This report just seems to say that universities should accept people on the basis of quality ECs versus GPA and test scores. But universities are first and foremost academic institutions and want scholars. Really, the whole emphasis on “service” has gotten way out of hand (as exemplified in this report). I would much rather a genius devote his time to curing cancer than handing out water bottles to participants in a multiple sclerosis 10K event. This report wants adcoms to care about the latter and not the former. Bah, humbug I say. Enough of this craven service culture.
Yeah, I did too. I guess my question wasn’t clear–by “stuff” I meant an actual archive!
I think the answer regarding a service requirement is that the kids find something that relates to their deep interests. It’s a valuable experience to volunteer your time and to recognize you can make a difference in other people’s lives. For my oldest, that meant peer tutoring in high school. In college, he (a STEM concentrator) tutored math and science at a local high school that mainly serves poor students. He even drafted lesson plans that were adopted by the state. And he also served as a peer advisor at his college, counseling first years in course selection. All this was particularly good experience for him as he’s now applying for a PhD and hopes to research and teach at university-level.
My younger son, an English major, interned for free at a leading creative writing non-profit in New York during high school, leading writing workshops for middle school kids. And now in college, he tutors a local elementary school kid, whose mom speaks little English, in reading and writing. But he’s become more than tutor in the last year and a half. He’s a close friend and mentor, such that he returned to school early from Christmas break both last year and this year because he didn’t want to lose his momentum with this kid vis-a-vis the boy’s reading and writing ability. The mom, who works in a nail salon, brings the boy to the college library to meet with my son every weekend. She makes little money but gave my kid a generous Starbucks gift card and a beautiful pen for Christmas. But it was her son’s handmade card that my son most appreciated. Can I just say it was adorable and demonstrated how much my son means to this kid?
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think my kids got/get so much out of their volunteering experiences…as much as what they give, they get back in both developing skill set and in a their understanding of humanity. It’s all good and worthwhile, apart from anything having to do with college admissions.
I think community service is great, but don’t necessarily see this as something that should matter much in college admissions. Both of my kids put the hours in and truthfully while D enjoyed it, it wasn’t any particular passion for her. It was more like something everyone does and her friends were doing.S on the other hand really enjoyed it and would have found a way to do it even if the colleges didn’t want you to do so. And no, I don’t think he is a better person than his sister because this is something he likes to do. She served others by being quietly encouraging and supporting to people and being very inclusive to others. I don’t think one thing trumps the other. And yes I did write that about her on the parent information sheet we gave to the CG for recommendations. No idea if it mattered. Her HS had it’s own idea of what good citizenship was.
Not anymore, they don’t. (It is in the law school’s own best interest to use only the highest score.)
Yeah, but the most selective colleges have no interest in leveling the playing field. Why would they?
btw: superscoring benefits the colleges much more than it benefits the applicants.
I work with first-gen kids, who get very little support from GCs. They walk into the SAT blind – they don’t know what the test is, that one can study for it, etc. Their scores reflect that. They need that second or even third testing opportunity. Limiting the test to one time hurts these kids.
The only kid who benefit from one-time tests is Doe
I would suggest that the genius kid make cancer research part of his service. Or at least cancer, if that means volunteering at a hospital or something along those lines. I doubt most high schoolers are going to do seriously groundbreaking research until they get a bit older anyhow.
But by all means, serve in an area where your talents are best used. My older kid is a rock musician. In high school his band raised $1000 for a local kid with cancer by promoting and playing a show and donating the cover charge. His band was good enough that a lot of people would pay to see them play. If he’d tried to raise that money by selling, say, paintings he made, that kid would have been lucky to get $10.
My kid had zero community service. She had no volunteer hours. But she did plenty of things to contribute to her community, which she wrote about in her college application. I’ll say it again – community service does NOT have to mean soup kitchens or handing out water bottles at a 10K.
@makennacompton, if a kid is working to cure cancer, then that is a pretty solid form of community service in my eyes. And I applaud colleges who are looking for kids who want to improve their communities through this type of service.
I think some of you are being way, way too literal about what the article meant by community service. It is not necessarily volunteering for a non-profit or for those in need of physical aid. It is adding to your community if you research the historic origins of a local building and write a story about it that gets published in the local newspaper. It is adding to your community if you participate in a local theater group. It is not strictly “helping those in need.”
Much like leadership, which can be expressed a bunch of different ways and isn’t just limited to the narrow definition of “holding an elected position, such as president or vice-president, in an organization.”
My older son was asked to do some programming work as a favor to a med school professor whose grad students couldn’t help. The only payment he got was that the guy ended up writing an enthusiastic letter of recommendation. That ended up under volunteer hours. He also did helped seniors in the computer lab at the senior center and did wrote some programs that helped them schedule their busses. He didn’t spend one second in a soup kitchen or raising money for a charity. He used his strenghts.
I re-read the article, and still don’t see how this is a significant change. Didn’t the elite schools always favor students who had had an impact on their communities? Haven’t students often written about their service involvements in essays? Hasn’t showing passion been understood for a long time as being important for these schools? And the colleges have been making the point for years that they value kids working to help support their families and kids babysitting. What worries me is that now they’re going to start looking for emotion or feeling in the essays, or some other unreliable touchy feely marker.
De-emphasizing AP’s is not going to suddenly give them more authentic applicants either, because the driven kids gunning for these school are just going to say to themselves “HYP et al. don’t like to see too many AP’s, so I’ll throw in wood shop or cooking to show them I’m not a soul-less drone.” The exact same kid will get in as before.
My point in Post 451 was that one of my kids felt compelled to do service work she was not that invested in because that was the only thing seen by her HS as “contributing” to their community. The culture of that particular school was that the adults there (i.e. the GC’s and teachers writing the recs) considered “good character” to be associated with volunteering. Never mind the kids who made an effort to be genuinely kind to others, etc. The view of leadership was who associated with who was elected to things.
It was not like this in my other child’s HS.
I know an number of people who graduated from elite schools. I am referring to ivies, other top 20 unis and LAC’s , the service academies, etc. Among these people are my friends, past and present co-workers, neighbors, HS classmates, family members and even my own H. On the whole they are mostly decent folks (though of no higher character than other people I know), almost all are quite smart but I can not honestly say that they are making any more of an impact on their communities than any one else I know.
I don’t think the point is that they make more impact than “lesser” students (for lack of a better term). I think the point is that within the world of high-performing students, they are the ones who are the more impactful.
TheGFG - I don’t think it’s a significant change, either. I think it’s just “we need to say it again, we’re not just looking for a zillion AP tests and 2400’s.”
I think their selection criteria have changed in the last decade or so, therefore elite school graduates in their 50’s or 60’s would not be representative of the passion/volunteering aspect. But perhaps you are a recent grad, FallGirl.
^ LOL, I’m in my 50’s! But while most of the people I am thinking of are in my age group, not all of them are. They represent all ages.
It seems almost everything is being defined as community service. Publishing an article, working in a lab, taking care of siblings, or appearing in a performance are all great activities but I wouldn’t call them community service. Putting on an event to raise money for something would qualify in my opinion, but now we have the problem that certain talents lend themselves to successful fundraiser performances but many don’t. Pit the poets against the jazz musicians and see who can raise thousands of dollars and who struggles to get anyone but their parents to attend.
It’s in contrast to thinking only of self.
It’s also ironic, because if the kids don’t do community service, they lessen their chances of getting in where they want. So they have to do for others in order to further their own ambitions.
It feels very inauthentic, although it does benefit the recipients of said service.