<p>"the stark reality is that educationally, athletic excellence could potentially help him more than musical accomplishment."</p>
<p>I imagine that's true at most schools-- if he's good enough to be a recruited athlete, if he doesn't get injured, etc. However, most students who do sports are not that good.</p>
<p>If your son's passion is the piano, and he also has a passion for a sport, IMO, he should do both, and organize his time so that he does well in his academics. He may not be able to get straight As or to take the toughest courses, but he could still get a great deal of enjoyment from this, and amass a record that could get him into a good college where he'd get a good education and be on track for a career or graduate work.</p>
<p>H.S. probably will be his last time to follow sports and piano intensely, so IMO unless his grades take a major hit, he should pursue his passions.</p>
<p>After, he can go to a college that meets his needs and that will accept him. If your son is bright enough for you to be weighing whether his pursuing 2 passions will exclude top colleges from his list, then my guess is he is a strong enough student to be able to get into a good university that will meet his needs. I don't think that his decision about his h.s. ECs should be based on what's most likely to get him into HPYS. </p>
<p>No one is guaranteed HPYS no matter what they do. Students, though, who follow their EC interests in h.s. and pursue a college prep curriculum while getting good grades can gain admission to colleges that provide excellent educations and environments where the students flourish.</p>
<p>Northstarmom is right on the money with her posts. The fact of the matter is that the vast, vast majority of kids who pursue sports are not going to be good enough to play at the Division 1 level which is what is needed for HPY. And the time, money and effort involved to even attempt to get to that level is such that unless the kid is really interested in the activity, it is not a great investment. It is just that IF the kid does get to that level and IF the kid has the academic profile to get into such a school and IF the coach of that sport wants him, he will have a better shot at getting into the school than if he were at that same level as a piano player. The problem with piano is that there are many, many piano players. More than half the top rated students I know are also excellent piano players. And there is really not much of a venue for piano players at a university whereas sports have the teams that need bodies. I have noticed that when many schools need a pianist, they hire one, rather than try to get a student to play--CMU an example I know well, and they have outstanding pianists conservatory level among their students. </p>
<p>Now if a pianist is truly gifted, and wants to study music at Harvard and can get contact with someone on the faculty who really wants this kid, it could make a difference. That is really how it works with athletes--they have to get an advocate (the coach of the sport) within the college to lobby for them in admissions. Any student who attracts the attention of a faculty member with his passion for some endeavor and for demonstrated excellence in the field, has a very strong "in" for admissions. But the ivy orchestras do not have to shake the bushes to get a full slate. The football coach does need to recruit in order to get a competitive team. That is really the difference between sports and music as hooks. There are just not that many kids who are up to ivy standards and also have spent years on the gridiron and have the physical attributes to play football at that level.</p>
<p>If it were just up to me, I would counsel the kid to do what he enjoys and let the chips fall where they may.</p>
<p>He, however, is a highly motivated and highly impressionable 14-year-old who, despite our efforts to shield him from the process, just watched his older brother go through the athletic recruiting process and be accepted at Princeton. As you have mentioned, a great many stars and planets had to line up in order for that to end felicitiously. </p>
<p>It is not for me to try to discourage him from the same path, even though it would not be my desire for him to follow it. Somehow, trying to hit the same mark twice seems harder than hitting it once, even though he has begun high school at an impressive stride, with an A+ average for the first semester and he shows great promise in his sport. Mostly, I prefer that he not be thinking about the endgame as a freshman in high school, but rather to experience it as it comes and not compare himself, favorably or otherwise, with his brother.</p>
<p>Does anyone here remember that study that indicated 10 years out of college success/happiness was not at all tied to the prestige of the institution attended? I might like to leave it conspicuously available for reading sometime in the next year...</p>
<p>My 14 year old does not seem to be the slightest bit interested in colleges despite this household is a hotbed of college admissions activities. Nor was my son who just got into Yale up until this year interested in school and prestige. He was aware only of a few schools that crossed his radar screens many times with no comparisons. However, if you do have a son who is interested in high achievement and is already aware of the hierarchy of colleges, it is nice to throw out some strongpoints of schools that excell in his area of interest that do not have the national exposure of HPY. You won't have to do a thing to get the hype up on those top schools, but it takes a little work to find some of the hidden jewels in colleges. </p>
<p>If he is interested in his sport and promising, by all means help him along. As a parent of an athlete, you know what it will take to get into a top level school as an athlete. It is not always a slam dunk. Athletics make for great ECs, can keep a kid healthy and have wonderful leadership opportunities, even if a kids does not make D-1 recruitable levels. And if he enjoys the piano, it can lead to all kinds of things as well. My athlete was a top level musician as well. And it is something he will always have. My performing arts son is also an excellent athlete, could probably wrestle at some top school, but has no interest in continuing it beyond highschool and has not done more than two weeks of camp and a season of the sport each year. But throughout highschool he did not want to give it up and it is the main reason he decided not to graduate in January--he could not wrestle this year if he did as the season runs beyond. </p>
<p>It's tough for kids when the parents tend to talk only of the HPY &co schools. They visit the schools, sport sweatshirts and mugs from those schools. All from ground zero. Those schools have enough cache that the talk in highschool will attract the student enough. Harvard does not care if you visit them. Demonstrated interest does not help at Princeton. I see every year kids who have visited Yale 6 times by the time they are rejected from there, and they have not put more than a lick and promise on apps to schools that are not only more realistic choices but had attributes that are good fits for these kids. You don't need to court the ivies. What a shame to get accepted to Goucher and Muhlenberg and be terribly disappointed because all kid was focused on were the most selective schools. And I see it all of the time and am seeing it now.</p>
<p>With a brother at Princeton, he does not need any Princeton exposure or pressure. Just naturally introduce him to schools and programs that may fit him that are not the ivies or the most selective schools. That is where the work comes in.</p>
<p>So, do you think it might have been a mistake that we lashed our 14-year-old to a chair, taped his eyelids open and forced him to watch a repeating loop of "A Beautiful Mind" over the summer? </p>
<p>Seriously, I think his interest developed because he is involved in the same sport as the OS and a number of other friends who have been recruited to H, P, S and other schools, so there has been a buzz going around recently. The phone started ringing in July and his brother was taking recruit trips in the fall -- they are close, and he was very interested in his brother's and friends' decisions. </p>
<p>He will grow and change a great deal over the next three years -- lots of time to forge his own identity and destiny separate from his brother's. His two half sisters attended the same university and he naturally would like to see himself going to school with his brother; as a parent it's a bit of a challenge to know how to respond to that kind of hope without either discouraging a child or giving false hope.</p>
<p>I have to agree with Jamimom's post #89. High level athletics do indeed seem to trump all. I've seen it time and again with Ivy bound students from our area. I tend to think that the odds for admissions for alumni and development cases, while better than the averages for the rest of the applicant pool, are overexaggerated. I can't help but think of John John Kennedy's rejection from Harvard. Most development cases aren't even serious contenders unless there are guarantees for huge sums of money.</p>
<p>John John's s academic struggles were pretty well publicized -- didn't it take him numerous attempts to pass the bar? Each of them was scrutinized ad nauseum in the press. Can you imagine having S or D's academic ups and down's hounded by the press? Happy to be among the obscure un-famous!</p>
<p>Not all of the Kennedy scions went to Harvard by a long shot. There are also some pretty well known Legacy/development/celebrity types who have not gotten into the top schools that I have known. And they were not as far from striking range as some athletes I have seen. But all sorts of kids who have a special talent or are unusual in some way get into the top schools if they catch the eye of someone within the school who feels that some special exemption should be made in the gpa, SAT or other traditional academic area. Schools are fully able to make exceptions if they feel they are warrented. But the very definition of truly unusual, truly special is such that few kids are going to fall into that category since the instant there are too many kids that fit that description, it no longer becomes special. </p>
<p>No, Dizzymom, I don't think for a moment that you are pushing Princeton onto your 14 year old, but are very aware of how the logistics of your older son's college experience is shaping your younger one's expectations and standards. He certainly won't need any extra info on Princeton with a brother there. But there are certainly a number of other schools that can use some "publicity" in the household so that Princeton does not become the begin all/end all of the college search. </p>
<p>However, for kids who are coming from the middle of the road, public school without any handle, it is the transcript that trumps. The quality of the courses, the difficulty level of the courses, class rank and gpa are the most important things. All of these things are from the transcript which is a 4 year record of the student's academic achievement.</p>
<p>Pet peeve - The 'class rank' business can be very misleading, and can hurt an applicant from a public school where the state or county doesn't rank. </p>
<p>What the colleges (those who care - like the Ivies) have to do is to go by weighted GPA (if available). Problem with this is that at many public schools, equal 'honors quality points' are given for both APs and Honors courses. At my son's school, for instance, 12% have a WGPA from 4.01-4.51 and 6% of the students have WGPA above 4.51 - however, many of those students have taken none, or few, APs. So a student with 7-10 APs will look the same GPA-wise as a student with 7-10 Honors courses. </p>
<p>Can you say "bad idea, try something else, Adcoms?"</p>
<p>In this situation, I suppose admissions has to adjust the AI (or whatever equivalent) to account for the APs, look for either national or regional awards that imply "best in school" or "best in county/state," and place greater weight on the references.</p>
<p>"hat the colleges (those who care - like the Ivies) have to do is to go by weighted GPA (if available). "</p>
<p>Many colleges also recalculate gpas based on their own standards. This can include tossing out nonacademic courses and giving weight to IB, AP courses</p>
<p>If you come from a highschool that sends a lot of kids to the Ivies and top schools and is a known institution, that is not a problem. They do look at the gpas and ranks differently for such schools. Scarsdale sends a large percentage of their kids to the ivies; I know one year 26 got into Cornell alone, and it is such a public school. The prep schools also get somewhat of a break, and there is a special chart that the ivies and other top schools use to get a read on those transcripts with freshman year grades often discarded regardless of the general policy. </p>
<p>Kids who go to a school where kids do not usually go the top colleges and whose schools are not on the radar screens of such colleges really need to step outside of their school and augment their academics with some known programs where they can be measured with their peers from schools that are known. Sadly, they usually do not do too well when that happens.</p>
<p>There are some schools who regularly send many kids to the top colleges. Some of those schools are the old prep schools, boarding schools, private day schools. There are a number of public schools as well, such as Scarsdale in NY, Milburn in NJ, New Trier in Chicago. A student who comes from such schools does not necessarily have to have as high of a class rank as those kids who come from schools that are not known to the top colleges The ivies and the top schools really scrutinize that class rank number, and not being in the top handful, never mind the percent can be an issue for admittance. Not so in the schools that are known to have a lot of very top students. Allownaces are made for such students. For example, in many prep school, being in the top quintile can earn you the top academic rating for assessment by a college, whereas you need to #3 or up in the class for some school with a less rigorous profile, unknown to the adcoms. The colleges understand that class rank is not a good measure at a school where the students all tend to be excellent. Number 5 and number 10 can be equally as strong since most of the students in that school would likely be top students at the average American highschool but happen to be in a select school. </p>
<p>My son's school does not weight, for example, and does not designate classes as AP or honors. He has already taken 6 AP exams, however, and will take 3 more at the end of his senior year. GPAs are not that high at his school, in fact are not calculated, nor is class rank given, nor is the curriculum rated by the GC. They refuse to fill that part of the rec sheet out, instead giving a narrative of the student which the top schools seem to find more informative. I have seen kids get into ivies with a 3.4 average, if you calculate the gpa of the academic courses on a standard 4.0 UW scale. You would not ordinarily see this for most schools. Also because many of these kids do not do well freshman year, particularly at boarding schools when it is such a transition, colleges tend to ignore those grades, even if they customarily take them into the formula. </p>
<p>Sounds like a sweet deal, but even so a "B" average at such schools do not an "A" average at Public High make. It really comes out to a very slight tip factor for most kids but a big plus for kids who are athletes or come from special outreach programs.</p>
<p>I understand all of what you just wrote, but what did you mean by saying that students from schools that don't send many kids to top colleges usually don't do well when measured against peers from known schools?</p>
<p>Most adcoms of the top colleges do prefer the underdog, the one without as many of the advantages, from schools that do not usually send kids to their type of school. However, they are wary of such students because statistically they do not usually do as well as the kid who comes from a top notch school where the academics are already pretty tough and they have the competition of their peer. Tom Wolf's new novel touches a bit on this, but if you read some of the books written by adcoms, they will mention that much to their regret the underachiever with legacy, developement parents do end up getting through college. THe ones they often take that chance on, often do not. Examples are in the "Gatekeepers" and "Admission Confidential" , and that frankly, is the reason that there is a bit of preference for kids who come from known schools. They are a KNOWN quality, and statisitically it is known that they will generally do well in a top school as they have been well prepared all of their lives. You will see that statistically many of the athletes at the ivies are from prep schools themselves, and many of them were not great students at those prep schools, many were not the best athlete available but that KNOWN factor is what gives some of them a leeway in getting into that top college. The college knows that statistically those kids will be able to do the work. It is not as known of a factor in many of the other highschools.</p>
<p>I think that if the standardized test scores (SAT 1, SAT 2, and AP) are high (along with high grades), it shows that student is as well prepared as students from the prep schools. I am speaking form my son's experience (which may not be typical). He had to learn a lot of the material for the chem and physics SAT 2s on his own, as his high school courses did not cover the full curriculum and he knew he needed high scores on these tests in order to be admitted to the colleges he aimed for. If he had gone to a school which aimed to send students to top colleges, he likely would have been taught this material as part of his classwork. Are you referring to students with weaker academic backgrounds (test scores and gracdes) from the lesser known high schools? I am just curious.</p>
<p>I think athletics trump. I read in the sports section of our local paper that an all-group track star is going to Cornell with a 1120 SAT 1 score. I suspect a non-recruited student would have a slim to no chance of being accepted with such a score.</p>