What would set me apart from everyone else?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>I’m clearly not ■■■■■■■■, waitn184 you need to chill out and actually read my frickin posts before responding all hot and bothered.</p>

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Fair point I guess, I was making an assumption because the OP didn’t tell us much about him. Jeezus</p>

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With “big and bulky” I only meant rowing, not the other sports (critical reading skills!). It helps because it generally means your strong and muscular (please don’t reply with a “but just because your big and bulky doesn’t mean your in good shape!” stop reading my post word for word, you know what I mean and if you don’t… you’re ■■■■■■■■). High school-age rowing teams would kill to have any of the public high’s starting string football teammates on their team.</p>

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I sure as hell didn’t say that! (read my post again). Sure football and basketball are most recruited for, but they’re also really really ridiculously hard to get recruited for (see the last line of my post). Some of the sports I mentioned… not so much.</p>

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Why would you make this assumption? Look, you’re not getting the basis of my post. Have you ever taken an econ course? Whatever, even if you haven’t I’m sure you know about supply and demand. Now in the realm of college sports, both supply and demand are relatively constant in the Short Term, and demand is relatively the same for each sport (sure there are more football recruits because there are more football players, but in the high numbers of college applicants, that doesn’t really matter). And for sports like football, you better believe that the graph has a low intersection because supply is so goddamn high (who doesn’t play football?!). Same for basketball. But rowing, sailing, squash, and other sports like that, that aren’t very popular teenagers and yet good (Ivy) schools have excellent teams in, their S&D intersection points will be much higher. Thus, it is much easier to become a recruit in a sport like that. Swimming and diving I would think have equilibrium (intersection) points in between those 2 extremes, with swimming being pretty low (lots of swimmers in the world).</p>

<p>And guess what waitn184 - the entire theory behind every little trick, tip, hint, and strategy for “winning” the college admissions process is based off of supply and demand! Get it now? And if the OP is sporty (he says he’s a 3 sport athlete, and I have nothing else to go by so cut me some goddamn slack), then he should take up a sport with a small supply and a constant level of demand. It’s simple, draw a graph for yourself or ask your econ teacher if you don’t believe me</p>

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<p>OK, I misread what you meant about being big and bulky. But I still do not think it would help for rowing. Big and Bulky rowers add weight, and weight causes the team to go slower!. Rowing is not a bench press competition; it is all about rowing with physical endurance simultaneously with the rest of your team. It is kind of like saying: “Men with huge thighs (like Football Linemen) will succeed in cross country”. I do not row on a team, but I can fairly assume rowers are not “big and bulky”. Watch a clip of Olympic rowers, do any of them look “big and bulky”? They are all fairly muscular, but none of them look like your typical football player (except for maybe your QB, Receiver, DBs). I know what you mean by “Big and Bulky”, I did not say that big and bulky means out of shape! You quoted something I did not say buddy</p>

<p>Ok next part of our argument: </p>

<p>“so do a sport that they actively recruit for. That amounts to basically crew, diving, swimming, and possibly sailing”</p>

<p>By saying that the sports they actively recruit for basically amounts to Sailing …etc., you are suggesting that football and basketball are not one of the basic sports they actively recruit for. (writing skills!) But you and I are on the same page regarding the sports they recruit for so this really does not matter in respect to our main argument.</p>

<p>About supply and demand, I agree with you. There is a demand for Football/Bball and for rowing/sailing/etc. AND there is a larger supply for fball/bball than there are for rowing/sailing. Therefore, an applicant has a better chance getting recruited for those sports than for bball/fball. I agree with you; that is a good point.</p>

<p>The point I am trying to make is that it is still a waste of time to concentrate on those sports you can more easily get recruited for (rowing, etc.) than bball/fball because it is still very difficult to do! You are better off concentrating on a few academic/ service related extra curriculars than intensily train to get recruited.</p>

<p>To put your points in perspective, it is like saying Harvard has a high demand for people who know how to cure cancer (in low supply); so, if you know how to cure cancer, they will accept you. Perfect plan; however, how the hell do you go about curing cancer? </p>

<p>I know that I over-exaggerated (the difficulty) with the cancer-curing scenerio; but, do you get my point? As long as you do, feel free to argue against it, just don’t give me a bunch of irrelevant crap about supply and demand.</p>

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<p>And, I guess I was overly cruel. Sorry about that. But you really should not assume your post is better than everyone else’s. That comment (regardless about how persuasive/accurate your post was) was very arrogant and will be looked down upon by almost every CCer who reads it.</p>

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<p>mcgoogly, I’M A GIRL! lol
& with the whole sports thing… I know what you people mean that being in three sports doesn’t mean one is athletic BUT I’m good at swimming, I got MVP, and am aiming to get to state by junior year. but ANYWAY thanks for all your help & yeah, I shouldn’t be thinking about college right now. eh</p>

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<p>I thought you were a girl!</p>

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<p>I love programming and I am a freshmen too. What I am trying to accomplish is to become above average - fluent in at least 3 programming languages and web development. (I currently am average at 3 programming languages and above average at web development (HTML, XHTML, CSS etc…) I will hopefully attend summer programs to get better at programming and also read a lot of books. So I recommend doing something that you love and pursuing what you admire most. I hope that my future programming skills sets me apart from other people for the schools that I apply to.</p>

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<p>

Sure, but here’s the thing, let’s take the analysis further (oh yeah I’m going for it). Because the equilibrium point is higher for less-popular sports like rowing, this means that selectivity decreases (it’s definitely not a constant). Relative to each sport (this is of course a theoretical and hard to measure concept), a rower does not have to be as good a rower as a football player has to be as good a football player to get recruited. If OP is sporty, might as well focus on that then. And I can tell you from experience, it’s sure not as intensive (to train to get recruited) as it is to get recruited for tennis or gymnastics or dancing or something (things that require extreme in and out of school training).</p>

<p>But whatever, the OP doesn’t seem to dig it. I’d suggest trying out the high school’s diving team, then, or beast swimming</p>

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<p>do you have a criminal record? no? then get one…</p>

<p>if you do…are you a registered sex offender or on America’s Most Wanted list? if not, then become one or get on it</p>

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<p>McG, I get what you are saying. I play rugby, and it is much easier to win a state championship/awards because there is not much competition. Considering her specific situation, I think its best if she just concentrates on her swimming because she is already experienced/ talented in that sport. </p>

<p>I am actually hoping your equilibrium theory holds true in my situation. I know rugby is a very minor sport (club level), but considering the fact that it is a fast growing sport in the US and that it is one of Harvard’s top sports (they can probably win nationals some time soon), maybe it will aid my application that I am an experienced player on a nationally competitive team? I assume most (maybe all?) of their players are walk-ons?</p>

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<p>Wahoo my 200th post :)</p>

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<p>Being very, very good in a sport can help you get into good schools, especially if you’re good enough to be recruited. But if you’re not that good, it can suck up all of your time and prevent you from doing other things that interest you. Sure, your devotion to your sport will count, and will look good, but it will not look as good as some kind of achievement or leadership. You will often see the advice to do what you love, and I agree. But there’s a caveat–if you’re not that good at what you love, it won’t help your resume very much. It can be a tough decision.</p>

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Unfortunately, probably not. The way that a sport can REALLY help your application is when you are able to get a coach to call up admissions and tell them to get you in (sport coaches get to send in a list of a specific amount maximum of names to admissions who they will virtually certainly accept). I have no idea how club and not varsity level sports work in colleges, do club level sports have legit coaches? And I have no idea whether the coaches of club sports get to send in recruitment lists to the admissions office. Perhaps some club sports at some schools can - it is definitely up to a very specific school policy that they keep secret and you won’t know unless you know someone inside the school involved with it.</p>

<p>As a side, professors also have this kind of power to sway the admissions office (Admissions basically works for the faculty, hell basically the whole school works for the faculty to keep them happy). I’m not going to elaborate about it, but this one is my plan for college acceptance.</p>

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<p>i will ignore the strange fight above and tell the OP what I’ve learned in high school and through the comments of my Harvard interviewer:</p>

<p>colleges appreciate one or two DEEP interests- ones you actually cared about and can speak passionately about. Being a swimming MVP, you may have already found one of your deep interests. My Harvard interviewer was very impressed by how strongly I felt about my musical and journalism endeavors and said it stood out that I really went after my real talents rather than dabbling in 30 different clubs/sports/etc.
Hope that helps.</p>

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<p>Actually, Mcgoogles and I are done fighting. I am just asking him a question about club sports.</p>

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<p>do what you like to do. For me, I liked swimming, but the daily ritual of waking up at 5 in the morning to swim endless laps was unappealing by itself. So i also went abalone diving since i liked being outdoors. I used my passion for swimming differently i suppose. How many swimmers go out in the ocean and dive 40 feet to find some sea snail…</p>

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<p>I have a theory about college admissions, based more on human nature than on data, and that is that adcoms reduce applicants to a short phrase, such as “Hispanic tuba player from Alaska,” or “Latin prize-winner lecacy with a 2400.” If that’s true, you can see how “abalone diver” might make you more memorable than “varsity swimmer.” Of course, “Olympic swimmer” will trump “abalone diver.”</p>

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<p>Hunt: I agree. My teacher got off track today and randomly told us about a girl who got a full scholarship for being a very short Latino female… lol</p>