Reflections from 2025 HYPSM admit(s)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This probably does get a kid into HPYSM, but it’s highly contrived, and thus, sad. It’s like the parent is applying to college.

We knew a case where a parent helped a kid do this and it was successful, but everyone who knew the kid and family knew this was the game plan since elementary school. The dad managed the kid’s life from 0-18 and probably is still at it. In the end, I’m not sure where this really gets a kid. I guess we’ll find out in 10-15 years.

I know a family like this. My kid was in the local newspapers and the family copied my kid’s project. Ok both got into Harvard. We met at some award ceremony and our school had published all my kid’s awards while their school had not said too much about the other kid. Turns out they have a younger daughter who then copied all my kid’s activities except she could not win the awards! Obviously Dad or Mom was directing their activities. I recently found out they are donors — lol no wonder younger kid also got in! It’s ridiculous how much these parents are doing for their kids.

And I bet the younger kid will copy all my kid’s clubs and activities at Harvard.

In the scheme of life, the “clubs and activities” are not actually that important. Once you get to college and into the workforce you will realize. It’s about connections and grit and EQ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and the idea of strategic position is so nauseating to me that I feel like writing a letter to our admissions office to let them know about what I read in this forum and others.

To be clear, I am not attacking the OP. She did what she felt she had to do to benefit her child. However, favoring students with unusual niche interests is clearly not the best way to find the most authentic students. Maybe this approach was more authentic 10 years ago before college admissions officers and parents pushed it en masse, but clearly this is no longer the way.

I always wonder how professors view their admissions offices and admission priorities.

Our child was told that activism was the essential key to admission to selective colleges. He followed a different path and somehow ended up at HYSPM.

He has met many classmates who were primarily involved in activism and impact-oriented activities. Sadly, he has seen those classmates struggle with the material to the confusion of their professors. I wonder if professors understand what the admissions offices are doing.

Professors who feel their undergrads at highly selective schools are under par should get together and write and sign an open letter demanding the admissions office increase the academic standards for admission. The publicity alone could provide an immense amount of pressure - remember how viral news of Harvard's "remedial math" (calculus with support) class went, which I have no doubt played a key role in Harvard reinstating tests.

My spouse was a professor at MIT and was underwelmed at many students. Many lacked direction and seemed burned out

Heck, if enough professors from different schools join in, they could even ask universities to ask the college board/ACT to raise the ceilings and specifically statistically validate the results within the top 1%.

[Anonymous]

As the college counselor at DD’s school said last week in a presentation, “College has ruined high school.” So glad to attend a school that encourages kids to try all sorts of things rather than “barb” themselves into college. This is the time to experience and develop, people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and the idea of strategic position is so nauseating to me that I feel like writing a letter to our admissions office to let them know about what I read in this forum and others.

To be clear, I am not attacking the OP. She did what she felt she had to do to benefit her child. However, favoring students with unusual niche interests is clearly not the best way to find the most authentic students. Maybe this approach was more authentic 10 years ago before college admissions officers and parents pushed it en masse, but clearly this is no longer the way.

I always wonder how professors view their admissions offices and admission priorities.

Our child was told that activism was the essential key to admission to selective colleges. He followed a different path and somehow ended up at HYSPM.

He has met many classmates who were primarily involved in activism and impact-oriented activities. Sadly, he has seen those classmates struggle with the material to the confusion of their professors. I wonder if professors understand what the admissions offices are doing.

Professors admit graduate students, and since we work directly with the students we admit, we get obvious feedback on our selection methods. We see some students succeed, and others falter. Admissions officers don't have this benefit, because they will never teach the students they select.

This is why it surprises me that admission officers don’t get feedback/input from professors in making admissions priorities. The professors know who succeeds. Don’t admissions offices care about students’ success?

DP professors most definitely give feedback to the admissions office. An AO's #1 audience is the board of trustees, who are in turns motivated by college rankings, donations, alums, endowment, gov funding and the media. AO's #2 audience is the faculty. In multiple podcasts on YCBK, AOs have said "the last thing you want is for the faculty to call and complain about the students you admitted." This is why when a HS sends a borderline kid to a rigorous school, it could hurt applicants for the next 2 years. This is literally happening at DC's school right now: a very well connected kid/recruited athlete is failing Caltech in his freshman year (he told all his old HS buddies and is trying to transfer out); now everyone is saying no one will get in from our school this year. Another example is Carnegie Mellon: More incoming freshmen have been failing Calculus since TO. They are bringing back test requirements but also adding a Pre-Cal course for the first time next year. They wouldn't be doing that if there weren't complaints from professors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are really gross. The process is broken. You refer to what “we” did hsvibg nothing to do with your child’s autonomy or true, authentic vision. It’s just a game to you. Too bad AO couldn’t see through your bullshit.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. The bullshit holistic heavy game that people like you support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here:

On my kid - she is well-adjusted, social, and loved by her teachers and now professors. We are hands off in college and she is thriving. Did very well in the first semester. Calls home frequently. Taking very interesting classes. Joined clubs, figuring out career path. Seems to have great friends, and they will be traveling together during spring break. She is still in contact with her high school friends.

On being a one-hit wonder - we have another, older kid at a HYPSM. His results were definitely less striking than hers, but we had yet to refine the barb approach. Of course, my sample size is n=2. But I think with the variability and low chance, P(strategy working | 2 success stories) is still quite high. Sorry for the probability jargon.

On those calling me deplorable - this is just the current state of the game. I don't fault any of us for playing it. If anything, you should be blaming the admissions offices for encouraging actions like this. The sooner you catch on, the better.

And all of you happily lived every after.

Is it just me or do sentiments like these seem really common? That it's impossible for a kid can be normal, social, even likeable while still attending a top school? That it's inconceivable normal kids would ever try and strategize to get into schools?

It seems to me that the sarcasm in this reply is a really sorry attempt to pathologize success. People seem to find it deeply unsettling when a student is both strategic and socially well-adjusted because it removes their favorite excuse: that elite admissions is a trade-off between prestige and personhood. But it's really not.

Your quip is small, lol. But it's something that I see really often in these forums. When you insist that these kids are miserable or burnt out or deplorable human beings, you as an onlooker protect your own ego. It's much easier to dismiss a HYPSM student as a product of strategy than to admit they might just be a high-functioning individual who understood the rules of the game. I think this reaction is a sign of intellectual laziness. You want to believe in a 'meritocracy of the accidental', where kids get into Harvard just by being authentic (whatever that means). You think strategy is a form of cheating because it just exposes the fact that effort without direction is often wasted energy

It's entirely possible to be competitive and happy all at once, and I don't really think there's a point in moralizing the positions of individual agents here

+1000000

Imagine having this snarky attitude towards musicians who deliberately practiced instead of only "authentically" playing songs for fun, or athletes who attended development camps and executed a specifically designed gym workout even if it was monotonous at times instead of "authentically" only playing pick up games for fun when they felt like it.

What a poor analogy. The OP's DD got in with a 3.85 GPA and test optional with their contrived scheme that the kid was not actually that passionate about (and I'm sure has already abandoned since getting into Harvard). Athletes can't win an Olympics medal for running 15 secs in the 100m. Those athletes in your weak analogy still have to outperform others based on merits, unlike OP's DD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here:

On my kid - she is well-adjusted, social, and loved by her teachers and now professors. We are hands off in college and she is thriving. Did very well in the first semester. Calls home frequently. Taking very interesting classes. Joined clubs, figuring out career path. Seems to have great friends, and they will be traveling together during spring break. She is still in contact with her high school friends.

On being a one-hit wonder - we have another, older kid at a HYPSM. His results were definitely less striking than hers, but we had yet to refine the barb approach. Of course, my sample size is n=2. But I think with the variability and low chance, P(strategy working | 2 success stories) is still quite high. Sorry for the probability jargon.

On those calling me deplorable - this is just the current state of the game. I don't fault any of us for playing it. If anything, you should be blaming the admissions offices for encouraging actions like this. The sooner you catch on, the better.

And all of you happily lived every after.

Is it just me or do sentiments like these seem really common? That it's impossible for a kid can be normal, social, even likeable while still attending a top school? That it's inconceivable normal kids would ever try and strategize to get into schools?

It seems to me that the sarcasm in this reply is a really sorry attempt to pathologize success. People seem to find it deeply unsettling when a student is both strategic and socially well-adjusted because it removes their favorite excuse: that elite admissions is a trade-off between prestige and personhood. But it's really not.

Your quip is small, lol. But it's something that I see really often in these forums. When you insist that these kids are miserable or burnt out or deplorable human beings, you as an onlooker protect your own ego. It's much easier to dismiss a HYPSM student as a product of strategy than to admit they might just be a high-functioning individual who understood the rules of the game. I think this reaction is a sign of intellectual laziness. You want to believe in a 'meritocracy of the accidental', where kids get into Harvard just by being authentic (whatever that means). You think strategy is a form of cheating because it just exposes the fact that effort without direction is often wasted energy

It's entirely possible to be competitive and happy all at once, and I don't really think there's a point in moralizing the positions of individual agents here

It's mostly a combination of sour grapes and copium.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is lying. It is all made up.

+1

OP probably listened to a couple of podcasts and thinks she hatched a winning strategy which she is testing in DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here:

On my kid - she is well-adjusted, social, and loved by her teachers and now professors. We are hands off in college and she is thriving. Did very well in the first semester. Calls home frequently. Taking very interesting classes. Joined clubs, figuring out career path. Seems to have great friends, and they will be traveling together during spring break. She is still in contact with her high school friends.

On being a one-hit wonder - we have another, older kid at a HYPSM. His results were definitely less striking than hers, but we had yet to refine the barb approach. Of course, my sample size is n=2. But I think with the variability and low chance, P(strategy working | 2 success stories) is still quite high. Sorry for the probability jargon.

On those calling me deplorable - this is just the current state of the game. I don't fault any of us for playing it. If anything, you should be blaming the admissions offices for encouraging actions like this. The sooner you catch on, the better.

And all of you happily lived every after.

Is it just me or do sentiments like these seem really common? That it's impossible for a kid can be normal, social, even likeable while still attending a top school? That it's inconceivable normal kids would ever try and strategize to get into schools?

It seems to me that the sarcasm in this reply is a really sorry attempt to pathologize success. People seem to find it deeply unsettling when a student is both strategic and socially well-adjusted because it removes their favorite excuse: that elite admissions is a trade-off between prestige and personhood. But it's really not.

Your quip is small, lol. But it's something that I see really often in these forums. When you insist that these kids are miserable or burnt out or deplorable human beings, you as an onlooker protect your own ego. It's much easier to dismiss a HYPSM student as a product of strategy than to admit they might just be a high-functioning individual who understood the rules of the game. I think this reaction is a sign of intellectual laziness. You want to believe in a 'meritocracy of the accidental', where kids get into Harvard just by being authentic (whatever that means). You think strategy is a form of cheating because it just exposes the fact that effort without direction is often wasted energy

It's entirely possible to be competitive and happy all at once, and I don't really think there's a point in moralizing the positions of individual agents here

+1000000

Imagine having this snarky attitude towards musicians who deliberately practiced instead of only "authentically" playing songs for fun, or athletes who attended development camps and executed a specifically designed gym workout even if it was monotonous at times instead of "authentically" only playing pick up games for fun when they felt like it.

What a poor analogy. The OP's DD got in with a 3.85 GPA and test optional with their contrived scheme that the kid was not actually that passionate about (and I'm sure has already abandoned since getting into Harvard). Athletes can't win an Olympics medal for running 15 secs in the 100m. Those athletes in your weak analogy still have to outperform others based on merits, unlike OP's DD.

I’m not sure where you’re getting your numbers from. She had one B in a summer class. She had a 1550+. She graduated top of her class. She took 15 APs. But in today’s day and age, that’s not enough to guarantee anything

[Anonymous]

And to add on, the reason she got that B was because she was working on her barb over the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and the idea of strategic position is so nauseating to me that I feel like writing a letter to our admissions office to let them know about what I read in this forum and others.

To be clear, I am not attacking the OP. She did what she felt she had to do to benefit her child. However, favoring students with unusual niche interests is clearly not the best way to find the most authentic students. Maybe this approach was more authentic 10 years ago before college admissions officers and parents pushed it en masse, but clearly this is no longer the way.

I always wonder how professors view their admissions offices and admission priorities.

Our child was told that activism was the essential key to admission to selective colleges. He followed a different path and somehow ended up at HYSPM.

He has met many classmates who were primarily involved in activism and impact-oriented activities. Sadly, he has seen those classmates struggle with the material to the confusion of their professors. I wonder if professors understand what the admissions offices are doing.

Professors admit graduate students, and since we work directly with the students we admit, we get obvious feedback on our selection methods. We see some students succeed, and others falter. Admissions officers don't have this benefit, because they will never teach the students they select.

This is why it surprises me that admission officers don’t get feedback/input from professors in making admissions priorities. The professors know who succeeds. Don’t admissions offices care about students’ success?

DP professors most definitely give feedback to the admissions office. An AO's #1 audience is the board of trustees, who are in turns motivated by college rankings, donations, alums, endowment, gov funding and the media. AO's #2 audience is the faculty. In multiple podcasts on YCBK, AOs have said "the last thing you want is for the faculty to call and complain about the students you admitted." This is why when a HS sends a borderline kid to a rigorous school, it could hurt applicants for the next 2 years. This is literally happening at DC's school right now: a very well connected kid/recruited athlete is failing Caltech in his freshman year (he told all his old HS buddies and is trying to transfer out); now everyone is saying no one will get in from our school this year. Another example is Carnegie Mellon: More incoming freshmen have been failing Calculus since TO. They are bringing back test requirements but also adding a Pre-Cal course for the first time next year. They wouldn't be doing that if there weren't complaints from professors.

I think test optional cohorts from the top schools are seeing lower reputational benefits in recruitment.

[Anonymous]

It is funny to see people fall for trolling so deeply.

There are roughly about 20 students who get admitted to all 5 of HYPSM. The chance that some parent of these 20, posts on DCUM and that too with the language used by OP, is near zero.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is funny to see people fall for trolling so deeply.

There are roughly about 20 students who get admitted to all 5 of HYPSM. The chance that some parent of these 20, posts on DCUM and that too with the language used by OP, is near zero.

Can't help to wonder why people troll others? Seriously, for what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"HYSPM" is not a monolith. I love it how parents obfuscate and note their kid is at a "HYSPM" ... you're on an anonymous board with tens of thousands of parents (maybe much much more!) ... trust me, if you say your kid is at Princeton, or Harvard, or Stanford, no one is going to isolate that we're talking about YOUR family or your child! You can go ahead and name the school. It's kind of ridiculous what gets posted on this forum and passes the smell test for people.

If I say my kid is a freshman at Princeton who had a spike in basket weaving, the kid is identifiable.

PP here: Actually doubt that. People surfing on DCUM don't exactly know the student body population at Princeton (a university with roughly 6000 undergrad) ... and for basketweaving to be major at Princeton or anywhere else, more than 1 person has to be enrolled. Kind of ridiculous what gets posted on this forum and passes the smell test for people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is funny to see people fall for trolling so deeply.

There are roughly about 20 students who get admitted to all 5 of HYPSM. The chance that some parent of these 20, posts on DCUM and that too with the language used by OP, is near zero.

There's more! At some rando private with a 3.85 (and only ONE "B") and test optional and completely unhooked ... and got into ALL of the schools. The odds of that are like, what ... being struck by lightening, getting up, and then struck by lightening the minute you got up. Um, sure.