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<p>Just because YOU can’t do it doesn’t mean most people can’t. Maybe you’re just inefficient or not as academically talented as you think. Come on IP even I know math research isn’t very tough!</p>
<p>JHS, I have no disagreements. Having good ECs is super hard.</p>
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<p>I don’t feel like they actually judge the writing talent. One of the major EC’s of an infamous Harvard admit was writing for a newspaper, and the writing was atrocious in my opinion even with plagiarism (which is how it became publicized.) From my observation, elite colleges prefer people who get out in the world and do something over people who have superior talent. This is not to say they don’t admit kids like the guy who was “smartest, most intellectual, and most intellectually curious person they knew” as you said, but I feel the preference is weighted toward people who have done stuff out in the world, whether it was good or not. (This is, of course, assuming that the person has met certain academic criteria, namely high grades and test scores.) In the case of someone who published, I doubt admissions committees actually read the published writing of candidates unless it is provided to them by the candidate.</p>
<p>To some degree, I think people project what they would do onto the admissions policies of a college they admire.</p>
<p>No, IP. Having good ECs is not super hard. Tens of thousands of kids have great ECs every year, year after year. Having good ECs is really common, which is why having merely good ECs alone doesn’t add a whole lot to a Harvard application. If you can get into the lower reaches of the five-digit EC level, though, and you also have the grades and test scores, that’s probably meaningful in the context of one college’s application pool. HYPS and MIT alone probably accept something like 14,000 kids every year, and almost every one of them had ECs that helped his or her application enough, even though on the basis of grades and test scores they represented a tiny percentage of the overall cohort of college-bound students (most of whom were also doing ECs).</p>
<p>Being extraordinarily special is certainly respected, but it isn’t required at all.</p>
<p>collegealum: I think the hyperselective colleges like BOTH people who go out there in the world and do things (without the college having much ability to judge exactly what they have done) AND people whose applications show a lot (a LOT) of talent, whether or not they have done much with it. There are not all that many people who stand out on either score. As for writing, there is lots of evidence that adcomms will look outside the application at webpages and other places where writing is available, and of course kids for whom writing is important all submit short portfolios as supplemental materials. But not that much – they don’t have the time. If the essays are bad, I doubt they look at the online journalism at all.</p>
<p>My point was not about college admissions, JHS. It was about what counts as excellent, and if one can be excellent in one thing while good in many others.</p>
<p>And heaven knows that even Intel and Siemens finalists are not routinely admitted to HPY, etc.</p>
<p>ECs: For one of my kids, it’s cooking. Wrote a magical essay about it for one of his college essays. He did not take cooking classes. He invents recipes and has the underlying chem background to make it work. He also spent hundreds of hours cooking for a couple of non-profits and homeless shelters. </p>
<p>Other son – math major at top five program, but all of his major national awards are CS-related. Every college interviewer (and especially H) asked him about his three years working on the school newspaper. It was sufficiently non-stereotypical that it piqued their interest.</p>
<p>Another EC of his (which he never mentioned on college apps) has become an avocation which I suspect will be life-long.</p>
<p>To my mind, ECs are to expand one’s horizons beyond the classroom and to find activities that can engage one’s mind and soul for a lifetime. For my kids, these activities tend to be related to the things they taught themselves.</p>
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Ha ha, really? I don’t think the chem background really helps.</p>
<p>Realistically, there are many paths to follow for teens who want to write nonfiction. Lots of local newspapers and “shoppers” welcome contributions from just about anyone who is competent, and will give feedback, too. Many teens publish blogs and 'zines that actually get read. There are “national publications” that take content from high school students (and sell copies back to them), including one high school sports magazine I have seen. One high school kid I know got an internship with the sports department of a local daily, and did well enough to be hired as a consultant on a regular basis to produce stats boxes for their feature and background articles. (Which did look good on her college application, I’m sure.)"</p>
<p>This was a minor EC for my son, but he basically created an internship at a magazine which is solely focused on pets (all the articles relate to pets, vets, parks in the area, animal welfare, etc). He didn’t do a whole lot – just wrote periodic human (or dog) interest stories, I think once a week for some period of time – but if he had had the time and interest, it could have really been an interesting and compelling EC.</p>
<p>YK that woman who cooked every one of Julia Child’s recipes and wrote about it? Honestly, that’s the kind of thing that would have stood out as an interesting EC, IP. But it’s about personal excellence, not competition – IP, you keep defining excellence as “beating others / being in the top x nationally.”</p>
<p>He talks about food chemistry all the time and how various spices/ingredients offset/complement each other. He has a cookbook that goes into the science side of things and reads it for fun.</p>
<p>My cooking is not that scientific. ;)</p>
<p>At my house, the most interesting ECs had absolutely nothing to do with school. They were things that interested my kids even as young children, pursued independently over many years and had personal relevance to them.</p>
<p>Their goal was not winning awards, though for one of them, that did happen. But his approach is anything but a grind.</p>
<p>“Being extraordinarily special is certainly respected, but it isn’t required at all.”</p>
<p>Judging from the kids I know who are going to HYPSM, I completely agree. None of them were extraordinary in the Jodie-Foster-Academy-Award sense.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link Hunt. </p>
<p>Most of the discussion seemed to be on competitive shooting and the consensus seemed to be it’s fine to talk about and maybe better than fine if awards were won. </p>
<p>My son, OTOH, is interested in hunting, which involves killing things. Really, he’s a nice sweet kid who got into this survival stuff by living in the woods for two weeks at a time, doing trail work in National Forests with a teen group. And deer really are overpopulated in many parts of the country and have no natural predators (yes…he’s given me the literature).</p>
<p>I think we are going to leave it out though. He has enough other sort of off the wall ECs which make him out to be quite interesting.</p>
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<p>Wow, you don’t get out much. I’m surrounded by extremely well published, highly regarded faculty in their various fields. I would say the vast majority are sort of over-achievers so it’s not uncommon for them to also play in a high level symphony, win marathons, win awards in photography, write a regular column in a national newspaper, write a best-selling novel (sorry not all the same person but I mean these were just quickly off the top of my head of some of the great minds I know that also have a ‘side’ hobby that they take seriously and by all accounts are very very accomplished in it too!). Two of these folks have won Nobel prizes. One of my favorite mathematicians is an extremely high level bridge player (those in that world of bridge would know his name). I also know a handful of people who are successful academics (at top 10 schools) who also happen to pick up ANOTHER PhD in a different field once they had tenure. </p>
<p>I realize it is not possible for everyone to excel in more than one endeavor (I’m such a person myself unfortunately but I think I’m a bit unusual actually), but many many brilliant minds do it. I believe that mental cross-over is absolutely fantastic and exactly what research and science needs. Endeavors in one area feed the mind in another. That is where great leaps in thinking occur, and as we move into the future, that interdisciplinary focus is going to be increasing critical.</p>
<p>My son does blacksmithing. He volunteered for a professional blacksmith to better learn the trade and also built his own forge and blacksmith shop. It was a great topic in several of his scholarship interviews as everyone was intrigued by it. He also is an experienced outdoorsman and lived for a month in the backcountry of Colorado at 13000 ft elevation to build a hiking trail. He did none of these things to look good on his college ap but they ended up being great EC’s anyway.</p>
<p>As for cooking and chemistry, do a Google search on Heston Blumenthal.</p>
<p>"My son does blacksmithing. He volunteered for a professional blacksmith to better learn the trade and also built his own forge and blacksmith shop. It was a great topic in several of his scholarship interviews as everyone was intrigued by it. "</p>
<p>That’s a great EC. That’s the kind of thing that really stands out among the boring, same old same old ECs, not the mention the overly earnest nerdfest competitions that are salivated over on CC.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl- Yes it turned out well for him. We wanted him to do activities like math club as he is very strong in math. However, while he’s good at math, he doesn’t have a passion for it. So he ignored us and did the things he really enjoyed like blacksmithing, backpacking, etc. Glad he didn’t listen to us.</p>
<p>To IndianParent:
I’m a college English professor and mother of four strong writing sons. Here are my suggestions: there are great summer writing workshops for students that are not just for fiction and poetry. You are asking about a young age, though. Most of the good workshops I know of are for high school kids. But, I know that in my area (suburban New York) local colleges have summer programs in writing for younger kids that are not residential. Hopefully, your child would want to do this, because nothing’s worse than making someone write who doesn’t really like to write. People like me love to tutor one-on-one, so maybe ask at local community colleges or check local ads. Also, local parks and arts organizations often have writing workshops. One more: if your child is an enthusiastic writer, check out The Slam–it’s an online forum done by Cicada Magazine. If your writing is accepted, it is posted and commented on by readers. It is very well done, well moderated–nobody is mean, and the writer gets good constructive feedback. Good luck! I love young writers–they are the best!</p>
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<p>I think it’s ok for musicians to drop their instrument if the timing feels right. But often music is the counterbalance that top students need and crave. I can’t envision my engineering son surviving college rigors without some music fun too. </p>
<p>In HS he was an excellent pianist (common) and and excellent sax player (common). When he stumbled into a passion for composing, I assumed that was not very common. It surprised me to see that MIT’s website for music supplement included specific submission instructions composer. </p>
<p>Agree with the other posters - ECs should be for fun.</p>
<p>Collegealum and countingdown, I thought chem engineers have jobs with major food companies like Kraft, Pillsbury, Ben & Jerry’s, beer companies, etc.</p>