Insider Perspectives from a Highly Selective Admissions Office

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Just because Vandy and Williams reported lower ranges for their new SATs than for the old SATs and ACTs doesn't mean that the concordances are incorrect. We don't know how many people are in each reported group, and what the composition of each group is. For example, many stronger students may have skipped the new SAT, so that group is weaker than average. Also, many kids submit a variety of tests (new SAT, old SAT, ACT), in which case the colleges use the new SAT only if it is the strongest score according to the concordances.

Many weaker students may have also skipped the new SAT in favor of the old, knowing they had to rely on its large volume of old SAT pre-existing prep materials as a crutch. That would offset any stronger students who made the same choice.

That would require huge numbers of weak students to complete their old SAT testing by January of their junior year and then not bother with the new SAT or ACT. Pretzel logic. It almost sounds like your kid got a low score on the new SAT and you are praying the concordances aren't valid.

You can look at the SAT scores at lots of schools and see that the new SAT skews higher. Here's one example: http://admissions.psu.edu/apply/statistics/

No, that data is for the class of 2020. Students taking the new SAT are class of 2021. Keep trying.

You might want to see someone for your OCD...give it a rest already.

Totally agree. What difference does his make seriously?

Sucks to be wrong, doesn't it?

I don't know who you're responding to, but I'm the one who asked what difference it makes. DS is taking the exam this year - so can you answer that for me?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, thank you for taking the time to post this Q&A, it has been extremely informative. I'm wondering what advice would you give to the parents of a kid who has extremely strong academic credentials, but does not show a demonstrated passion? My daughter is in 7th grade, and from how she is doing so far, I would expect she would be near valedictorian and have very high SAT scores. However, she is interested in everything. She is equally strong in STEM as she is in humanities/social sciences. When asked what she wants to do as a career, she'll say she doesn't know, so many things are interesting to her. Her activities are all over the place - soccer, theater, art, computers. I can easily see where she will be the dreaded "well-rounded" applicant who doesn't stand out to admission offers. And we can't be comforted by the notion that she will be accepted to a strong school somewhere as long as she casts her net wide enough. Our budget only allows for instate colleges. So basically if she doesn't get into the two top schools, she will have to settle for a school that is academically far beneath what she theoretically "should" be able to attend. From a purely strategic perspective, should we try to encourage her to "specialize" in a certain area, so she will stand a greater chance of standing out to the admission officers?

As the parent of the "dreaded" well-rounded kid, please take this advice in the spirit in which it is intended. Take a breath and calm down. Your daughter is in 7th grade. She isn't supposed to know where she want to go college or God forbid what she wants to study. The next few years are precisely when she should be trying new things across the board to figure out what she wants. My child does theater, chess, all of the competitive academic clubs (e.g., quiz bowl), model UN, track, etc., has won or placed for many awards from the National Latin Exam to the AIME and just about every discipline in between. We never tried to limit or direct what activities she should be involved in or push her to"specialize" for college admission. What a disservice this does to our kids and how many great thinks, researchers, and innovators are stifled because they pushed to find a passion before they knew who they really are and what paths are even available or of interest to them? This really is unhealthy for our kids and will stifle their curiosity. FWIW, she was accepted into a number of top tier schools, has overwhelming had a successful college search and we are expecting more great news in the weeks to come--and if not she already has great schools to chose from which great honors thrown in the mix. The goal should not be a particular college, but a happy successful kid. Don't put a particular college tier above the interest of your child. You won't find much support for this attitude on DCUM or in the metro area, but where you go to college doesn't define who you are or how successful you will become. Besides, you just might find, like we have, there is a place for that well-rounded kid who has a lot of interest and success across the board and shows an abundance of intellectual curiosity, aptitude and passion in a number of disciplines. My child has found that their is a niche are in her chosen career that combines to disparate disciplines and for which there is a great demand. She would likely never have discovered this or have considered this possibility if we had tried to limit her focus.

[Anonymous]

^^sorry about the typos. Broken hand

[Anonymous]

Mind sharing the niche? I have the same kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Just because Vandy and Williams reported lower ranges for their new SATs than for the old SATs and ACTs doesn't mean that the concordances are incorrect. We don't know how many people are in each reported group, and what the composition of each group is. For example, many stronger students may have skipped the new SAT, so that group is weaker than average. Also, many kids submit a variety of tests (new SAT, old SAT, ACT), in which case the colleges use the new SAT only if it is the strongest score according to the concordances.

Many weaker students may have also skipped the new SAT in favor of the old, knowing they had to rely on its large volume of old SAT pre-existing prep materials as a crutch. That would offset any stronger students who made the same choice.

That would require huge numbers of weak students to complete their old SAT testing by January of their junior year and then not bother with the new SAT or ACT. Pretzel logic. It almost sounds like your kid got a low score on the new SAT and you are praying the concordances aren't valid.

You can look at the SAT scores at lots of schools and see that the new SAT skews higher. Here's one example: http://admissions.psu.edu/apply/statistics/

No, that data is for the class of 2020. Students taking the new SAT are class of 2021. Keep trying.

You might want to see someone for your OCD...give it a rest already.

Totally agree. What difference does his make seriously?

Sucks to be wrong, doesn't it?

I don't know who you're responding to, but I'm the one who asked what difference it makes. DS is taking the exam this year - so can you answer that for me?

It only matters for the class of 2021. It should not matter to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, thank you for taking the time to post this Q&A, it has been extremely informative. I'm wondering what advice would you give to the parents of a kid who has extremely strong academic credentials, but does not show a demonstrated passion? My daughter is in 7th grade, and from how she is doing so far, I would expect she would be near valedictorian and have very high SAT scores. However, she is interested in everything. She is equally strong in STEM as she is in humanities/social sciences. When asked what she wants to do as a career, she'll say she doesn't know, so many things are interesting to her. Her activities are all over the place - soccer, theater, art, computers. I can easily see where she will be the dreaded "well-rounded" applicant who doesn't stand out to admission offers. And we can't be comforted by the notion that she will be accepted to a strong school somewhere as long as she casts her net wide enough. Our budget only allows for instate colleges. So basically if she doesn't get into the two top schools, she will have to settle for a school that is academically far beneath what she theoretically "should" be able to attend. From a purely strategic perspective, should we try to encourage her to "specialize" in a certain area, so she will stand a greater chance of standing out to the admission officers?

As the parent of the "dreaded" well-rounded kid, please take this advice in the spirit in which it is intended. Take a breath and calm down. Your daughter is in 7th grade. She isn't supposed to know where she want to go college or God forbid what she wants to study. The next few years are precisely when she should be trying new things across the board to figure out what she wants. My child does theater, chess, all of the competitive academic clubs (e.g., quiz bowl), model UN, track, etc., has won or placed for many awards from the National Latin Exam to the AIME and just about every discipline in between. We never tried to limit or direct what activities she should be involved in or push her to"specialize" for college admission. What a disservice this does to our kids and how many great thinks, researchers, and innovators are stifled because they pushed to find a passion before they knew who they really are and what paths are even available or of interest to them? This really is unhealthy for our kids and will stifle their curiosity. FWIW, she was accepted into a number of top tier schools, has overwhelming had a successful college search and we are expecting more great news in the weeks to come--and if not she already has great schools to chose from which great honors thrown in the mix. The goal should not be a particular college, but a happy successful kid. Don't put a particular college tier above the interest of your child. You won't find much support for this attitude on DCUM or in the metro area, but where you go to college doesn't define who you are or how successful you will become. Besides, you just might find, like we have, there is a place for that well-rounded kid who has a lot of interest and success across the board and shows an abundance of intellectual curiosity, aptitude and passion in a number of disciplines. My child has found that their is a niche are in her chosen career that combines to disparate disciplines and for which there is a great demand. She would likely never have discovered this or have considered this possibility if we had tried to limit her focus.

+1 And get over the top 2 or "far beneath her" POV. One thing you might want to investigate (when she's a junior and you have a more reliable sense of what her credentials will actually be) is merit aid at private colleges. There may be affordable OOS options you aren't aware of.

FWIW, I don't think OP (or anyone in this thread) has suggested that kids have to specialize to get into top schools. They have to excel and it helps to be interesting, but there are a variety of different ways of excelling and of being interesting. So many parents seem to approach this process with the assumption that there's a magic formula and that if only you can get your kid to replicate it, the doors to his or her dream school will swing open. It's not like that. Different schools want different things (sometimes different things different years). Who reads your DC's application(and when) may matter. The applicant pool (which differs by school and year) matters -- as does who else from your kid's school is applying to the same college. It really makes no sense to try to shape your kid into some mythical ideal applicant. Look at what your kid needs and has to offer and find the schools that provide and value those things. And remember that the stakes just aren't that high for smart, hard-working kids. A really wide range of colleges can serve them well and position them for what comes after.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was having similar thoughts to the PP who posted above about her kids not being very outgoing or quirky or at the popular kids lunch table. My daughter is very shy. She won't be running for president of student council or the president / leader of every club she belongs to, etc. Are the admissions officers thinking about getting a mix of students who are not really type A about those kinds of things? All the people I've known who got into highly selective schools (e.g. Princeton, Stanford, Harvard) were the president of everything, really outgoing and confident leader types. My child isn't like that. She is confident about her academic abilities, but she isn't a take-charge leader personality. I'm curious about what the admissions officers at selective schools think of those kinds of kids. OP if you are still responding, what do you think? (And I should clarify that I'm not stressing that she won't get into HYP or her life is over. I want her to find a good fit for her personality and interests, but I am just curious about selective schools in general.)

My kid's like yours and is happy at UChicago. Harvard and Stanford are pretty extroverted/networky/ambitious/can-do kinds of places and value that spirit even among their nerdy kids. Princeton's nerds are often quieter. Chicago's are talkative and friendly (albeit shy initially) but tend to be do-my-own thing types rather than would-be leaders/organizers. Different elite schools are looking for different things (and/or making different bets on what kind of people will be powerful).

Geesh - Way to stereotype.

Well, I'm not opining about the student body as a whole at each school, just addressing the "where would a shy nerd get in/feel comfortable?" question. I know three of the four schools quite well and have visited all four in the past two years with a shy nerd who was assessing her own comfort level. You'll note that I didn't offer an opinion about Yale because I don't have the same kind(s) of familiarity with its undergrad culture(s). But, hey, take it or leave it. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Just because Vandy and Williams reported lower ranges for their new SATs than for the old SATs and ACTs doesn't mean that the concordances are incorrect. We don't know how many people are in each reported group, and what the composition of each group is. For example, many stronger students may have skipped the new SAT, so that group is weaker than average. Also, many kids submit a variety of tests (new SAT, old SAT, ACT), in which case the colleges use the new SAT only if it is the strongest score according to the concordances.

Many weaker students may have also skipped the new SAT in favor of the old, knowing they had to rely on its large volume of old SAT pre-existing prep materials as a crutch. That would offset any stronger students who made the same choice.

That would require huge numbers of weak students to complete their old SAT testing by January of their junior year and then not bother with the new SAT or ACT. Pretzel logic. It almost sounds like your kid got a low score on the new SAT and you are praying the concordances aren't valid.

You can look at the SAT scores at lots of schools and see that the new SAT skews higher. Here's one example: http://admissions.psu.edu/apply/statistics/

No, that data is for the class of 2020. Students taking the new SAT are class of 2021. Keep trying.

You might want to see someone for your OCD...give it a rest already.

Totally agree. What difference does his make seriously?

Sucks to be wrong, doesn't it?

I don't know who you're responding to, but I'm the one who asked what difference it makes. DS is taking the exam this year - so can you answer that for me?

I am not that PP. Depending on how the admissions data for middle 50% from Class of 2021 is reported and interpreted, it could make a very big difference for current juniors when they try to determine both likelihood of admission and chance for merit scholarships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, thank you for taking the time to post this Q&A, it has been extremely informative. I'm wondering what advice would you give to the parents of a kid who has extremely strong academic credentials, but does not show a demonstrated passion? My daughter is in 7th grade, and from how she is doing so far, I would expect she would be near valedictorian and have very high SAT scores. However, she is interested in everything. She is equally strong in STEM as she is in humanities/social sciences. When asked what she wants to do as a career, she'll say she doesn't know, so many things are interesting to her. Her activities are all over the place - soccer, theater, art, computers. I can easily see where she will be the dreaded "well-rounded" applicant who doesn't stand out to admission offers. And we can't be comforted by the notion that she will be accepted to a strong school somewhere as long as she casts her net wide enough. Our budget only allows for instate colleges. So basically if she doesn't get into the two top schools, she will have to settle for a school that is academically far beneath what she theoretically "should" be able to attend. From a purely strategic perspective, should we try to encourage her to "specialize" in a certain area, so she will stand a greater chance of standing out to the admission officers?

As the parent of the "dreaded" well-rounded kid, please take this advice in the spirit in which it is intended. Take a breath and calm down. Your daughter is in 7th grade. She isn't supposed to know where she want to go college or God forbid what she wants to study. The next few years are precisely when she should be trying new things across the board to figure out what she wants. My child does theater, chess, all of the competitive academic clubs (e.g., quiz bowl), model UN, track, etc., has won or placed for many awards from the National Latin Exam to the AIME and just about every discipline in between. We never tried to limit or direct what activities she should be involved in or push her to"specialize" for college admission. What a disservice this does to our kids and how many great thinks, researchers, and innovators are stifled because they pushed to find a passion before they knew who they really are and what paths are even available or of interest to them? This really is unhealthy for our kids and will stifle their curiosity. FWIW, she was accepted into a number of top tier schools, has overwhelming had a successful college search and we are expecting more great news in the weeks to come--and if not she already has great schools to chose from which great honors thrown in the mix. The goal should not be a particular college, but a happy successful kid. Don't put a particular college tier above the interest of your child. You won't find much support for this attitude on DCUM or in the metro area, but where you go to college doesn't define who you are or how successful you will become. Besides, you just might find, like we have, there is a place for that well-rounded kid who has a lot of interest and success across the board and shows an abundance of intellectual curiosity, aptitude and passion in a number of disciplines. My child has found that their is a niche are in her chosen career that combines to disparate disciplines and for which there is a great demand. She would likely never have discovered this or have considered this possibility if we had tried to limit her focus.

+1 And get over the top 2 or "far beneath her" POV. One thing you might want to investigate (when she's a junior and you have a more reliable sense of what her credentials will actually be) is merit aid at private colleges. There may be affordable OOS options you aren't aware of.

FWIW, I don't think OP (or anyone in this thread) has suggested that kids have to specialize to get into top schools. They have to excel and it helps to be interesting, but there are a variety of different ways of excelling and of being interesting. So many parents seem to approach this process with the assumption that there's a magic formula and that if only you can get your kid to replicate it, the doors to his or her dream school will swing open. It's not like that. Different schools want different things (sometimes different things different years). Who reads your DC's application(and when) may matter. The applicant pool (which differs by school and year) matters -- as does who else from your kid's school is applying to the same college. It really makes no sense to try to shape your kid into some mythical ideal applicant. Look at what your kid needs and has to offer and find the schools that provide and value those things. And remember that the stakes just aren't that high for smart, hard-working kids. A really wide range of colleges can serve them well and position them for what comes after.

The PP immediately above gives good advice. Some of the most successful people I know did not attend the schools people are obsessing over, but they are very smart and worked very hard to achieve their goals. If your child is smart and motivated, she is going to succeed. I think most colleges and universities are what the student makes of them. If she avails herself of what is offered, she will get a good education at most schools. And undergrad is not everything. I know several people who ended up at Harvard and Yale for grad school (law) after they attended state schools that are not highly ranked. They worked hard and stood out as the strongest and smartest students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, thank you for taking the time to post this Q&A, it has been extremely informative. I'm wondering what advice would you give to the parents of a kid who has extremely strong academic credentials, but does not show a demonstrated passion? My daughter is in 7th grade, and from how she is doing so far, I would expect she would be near valedictorian and have very high SAT scores. However, she is interested in everything. She is equally strong in STEM as she is in humanities/social sciences. When asked what she wants to do as a career, she'll say she doesn't know, so many things are interesting to her. Her activities are all over the place - soccer, theater, art, computers. I can easily see where she will be the dreaded "well-rounded" applicant who doesn't stand out to admission offers. And we can't be comforted by the notion that she will be accepted to a strong school somewhere as long as she casts her net wide enough. Our budget only allows for instate colleges. So basically if she doesn't get into the two top schools, she will have to settle for a school that is academically far beneath what she theoretically "should" be able to attend. From a purely strategic perspective, should we try to encourage her to "specialize" in a certain area, so she will stand a greater chance of standing out to the admission officers?

As the parent of the "dreaded" well-rounded kid, please take this advice in the spirit in which it is intended. Take a breath and calm down. Your daughter is in 7th grade. She isn't supposed to know where she want to go college or God forbid what she wants to study. The next few years are precisely when she should be trying new things across the board to figure out what she wants. My child does theater, chess, all of the competitive academic clubs (e.g., quiz bowl), model UN, track, etc., has won or placed for many awards from the National Latin Exam to the AIME and just about every discipline in between. We never tried to limit or direct what activities she should be involved in or push her to"specialize" for college admission. What a disservice this does to our kids and how many great thinks, researchers, and innovators are stifled because they pushed to find a passion before they knew who they really are and what paths are even available or of interest to them? This really is unhealthy for our kids and will stifle their curiosity. FWIW, she was accepted into a number of top tier schools, has overwhelming had a successful college search and we are expecting more great news in the weeks to come--and if not she already has great schools to chose from which great honors thrown in the mix. The goal should not be a particular college, but a happy successful kid. Don't put a particular college tier above the interest of your child. You won't find much support for this attitude on DCUM or in the metro area, but where you go to college doesn't define who you are or how successful you will become. Besides, you just might find, like we have, there is a place for that well-rounded kid who has a lot of interest and success across the board and shows an abundance of intellectual curiosity, aptitude and passion in a number of disciplines. My child has found that their is a niche are in her chosen career that combines to disparate disciplines and for which there is a great demand. She would likely never have discovered this or have considered this possibility if we had tried to limit her focus.

+1 And get over the top 2 or "far beneath her" POV. One thing you might want to investigate (when she's a junior and you have a more reliable sense of what her credentials will actually be) is merit aid at private colleges. There may be affordable OOS options you aren't aware of.

FWIW, I don't think OP (or anyone in this thread) has suggested that kids have to specialize to get into top schools. They have to excel and it helps to be interesting, but there are a variety of different ways of excelling and of being interesting. So many parents seem to approach this process with the assumption that there's a magic formula and that if only you can get your kid to replicate it, the doors to his or her dream school will swing open. It's not like that. Different schools want different things (sometimes different things different years). Who reads your DC's application(and when) may matter. The applicant pool (which differs by school and year) matters -- as does who else from your kid's school is applying to the same college. It really makes no sense to try to shape your kid into some mythical ideal applicant. Look at what your kid needs and has to offer and find the schools that provide and value those things. And remember that the stakes just aren't that high for smart, hard-working kids. A really wide range of colleges can serve them well and position them for what comes after.

The PP immediately above gives good advice. Some of the most successful people I know did not attend the schools people are obsessing over, but they are very smart and worked very hard to achieve their goals. If your child is smart and motivated, she is going to succeed. I think most colleges and universities are what the student makes of them. If she avails herself of what is offered, she will get a good education at most schools. And undergrad is not everything. I know several people who ended up at Harvard and Yale for grad school (law) after they attended state schools that are not highly ranked. They worked hard and stood out as the strongest and smartest students.

I agree the push to specialize is harmful, and for that I place full blame on the colleges. Honestly, I think little weight should be given to extracurriculars. If they have the academics, they can succeed in that college, what the kid does in their free time is their own business. However that is not the reality of college admission now, at least not in the US outside of the UC system. I love that my daughter is well-rounded, personally I prioritize well-roundedness over specialization, however I can't help but feel angst when every single thing you read about college admissions now says that being well-rounded is pretty much the kiss of death for top college admissions. And like I said earlier, we are limited to in-state publics. I know many people at the same income whose kids qualified for $0 aid, I don't have any expectation that we will receive need based aid. And we would have to receive A LOT to bring it down to instate tuition. Forgive me for having angst, but come on. Obviously, lots of parents care a great deal about where there kids go to college. If we could afford to send her wherever, I wouldn't feel so stressed, obviously a kid at the top of their graduating class with high SAT scores is going to get into a good college somewhere. But that doesn't help us. If she doesn't get in to William & Mary or UVA, she ends up at a college much lower ranked. Sure that might sound snooty, but obviously most parents of top students want their child attending a college that is filled with kids that are their academic peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, thank you for taking the time to post this Q&A, it has been extremely informative. I'm wondering what advice would you give to the parents of a kid who has extremely strong academic credentials, but does not show a demonstrated passion? My daughter is in 7th grade, and from how she is doing so far, I would expect she would be near valedictorian and have very high SAT scores. However, she is interested in everything. She is equally strong in STEM as she is in humanities/social sciences. When asked what she wants to do as a career, she'll say she doesn't know, so many things are interesting to her. Her activities are all over the place - soccer, theater, art, computers. I can easily see where she will be the dreaded "well-rounded" applicant who doesn't stand out to admission offers. And we can't be comforted by the notion that she will be accepted to a strong school somewhere as long as she casts her net wide enough. Our budget only allows for instate colleges. So basically if she doesn't get into the two top schools, she will have to settle for a school that is academically far beneath what she theoretically "should" be able to attend. From a purely strategic perspective, should we try to encourage her to "specialize" in a certain area, so she will stand a greater chance of standing out to the admission officers?

As the parent of the "dreaded" well-rounded kid, please take this advice in the spirit in which it is intended. Take a breath and calm down. Your daughter is in 7th grade. She isn't supposed to know where she want to go college or God forbid what she wants to study. The next few years are precisely when she should be trying new things across the board to figure out what she wants. My child does theater, chess, all of the competitive academic clubs (e.g., quiz bowl), model UN, track, etc., has won or placed for many awards from the National Latin Exam to the AIME and just about every discipline in between. We never tried to limit or direct what activities she should be involved in or push her to"specialize" for college admission. What a disservice this does to our kids and how many great thinks, researchers, and innovators are stifled because they pushed to find a passion before they knew who they really are and what paths are even available or of interest to them? This really is unhealthy for our kids and will stifle their curiosity. FWIW, she was accepted into a number of top tier schools, has overwhelming had a successful college search and we are expecting more great news in the weeks to come--and if not she already has great schools to chose from which great honors thrown in the mix. The goal should not be a particular college, but a happy successful kid. Don't put a particular college tier above the interest of your child. You won't find much support for this attitude on DCUM or in the metro area, but where you go to college doesn't define who you are or how successful you will become. Besides, you just might find, like we have, there is a place for that well-rounded kid who has a lot of interest and success across the board and shows an abundance of intellectual curiosity, aptitude and passion in a number of disciplines. My child has found that their is a niche are in her chosen career that combines to disparate disciplines and for which there is a great demand. She would likely never have discovered this or have considered this possibility if we had tried to limit her focus.

+1 And get over the top 2 or "far beneath her" POV. One thing you might want to investigate (when she's a junior and you have a more reliable sense of what her credentials will actually be) is merit aid at private colleges. There may be affordable OOS options you aren't aware of.

FWIW, I don't think OP (or anyone in this thread) has suggested that kids have to specialize to get into top schools. They have to excel and it helps to be interesting, but there are a variety of different ways of excelling and of being interesting. So many parents seem to approach this process with the assumption that there's a magic formula and that if only you can get your kid to replicate it, the doors to his or her dream school will swing open. It's not like that. Different schools want different things (sometimes different things different years). Who reads your DC's application(and when) may matter. The applicant pool (which differs by school and year) matters -- as does who else from your kid's school is applying to the same college. It really makes no sense to try to shape your kid into some mythical ideal applicant. Look at what your kid needs and has to offer and find the schools that provide and value those things. And remember that the stakes just aren't that high for smart, hard-working kids. A really wide range of colleges can serve them well and position them for what comes after.

The PP immediately above gives good advice. Some of the most successful people I know did not attend the schools people are obsessing over, but they are very smart and worked very hard to achieve their goals. If your child is smart and motivated, she is going to succeed. I think most colleges and universities are what the student makes of them. If she avails herself of what is offered, she will get a good education at most schools. And undergrad is not everything. I know several people who ended up at Harvard and Yale for grad school (law) after they attended state schools that are not highly ranked. They worked hard and stood out as the strongest and smartest students.

I agree the push to specialize is harmful, and for that I place full blame on the colleges. Honestly, I think little weight should be given to extracurriculars. If they have the academics, they can succeed in that college, what the kid does in their free time is their own business. However that is not the reality of college admission now, at least not in the US outside of the UC system. I love that my daughter is well-rounded, personally I prioritize well-roundedness over specialization, however I can't help but feel angst when every single thing you read about college admissions now says that being well-rounded is pretty much the kiss of death for top college admissions. And like I said earlier, we are limited to in-state publics. I know many people at the same income whose kids qualified for $0 aid, I don't have any expectation that we will receive need based aid. And we would have to receive A LOT to bring it down to instate tuition. Forgive me for having angst, but come on. Obviously, lots of parents care a great deal about where there kids go to college. If we could afford to send her wherever, I wouldn't feel so stressed, obviously a kid at the top of their graduating class with high SAT scores is going to get into a good college somewhere. But that doesn't help us. If she doesn't get in to William & Mary or UVA, she ends up at a college much lower ranked. Sure that might sound snooty, but obviously most parents of top students want their child attending a college that is filled with kids that are their academic peers.

Cheer up, there is a good chance that your kid won't be the academic superstar in high school that you think she will be, and then you won't have to worry about this. My kid was a total academic dud in middle school but then woke up in high school and is pulling straight As with a very intense courseload. So a lot can change.

Alternatively you can go out and earn more money, or move to a state with better in-state choices than Virginia.

[Anonymous]

The UVA admissions blog had a post about specializing in high school a few days ago. tl:dr, not recommended.

[Anonymous]

"I agree the push to specialize is harmful, and for that I place full blame on the colleges. Honestly, I think little weight should be given to extracurriculars."

I think the thing people forget is that the point of specializing is NOT to become a world expert and then fight to avoid ever learning a new subject.

The point of specializing is learning to become good at SOMETHING in HS so that in college and in grad school and every few years after you have an idea what to do next to find your next project and know how the process of becoming good at something works.

If you read this: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats

You begin to get the idea that the focus on extracurriculars in admissions is to make sure that students have NOT achieved their high grades and test scores by studying around the clock.

It may be a chicken and egg situation, but I don't think you can blame the colleges for trying to find students who have talents other than their ability to delay gratification.

[Anonymous]

I think PP probably meant to link to this page:
http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/match

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I agree the push to specialize is harmful, and for that I place full blame on the colleges. Honestly, I think little weight should be given to extracurriculars."

I think the thing people forget is that the point of specializing is NOT to become a world expert and then fight to avoid ever learning a new subject.

The point of specializing is learning to become good at SOMETHING in HS so that in college and in grad school and every few years after you have an idea what to do next to find your next project and know how the process of becoming good at something works.

If you read this: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats

You begin to get the idea that the focus on extracurriculars in admissions is to make sure that students have NOT achieved their high grades and test scores by studying around the clock.

It may be a chicken and egg situation, but I don't think you can blame the colleges for trying to find students who have talents other than their ability to delay gratification.

The push to specialize does nothing but stifle creativity, dampers the opportunity to try new things--perhaps setting up a dynamic where someone misses the change to do what s/he would be really good and love and perhaps even change humanity. 99.9% of high school kids doesn't have a true passion. They simply do not have the life experience. They end up getting pigeonholed too early and potential doors get closed. The same thing happens in athletics. If you don't start soccer at 6, you are off track. Never mind that a great soccer play could develop in the later years or that early soccer player could have ended up be a world champion in another sport. Opportunities lost and potential devalued.