Craziest “pointy” narratives that worked this cycle

[Anonymous]

Reading the NY mag article today (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/college-admissions-educational-consultants-command-education.html)

And it made me wonder what were the successful, pointy (or otherwise surprising) narratives that you saw that worked in your student community this year?
Both authentic and manufactured narrative's?
Private school or public?
Region?

Not because I want to emulate them (and I have a senior anyway)… But bc I think more widespread visibility into these types of practices / shenanigans will be helpful to all.

[Anonymous]

The base of its formula is what Command calls the “passion project” — the specialty it helps students develop so they become what counselors call “pointy” kids rather than well-rounded ones. Rim and other college counselors push the message that being captain of the debate team, a varsity soccer goalie, and class president is the kind of gold star that isn’t that special. Schools, they say, are looking for highly specialized students who demonstrate a specific talent or passion. (The oft-repeated quote is that colleges don’t want well-rounded students so much as “a well-rounded class.”)

The theme of the passion project becomes what Cramer calls the “hook” that hangs their essays and lists of extracurriculars together. “You don’t have to play the violin, be the first chair in your state, and rescue the whales. You can just pick one and be so good at it that you want to dare the admissions officers not to accept you and that they will regret it,” says Rim. No matter what, “we will find the story.”

Rim insists Command mentors don’t fabricate a kid’s interests but merely draw them out. Here’s an example offered by Cramer, who says a lot of clients are interested in business or finance: “One of the things that we push them to do is try to understand, What about finance? What about business? What are you trying to do in the world? And if they say, ‘Yeah, I’ve traveled around with my family a lot, I see the natural beauty of the places I’ve been around,’ we start to show them, ‘Well, actually what it sounds like you’re maybe starting to talk about a little is this idea of investing in green technologies and trying to use private industry as a way to be more environmentally conscious, and we should be investing in emerging technologies.’ You don’t know any of this stuff as a 14- or 15-year-old, but you’re kind of talking about that.”

A Command client who is a senior at a private Manhattan high school and was recently admitted to an Ivy League school describes a similar process. She says her mentor helped her start a blog related to her desired major and edited her posts. “All my activities, the internship I did last summer, the blog, what I wrote about in my essays, it was all focused on that,” she says. “It really was what I was interested in and what I probably would have pursued anyway, but I wouldn’t have done so much focus on it if it wasn’t Command saying to me, ‘This is how you’re going to get into college: Make sure you let them know what you want to do.’ ” She says the blog is mostly stagnant now.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s really commonplace. But extremely hard to execute well.

[Anonymous]

Ugh.

I know a student at a very prestigious East Coast private school. On her list of activities is a very cool project involving outreach to teens in a war-torn country.

It was conceived by a counselor and basically, the rich kids just cycle in and out for a few hours, but they all list it and take ownership of it.

If you have a conversation with this student, it is immediately clear that she is not very involved nor does she really know the situation in the other country. She would definitely describe it as a passion project.

[Anonymous]

Yuck. When are schools going to see through this stuff?

[Anonymous]

How can college admissions officers fall for this cr*p? A blog? Seriously?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can college admissions officers fall for this cr*p? A blog? Seriously?

If I was back in college and choosing classmates, I'd love to have one who was interested and enthusiastic enough about something to create a blog with regular and thoughtful writing or videos. But not one who was doing it just to get into college or with the assistance of a college counselor.

[Anonymous]

I think it's very common among the 1% and despite everyone here saying "AOs are smart! they know! they see right through this" the fact is, they don't.

I think it will work for a while. Teen tours also worked for a lot longer than we remember. Colleges scoff they can see through that and I wish someone would say: "you didn't for 20 years so let's not be so smug! and now you love the passion project some adult made up for the kids"

[Anonymous]

I think my kid wrote a "pointy" essay all on their own. They had almost no ECs, but they do a lot of creative stuff in their free time. Like writing novels, comics, etc. Introvert stuff.

I thought this wasn't going to be exciting enough, for colleges, that they'd know how common Wattpad and ao3 are with the kids, but the essay was sincere and genuine and it seems to have opened a lot of doors I didn't expect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's very common among the 1% and despite everyone here saying "AOs are smart! they know! they see right through this" the fact is, they don't.

I think it will work for a while. Teen tours also worked for a lot longer than we remember. Colleges scoff they can see through that and I wish someone would say: "you didn't for 20 years so let's not be so smug! and now you love the passion project some adult made up for the kids"

Also true that colleges need the 1%. They can come up with all sorts of reasons that they're only taking the smart or the nice ones, but they want the money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think my kid wrote a "pointy" essay all on their own. They had almost no ECs, but they do a lot of creative stuff in their free time. Like writing novels, comics, etc. Introvert stuff.

I thought this wasn't going to be exciting enough, for colleges, that they'd know how common Wattpad and ao3 are with the kids, but the essay was sincere and genuine and it seems to have opened a lot of doors I didn't expect.

This sounds lovely and entirely child driven without interference or artifice….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's very common among the 1% and despite everyone here saying "AOs are smart! they know! they see right through this" the fact is, they don't.

I think it will work for a while. Teen tours also worked for a lot longer than we remember. Colleges scoff they can see through that and I wish someone would say: "you didn't for 20 years so let's not be so smug! and now you love the passion project some adult made up for the kids"

I agree. It worked for someone who got into Penn by founding a nonprofit focused on girls in Asia. Read the bios of these kids on Reddit. They all started a non-profit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's very common among the 1% and despite everyone here saying "AOs are smart! they know! they see right through this" the fact is, they don't.

I think it will work for a while. Teen tours also worked for a lot longer than we remember. Colleges scoff they can see through that and I wish someone would say: "you didn't for 20 years so let's not be so smug! and now you love the passion project some adult made up for the kids"

I think AOs know what is happening. How can they not? I think they don't care because schools want these wealthy students. Plenty of recent research have noted that the 1% do well in elite college admissions.

[Anonymous]

This whole idea is repulsive. Contrived and desperate and elitist. Yuck.

[Anonymous]

Top colleges love student NPOs. Stop what you are doing and start setting one up for your child and her BFs to run.