Does Harvard have a secret figure skating team?
@twoinanddone lol!!!
Coming to America. One of the funniest and most underrated movies of all time. There are some classic lines and scenes in that movie.
Supply and demand.
Since itâs a dancer thread, my Dâs jazz teacher was a dancer in Coming to America! Ha! I wish being a dancer helped with admissions!
@MWolf: Apparently we are watching different end zone celebrations.
And who says Stephen Curry, Tom Brady or Zion Williamson, for example, arenât creative. :-bd
Just different.
âI wish being a dancer helped with admissions!â
And it does (though obviously not as a recruited athlete). Just like being senior class president or science fair winner helps with admissions. But as @cptofthehouse points out, supply and demand is important. Lots of supply of girl dancers, much less for boys, so itâs easier for them to stand out.
I still think it can work against a dancer if they cannot explain why theyâll be ok not dancing anymore. Schools may not see the student as a fit.
@homerdog I think youâre overthinking this. Yes thereâs no recruited athlete boost, but kids do lots of things in HS they donât intend to do in college. A lot of the EC boost is about whether you can maintain a high academic standard while spending 20 or 30 hours a week showing dedication to one or two other things over the course of multiple years. That could be working, tutoring kids, refereeing soccer games, being chess club president or dancing. It doesnât matter that much what your kid actually does.
@homerdog: Dancing for many years before college demonstrates determination, dedication, hard work & discipline.
I donât thinking dancing worked against my daughter when looking at colleges and it did offer a fair bit of evidence for her general work ethic. She was pretty up front with them that she wasnât going to college strictly for dance and that she would be taking a gap year to round out her current dancing goals before switching her focus to academics. None of the admissions people she talked with seemed the least bit turned off by her dance experience or plans. That said, her dancing was not a hook the way her friendâs swimming ability was a hook.
@Publisher do you know that I had to look up âend zone celebrationâ to understand what you meant? I do miss some cultural references because I didnât grow up here.
On the other hand, that was a very enjoyably 30 minutes that I spent watching videos of football players dancing.
@homerdog Most kids who are serious dancers will keep on doing it in one way or another. My kid starts climbing walls if she doesnât have dance practice of lessons for more than a couple of weeks, and thatâs even when she is stretching and exercising. She will likely do a dance minor so that her dance time will be more structured, or a least have a few dance courses every semester.
They donât actually recruit for traits specific to athletes except for athletes for official school teams. If your kid does something athletic when the college has no team, then the athletic endeavor is treated like other non-hook ECs. So dance is treated as not so different than debate or music or robotics or something else a kid has focused on. This seems quite straightforward to me.
@sushiritto Exactly, you need an ERG to test a rower, you need another player and a racket to test a tennis player, you need a pool and a ball to test a water polo player, you need a larger set of people and objects to test a baseball player, etc. To test a dancer, all you need is an empty corner of a studio or gym, and anything that can play music, like a cell phone.
@intparent The justifications that are always used for the boost in acceptance rates for athletes is that athletics are qualitatively better than other ECs because of the factors I mentioned in the OP. Harvard, for example, gives a boost in acceptance rates to athletes at all levels, despite the fact that many will not play. Being an athlete is a category that is independent of the rest of an applicants ECs.
@MWolf But I already have the ERG, barbells, plates, rack, rackets, various balls, easy access to a pool, gym, courts, etc. :))
Maybe it is the wrong question, maybe the question is why is there no Julliard for ballers? Why is there no football major? If dancers donât want to waste time on say, underwater basket weaving, neither does the QB.
@sushiritto And here I though that MY house was clutteredâŠ
I guess that no fake athletic profile will go unchallenged in your house! âSo, you tell me that youâve played water polo internationally for the past three years, right? Why donât you step into my backyard and demonstrate in my pool here. What, you donât have your equipment? Well, luckily I have some here that you can borrow⊠Oh, you say that you meant just âpoloâ? Well, then letâs go to my stables!â
@Sybylla Itâs not a bad idea. I know that Israel has such an institution, the Wingate Institute.
Ate you saying Harvard gives an admissions edge to a HS football player who is unrecruited and canât play at the level to make their team over, say, a state quiz bowl champion? That is BS. They donât. Athletes who can help a team at the college can get a tip. That is all the help it is in admissions above other ECs.
@intparent You are misrepresenting what I wrote. I wrote that athletic ability provides a boost, independent of all other ECs. While all other ECs are lumped together in one category, athletic ability has its own category. Only athletes score with 1 are recruited, but a 2 will give a serious boost in acceptance, whether they play or not. To get a 2 in ECs requires multiple ECâs, prizes, and leadership, and it wonât give you even a fraction of the boost that a 2 in athletics will.