@narline1 My S16 goes to UChicago and my D18 is attending Harvard. Neither of them gave much thought about college admissions until the 11th grade. Neither of them pursued extracurriculars because they thought it would look good for college admissions. In fact, my son quit Model UN after ninth grade because he just didn’t feel it at the time.
What they both did was that they got involved in extracurriculars that they were passionate about. And they both pursued these ECs to a very high level. So from our experience, there was no recipe for admissions to a highly selective college. Although, it might be cliche to say, my kids just followed their passion.
@arsenalozil Thanks for the info. Did your children win any national awards or compete in some super strong ec. Develop an app or something special. Are you an urm parent or legacy. It will help with the fullness of your excellent guidance.
@narline1 Encourage your daughter to focus on Extra curricular activities that she loves, do not worry about college, pursue the hardest class, explore and make mistakes, take risks and do not worry about college. Plunge into summer programs that she likes without thinking about college. Good luck
OP ref extra curriculars, my daughter did a summer camp for kids at a Science Center, Mock trial, school paper, Science mentors to elementary school kids, tutored French and Math after school, did a summer internship at Rutgers,attended Outward Bound, took part in the school musical and acted as a school ambassador hosting potential students looking at high schools. Nothing was done with a view to enhancing a college application. Like your daughter she was on a high school scholarship. She worked hard and had a lot of fun too. She was admitted to Harvard, Yale and Brown, wait listed at Cornell. She applied to 4 Ivies. Her college search extended from Philly to Boston only. No Stanford, no U of Chicago. The Guidance Councillor figured she had no chance at any of the Ivies. She was also accepted to some fantastic LACs and rejected by Swarthmore. As I said in my early post, I do not believe there is a magic formula. I’m sure you love your kid as much as I love mine. Aim high but please don’t put all your eggs in one (or three) basket(s).
Nothing. She should do nothing that’s expressly for the purpose of college admissions. The best candidates are those who do what they do because it interests them, not because it will pad their resume. Full stop.
I was somewhat in your shoes a couple of years ago. I too have a bright, ambitious non-STEM kid who in 8th grade had her heart set on my alma mater, where even with legacy and Restrictive Early Action, her chances of admission are closer to 0 with each passing year. And just like you, I came to cc looking for help and was ridiculed by some and even privately insulted by others. Please don’t let it stop you from sticking around here, it will help you keep your sanity and help you help your daughter.
Here are the things that worked for our family:
- Identify other colleges that might be a good fit for your daughter and try to get her excited about them. It might not be easy - the first time I brought up our state flagship, my 13-year old was indignant “what, you don’t think I am smart enough to get into the college you went to?” Yes, it was probably the worst of her teen angst at that time, and she has since outgrew it, became more mature, more realistic, etc, but it was hard at the time. Today, she loves that same flagship and would be 100% happy to go there. She understands the advantages and drawbacks of the public university (no gap year after HS allowed, harder to get classes she wants), but she also understands it is realistic to get there if she works hard (about 20 kids from her HS get in annually vs. 1 to my alma mater elite). On cc such competitive but still somewhat realistic university is probably called “low reach”. We are yet to identify matches and safeties, but still working on that. For now, D has ruled out schools that she doesn’t want to attend for reasons that have nothing to do with prestige, i.e., she does not want to go to Berkeley. I personally do not agree that it does not matter where one goes to college, but like many on this forum am convinced that fit trumps prestige - fit in terms of specific majors/programs offered, in terms of location/weather, student body composition, etc. Undegrad years are a lot more than just steps on a career ladder - I want my daughter to enjoy them as much as I enjoyed mine.
- You know your daughter best, so please don’t let strangers deter you from doing what you think is right for her. This is especially true about EC’s, since there are so many options, so little time, and you need to choose wisely, and yes, sometimes push gently in the right direction. I had a strong suspicion my daughter would enjoy Mock Trial, so I forced her to attend the first few meetings that she hated (since they jumped into case prep right away and D was lost for a while). As I anticipated, she ended up genuinely loving it, the friends she made there, etc. She made JV attorney the first year and the only sophomore at her school to make Varsity as an attorney, not because she is so good at it, but because she clearly enjoys it so much. Her team has never made it to state’s because there are schools nearby where Mock Trial teams get a lot better coaching, but that is ok. My goal was not to help my daughter rack up awards, but rather find something she might truly enjoy doing. On the other hand, I never pushed Model UN (MUN), which would theoretically be right up my daughter’s alley, after she told me at their school all the newcomers get small countries and are basically not allowed to do anything until year 2 or 3. I thought this setting would actually kill D’s Interest in IR rather than nurture it. This year our school opened DECA club, and I supported D’s decision to join (mainly, supported financially with $250 required to participate in local competitions round). At that time D thought she might be interested in getting MBA along with JD, and while I had my doubts, I thought it’s best to help her explore it. Maybe it wasn’t the best decision - as a new club, they had no guidance whatsoever and D ended up hating it (I’ll always wonder if she might have liked it with better support), but for the moment pre-business programs/majors schools are off the list.
- Research, research, research - you as a parent, not your daughter. I don’t want my daughter to stress out about college yet, but I recognize there are some opportunities that could be missed if one does NOT focus on college at all. As others have mentioned, your private school should probably have a great GC (guidance counselor), something that our public school does not offer. So it was my research that identified some summer opportunities that daughter has applied for, and if she gets accepted, it might not only give her the skills she wants and experience of a lifetime, but a significant college boost as well. One of those programs (local internship) was actually shared privately by cc parent, and I probably would never have identified this opportunity on my own. There are advantages to starting early - for example, my daughter could not find anything to do for the summer after freshman year - she was too young to work, places where she’d enjoy volunteering (legal aid clinic) would not have even consider her, and of course I saw no sense in doing things she felt not inclined to do (I.e. we have an awesome aviation museum nearby and my younger son literally lives there already, I am sure he will happily volunteer there the minute he turns 12, but daughter is simply not interested). Instead, I suggested D takes two dual enrollment classes at a local community college - an astronomy class that will take of physical science GE at two of the colleges on her current list (she hates STEM with a vengeance), and an intro to criminal justice class that she might simply enjoy. She got A’s in both classes, was not stressed out at all, and it actually alleviated her stress of having to take a STEM class In the future. Her criminal justice professor wrote a recommendation letter that might, just might, help D get an internship this summer at a legal aid clinic (it is a very long shot since they typically only take college students). After visiting the state flagship I mentioned above, D is already planning to do a double-major with a concurrent masters, problem is, state flagship has a units cap for undergraduate, so she may not be able to complete everything she aspires. However, any GE’s she completes via dual enrollment will not be counted towards the cap, so it makes sense for her to complete as many GE’s as possible while in HS if she wants to implement her plan. Now, this only applies to public flagship that she might or might not end up attending, and her plans may very well change by the time she gets admitted, etc., but if I knew this info earlier, I might have also suggested to take lanother DE class spring of her freshman year when she had no AP’s, no mock trial most of the semester, etc. it would certainly be better than trying to add a class junior or senior year.
Anyway, I could go on and on, sorry for all the unnecessary details, just wanted to say welcome and hope the above could be helpful to you or others (as similar posts by other cc parents were extremely helpful to me). Thank you!
Thank you so much for the inspiring words of encouragement. My daughter is definitely passionate about what she does and has loved to to them (writing, soccer, etc) since she was a younger and wants to pursue them in high school and beyond.
@brantly “Nothing. She should do nothing that’s expressly for the purpose of college admissions. The best candidates are those who do what they do because it interests them, not because it will pad their resume. Full stop.”
While I understand your point, I think this is a little too simplistic. The kids I know that recently got in to schools like H, Brown, Cornell, WashU, Vandy, Duke, UCB, USC, UCLA etc. certainly had a “plan” before their junior year and they absolutley thought about college admissions when taking all those AP/IB classes, prep test courses, volunteering at the city mayor’s office, madrihim leadership programs, participating in the national bible/torah quiz competitions, ModelUN, science bowls, travel ball sports…
Right or wrong, your kids are competing against kids who are doing all of these activities. You can choose to ignore this fact at your own admissions peril.
@narlene1. I just realized something: many posters here, myself included, answered a totally different question than you asked, that is, we all answered a question “how to help your child have a most fulfilling and happy high school experience that might lead to a happy and productive college search.” There is a critical difference between the two questions and I will try to explain why, based on advice i’ve seen from some professional counselors catering to Tiger Parents:
Advice#1: There is no need to do sports or music or art (or at least spend 10+ hours a week on it) unless your kid is at a professional level, i.e., winning state championships, playing at Carnegie Hall, etc. Without major awards, these activities won’t give your kid a hook at HYPS, but would take a lot of time and keep your child from developing a deep, impressive EC.
Comment#1: While I can see the practicality of such advice (my D’s best friend is on a swim team in the spring, water polo in the fall, maintaining very rigorous courseload, openly admits she has little time for any other EC’s), I personally wouldn’t choose to follow it. In fact, I would probably force my son to play a sport, any sport of his choosing, just for health purposes, no matter how mediocre he might be, unless doctor orders to stay away from competitive sport (D’s case), and same goes for music, art, etc, basically anything that he might enjoy regardless of its usefulness for College Admissions (maybe with some exceptions such as video games, etc).
Advice#2: Colleges want well-rounded class, not well-rounded kids. At top schools it often means a CS major who led the robotics club, founded math class, won some math or science competitions, developed an app and interned at Facebook vs. a CS major who got lead roles in a school plays, founded a book club, volunteered at an animal shelter and tutored math to underprivileged kids. The second kid is best described as well-rounded, the first one “pointy”. Colleges used to want well-rounded kids in the past, nowadays you are expected to have a cohesive narrative that defines your passion in something.
Comment#2: Again, this works for kids who are naturally self-aware and seem to be born knowing what they like or don’t like and pursue that goal. For most kids out there who are not so sure and want to explore or simply enjoy many different things, without falling in love with it to the point of ignoring all else, this pathway of developing a narrative for college sake might lead to a lot of misery during high school years and even later in life.
Advice#3: It is important to take multiple AP’s so that your school counselor puts down “most rigorous coursework” mark on your transcript. If your school doesn’t offer AP’s, or doesn’t offer them until a certain grade, you can self-study, since getting 4 or 5 on at least eight AP exams would give you National AP Scholar achievement. There is a high correlation between highest grades and scores at HYPS, so it is worth spending money on test prep as it will increase one’s chances.
Comment#3: While there is certainly correlation, it is not a causation, and I agree with many on cc that it is not worth the time or effort trying to bring ACT from 34 to 36, and self-studying for AP’s is an overkill that will not bring any extra points nor tip the scales. Spending money on test prep is individual decision, and might be a good investment who is looking for merit aid where higher scores could indeed make a difference.
@narline1 can I also recommend halting any “plans” a ninth grader has to go to law school? Your daughter is more interested in the perceived prestige of “going to law school” than she could possibly be in the study of the law - something she won’t be able to do for eight years at least.
As a law school graduate, I can tell you from first hand knowledge that law schools roll their eyes when people say they “always wanted to go to law school” because they know they are referring to perception rather than reality. Better to just be a curious, bright, talented 9th grader and save interest in law school until her 20’s.
Many posters have provided specific suggestions to answer OP’s question about preparing her 9th grader for success in gaining admission to the hyper elite schools. Many have questioned the wisdom of OP’s originally stated goal.
I would like offer another perspective, which is that the world of work is evolving so rapidly that I believe we parents should pay more attention to developing the kinds of character traits and capability in our children that they will need to thrive in the uncertain and rapidly changing world. As a former HR and Talent Development professional, I recall witnessing a very low correlation between an employee’s alma mater and their success in the marketplace for talent. What produced a much higher correlation was the person’s experience navigating ambiguity, suffering failure and frustration yet bouncing back, building connections with people across cultural boundaries, understanding how organizations worked, translating the promise and perils of technology to human systems, extracting ideas and metaphors from one domain/discipline and utilizing it in non-obvious ways in a distant domain/discipline, creating vision for a venture and engaging a diverse community to contribute to its realization, knowing ones’ biases, limitations and blind-spots (a bit oxymoronic).
I believe we parents should take into account this larger context when we consider our roles in preparing our children for college. Focusing on our children gaining admission into a particular set of colleges is incomplete and insufficient. We need to ensure they develop the kinds of character and capability mentioned above and doing so might seem at times counter to preparing them to look attractive to colleges. I firmly believe that developing substance will in the long prove much more valuable to our children than developing a certain profile of statistics to suit the elite colleges.
The ideal situation would be for our children to pursue the former and in doing so achieve excellence that attracts the attention of admissions officers. One of my children loved all things mechanical starting at age 5 and so we encouraged this child to pursue it deep and wide and in the service of society. By the time this child was 15, this child had invented several products/services to alleviate poverty in developing countries. While most of them failed, the entrepreneurial experience developed in our child many of the character traits and capabilities mentioned above. When this child applied for college, those experiences enabled our child to stand-out from peers who had much better academic credentials. But the real value of those experiences is revealed now in the real-world as our child, now an adult, is able to navigate a variety of challenging work situations filled with risk, ambiguity, frustration and failure. The ability to learn, un-learn a wide gamut of skills with speed and agility seems to be the one factor most correlated with success in the marketplace now and in the near future. And our child seems to have developed this ability. This result means infinitely more to me as a parent than my child gaining admission to a particular school.
Thank you to who had helpful comments and insight. Regarding my daughter being interested in law, she has been curious about it every since she was little. After observing a Judge Judy show, she would always ask for me to give her court cases to solve and for me to pretend to be the judge, witness, and the defendant while she was the prosecutor. She would also research different cases that went to the supreme court and what they were about and tried to recreate them. So long story short, she has always been fascinated with the court system and the law.
I’d be so curious to know what your daughter is doing eight years from now, when she graduates college.
Also, FWIW, it could be important to mention to her that very little of the law field involves going to court.
I let my kids guide their own ECs. My youngest (D18) has national level accomplishments in debate, which we presume helped with admissions. He is also debate captain. He was light on volunteer hours, although all hours are across the same genre of work (animal rescue) because that is what “we” do as a family. He tried to tie his ECs into his essays where appropriate. He didn’t join NHS…really didn’t have time, nor an interest. I can honestly say that my son didn’t take a single AP class or do a single EC with an eye towards college apps. I wouldn’t change a thing. I think that adcoms can spot “stacking” a mile away. So let your dau. guide what she wants to do, and just provide support (and wheels!) to encourage her success. I said I wanted to be a lawyer from about the age of 6. I changed majors twice, and I took a break between undergrad and law school because I was burned out. But then off to law school I went. Some people do know early. Others don’t. Either is o.k.
Well brantly,
If your curious to know what my daughter will be doing in 8 years, I can tell you. She will be succeeding in whatever she does whether it’s law or something else.
Thank you VAMom23 for the advice and insight.
@narline1 Just FYI, my focus in high school was classical music. I was a music performance major in undergrad at UCLA, had a three-year career after college as a fashion stylist in LA, and then took the LSAT and got a full ride scholarship to a first tier law school. The reason? The admissions team loved that I came from a different experience and wasn’t your cookie cutter “poli-sci” pre law applicant. How do I know this? Because the admissions team made a point to reach out to me after I started my 1L year to chat with me about it and about how memorable and unique my application was. They were actually able to recite specific details from my application essay!
The point: don’t spend high school and college doing what you think is right for law school. Do what is right FOR YOU and let your fabulousness carry you into your future success.
Listen to well respected guidance counselors. Advice to oldest was:
- Make sure when you walk across that stage at graduation, you have experienced everything you wanted to try, worked hard, made an impact (leave your HS a better place), and had FUN!
- Admissions has changed. Look carefully and, if you absolutely find a number one fit with lots of ‘you’ on campus, apply early. (GCs know the admissions trends)
- Your grades, scores, essays and ECs collectively tell your story, show your passion.
After a careful search junior year (any earlier would have been to early to discern nuances in student bodies and curriculum) when one university did stand out as a favorite, he debated the ‘why’ by proposing other schools until he was convinced.
His parting words were 'You can’t plan the rest of your life!". I repeat those words to her every so often, when there is another milestone or hurdle ahead and she has a plan.
I don’t agree. Most of the athletes at HYP are not world class (Stanford? maybe). Most are good, and way above average academically.
The HOOK doesn’t have to be the entire application. It is just something that puts you above other applicants.
@narline1, you asked how your daughter can make herself one of the most competitive applicants. The plain answer is: nobody knows. That is the one thing that is clear, year after year. Trying to somehow groom your daughter into the perfect Harvard applicant is a fool’s errand.
As everyone else has told you, what you should do is (a) encourage your daughter to learn about a wide range of schools and (b) encourage her to spend her high school years doing what genuinely interests her, not what you think will look good on a college application. Otherwise there’s a good chance she will be one of the students who turn up on CC every spring wailing “why did I work so hard in college, if I was just going to end up going to State Flagship University?” I’m sure you’re sitting there thinking “that won’t be MY daughter.” Many other parents have thought the same thing, and their kids were every bit as high-achieving as yours.
Nobody is saying that your kid has no chance at Harvard or Yale. Obviously she has a chance – this year it’s about a 5% chance; it may get better in the next 4 years or it may get worse. But nobody looks at a 5% chance and thinks “hey, those are good odds! I don’t need a Plan B!” She needs a Plan B, and also, she needs to have a realistic understanding of that 5% chance. You will not be a good parent to her if you let her set her heart on those three schools.
I will say that your description of your daughter re-enacting Judge Judy episodes and reading up on Supreme Court cases does give me hope. She sounds like someone with genuine interests that she pursues on her own, which is great! Encourage her to do that and don’t worry about whether it will optimize her chances at Harvard or not. In fact, don’t even think about law school (as @brantly said, being a lawyer is NOT just like Judge Judy – that’s like saying that being a fashion designer is just like Project Runway). Encourage her to become her own person, whatever path that takes, even if it seems to lead directly AWAY from Harvard (or even from college altogether). That’s the key to a happy and successful life – not this laser-like focus on getting into Harvard starting in 9th grade.