<p>My kid did everything that could be done, including spending quite a bit of time writing careful and specific essays for safeties. In retrospect she could have stopped after her first application and it would have been fine and saved her dozens of hours of work. But she has no regrets.</p>
<p>I realize my post is not in the spirit of the thread, but I just wanted to provide a contrary experience.</p>
<p>I probably could have put down Hispanic on my applications but decided against it and just put down White.</p>
<p>Many, many eons ago it was me who refused to write a different essay so I could apply to Yale. (I’d written one that worked fine for the other three colleges I applied to.) In hindsight, Yale would have been a much better fit, but I was too stupid to realize it at the time - even if I’d gotten in, I’d probably have made the same choice.</p>
<p>D refused to do any of the homework for the SAT prep class she asked me to sign her up for. She also refused to spend more than 2 hours prepping for the ACT.</p>
<p>S got to a point where he refused to look at any more colleges, he said they were all starting to look alike. (Of course they were, he wanted a small LAC in the Northeast so that was all we looked at).</p>
<p>D’s friend didn’t bother to apply to the honors program at the last college she applied to, because she was just sick of the whole application process and writing essays. She let her parents think she had applied for the honors program until the acceptance arrived. </p>
<p>My nephew only applied to one college. He said if he couldn’t go there, he wasn’t going to college. It was his state flagship, which is very stats-oriented for admittance. He had a very high GPA and an 800 on the Math SAT, but his parents were still biting their nails until he was admitted.</p>
<p>My S refused to study/prepare for his SAT subject tests which pretty much eliminated Dartmouth, the only school that he applied to that would not take his ACT scores in lieu of the SAT2.</p>
<p>there’s some sad, sad posts in here…</p>
<p>spydimag, I don’t agree. Despite what I wrote, my S is thrilled at his LAC and is thriving there. D got into her first choice college, and I believe it will be a great fit for her.</p>
<p>I don’t see anyone on here saying, “If only my kid had done so-and-so he/she’d have gotten into Dream U.” The ones who have posted results have had good results.</p>
<p>CC can make us a little unbalanced sometimes…</p>
<p>D wouldn’t come on CC and obsess about admissions at all. She left that one to me.</p>
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<p>Which ones? Ones which limited choices because of what student wouldn’t do, or the ones wihch didn’t limit or decide outcomes?</p>
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<p>That one holds true for my D too. And I wonder if I came here and obsessed too much.</p>
<p>My daughter refused to apply to more than 6 schools, refused to audition for more than 5 BFA programs even though acceptance rates were 3-9% depending on the school, refused to take SAT 2’s or to take the SAT again in her senior year even though at least 1 of the BFA programs weighted academics and test scores 50% for admissions and her 6th school was a BA program where admission was based on normal academic criteria. What she did do though, albeit under protest, was to complete all her applications and submit them by September 15 and give her teachers the rec forms and her guidance counselor the school report forms, all with mailing envelopes, by the last week of August. At least she listened to me about something!</p>
<p>Oh yeah, though not quite on topic, what she also refused to do, after she decided on a school and her deposits were in, was to go to h.s. more than 3-4 days a week for the last 6 weeks of her senior year.</p>
<p>i refused to apply to princeton even though everyone told me they thought it would be a good fit–i didn’t like the things i heard about the culture.
i also deliberately missed the deadline to ask for an interview at Rice, and accidentally (but happily) missed the interview deadlines for Swarthmore and UChicago. ironically, i got into all three of those, but was rejected from yale and brown, for whom i did do interviews. maybe i come across as an idiot in person 
i also refused to take a third SAT II subject test even though my parents were afraid that English Lit and French weren’t the most impressive.</p>
<p>My son refused to study for the SAT and ACT.</p>
<p>I can’t think of anything my daughter wouldn’t do in terms of test, re-test, write essays, interview, visit overnight, etc. She’s a determined girl and has staying-power.</p>
<p>That said, she’s very specific about what she wants. For example, she wants a small LAC and has set her boundaries at 4 driving-hours from home. She’ll be NMSF, has really high stats, ECs, etc, so those self-imposed limits rule out many terrific schools. I’ve asked if she’d like to reconsider, but the answer is a firm, “no.”</p>
<p>I’m ok with that…we’re within 4 hours of at least 8-10 excellent small LACs, so I don’t feel she’s limiting herself too much. Still…she has friends who say, “songbird, you could be applying to the ivies, and have good chances of getting in to some of them! Are you crazy???” :)</p>
<p>S refused to take a SAT prep course–said it was a waste of time & $$$. He also refused to let me look at his essays and refused to visit Us before selecting where he would attend. He just graduated with honors in EE from his “safety” school, USC.</p>
<p>D refused to apply as a transfer to more than one U–she was accepted & happily transferred there. She also refused to let me look at any of her essays. As an afterthought, when she hadn’t heard from the school she had applied to, she said in the summer, next time, I’m applying to more than one school to transfer. While she was out of country, she got her acceptance letter. :)</p>
<p>She took the ACT but felt awful/ill during the exam & cancelled the score before anyone ever knew what it was. She never retook the ACT but her fine SAT scores were enough.</p>
<p>My D refused to take more than 3 years of a language because she wanted to stick with the math/science classes she loved and schedule conflicts wouldn’t allow it either. We heard from countless people she’d be at a disadvantage only taking 3 years of a language but we knew with her heading into engineering it would be ok. In the end it was, she had great options, got in where she wanted and is excited about this fall.</p>
<p>She also refused to take a class for the sake of how it would look on her app but stuck to what she loved. Nor did she participate in extra clubs or bother with NHS. She knew at the end of the journey she was presenting colleges with the best picture of who she was and if they didn’t accept her she knew they weren’t the right fit and she knew she wasn’t promising something that wasn’t.</p>
<p>This thread though will be a huge help for D2 in a couple years - she will be much more adamant on her “NOTs” :)</p>
<p>My daughter didn’t want to take SAT II’s. I didn’t blame her, she took enough tests already.</p>
<p>S decided taking the SAT twice was enough and believed his time was better spent doing other things than studying to take the ACT, for any score boost it may have provided. While he was involved in a number of after school actvities (primarily varsity water polo, varsity swim, mock trial and math tutoring), being in a “named” leadership position has never been of interest. If anything, he’s the kind of guy who strongly leads by example. (I should note that this quality came through strongly in the letters of recommendation from both teachers. In fact, his AP English teacher observed that if he wasn’t looking to a career in the sciences, she’d suggest one in diplomacy!) So being “the leader” has never been anything he’s pursued.</p>
<p>The upshot? He will be attending Northwestern University in their honors Integrated Science Program, which admits about 30-40 students per year. If what he said he wanted is true, this is a great fit for him, and we’re all well pleased.</p>
<p>Both guys:
– refused to join honor societies of any form (NHS, language, math, etc.), feeling they were resume padders</p>
<p>S1:<br>
– refused to do more than the mandated community service because he wanted to do other more useful things instead (teaching being chief among them)
– refused to list every award he earned, just the ones that meant something to him (so the national semifinalist for USAPhO and a couple of other nice awards were not on the resume) </p>
<p>S2:
– refused to apply to any Ivies
– refused to go out for leadership roles that involved elections. He wanted to be selected on merit and felt the one significant leadership spot he had was sufficient.</p>
<p>Both got into their top choice schools.</p>
<p>My kid refused to apply anywhere unless he had visited the school. 17 visits resulted in 9 applications.</p>