Reflections from 2025 HYPSM admit(s)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!

I have kids at HYP. My advice for unhooked kids: do it ALL in high school. anything you want. and quit if you want.

but when during the two days when you write up your activities section on the common app, be selective. My kids left a ton out of their list. they had more things out than in. What they left in told a story. This is a STEM kids interested in Genetics and look at this research paper, this essay competition, and this summer research lab job. Or this kid is interested in policy surrounding school lunches - as evidenced by this essay, these debate awards, this internship with the local city rep and his old grade school. and sure, add in they were on the track team for flavor. But leave the stem stuff off the humanities application. Leave the lawn care business off the prospective philosophy major. Being in the school play or taking that service trip can be really fun and even important, but don't clog up the activities section with all this stuff. COLLEGES DON'T CARE

Be memorable as the kid that does X. That's it. That's important to top 20 colleges.

Also, you can change your application for every school. People here balk at high schools that limit applications, because they don't realize those kids are tailoring each application for each school. You can't do that if you're applying to 20 schools.

But of this stops kids from doing as much as they want in high school - experience! develop! Just don't talk about it. It's confusing. the rule is always KISS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Could it be that the kid applied to some obscure major that is offered at all of the schools and they need enough students to enroll into that major? Sure, that's totally possible! And, that would be the "hook". So to make it sound like it's something unique about the kid's "barb-like" profile is misrepresenting what worked.

[Anonymous]

My oldest is applying this year to HPY. High stats, rigor, all the things and from a private feeder. Got deferred in December to RD from his first choice so obviously he is still waiting to hear, but I agree with the general sentiment that there has to be a shorthand for the AOs to identify a kid. So yes, be authentic and well-rounded (mine is) but have something that differentiates them from the avalanche of applications. Mine has something that everyone knows him by so it was easy to identify his spike, or barb, or whatever you want to call it. But it's authentic to him so I hope that means good results. He knows all he's done is earn himself some lottery tickets, and if it doesn't work out he'll still be okay. He's got a place already where he's be happy to go and would thrive. Good luck to everyone... end is in sight!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

This is what google tells me "People troll others online primarily for entertainment, to assert power, to seek attention, or to inflict emotional pain, often driven by boredom, anonymity, and a lack of empathy. "

On some threads I try to write a sarcastic/funny/roll your eyes response, and to my horror I see people take that seriously and debate the merits/issues with that!

[Anonymous]

To make a "barb" look legitimate to an top5 admissions committee, a student can't just join a club. They need national-level awards, published research, or significant, measurable impact in that specific micro-field. Forcing a high schooler to spend thousands of hours over four years doing intense, rigorous work in an obscure field they actually don't care about is psychological torture.

Even if a student successfully fakes a passion for four years, gets into Harvard, and switches to a major they actually like, they arrive on campus having spent their entire adolescence living a fabricated narrative. Burnout among these types of students is notoriously high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To make a "barb" look legitimate to an top5 admissions committee, a student can't just join a club. They need national-level awards, published research, or significant, measurable impact in that specific micro-field. Forcing a high schooler to spend thousands of hours over four years doing intense, rigorous work in an obscure field they actually don't care about is psychological torture.

Even if a student successfully fakes a passion for four years, gets into Harvard, and switches to a major they actually like, they arrive on campus having spent their entire adolescence living a fabricated narrative. Burnout among these types of students is notoriously high.

These kids are actually interested in this stuff….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With the advent of clever AI, such BS can be much more easily detected than replying on the mediocre AOs of those elite colleges.

https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/30/louisiana-the-miracle-school-that-was-a-fraud/

This has nothing to do with the topic.

[Anonymous]

What are other examples of barbs?

[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.

Why punish the schools instead of looking at more systemic reasons (athletic recruitment, admitting students without exceptionally strong extracurricular STEM achievement).

Also just curious, when we're they recruited? Because I thought Caltech decided to stop recruiting for athletics in September 2024.

[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.

Adding a precacl course should not be seen as a long term solution. Students at a top STEM school needing a remedial course is not a good look.

[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.

OP's DD did outperform based on merits. The AOs decided their application was compelling enough to warrant an admission.

Maybe gymnastics would be the better analogy: https://sites.gatech.edu/admission-blog/2021/08/11/how-the-olympics-explain-college-admission-part-i/

The undeniable fact is that a gymnast who practices routines that are carefully crafted to appeal to the judges will perform better than one who only does the moves they find fun or which they feel best represent their authentic self (note how ridiculous that sounds). A student's ECs they choose to do are no more a referendum on who they are or intended to be a representation of their true authentic self than the moves a gymnast chooses to train and add to their repertoire.

[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.

What's your evidence that only 20 get into all 5 HYPSM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

I have kids at HYP. My advice for unhooked kids: do it ALL in high school. anything you want. and quit if you want.

but when during the two days when you write up your activities section on the common app, be selective. My kids left a ton out of their list. they had more things out than in. What they left in told a story. This is a STEM kids interested in Genetics and look at this research paper, this essay competition, and this summer research lab job. Or this kid is interested in policy surrounding school lunches - as evidenced by this essay, these debate awards, this internship with the local city rep and his old grade school. and sure, add in they were on the track team for flavor. But leave the stem stuff off the humanities application. Leave the lawn care business off the prospective philosophy major. Being in the school play or taking that service trip can be really fun and even important, but don't clog up the activities section with all this stuff. COLLEGES DON'T CARE

Be memorable as the kid that does X. That's it. That's important to top 20 colleges.

Also, you can change your application for every school. People here balk at high schools that limit applications, because they don't realize those kids are tailoring each application for each school. You can't do that if you're applying to 20 schools.

But of this stops kids from doing as much as they want in high school - experience! develop! Just don't talk about it. It's confusing. the rule is always KISS

They do care about the lawn mowing: https://old.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1l2fzob/take_the_road_less_traveled/mvtncj6/

[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.

20 students, are you kidding me? There are 40 Regeneron STS finalists. 100 RSI kids. 100 USSYP kids. 100 coolidge kids. ISEF kids. These kids regularly get into 3+ HYPSM. I don't think it's inconceivable that a student is appealing to 2 HYPSMs is appealing to the other 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

20 students, are you kidding me? There are 40 Regeneron STS finalists. 100 RSI kids. 100 USSYP kids. 100 coolidge kids. ISEF kids. These kids regularly get into 3+ HYPSM. I don't think it's inconceivable that a student is appealing to 2 HYPSMs is appealing to the other 3.

DP here. I think the odds of a student getting into all 5 are extremely low. The acceptance rates are extremely low and yield is high. But truthfully a kid who gets into one of these SCEA (or in MIT's case, EA) is unlikely to apply to all four of the other schools, either because their school policy does not allow them to or otherwise.