<p>I remember those MIT questions on the teacher recommendation. I thought they were ridiculous at the time. I’ll bet that for most top kids, you could probably put a check in each of the boxes!! LOL</p>
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<p>True, and for that reason the private prep school have a policy to not check boxes.</p>
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<p>I thought we are talking about a non-legacy, non-under-represented-minority, general applicant.</p>
<p>This discussion exclude any special cases including developmental admits and under-represented-minorities.</p>
<p>Sports are not excluded because it is still an extra-curricular activity and excelling at it is same as curing cancer in research or playing at Carnegie Hall.</p>
<p>Also in any discussion it makes more sense to put forward quantifiable reasoning. Pure subjective reasoning is difficult to prove and might not be applicable to a general applicant.</p>
<p>Indeed, boxes need not be checked; but how many recs have undermined applicants by mentioning that they are “diligent” “hard-working” “conscientious” instead of “the most brilliant student in my xxx years of teaching?”</p>
<p>But my point is that sports are not a consideration at some top schools. And neither is playing at Carnegie Hall or various ECs. It really depends on the school. </p>
<p>If one wants to say academically excellent student, why not say so?</p>
<p>Even if an individual student were capable of curing cancer, that student would be so exceptional as to be useless as an illustration of excellence. We are looking for types, not single individuals.</p>
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<p>Yes, certainly recommendations are very important and usage of words like ‘diligent’ is not good for an institute like MIT which encourage original thinking.</p>
<p>But as an applicant you need to find the teacher who believe in your ability than conceive you as a hard working student.</p>
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<p>True not every top school is same and that is why you cannot replace the class of MIT with a class of Harvard while vice versa might be possible.</p>
<p>But if you want to declare your academic excellence than you should have qualified for at least one Olympiad out of Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and now Computer Science and represent USA.</p>
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The applicant I listed have not cured cancer or anything close to it. The applicant need to be passionate about research and be a semi-finalist at Intel which means one of 300 students.
There are Olympiad in 5 subjects and 20 students are invited to participate in camps during summer. That means a chance to be among 100 students.</p>
<p>So my quantifiable numbers are not impossible to achieve and are very realistic.</p>
<p>Can anybody even quantify for me, with an example please, what people mean by “curing cancer?” Since, as far as I know, nobody has “cured cancer” (yes, I know many/most cancers are treatable) it must have some other meaning. But people keep throwing the phrase out with no explanation.</p>
<p>I’m serious, I don’t know what people really mean when they say this. And I bet there isn’t agreement on this either.</p>
<p>My impression of making sure a kid is Ivy Caliber is not only making sure he or she has a high GPA and test scores but also making sure they have some long term passion EC’s with at least one related to his or her proposed future career field. I understand for some students this is fine, but I feel that the majority of high school kids should use high school to explore many different interests and not feel pressured that they need to “prepare for Ivy schools.” </p>
<p>I do agree high school kids should strive to do well in school, as academics is the main purpose of school, but they also need to learn in other areas also. I guess I am concerned that we as a society tend to get so caught up in the idea that “our children have to be top-notch” children that we aren’t teaching them to enjoy life. Kindergarten kids spend less time playing and interacting with each other and more time drilling for standardized tests, high school kids volunteer for required hours to graduate and get into a good college instead of doing it because it is the right thing to do. (I know this isn’t always the case, but for many it is.)</p>
<p>I am blabbering on here, but I think the obsession can outweigh the balance needed to really be happy.</p>
<p>I have no idea if admissions people do, or even could do this. But if it were me I would be looking for confirmation of achievement in various ways, particularly within the applicants area of “emphasis.” In other words, if a kid was basically a “science” type, and submitted awards from science fair type things as proof of their passion and ability, I would be looking for confirmation from high grades in science classes and SATII/AP tests, or other competitions.</p>
<p>If I saw a student who won Intel, but had all Bs in science and 3s on science APs I might wonder if some of their research advisor’s work crept into their project (granted, I don’t know if they have other ways of checking on this, which they very well may.)</p>
<p>On the other hand, even for a kid with very high science grades and scores I would be looking for some effort beyond this - all in context of what is available at the kids school/ income level.</p>
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<p>That is nonsense. I know a very large number of Harvard students and they have not qualified for any of these. Statiscally, it is also impossible. Consider the number of students who are offered admission every year at the top (not just Ivy) schools and the total number of students who qualify for one of these Olympiads (and, no, the rest are not “hooked”)</p>
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<p>Again I never mention this in the Ivy-Caliber student profile but you asked for a realistic academic excellence.</p>
<p>This is the decreasing order of acceptance at HMSPY
- Qualifying for Olympic of any kind again a sports Olympic has higher precedence than academic not only it comes after 4 years but also sports generally turns more heads than academic in USA
- National Honors/Awards in your EC, it can be research, sports, Debate etc.
Again different awards have different value some considered more valuable at one college than other.</p>
<p>and so on.</p>
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<p>The closest you can go in terms of research activity is to win Intel Competition which will not only provide you a sum of $100,000 but also excellent chance of matriculating to HMSPY.</p>
<p>bovertine:
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<p>Intel does take care of this to begin with, in order to be a semi-finalists, you need to submit teachers recommendation, school transcript and an essay.
Winning Intel is not a piece of cake and you as an applicant need to do the real research to win it, it has 3 days of interview process for the 40 finalists.
That is why it is considered as Junior nobel prize. The closest I’ve come across to a 3rd position winner from DD school and he was a math genius, presently attending Harvard.
So please don’t undermine something like Intel, it is not your county or city science fair.</p>
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<p>Did I say I was “undermining Intel”?</p>
<p>Since I think only 1 kid wins $100K I’m sure there is extreme vetting at this level.</p>
<p>On the other hand, comparing it to “curing cancer” is a little extreme.</p>
<p>^^^: I didn’t compare it to curing cancer but I said the nearest you can go in quantifiable terms is to win the Intel competition in the world of high school research.</p>
<p>Whew! No danger of any of my kid’s teachers describing him as dligent or extremely hardworking. (Sigh…).</p>
<p>POIH:</p>
<p>Wm. Fitzsimmons has said that Harvard admits 300 or so academic superstars each year. Out of 2000+ admits. This means 1700 or so students are admitted who are not likely to have cured cancer or to eventually find a cure, qualified for Olympiads, etc… And unless there are so many students who are legacies, sports stars, Mozart avatars and budding world-shakers that it can easily fill the 1700 slots, many of the admits must be BWRKs. And we’re talking of only one school.</p>
<p>Let’s not exaggerate what it takes to get into a top school.</p>