<p>i just doubt it. people with 2400 sats, tons of APs with 5s, passion with ECs, instruments, awards, scholarships and the list goes on. but then what does admissions officers really want from students? what is EXACTLY what they want then. something that differentiates you from others?</p>
<p>they want diversity, and I don't just mean racially. They want students from different areas who have had different experiences. They want kids with different interests. They want athletes so the school will become popular, they want legacies to receive more money to make the school better. I'm sorry, but often times those people are REALLY boring. And if everyone at school were like that, it would be a rather boring place.</p>
<p>Most Ivies know that most of the people who apply will be able to do the work once accepted, so they are not at a loss for smart kids. The process is a holistic one where a student is evaluated in context to their experiences and what they being to the table.</p>
<p>One of the main reasons why some one with perfect scores may be rejected is colleges look to build well rounded classes. Having a admitted class ful of students with perfect scores, who all have the same EC, who all look alike would provide the student with a skewed, myopic view of the world and the college would have failed miserably in trying to provide this student with the best education. The best possible education means also means remaining cognizant of the fact that learning happens both inside and outside of the class room. Does it really help if someone is totally book smart and life stupid and has never experienced anything different from what they have always been used to. Have you really helped to prepare them for life outside of college?</p>
<p>This is one of the main reasons that schools look to build well rounded classes of rich kids, poor kids, legacies, athletes, URMs, rocket scientists, dancers, poets, writers, good deed doers, international students and bwrks because they are all conducive to helping to provide one an atmosphere that resembles the world in which we live.</p>
<p>Some are very up front about this in their mission statements.</p>
<p>Although having a few kids on campus with the same ECs as mine would be highly desirable; I don't want several hundred kids at my school with the same interests & activities. I learn MORE from people with totally different interests and backgrounds. </p>
<p>The schools that want a well rounded study body are the schools were I want to attend. There were a couple of very STATs oriented schools that came highly recommended that I did not want to attend. After viewing the applications, they were primarily concerned with only STATS, not ECs, summer experiences or even essays.</p>
<p>thank you sybbie719 and worldshopper for your info! very very in-depth. well i am really concerned about community service and aware about the environment. i have a mini group that goes clean the city every sat. received awards met the mayor and appeared in the city;s newspaper. do you consider this something that an IvyLeague admissionsofficer consider quite good/outstanding?</p>
<p>I think that it is DEFINITELY an asset, how much -- I don't know.</p>
<p>"i have a mini group that goes clean the city every sat. received awards met the mayor and appeared in the city;s newspaper. do you consider this something that an Ivy League admissionsofficer consider quite good/outstanding?"</p>
<p>It's nice to see a post by someone who seems genuinely interested in community service, and isn't just mindlessly doing it for resume fattening. Make sure that your application describes your leadership role in the activity and the impact of the activity. The essay may be the best place to do this.</p>
<p>Based on what you've written, here's how your EC sounds. It's above average (because you showed lots of leadership by starting it and getting people to do it on a regular basis ). While it's a nice activity, it probably wouldn't make "outstanding," at least when it comes to standing out as one of the best community service activities from applicants in Harvard's admissions pool. </p>
<p>If you expand your service to doing something like creating a new park or community garden in a depressed neighborhood or brightening a dreary urban area by getting a citywide group of young artists to create a mural on the wall of an abandoned building, or if you help successfully lobby the city government to address some problem that you've noticed during your clean-up activities, that would probably raise the level of that service activity to "outstanding."</p>
<p>Take a look at the Phillips Brooks House service organization on Harvard's web site, and you'll see the kind of projects that Harvard students design and run. You might get some nice inspiration there. If you can demonstrate that kind of potential leadership ability and interest, that would be considered a nice plus as Harvard prides itself on accepting applicants with a strong genuine interest in community service (doing community service is probably the most popular activity on campus) and on having alum who are actively involved in helping their communities.</p>
<p>yeah, i suppose. i should also do well on my SATI PLUS IIs</p>
<p>Excerpt form The Journal of blacks in Higher education article:</p>
<p>Colleges With a Conscience</p>
<p>Autumn 2005</p>
<p>*In 2005, The Princeton Review published its list of 81 Colleges With a Conscience. These colleges are said to have an administration and a student body that are concerned with social responsibility. "Education for these schools," says the guide's introduction, "isn't only about private gain, it's about the public good."</p>
<p>The Princeton Review considered five factors in determining whether a college has a conscience: (1) student bodies that are actively engaged in community service; (2) administration support for community service activities; (3) scholarships and/or admissions preferences for students who were actively engaged in community programs while in high school; (4) school support for community service learning activities; and (5) a strong student voice in college governance.</p>
<p>Six of the eight Ivy League colleges are included on The Princeton Review's list of colleges with a conscience. Among the Ivies, only Columbia and Yale are not considered to be among the universities most attuned with social responsibility.</p>
<p>There are a number of high ranking colleges and universities that are considered to be socially conscious. They include Bates, Duke, Georgetown, Macalester, Middlebury, Notre Dame, Oberlin, Smith, Stanford, Swarthmore, Trinity, Vanderbilt, and Williams. Large public universities such as Berkeley, UCLA, Chapel Hill, and the University of Michigan also make the list.</p>
<p>Spelman College in Atlanta is the only black educational institution among the 81 colleges that The Princeton Review designates as having a conscience. Spelman has community service relationships with about 95 organizations including Grady Hospital and Hammonds House, an Atlanta art museum. Spelman requires first- and second-year students to do community service work. Special scholarships are available for Spelman students who are active in community service work.</p>
<p>Of the other 80 predominantly white colleges and universities on The Princeton Review's list of colleges with a conscience, only Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, have a student body that is at least 15 percent black. *</p>
<p>THANK YOU NORTHSTARMOM!!!!! GREAT INFO!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH.NOW I HAVE A BETTER IDEA OF HOW TO MAKE IT "OUTSTANDING" BUT LIKE YOU SAID: "If you expand your service to doing something like creating a new park or community garden in a depressed neighborhood or brightening a dreary urban area by getting a citywide group of young artists to create a mural on the wall of an abandoned building, or if you help successfully lobby the city government to address some problem that you've noticed during your clean-up activities.."</p>
<p>who can i ask to do these types of things? do i go ask the counselor and tell her " hi mrs. ______ when i was cleaning the city, i saw there was a huge problem on sanitation and i would like to have an appointment with the Mayor and discuss about it. How can I do this?" ? Like this? Is it a good way to meet the counselor first?</p>
<p>i really want to go to harvard. </p>
<p>"Born Once, One life, One Harvard" - Me</p>
<p>Kevster,
There are some grant programs specifically designed for service programs that teens propose. Google and you can find them. Take a close look at the Phillips Brooks House site at Harvard, too.</p>
<p>This is interesting. There was a filed complaint at Stanford while I was there about the extremely low acceptance rate of Asian students. One family with three daughters was asking why if the Asians, statistically, make up almost half of the strongest applicants, are they accepted at a lower rate than whites and blacks.</p>
<p>And the explainations werethought provoking, stating that many come from West Coast families with the highest SAT score, IB and APs, but usually only have a small selection of academic hobbies, very few ECs, the most common is Orchestra. andthe note was really, how bland and filtered would the campus seen if that were the case. Stanford is already almost 1/3 Asian and many note that a large chunk of the Asian community does not interact or socialize with the rest of the population. So what reason would the institution have to let the population of Asians increase to say 50%? If alone one race does not complete the campuse, then it does not complete the campus, regardless if they are the statistically smarter or stronger.</p>
<p>Hm, indeed, that's very thought provoking. <em>copy-paste click-saves</em>
I can indeed see why even the "best" students would be rejected; it'd be horrible if the campus doesn't interact at all and everyone just went about doing his/her own business!</p>
<p>
[quote]
If alone one race does not complete the campuse, then it does not complete the campus, regardless if they are the statistically smarter or stronger.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'd just make it clear that applicants are being judged on a case by case basis, not that they're asian and they might not be as social or involved, but that the applicant him/herself reflects the type of applicant that has already had a large representation at the university/college.</p>
<p>On the hand, diversity is good. </p>
<p>On the other hand, a lack of diversity is very, very bad. </p>
<p>It is not acceptable to anybody in charge that the flagship universities in the US do not reflect the racial composition of the country. For whatever reason, SAT scores are lower for URM's. That is why they are under-represented. To me, it would make sense to worry about getting thousands of URM's into community college rather a few into Harvard, but society will not tolerate the top schools being enclaves of whites and asians.</p>
<p>HOW did this thread become about affirmative action. In answer to the OP, the main thing they care about is that you took the most difficult curriculum offered at your hs, then gpa/rank and then standardized test scores. They won't split hairs between outstanding academic credentials. A 1550/1600 SAT is every bit as good as a 1600/1600. </p>
<p>Once you qualify on academic grounds, they look for unique individuals. They want well rounded freshman classes, but not well rounded individuals. They don't want somebody who has been student council president, and acted in a few school plays. They want somebody who has national/regional recognization and has done off-broadway theatre. You want to show long-term commitment and "passion" in one/two activities. </p>
<p>Ultimately, there are just way too many applicants who are all super qualified, and so luck enters into the equation. Some people may prefer to think that it is all merit, but when they start accepting one person and denying another based on the parents' occupations, it seems like luck to me. For everyone accepted, there are 4 or 5 almost identical applicants at HYPSM who are denied. That is why the waitlists are often longer than the list of acceptances. It is easier for the adcom to waitlist someone rather than deny them after they just accepted the guy's clone. </p>
<p>In order to get diversity, URM's are judged against other URM's rather than the general applicant pool. In the same way; legacies, athletes, international students, development cases (money), and VIP's are given special consideration. There may be other tip factors such as geographic diversity. Colleges like to be able to say that they have students from all 50 states.</p>
<p>cre8tive, that's really interesting. </p>
<p>it would be horrible to live for 4 years with people with the same interest that are only concentrated on study without any leisure, fun, games, etc. It's life, i mean, sometiimes you gotta chill a bit. imagine everyone else besides you knows nothing but only study. that would be really creepy.... and sick..</p>
<p>Actually, Stanford is known as a campus that is very "laid-back" with people being involved in all kinds of activities outside of class. That is the characteristic that distinguishes Stanford. At some colleges, students are constantly complaining/bragging about how much they have to work, but at Stanford, everyone is working extremely hard but pretending not to.</p>
<p>It is unfortunate that asians feel that they are being basically discriminated against in the Stanford admissions process. For whites, I think it is normal for some applicants to feel that other groups are being favored, as they are, but it is different to feel that a college is actively against you. The difference is between saying "we need more blacks and hispanics" and saying "we need less asians".</p>
<p>Stanford is about 24% Asian, not one third.</p>
<p>From their website:
African American 8.4%
Asian American 23.9%
International 5.8%
Mexican American 8.4%
Native American 2.1%
Other Hispanic 2.4%
White 43.9%
Unidentified 5.1% </p>
<p>Why is it that if URM's with statististically lower scores are not accepted at a high enough rate, it is racism; but if asians with statistically higher scores are not accepted at an expected rate, you buy the college's explanation so quickly that, well, its because of EC's and those people keep to themselves too much.</p>
<p>Self imposed segregation is a common, almost universal, occurence on college campuses. I'm not surprised that asians would follow that pattern at Stanford. Also, new immigrant groups have historically concentrated on the basics needed to succeed. Asians probably are statistically more goal oriented than the more "laid back" Stanford students. </p>
<p>Stanford also notes that they have students from 49 states. I wonder which one they missed. That might be a hook for somebody.</p>
<p>I believe South Dakota....</p>
<p>dufus, that's interesting, but I didn't interpret as we need less asians, but as Stanford feels the ratio they had was find and that doing a racially blind admission would make that number rocket.</p>
<p>wow that's a lot of asian people at Stanford.</p>