Does anyone have this book? It’s by Chuck Hughes. I find most of the information pretty accurate but I’m a little depressed after reading about the national awards in the extracurricular portion.
<p>The whole book is basically a rip-off of Hernandez's A is for Admission. He paraphrases, chapter by chapter, all the advice that Hernandez gives.</p>
<p>On the EC section, he states that colleges want both depth AND breath. Is this true?</p>
<p>It's really silly of him to say that.
I've never worked in an admissions office, but here's how I look at it.</p>
<p>There are 24 hours in a day. Let's say that you spend ~7 hours at school on weekdays. You sleep (hahaha I wish) 8 hours per night. You spend ~2 hours eating, crapping, ****ing, showering, dressing, and travelling between school and home.</p>
<p>After all that, you have ~7 hours left over on weekdays and ~14 hours left over on weekends. What are you doing with that time?</p>
<p>The basic question of breadth vs. depth is whether you should do 7 different activities for 1 hour each, or 1 activity for 7 hours. </p>
<p>It's impossible to have, literally, "both breadth and depth." You can't do 7 different activities for 7 hours each. That's 49 hours, 42 more than you have.</p>
<p>From reading countless bland and redundant books on admissions, it sounds like colleges are looking for you to do 2 to 4 completely different activities and invest a significant amount of time in each. That's a good mix of breadth and depth.</p>
<p>I happen to think that the book is an essential for parents and kids looking at the most selective colleges. The section on ECs is the best I have seen. I have recommended this book quite a bit. It really puts the awards and accomplishments into perspective. The whole difference between regional and national is oftne not noted by parents, and I see many families pay lots of money for programs in hopes that they will "impress" the colleges when they are known to be "bought" programs.</p>