As you likely know, MWolf- there are hundreds of young Jews who are growing up as missionaries in Africa. Not likely that many of them (the kids of Chabad emissaries) are applying to YU, but there are a couple of Lubavitch kids every year who make their way from their homes around the world to NY for a college education.
I think “Jews for Jesus” is a better example of a red flag for YU…
At our school, most 11th grade AP and Honors teachers have a limit of 30 or fewer letters (depending on the teachers). This year the limit is lower (I am not sure the exact number). You must get on their list in spring of junior year. My son didn’t find out about this soon enough to get on the list for the 11th grade math teacher, so he worried about getting a letter that would be relevant to engineering school applications. He was finally able to arrange a letter from one of his senior year teachers (physics). Because this is a class for seniors, the teacher doesn’t receive any support from the school for writing letters and does them on his own time; my son told me that this teacher only writes 5 letters and reserves them for the best students.
This is a school with 800-900 graduating seniors each year. It has been a good learning experience for my son figuring out how to navigate a big school, but I can also see why people say that it is easy for kids at our school to fall through the cracks.
“Founded local chapter of the Flat Earth Society”
“Excuse consultant”
“Amateur surgeon”
Cal does not require recommendations, and does not even accept them except for a subset of applicants invited to send optional ones. Other UCs (and CSUs) do not use them at all.
Probably this is meant to reduce the workload on California high school teachers and counselors, as well as reduce the random element that recommendations can inject into the application (e.g. some students getting rationed out, or their best teacher is not that good at writing recommendations).
[aside]
The terminology, though, is different - Chabad would not use the term “mission”, nor would any mainstream Jewish strands. It is also different, since it is not based on the spread of Judaism, but focuses almost entirely on the existing Jewish community. It is more akin to the Christian Revival movement.
Ironic, though, when you think about it. Jews evidently started the whole idea of mass proselytizing in the Roman Empire. They only slowed after the destruction of the Temple when the continuing Roman-Jewish wars made much of the Empire a hostile place. However, conversion and proselytizing by Jews only ended when it was banned when Christianity was adopted by the Roman Empire.
[/aside]
Founder of the Explosives Club
I know they always say this but I wonder if it’s actually the case. It seems like I know a good number of kids with these kinds of ECs that get into great schools. In particular, the one-week mission trip stuff drives me personally nuts but it’s a common EC here for wealthy kids and certainly doesn’t seem to hurt.
Perhaps this would be a good filter for people to figure out if a school is their “type” of college. What percentage of the students did the paid missionary trips, paid research experiences, founded their own nonprofits, etc? Depending on the answers, one might tell what kind of vibe the student body has and if it’s the right one for them.
Unless we know the strength of the other parts of their application, we don’t know if they got in despite these EC’s or because of them. In the cases where the kids got in, they probably had stellar academics and had a balance of EC’s that weren’t “purchased”.
The flag depends upon what the college wants. Expensive mission trips indicating privilege are a flag for T20s trying to limit that demographic, but may be appealing to those colleges desperate for full pay kids.
Please tell me this was a joke?
It was not a joke and it was recent.
The adults on the thread all understood that it meant President of a local chapter/affiliated fundraising arm of Doctors Without Borders. Nobody is asking a high school kid to develop a crisis management plan for women who go into labor during a natural disaster (hurricane, tsunami,) or when evacuating a war zone (Ukraine, etc.) But the kids all seem to raise the bar with inflated titles and puffery- so if you’re a kid who wrote a computer program to help the local food pantry better manage perishable donations (a true community service IMHO) you’re going to feel like a chump writing that down when everyone else (it seems) is president of something, or rewired the genetics of prostate cancer over the summer.
The puffery is why some schools discount the ECs now; absent written evidence or the counselor discussing it in their letter, of course. My kid supplied documentation with her application.
so schools are discounting EC’s, SAT/ACT, LOR’s…what’s left? a totally coachable essay that you have no idea if the kid actually wrote?
colleges will pick whoever they want to fill their class, and then justify it with whichever data points they want to cherrypick.
Interviews have fallen out of favor for obvious logistical reasons, but if I was a college I think I would put more weight on them and less on essays. with zoom, it seems feasible to do more interviews.
AO’s are smart enough to not conflate title with leadership or accomplishments. The kid that wrote the program should not feel like a chump, and I’m sure an AO would value that accomplishment more than Founder, President, and CEO of the Robotics club.
I’m reminded of a recent chance me where a student claimed to have held several C-Suite positions at start-ups. I can just feel the AO eyerolls on that one
While I acknowledge that the applicant to YU would be more precise, that same applicant to more secular universities may well use the term “mission” as it’s more common and requires less explanation, even if not correct to the letter.
I cant tell you the number if people I know who hired out the essays. I think every private counselor/ tutor has been asked to write them here
Of course AO’s know. And of course fixing the perennial problem of perishable waste (for a population that doesn’t get enough fruit, vegetables etc. as it is) ranks up there with “Stuff a HS kid can do to help your community in a meaningful way”.
But the kids don’t know it. And so the puffery continues.
Not a joke…and the student who wrote it was advised by many on the thread NOT to exaggerate their ECs.
Another red flag for me is when the number of weekly hours spent on an EC can’t be true. One kid here wrote that they spent 70 hours (something like that) per week in total on their ECs. Just not possible if they attend school, eat, sleep and bathe.
My daughters both legitimately spent around 40 hours per week on their main ECs, and we were told that would be unbelievable, but since it was true we kept it on there. And they were BUSY (and have carried that to college). I couldn’t imagine more being possible.