ Amen, Bay (post #442). My Ds have not tied themselves in knots trying to manufacture a set of credentials that will appeal to the most selective colleges. They’ve done well academically and in standardized tests because they’re highly motivated learners. They’ve followed their own passions in ECs because those are their passions. They have not “founded some dumb club just so it will look good to adcoms.” They have been true to themselves, they’re great kids, and I’m darned proud of them. Will that get them into Harvard? Maybe not. Though as it turns out neither of them has ever shown the least interest in Harvard. D1 is in her freshman year at a highly selective LAC, her first choice college by a mile because it’s academically rigorous and progressive and socially laid back, and doing very well, thank you very much, getting easily as good a college education as she could get anywhere in the world, including Harvard. D2 is still in high school and while her own path and preferences will differ from her sister’s, she’s also looking at a number of high quality LACs.</p>

<p>No one needs to be on the hamster wheel. Anyone who feels trapped there put herself there (or perhaps was pushed there by her parents). Anyone who wants to step off the wheel is free to do so at any time.</p>

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<p>We should just admit that the privates can do whatever they want. Just learn the game and play it…if you care to. and if you don’t…try to get in to a public ivy, or any dam.n good school of your choosing. the vast, huge, sizeable, enormous majority of college grads who become terrific successes, will have attended a public institution.</p>

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<p>I agree with both of these. But the implied premise of both of them is really ugly: That somehow a kid is diminished if he doesn’t get into Harvard (or Amherst, or whatever). As elitist as I am, I don’t go THAT far overboard. College admission is not the grade one receives for how one has grown up, and it certainly isn’t the grade parents receive for how they raised their children. Sure, we may FEEL that way at times, but it just isn’t the case.</p>

<p>So . . . if a kid wants to walk in the woods or spin make-believe stories about cloud shapes, if he wishes his days to be bound each to each by natural piety, or if he wishes to do nothing with his free time besides playing WoW, nothing is stopping him. Does that mean he won’t get into Harvard? Not necessarily, but it may hurt his chances. So what? Provided a kid is decently intelligent and manages to complete a more-or-less standard high school curriculum, he will have dozens, hundreds if he wants, of not-too-shabby options for higher education, and very few actual life doors will be closed to him, if any.</p>

<p>Who believes the difference between Harvard and the college Mr. Natural or Mr. Gamer will be able to attend if Harvard rejects him is worth fundamentally perverting a childhood, or an education? Nobody. (At least I think nobody.) Certainly not the Harvard Admissions Committee. They certainly aren’t telling people to twist themselves into pretzels trying to make themselves over to look like whoever got accepted last year. They aren’t pretending to deliver the Tablets of Law from Sinai, either, or that they are all-knowing. They are just trying to pick the best class possible from the applications they receive, via a process that is time-tested and pretty good, but which would not be sufficient to make life-and-death determinations.</p>

<p>Stop treating Harvard admissions as if it were so darned important. It isn’t. It’s not a prescription how to run your life, or your child’s life. And if your child’s genius, his inner spirit, takes him in directions that make his admission to Harvard less likely, that is fine – far better for everyone, starting with the child and ending with the world, than if he spent his time trying to dress himself up as a Harvard student.</p>

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<p>JHS, that was a great post. </p>

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<p>LadyDianeski, you’ve posted before that you don’t think that places like Harvard are “all that”. Your kiddo, a bright boy who’s done well scholastically and who has had what sounds like a great home-schooled education, had no interest in attending selective privates. He’s going to be happily attending Alabama on the NMF full ride–an opportunity, incidentally, that you learned about here on College Confidential, not in Andrew Ferguson’s book. So why are you so concerned about the admissions policies and practices of schools which are of no interest to your family? </p>

<p>If being on CC has taught me anything, it’s that there is no magic admissions bullet when it comes to ECs. Take a look at the individual school forums for the most selective schools, and read the profiles of the students who’ve been admitted. There’s a whole range. There are sports and debate and Honor Society kids, kids who’ve got hundreds of hours of community service credit under their belts, kids who do AcaDeca or Science Bowl. But there are also kids who do anything that you can possibly imagine. They’re building robots (and finding local businesses who’d be willing to sponsor them to raise funds for supplies), or doing rodeo, or working part-time jobs, or teaching religious school, or doing both acting and set design for their local community theater, or learning Greek and Arabic, or chasing down gourmet food trucks via twitter or watching every great classic film they can get their paws on. </p>

<p>Some of them are doing this because their inner Eddie Haskell is telling them to play the game. Most of them are doing these things because they enjoy them. It’s not a long dull slog for them–they honestly ENJOY doing this. My kid LIKES being involved in youth group activities. She LIKES planning programming, and she’s darn good at it. She didn’t do it because an adcom would think it looked great on her application–and I can say this with utter confidence, because she didn’t mention that programmatic work at all on her app or in her essays. She also likes going to the beach and the swap market with friends, along with sleeping away the entire weekend. That wasn’t in the app or essays either. </p>

<p>My younger kid is busy being a 14 year old. She reads teen chick lit, loves Kenken and crossword puzzles, has an entire makeup department in the bathroom (and does a bang-up job doing makeup and hair for her older sister and her sister’s friends) and takes ballet class 3-4 times a week. She’s incredibly flexible, and can actually twist herself into a pretzel. Like Bay, we expect the kid to grow up to be a great adult.</p>

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<p>There’s gamesmanship aplenty with UC admissions. Just a different type of game. ;)</p>

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<p>My kid doesn’t do this. He rides his bike for miles, goes fishing and hunting, plays golf, makes videos, acts out war battles, collects bottle tops, plays his guitar, researches to death whatever he happens to be interested in at the time, like cycling caps or obscure countries on a map, makes friends with the owners of the local burger joint, takes apart and rebuilds his bike, times himself running a mile. I’d say he is quite “stretched,” but he probably won’t have much to fill up the lines on the common app.</p>

<p>P.S. He also hates Chicken McNuggets.</p>

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<p>But that’s just it, Bay. He does more than just hang with friends, such as ‘researching to death whatever happens to be of interest to him at the time, timing himself running the mile’.</p>

<p>I guess I should be clearer that I don’t think it has to be an organized activity to be stretching yourself as an individual. Your kid is curious and doing things to satisfy that curiousity. I’m sure if your house doesn’t have the map he’s looking for, he wouldn’t think twice about going to the library to find it, etc., and if it’s in biking distance, riding his bike on his own to get there. It’s that kind of kid that makes a great student, and one who I can see at an elite institution.</p>

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<p>JHS: I do not think anyone is diminished by not attending Harvard, etc. I thought the discussion was about how those decisions are made, how we think they should be made vs the reality. I think there is an argument to be made for rejecting private education, altogether. And I think a whole lot of people I know will be making that decision in the very near future for a variety of reasons, the greatest of which is financial. But I think there are other really valid reasons for rejecting private education. It is elitist, no way around that.</p>

<p>But, as always, I do like your post.</p>

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<p>JHS and Slithey: Great posts.</p>

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<p>We are now all officially “navel gazing”. Just thought i’d mention it.</p>

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<p>When I was in high school there was only one thing I was REALLY curious about.</p>

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<p>barrons – LOL. :)</p>

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<p>There were times when S2 had the opportunity to take an activity one step further, but he was happy with what he was doing and not willing to play the pretzel-twisting game for colleges. Got in where he wanted by being himself, and lo and behold – he is seeking opportunities and activities in college beyond his comfort zone. Gotta love the kid on the couch, and WOW on what happens when the IB academic pressure cooker shuts off!</p>

<p>Bay, your S and my S2 should meet. War games, making weaponry, geography, fishing, canoeing, sports – works for him!</p>

<p>Now that I think about it, most of the stuff S2 had on his activity resume were things he pursued outside of school – and were things he discussed in essays. Would explain why people were a bit surprised at his results because aside from his sport, debate and Model UN, he was not one of those kids with a hand in every activity at school.</p>

<p>My research guy had been reading journal articles and textbooks for years before he sought out a mentor. He was interested in learning, and if a paper came out of it, fine. He told us many times that the success that came from his project was just the frosting on the cake and he would have been thrilled no matter what, because he came up with an interesting result. One of his summer activities on his college resume was “Reading, Research and Revelry,” and he talked about the stuff he did for fun.</p>

<p>Both of mine refused to join the various honor societies for which they qualified. Felt they were resume-padders and not worth the effort. I know this is a big YMMV issue, and some schools’ societies actually do a lot more than the ones at my kids’ schools.</p>

<p>Count me as one who believes the admissions process works, in large part. I can see why each of my kids got in where they did and why they were declined elsewhere. What was a strength at some schools was a weakness at others. In our experience, there weren’t any truly arbitrary results.</p>

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<p>JHS–wonderful post.</p>

<p>BTW–wanted to clarify that my rant was not sour grapes. My son was admitted everywhere he applied, except one place that wait-listed him (and he is absolutely NOT their type, so this was OK). He didn’t aim for any super-elite schools; he’s a Harvard legacy, but he did NOT want to apply to Harvard, or to any other Ivy, for that matter. He wants to stay in the South. </p>

<p>We were disappointed that some schools which admitted him were stingy with merit aid. But we have nothing to complain of WRT admissions. FinAid, yes. Admissions, no.</p>

<p>But we still think the process stinks. And, no, Ferguson’s book is not my bible. (The Bible is my bible. :)) But I think Crazy U is darned good and spot-on. For me, it was a real eye-opener.</p>

<p>I’m not calling anyone’s kid Eddie Haskell. I said (loosely quoting Ferguson) that the process turns us all into Eddie Haskell. My son found that, too. He definitely crafted his essays and presented his activities in a way that would presumably appeal to adcomms. The process encourages insincerity. It is not our kids’ fault. It’s the process.</p>

<p>Please understand, y’all, that I’m not pointing fingers. Nor am I sitting on my high horse, basking in my family’s non-conformity, and looking down my nose at folks who choose to tread the more conventional path. Really I’m not! I’m not dissing anyone else’s choices…I’m just wishing that colleges themselves would recognize that there are other choices, other paths, other options, which may be just as legitimate and just as desirable (from an adcomm’s POV) as the more conventional route. </p>

<p>I’m upset with the process because (a) it discriminates against home schoolers and against other kids who do not have either the opportunity or the inclination to engage in standard “official” ECs; and (b) it does not recognize that non-conventional activities may be just as challenging and mind-broadening as those usually listed at CC. (E.g.: My older son has lately developed an intense interest in medieval Irish history. He is researching it on his own – and regaling me with all the stuff he’s learning. This is NOT part of his home-school curriculum; it’s jut an interest that engages him at the moment. But I guarantee it would not impress most adcomms or scholarship committees.)</p>

<p>And pace those who claim that rural kids and home-schooled kids can / should make the extra effort to drive to far-off activities: There are only 24 hours in a day; it does not always make sense to spend so much time on the road en route to activities that one cannot finish one’s homework. Academics come first. Surely y’all would agree?</p>

<p>Bottom line: Although DS was admitted to most of his schools, I still think the process stinks. And I feel for the kids who were not admitted to their dream schools, simply because they did not fit some silly, arbitrary profile, which has nothing to do with academics.</p>

<p>There must be a better way. Not sure what it would be, but there must be a better way. :o</p>

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<p>For what it is worth, I think you all would make a great college class!
You are funny, bright, entertaining, passionate, analytical, genuine, on the pulse. Your honesty is refreshing and informative.
I have loved reading all these posts, and would have loved being in college with you, the whole lot of you!!!
What great discussions we would have had, what great things we would have gone on to do!
This navel-gazing may be somewhat ruminatory, but IMHO it can actually lead to some changes in individuals and for the greater good.
Bottom line is we all care a lot!
Thanks for the great stuff.</p>

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<p>haha. The funny thing is: every time one of you notes something “not according to conventional advice” that your kids did…it sounds fabulous to me.</p>

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<p>What is really wrong with the process is the view that there is some sort of ‘dream’ school (or set of ‘dream schools’, such as the Ivy League or bust) that the student just has to attend.</p>

<p>It’s when you think that there’s this one and only one school or group of schools that is right for you, especially if they are very selective schools, that you start the pretzel-twisting insincerity in an effort to ensure that you’ll be one of the few admitted.</p>

<p>And to be honest, LD, I think that your son’s interest in medieval Irish history is exactly the sort of thing that would impress an adcomm or scholarship committee.</p>