<p>A parent on another thread wrote that their kid would not take SAT IIs, cause "enough is enough." Got me wondering where some kids/parents drew the line in this year's admissions process.</p>
<p>My son is the proverbial horse to water, and while he took his applications seriously, there were some things he refused to do:</p>
<ol>
<li>Re-take the SAT I (his scores were good, but not great).</li>
<li>Interview (except for Brown, which had an alumni contact him to set it up).</li>
<li>Submit a performing arts portfolio. (Gotta admit, I was kind of worried about this one; piano is his main EC, and there wasn't much room on the common ap EC space to go into it much).</li>
<li>Exceed, by even one word or character, the recommended word/character limit on any of his essays or short answers. (It was actually impressive to see him condense his answers on the Grinnell and Carleton applications to the required 300 or so characters!).</li>
</ol>
<p>Turns out, he did fine (eight acceptances, one wait list), and I think he taught me something about keeping the process in perspective. Where did your kids draw the line?</p>
<p>S2 refused to take SAT1 again fall senior year. Since he was unwilling to study for the math, taking it without extra prep was as he said useless. He also kept all his essays under the word limit or suggestion. “Why Tufts” in 50 words or less was seriously challenging! (I was surprised to hear on CC how many kids went, way, way over on that one.) BTW he did get into Tufts. :)</p>
<p>My son would not let me see his essays and he would not do much preparation for either SAT or SAT II. He absolutely hates standardized tests. He just graduated from Penn- YAY!!!</p>
<p>It is interesting to note that D’s point were almost opposite of OP’s S.
-D’s loved interviews, went to a lot of them, had fun with all of them, and decided that she is good at it. Very good experience that I would recommend to everybody. It is unavoidable (Grad. schools, jobs), the earlier they have it the better for them.
-Always had trouble with trimming back all of her writings to allowable size. Task that sometime exceeds time that she spends on original writing, which is normally few pages longer than allowed.<br>
Couple coincidences with OP:
-Piano has been one of D’s great interest. Resulted in Minor in Music Composition - great stress relief with much easier classes than in her major
-Cancelled re-take of ACT, felt that the first score was good enough.</p>
<p>LOL. When my one son was writing essays, I learned NOT to suggest anything, because he would do the opposite. I was using up all the good ideas by suggesting them. :D</p>
<p>My daughter refused to take the ACT in addition to the SAT. She said, I’ll take one test, your choice, but only one test.</p>
<p>She also refused to take any HS classes or ECs just because it would look better to colleges. Freshman year in HS my husband was trying to get her to take chorus instead of art because her grade would easily be better in chorus. She said it was probably the last chance she had to take art and she wanted to try it and she’s always hated chorus even though she’s a singer.</p>
<p>It makes me laugh when people ask me, What did you and D do to get her into her great Ivy schools? The answer, nothing - she did what she wanted to and took classes/activities that she liked. No larger scheming plan of attack, sorry.</p>
<p>Similar to Rodney’s #2–he went on the waitlist at his #1 choice, but then refused to call the admissions office to proclaim his enthusiasm, even though in the waitlist letter they explicitly encouraged students to do that. </p>
<p>That was pretty much it–he did everything else one could ask. I felt like he could have put a little more effort & imagination into his supplement essays (which we didn’t see till after he’d sent them off), but that’s not exactly refusing to do something.</p>
<p>S originally resisted doing any mock interview preparation, because he felt confident about his ability to express himself and didn’t want to come across as phony in any way. Thankfully, he did follow our advice to do his first interview at a competitive school not high on his list and realized there might be a little bit more to it. He found the demands of an interview situation are completely different than being able to talk at length about a topic of your own choice. After that, he did agree to practice (even the president of the US practices for his press conferences we told him) and he could see the difference it made.</p>
<p>Daughter REFUSED to take ACT even though she is strong in science (SAT subject Chem 790, Bio 770). Her Sat was good, but I know she would have rocked the ACT. She was just so done with tests. </p>
<p>She also refused to apply to any more schools than her chosen six. I felt she should through a few more in for good measure, but she would have nothing to do with it.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Bailed on a scheduled subject test in October, the deadline for early admission to Caltech. The test was the morning after the Homecoming game, sample tests had shown that he wasn’t prepared, and he was stressed to the hilt. Never did apply to Caltech, his second choice for undergrad.</p></li>
<li><p>Wouldn’t visit Stanford. On our summer road trip, we stayed in the SoCal area. I scheduled a flight from LAX to SFO. Because the afternoon tour was booked, I scheduled a morning tour, which meant we had to take a 5am flight, which meant getting on the SuperShuttle at about 3am. We did that. Dumb. He was exhausted, headache-y, and nauseous from lack of sleep. Called in sick to Stanford, spent a few hours dozing in the airport, then had a lovely day in San Francisco together. He wouldn’t have written all those essays anyway.</p></li>
<li><p>This one killed me. He would not consider working on applications (beyond the simple rolling-deadline safeties) before receiving the decision on his ED application to Mudd. It worked out ok since he was accepted on 12/15, but we could have had a pretty lousy Christmas break if he’d been rejected.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Happily, it all worked out in the end.
Looking back, the process was much more stressful than it had to be – and yes, probably mostly because of Mom. :o His instincts were on the mark each time and he ended up where he belongs. After seeing his results and the results of many of his friends over the years, I think that’s usually the case with most kiddos.</p>
<p>One of the Happynephews refused to apply anywhere that he had to write an essay. Fortunately given ISU’s guaranteed admissions policies for in-state students with at least an X GPA and a Y ACT score he was one-and-done shortly after Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>I refused to apply to the honors college of one University, mainly because it asked for additional essays (I had gotten in to the honors colleges of other universities automatically). I ended up withdrawing my acceptance because I had plenty of alternatives (and plus, they also didn’t give you scholarships automatically, unlike some of my other schools…would’ve had to write a zillion more stupid essays and at this point I was just sick of it). </p>
<p>I refused to take a required art class to get into one of the California state schools. My acceptance was contingent upon taking an additional semester of painting (I needed a full year of one music/art discipline, and I had only 1 semester of jewelry and 1 semester of painting) and I just didn’t care enough to follow through.</p>
<p>Sapling refused to write essay for Ivy/s, after I paid for scores to be sent. Was I mad! He made the right decision and we’re living happily ever after now.</p>
