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<p>Wind came and picked him up at just the right moment?</p>
<p>The kids who get 2400 on a fluke are annoying too.</p>
<p>JustAMomOf4, I’ll take a shot at defending the Harvard admit. From what you posted, the boy may possess a leadership skill that is rare and highly valued. While I don’t know the details of his musical role or activity, but in general, to hold a lead position in a skill-based EC without the skill and be able to continue the popularity of the activity requires genuine leadership. It is very challenging to be a leader in a skilled based activity when the one being led is better skilled than the leader.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t think it is a fluke to win anything at the state level if there is any meaningful qualification process leading to the state competition. If he is normally not a first place contender, then by winning it, he demonstrated he can perform at higher than his normal level when the stakes are high – another highly sought after trait. His being ranked #3 of his class and a published writer just pushed him over the top.</p>
<p>With all due respect, this is a silly thread.</p>
<p>There is no single “profile”. There are the geniuses, the sought after athletes, the legacies, the children of the rich and famous, the uniquely talented, the highly accomplished, the lucky, and on and on and on.</p>
<p>There are tens of thousands of kids at ivies and other elite schools. Do you think they all fit under a single “profile”?</p>
<p>I believe that connections or URM or star status will get you mostly anywhere. I was referring to regular, ordinary non-star kids who just had highest possible GPAs, high standradazed test scores and various meanningful ECs, which seems to fit profile of kids who graduate at the top from my D’s HS and usually end up at Ivy’s year after year. I was not referring to geniuses who saved Africa from aids or beat some records…</p>
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<p>That’s who I’m referring to also. We had about 20 kids like that last year at my daughter’s high school and 2 of them ended up at the Ivy’s.</p>
<p>A neighbor’s daughter was accepted to a non HYP Ivy. She was in the top 5% of her class (private school). While her schedule would be considered most rigorous, the majority of the students above her took even more advanced (college level) courses in some subjects. No legacy or hooks, no sports, no special talents, no national awards, but lots of volunteer work and other ECs. She had significant leadership positions in her class, although all of the positions were appointed by faculty; she was never chosen for a position by her peers. A remarkably hard-driving, ambitious, focused individual; what she lacked in talent or smarts, she made up for in sheer will; as a result, she was universally loathed by her classmates. Her SATs were in the mid 600s. Most people around here were pretty surprised.</p>
<p>As far as my experience with my own kids tells me to achieve straight “A”, kid must work hard, smarts are just not enough and definately will not be enough in ANY college, state or elite. Hard work ethic sets my D. a notch above her peers. However, she has also developed very good communication skills being very outgoing and surrounded by friends (never loathed by her classmates). Communication skills has helpted her tremendously during many interviews that she went thru for selective programs that she had applied. Yes, she went to state school, however, program that she got accepted had only 10 spots for incoming freshmen. I do not know about Ivy’s if kids are going thru interviews or not. But being popular and develop social and communication skills is definate plus.</p>
<p>This girl is highly articulate, but her superior attitude and over the top ambition put off her peers. She actually doesn’t understand why she has no friends - she seems to think her classmates are all jealous of her. I don’t know if this is Ivy caliber, but I wonder how many people like this are admitted to top schools. These qualities may not “shine through the application.”</p>
<p>The kids I know who are getting into Ivies aren’t the brilliant-cured-cancer-saved-Africa-from-AIDS-and-nationally-ranked-in-the-triple-jump. They appear to be simply nice, bright well rounded kids who worked hard, are naturally smart, and did some leadership stuff of some sort at a school or local community level - but they didn’t have to win Intel or cure cancer. And there’s little differentiation between the ones who get in and the ones who don’t. </p>
<p>Which tells me that at the unhooked level, I think these schools figure out some minimum level of can-do-the-work and then they pick who interests them on a given day. And on one day it might be the super-genius 2400 kid who cured cancer, and on another it’s just a BWRK who sounds like a nice, interesting kid to have around. And that there’s a lot of randomness to the process.</p>
<p>I do think that past a certain basis point, it’s more of a close your eyes and throw the dart process than many would like to believe.</p>
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<p>I think the super-genius 2400 kid who cured cancer gets the nod every day ;).</p>
<p>The process may appear random because of what we don’t know. I can’t believe they’ll allow admissions to be random and risk brand name erosion.</p>
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<p>Basically Well Rounded Kid ???</p>
<p>Buttered Wheat Roll with Ketchup ???</p>
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<p>Above a certain basis point or bar, it could be more random than we might think. Above that point, how can they differentiate between candidates on paper? If the bar is met, brand name erosion isn’t a risk. I wonder if the unknown element in the admission process has been glamorized in such a way that we’re ascribing qualities which really don’t exist and in reality, it’s somewhat arbitrary.</p>
<p>Bright Well Rounded Kid.</p>
<p>PCP, I absolutely believe that there is a good deal of luck / lottery involved once the basics are met. And I don’t believe it would result in brand name erosion. These schools have already said, numerous times, that 80% or so of the applicants are eminently qualified to do the work, and if they picked their class and for some reason all of those applicants couldn’t come, they could throw the applications in the air and pick whatever landed on the stairs and be just as happy with that class. I think you are overestimating the precision and underestimating the randomness of who happens to attract whose eye that particular day. There’s the joke about the adcom who had a bad meal in Buffalo who then didn’t admit any kids from Buffalo, but there is truth to that too. It’s like anything else. You’ve interviewed applicants for jobs, right? While there are merit considerations, sometimes there is just a “who intrigues me today” factor that could change from day to day. Maybe today this BWRK from the 'burbs seems interesting; maybe tomorrow, after I’ve read 10 files in a row like him, I think “how privileged and boring” and pick an angular kid.</p>
<p>I don’t agree that the process at highly selective colleges is random. But as concerned parents (and I plead guilty,too) we just hate what we can’t “master.” Saying that the process is random, that it could just as easily be accomplished by throwing apps in the air and seeing where they land, is a simplistic way to dismiss something that can’t be pinned down. There will always be elements of the admissions process that are unknowable, secrets that cannot be mastered. In the end, none of us is an oracle: We can’t divine the perceptions of anonymous college admissions officers or know what goes on during the deliberation process. But that doesn’t mean the process is random.</p>
<p>No, but there is a randomness in the sense that your kid’s app gets read when the adcom is fresh vs tired, that he was the first oboe-player applicant file read that day vs the fifth oboe player, that type of thing.</p>
<p>mathmom,
S1 had a similar experience in looking at friends’ essays. He had a lot of friends asking for comments and advice at the last minute. At that stage, it’s damage control because you’re right – you can’t tell a HS senior on Halloween night that his/her EA essay offers no personal insight and kinda stinks. S loved writing his essays. I never would have imagined a year before that he would have exposed his soul to the extent he did. They sound a little trite now, but they are a pretty accurate reflection of his universe at the time.</p>
<p>I strongly suspect that one of S’s friends, whose essays neither we nor his parents ever saw, just didn’t was supremely uncomfortable doing the personal reveal and brag. He has awards out the wazoo, but nooone knows. His mom only found out when he brought home a pile of plaques from college because he didn’t have any room to store them. He’s gotten a couple awards in his major department every year in college.</p>
<p>What’s the profile of an Ivy candidate? Heck if I know. I can tell you that in addition to the stats and scores, S2 had three major national awards that we’ve all heard of on CC (and was the only kid in the country who achieved all three that year) and while he was rejected by the Ivies and waitlisted at another T-10, he did get into two terrific T-10s, both of which he preferred to the Ivies anyway. Clearly there wasn’t something horrendous in his recs or essays that would have scared off the schools.</p>
<p>I told my kids that once they sent off apps, they have done everything in their control to gain admission. The rest is subjective, and subjective is not always fair, consistent or equitable. How the chips fall is not in my control or theirs at this point.</p>
<p>Saying that there is randomness in the process is not the same as saying that the process is random.</p>
<p>There are some applicants who will get in everywhere they apply. A few examples were given on this thread. I also know someone who was in an international math competition during high school. She was accepted at both Harvard and Stanford.</p>
<p>The bulk of the applicants are qualified to be admitted but do not particularly stand out from the pack. It is the job of the adcoms to build a diverse class. They want all the States to be represented, different type of people to be admitted. I heard that an adcom from Yale said that they could build a class out of the applicants that were rejected.</p>
<p>What is clear to me is that they don’t generally want “well-rounded” kids; they want a well-rounded class. That can mean a whole mixed bag of kids with a plethora of skills and backgrounds. This certainly doesn’t bode well for smart, well-rounded, albeit accomplished, middle class kids.</p>
<p>A student who has a particular strength can still come across as well-rounded. Someone who is a math whizz is not necessarily deficient in English or history. And plenty of prospective humanities majors score well on the AP-Calculus BC. </p>
<p>The fact remains that the top schools (not limited to Ivies) cannot admit all the students who are highly qualified and admissible (I still cringe at the “Ivy caliber” description). This means that schools that once were considered non-competitive with the top schools were able to improve the quality of their student bodies to a very remarkable degree. Honors programs at state universities are also able to attract students who are admissible at top schools.</p>