It wasn’t true at my kids high school. In any given year, Harvard took between 8 and 24 kids, and sometimes passed over the academic valedictorian and salutatorian for students with lesser stats. Same with Stanford and Yale. And most of the kids who were accepted, my daughter and son included, were not champions in math, debate or physics. In fact, one trait I can identify with all of them is “well-lopsidedness”: http://blog.thrively.com/think-its-important-to-be-well-rounded-think-again
@lookingforward haha no like 5 years ago when i graduated (and based also on observations from the 4 graduating classes before mine). Also I have kept in touch with the my high school counselors etc and it is not too different nowadays either. Of course what i described might not be true in most places.
I’ve known kids who in the past 5 years were admitted to H, Y, and Penn. None were world champions at anything, nor had they cured cancer or split atoms. They were curious and interesting kids whose teachers thought that they made the classroom a better place. They were well-rounded, (despite what I keep hearing about being “pointy”) acting in plays, playing sports, playing their instruments. One took only 3 AP classes. Some were active in their religious communities. Some had some funny hobbies like collecting old hotel keys. The elite schools are of course looking for very academically strong kids, but they are not limiting themselves to the superhuman.
@snarlatron what do you think set them apart from the thousands of other applicants?
Agree with snarlatron that you don’t need to be world best at anything. Nor pointy. In fact, imo, the snarl comes closer to reality than many realize.
Yes, they are trying to build a class of individuals who are well rounded. That’s what makes the community vibrant, lots of kids willing to engage with others, try new things. Not a bunch of unilateral kids.
So every so often, someone claims their kid didn’t this or that. But if true, that’s a bit rare. More likely, some small aspect(s) did strike adcoms as representative of “more.”
I know people from last year that would fit this category. And while my own admissions journey was 2 years ago, I would put myself in that category as well. Additionally, I’ve known pointy kids, who are not world champions, etc., get accepted.
Many look at this backwards. Interesting kids are interested in various things and make choices what to pursue, then do. Some of what they do is interests or about future career hopes, some because it’s good and right (comm service or how they vol their time.) Many will take some of their activities to higher levels of responsibility and (some) impact, even if small. Or dedicate themselves over time.
Schmill’s comment is that you don’t have to “do a lot and be successful, it is never the quantity of classes or activities…” He is not saying be unilateral to a ridiculous extreme. Nor that you must win awards. The rest of the quote is from the blogger, a consultant.
Photography is fine. But that is a hypothetical example, one the blogger came up with. Does she say the gal got into a tippy top? If so, presumably she did much more, in school and out. Safest bet is a nice balance of depth and breadth, what that shows.
What I’m wondering is how do you stand out if you haven’t done anything super successful? Aren’t there thousands of applicants who fit this exact profile of well-roundedness?
@2023doctor: if you have to ask how to “stand out”, then it’s likely too late for you. Read what LF wrote
If this doesn’t already characterize you, then you’re too late, IMHO. It’s not a feature that one simply decides to adopt like putting on a dinner jacket. Successful applicants to super selective schools have already been on that trajectory – and admit invitations to schools like Harvard are a natural outcome of that journey (and the choices that @lookingforward describes). I never made any conscious effort “to stand out”. I simply WAS – and objective outside evaluators saw that I was a stand out. And the same with how I perceived my classmates at my Harvard peer school.
I didn’t do anything that I would consider “super successful” (like awards or competitions) other than being a top scholar at a good HS (not val/sal – about 10th) but showed great academic motivation and superb leadership and consideration for my fellow students.
That’s why asking for “tips” and “advice” on how to get into Harvard is a Quixotic exercise beyond learning that one must be able to best present yourself and your achievements and motivations.
I like to think of the kids who are getting accepted to elite schools as not trying to get accepted to elite schools. I imagine them going about their lives doing things that interest them, learning for the joy of it, helping others because that’s what we do, and trusting that whatever school they end up at will be one that fits them and be a place where they can flourish. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I hope that’s how they get to live.
Being hyper fixated on being accepted to a narrow list of schools seems like a waste of energy and emotion. How sad for those whose whole purpose is striving for the acceptance rather than the experiences that might naturally lead to it. I can understand why some of the children who aren’t accepted feel so empty afterward. I wish for better things for them.
@austinmshauri encapsulates it much better than I did. This is what I have observed both for my own experience, that of my classmates and in the +25 years of interviewing and recruiting for my Ivy alma mater.
@2023doctor Having not seen their applications, I can’t know for sure. But I’d guess that it was an X factor in their essays or LORs. What that X factor is probably deserves its own thread. I can say for now that complaining or nitpicking about a grade may result in a humdrum LOR, but showing interest in the course material, bringing zest to class discussions, and being kind and helpful to classmates can result in one that sparkles, whether or not the student has the highest class average.
Well said.
We’ve had threads on the “it” factor and they frustratingly return to assertions about “standing out” in odd or unusual ways. For heaven’s sake, if you want a tippy top, first you need to be able to think on their level. And show that.
So OP, what do you know about your targets?
My kid got into Harvard, but did not go there. That’s probably the most important message. Harvard is a great school but it’s not the be all and end all. What did he do? He got fascinated by computers at age 7. Learned to program with very little help from his parents. (We took him to the library and let him check out books on programming and eventually we bought him his own computer.) By 9th grade he knew enough to take AP Comp Sci. He worked the last two summers and part time during the school year for a software company that wrote him a stellar recommendation. He wrote a program for a med school professor that got published in a paper and the professor wrote a recommendation as well. We know that is a large part of what appealed to Harvard because the head of the Comp Sci department called him up and tried to sell him on Harvard. (He went to Carnegie Mellon instead BTW.)
This is not to say that you need to be a CS nerd - or even that only pointy kids can apply - but it certainly helps to be a self-starter, to have evidence that you have intellectual passions that you will pursue beyond whatever your high school offers. My kid was lucky that he applied the year Harvard decided to create an engineering school - so they were looking actively for more kids with his skill set. And my kid didn’t look one-sided on paper. He had taken non-STEM APs and done well. His best SAT score (consistently!) was the reading section. For his extra essay he submitted a reading list for the year with more than 100 books he had read. (Yes computer and math theory were among them, but also lots of sci fi and fantasy.) His application was honest. He even told his interviewer that Harvard wasn’t his first choice. I think the chutzpah of that answer make actually have helped, but I don’t recommend it as a tactic!
@mathmom thank you for the detailed response!
I cannot agree more with @austinmshauri’s statement worth quoting once more:
"I like to think of the kids who are getting accepted to elite schools as not trying to get accepted to elite schools. I imagine them going about their lives doing things that interest them, learning for the joy of it, helping others because that’s what we do, and trusting that whatever school they end up at will be one that fits them and be a place where they can flourish. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I hope that’s how they get to live.
Being hyper fixated on being accepted to a narrow list of schools seems like a waste of energy and emotion. How sad for those whose whole purpose is striving for the acceptance rather than the experiences that might naturally lead to it. I can understand why some of the children who aren’t accepted feel so empty afterward. I wish for better things for them."
My son who’s in the process of applying to a list of colleges right now, including Harvard, said to me the other day, “I don’t care if I get into Harvard or not. I’ll be happy with whatever the college that I end up attending.” I know he meant it, too. I do confess that, as a parent, I’m the one who pressed on him the idea of going for Harvard, not him. At first, his lackadaisical attitude frustrated me, but now I’m in full 100% agreement with him. Yes, he did apply to Harvard, but we wouldn’t be disappointed whatsoever if he ends up being rejected at Harvard and he ends up going elsewhere. He loves music which has been his life-long passion, and there are many great institutions where he can find himself a perfectly happy home. The process of applying to colleges was a source of a lot of stress for us but not anymore. It’s now more exciting.