Sort of but you’re missing what the “it” factor is.
My D21 has a friend who is type A and started an environmental club at the HS. Lead a walk out and some other stuff. I’m sure her essay was about climate change being the biggest issue and she will work tirelessly to solve it, and her major was probably public policy. She got in zero top colleges but ended up at a nice but not super selective LAC that most likely loved her full pay status.
There was also a student that won a tippy top photography contest with a photo documentary on gun violence in schools, wrote an essay about the difficulties and complexities of passing sensible gun laws, and was accepted to 2 HYPSM.
I would reframe the starting point of these thoughts to say:
Colleges aren’t telling kids not to be multi-dimensional. What colleges, and let’s be real - in these conversations we are talking only exceptionally selective colleges, are looking for are applicants who can tell a coherent story through their application about who they (the applicant) are and make the admission officer need to add that person to the school. And quite frankly, that is pretty darn hard for many college applicants to do, even the ones with stellar stats and scores.
It’s not that many applicants aren’t amazing students and wouldn’t be great at many schools. But when it comes to highly selective schools - an applicant who can create their whole application to show who they are, what they are interested in, etc and show this - not just check boxes - they have an advantage.
Applicants who are multidimensional are great, as long as they don’t sacrifice a clear application trying to “show how much they can do”. Great grades and scores show how much you can do academically though the application just doesn’t have that much space and the choices made (good, bad and indifferent) in how to use the space you have within your application says a lot. I think a lot of applicants really don’t believe their scores & GPA are going to look great and the admission officer is then going to say, “what else??”. A laundry list that a student might think makes them look ‘multi-dimensional’ might look like resume padding or a lack of focus on any of the activities.
I also think a lot of students miss the mark by basically regurgitating their application in their essays. It’s a mistake lots of people make in their cover letters they attach to their resumes when applying to jobs so I feel pretty safe making that assumption.
The essay (and that’s what so many bring up whose children have exceptional admission results) are a chance for the student to tell the AO something they can’t find in the rest of the application and help create a through line to understand the application better. That’s where you create ‘the short phrase’ the AO remembers when looking at your file.
D20 wasn’t applying to any schools so many here stress about, we were chasing merit to hit a budget number. While she didn’t have the highest stats for getting merit at the schools she applied to, she ended up being offered the top merit at two of them. Both referencing her essay and how much it spoke to the schools about who she was and how excited they would be to have her on campus.
D20 went to college thinking she might want to go to grad school, but chose a school with a common core because “she is interested in so many things”. She has been required to take lots of classes she might not have otherwise chosen because of that common core which she has loved. She is doing a double major and minoring in a STEM field she thought she would have absolutely no interest in…until she fell in love with the subject in a core required course. And she has won two different national awards while only a sophomore. She hasn’t been held back by her not tippy top school. Her professors are incredible, her classes challenging and she is learning about things she never thought of before college.
The good thing about whether a student is ready and able to create a stellar application or not is that there are many many schools where a merely “average excellent” application will be almost guaranteed admission. Unfortunately a lot of average excellent students and their families don’t want to attend those “average excellent” colleges and universities. For some reason, a lot of students and families somehow feel those institutions are ‘below’ them. And that’s where, as always, I have to just lift my shoulders and shrug.
Is there some sort of program/database where you can plug in your criteria (geographic location, size, majors, desired ranking tier etc…) that generates a comprehensive list of schools? There are so many I never knew about before and only learned about them from CC. I think it would be so incredibly useful.
advitha, My son, J, and I saw the campus twice. In fact, we had private tours because I enlisted active brothers at my old fraternity to take us around and answer questions. He was able to see more things than prospective students on official university tours.
Always, One could argue that other factors beyond level of “wokeness” (here I would suggest level of left leaning positions on issues) differentiated the outcomes for the two students you described. Both climate change activism and gun control activism would resonate with left leaning AOs at US universities.
On a different note, if I were an AO at a university I would dock a student who wrote about disruptive activities like organizing walkouts and protests. God knows, US schools have enough of that already. Maybe that hurt her?
I think what hurt her was 5000 other applicants wrote about climate change and her activities were fairly basic and only at her school.
The successful candidate won a prestigious award and that quickly validates her work, plus her essay showed critical thinking because she wrote about how gun control isn’t simple.
I live in a really liberal town and I’ve watched this for years because I wondered if my kids needed to play to the liberal angle. From what I’ve seen, it’s not there. Applicants need to show why they are unique, interesting, a high level thinker, etc.
I do think it’s easy for a 17-18 year old to write a political essay that makes them look silly in the eyes of a 30+ year old. I’m glad I never wrote my political manifesto at 18!
I think it’s a little more nuanced then showing your unique in your Essays and ECs. While it may make you stand out it also needs to convey to the AO that you will be a productive member of the College Community. What do your ECs say about you? Consider 2 students who are interested in Math.
Student A) - Attended MIT math camp every summer, travelled around the country to math competitions and got a medal in the NE regional championships. and took 3 extra Math Classes at his local college
Student B) - Competes on his HS math league team, spends his summers tutoring students in his school that are struggling in Math and took the most advanced level Math classes that were offered in his school and finished CALC BC and was awarded his school award for top Calc student
What student do you think would be more appealing to an AO? I look at student A and see someone that is only focused on himself, he will certainly be a great student in the college but what would the college get out of admitting him? Student B has shown that being a part of his school community is important to him and he would be more likely to get integratrated in and give back to the school.
Those things not only come through in your ECs they come through in your essays and your LOCs (Will your teacher just say “He is a top math student” or “On top of being one of the top math student, his character and passion was shown by …”
I sum admissions up this way. It isn’t always about “look what I have done” but more “look what I can do and my potential.” I too don’t think those kids who have focused on individual awards or competitions are always that interesting to AOs. It is rare that people work in singular bubbles. I think its great that some kids are awesome at math. But beyond math competitions, what are they going to do with that knowledge? How are they going to lead a team? What are their goals beyond individual recognition and awards for intelligence? For me it isn’t about “wokeness” but how are one’s talents going to help society and others? I can’t think of many jobs that people do that only benefit ones self. So it may be an odd way to look at it but as an AO, I would be thinking “what is this kid going to do thats going to help me or my loved ones?”
I also think schools (especially small LACs) are building a student body like you’d build a team. And the admissions process is like the draft. One year might be rich with STEM candidates, so you have to cut some kid who would’ve gotten in the year before or the next one. One year you might be short on class presidents but schools know they need an active student government so maybe some kids on the fence tip over because they’re interested in leadership. If a school is trying to strengthen a new field - green tech, cyber security, social justice - they might choose kids with those interests to help grow those areas for the college. And as much as we might like to think that schools always draft the best available player, I think that’s unrealistic and for good reason.
They are going to do math. Math for math’s sake. Math for the sake of all the important science and technology that is based on math. Math because they are passionate about math and have devoted many hours to becoming as accomplished as they possibly could in math.
I think a similar string case for the first student can be made. Your conclusion is based on a bias towards community involvement. Another conclusion could be based purely on academic achievements and which student could advance more easily.
Math is one type of intelligence. Who are they hoping to get hired by for their math skills? Hidden Figures was a great example of how math helped society and people by furthering knowledge. My point was that if a kid can’t begin to think about options for applying their math knowledge that they might want to consider, an AO might not want to assume or guess either. Thus why I think some mathletes get chosen over others for competitive schools.
Most admissions officers at colleges in the United States would disagree with you on this, given what this country was founded on and given the mission of academic freedom most colleges are founded on.
Why is this Anti-intellectual? Assume in my example they are both in the 75% for the schools SAT scores and grades? And my example wasn’t meant to highlight Math, it was meant to contrast a student that is more focused on themselves than their environment. I see threads on this board every year from kids with perfect grades, perfect SATs, a dozen AP classes, and numerous awards wonder why they got denied at every T10 school they applied to. To me it’s fairly obvious, when I see everything they did is purely for their own benefit. The community doesn’t have to be your school, it could be your town church, family, physics society.
Anyone else wish this thread would get back to talking about the class of 2022 and where they are headed? At this point most kids have made a decision or are close. Would love to hear what schools kids are choosing and why, what they’re buying for their dorms, are they picking roommates, etc. Seems like this thread has turned into “what does it take two get into an elite college?”. This would make a great separate thread for those that are interested. (I’m not).
