<p>I keep hearing that Asian kids have poor ECs. They all do math, piano/violin, and tennis.</p>
<p>So what are the good ECs for Asian kids?</p>
<p>The same ones that are advocated on this board for all kids: activities that kids are excited about and want to do. Driven by their unique interests and strengths, not driven by ‘getting into college’ guide books, advice on college forums, parents, or resume padding goals.</p>
<p>So, if Asian kids are excited about math, piano/violin, and tennis, it’s OK for them to pursue it? But I thought such ECs were quite looked down upon on CC, no?</p>
<p>They’re looked down upon if the kid who’s pursuing math, piano/violin or tennis are doing it mostly under the influence of their parents or are only doing it to increase chances at colleges rather than any real interest or excitement.</p>
<p>Math, Violin/Piano, and Tennis are all well and good, and I know violin players, badminton players, and engineers who are fellow Asians at my University.</p>
<p>OTOH, I was a dedicated debater (5 Years, nationals, etc.), and I also know Asian swimmers, artists, editors, etc… If you can demonstrate passion and will bring something others possibly can’t, you’re good. The issue is demonstrating that uniqueness. If you hate the thought of spotlights, or mosquitos then disregard my advice, but why not be that Asian dancer, or actor, or writer, or photographer, or park ranger, or oboist, or…</p>
<p>There are tons of extracurriculars out there that you can love and succeed in. Don’t limit yourself to just the three you listed if they don’t feel right.</p>
<p>I think it’s less about the types of ec the students engaged in than the passion, maturity, and leadership that she/he demonstrates through the ec. They are plenty of tennis-playing violinist Asians in top schools; but they don’t do those things just as gestures to adcom --there has to be some personality context. </p>
<p>Passion, maturity, and leadership can be developed, and parental encouragement and support can be helpful for such development. But the parents have to be careful: It has too be the student’s cause based her/his interests, not the parents’.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How would anyone know this?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How do you demonstrate passion? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with any of the choices above. Are they better than piano/violin, tennis, and math?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What if the three feel just right?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Forgive me for asking this question over and over again, but I am really trying to understand it here. For the record, my kid is not going to apply to any academic school, so I do not have a horse in the race. I am trying to understand how passion and maturity can be demonstrated through ECs and not really getting it.</p>
<p>The leadership I do get, but I cannot understand how everyone can be a leader, and no one a follower. That’s not how societies work. In the Harvard Business Review a few years back there was an article about how Type B’s are far more important than Type A’s in the overall, longstanding success of any organization.</p>
<p>At any rate, how do you demonstrate leadership at the tender age of 17?</p>
<p>^I think you ask some very good questions and I can identify with you. It’s hard to be passionate, mature, and with leadership quality and skills for any age, not alone at 17. But in the same time, we cannot deny that there are kids who are more passionate, mature, and with stronger leadership quality than most of their peers. The top colleges are trying to sort those kids out. Are they always successful? Not by a mile. But that’s what the colleges claim they are trying to do.</p>
<p>^On the other hand, we probably all know some kids engage in some ec LARGELY based on their parents’ wishes, which is based on the parents’ idea of what a successful offspring should do and should look like.</p>
<p>It’s all BS.</p>
<p>***How would anyone know this? ***</p>
<p>Easy. As a piano and Kumon dad of over a decade, and not Asian (ok, my kids are 1/2 Asian, 1/2 European) I can tell you it’s not difficult to see that the kids are there for the most part for one of several reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>True, exceptional talent worth nurturing - very rare. </li>
<li>Parents’ pushing while the kids really look like they’d rather be somewhere else.</li>
<li>Kids enjoy what they are doing - not as common as 2</li>
<li>Kids enjoy the social aspects of the activity (tennis, other group related EC’s)</li>
</ol>
<p>EC’s are worthwhile, don’t get me wrong, but the ‘because everyone else is doing it’ reason seems to be well entrenched in the community as well.</p>
<p>Turbo, You are in the community so you can see it, but how do the AdComs see it and group the kids into the right # (1-4)?</p>
<p>^Let me give an example, true story. </p>
<p>A boy started to learn piano at a young age, just like most other kids in their social circle. After a couple of years, he told his parents that he wanted to quit because piano was boring to him. The parents, with a reasonable initial intention of exposing him to music, agreed. Then the boy started to have an interest in the school string orchestra because he had a couple of friends in it. So he enrolled in the class and learn violin in orchestra. After a year or so, perhaps wanting to enhance his skills and therefor his status in the orchestra, he asked his parents for private lessons. Now he has become one of the most skilled violin players in his middle school. The orchestra gives him an social outlet that was not available to him when he was learning piano alone. He enjoys his private lessons and practice at home because they complement his orchestra class at school–he is rewarded with higher chair so forth. And now he is confident and comfortable enough to bring his music, with other kids, to local festivals, and also help other kids prepare for orchestra pieces and auditions, etc. Other kids sometimes go to his house on weekends to practice with him. </p>
<p>So we can see that his playing the piano and violin has very different impact on his life. And in the process, he is developing a passion about music and starting to grow leadership skills. It does take support from the parents to feed his interest (e.g., take him to concerts and buying him better violin) and help manage schedule etc., but the boy truly enjoys the growth and is definitely a product of his own interests and not his parents’.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the question. Math, piano/violin, and tennis are good ECs for any student – whether Asian, Caucasian, or from the Planet Purple. If a kid achieves at a high level, no one is going to know who is pursuing a particular EC independently and who is doing it under a parent’s thumb. In the context of highly selective college admissions, “passion” (I have grown to hate that word) is shown through tangible achievements. For example, for HYP and similarly selective schools, musicians probably need some outside confirmation that they have chops – strong showings at national competitions or important regional competitions, participation in master classes with well-known musicians, major performances that required audition (From the Top, for example)are good benchmarks. I’m sure there are others. </p>
<p>These kinds of activities done at a high level, coupled with strong GPA, a rigorous curriculum within the context of the opportunities available to the student, and strong test scores (again in the context of available opportunities) will attract the attention of admissions committees, whether the student is Asian or not.</p>
<p>wjb, Thank you, that makes sense. Measuring accomplishment is quite objective and if AdComs are looking at that instead of trying to decipher whether the accomplishment was under duress, I like that a lot. However, is this reality, or is this something you think should happen? I have been told a few times - and not just on CC - that an Asian kid with high accomplishments in piano/violin will do worse than another Asian kid with middling lever talent in something non-Asian, like guitar or band.</p>
<p>That doesn’t pass the reasonableness test, unless that Asian kid with middling talent in guitar has a bunch or other stuff going for him/her beyond mediocre ability as a musician, stuff that tips the scales in his favor at the admissions table. HYP need fantastic musicians to play in their orchestras, chamber ensembles, etc. All other things being equal (and that is the big IF in your example), why would they take the middling guitarist over the superb violinist? Taken to its logical extreme, that means HYP would take a crappy bagpiper over a great violinist every time, because playing the bagpipes is so uncommon.</p>
<p>That’s what I was told. To me it made no sense. But apparently since there are many, many top notch Asian piano and violin players, and HYP can’t take all of them, it is better to do something unconventional, like bag pipes, even if the interest and talent is not there.</p>
<p>I think someone is selling you a bill of goods.</p>