If every kid is doing the same damn EC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which EC is everyone doing?

NP: varsity sports (non-recruit), club leader, Debate/Model UN, student gov, music/band, robotics/science fair, volunteering (animal shelters, church, or hospital)

None of those are impressive.
Kid at Ivy.

Please share your wisdom, O Anointed One.

I’m not that poster but the kid from a high school that was shot up in Florida and who spoke out against guns had a 1320 and Harvard accepted him.

Do something on the national stage.

it blows mind the people would use this example as something to follow - even if we put aside the fact that this kid survived school shooting. "do something on the national stage". are you for real?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Talked to drama activity parents. 4 of their kids have same/ similar stats and activities. How do they distinguish themselves??

Stop lying to yourself. A kid who could score high on a watered down standardized test regardless whether they study cannot be a genius.

I have a kid who can be a "genius" but has a hard time with standardized tests. He tends to overthink and isn't a grinder. He's a slow and steady learner with straight As and international, national, and regional awards in the humanities. He will seriously be a better college student than a high school student - it's hard to constantly grind different subjects when you think in stories and ideas. An earnest kid well liked by all teachers. I have two younger kids who are more standard smart and excellent at school academics. I have a feeling the first kid will do the best with college admissions even with lower scores.

There are definitely some neuro atypical kids who are geniuses that do not do well on standardized tests. People are just skeptical because for every 100 parent of geniuses who "don't test well" about 99 of them are just above average kids and 1 of them is that atypical kid that can't be measured by tests. That doesn't mean that testing captures things like maturity, wisdom, eq, or anything like that. It's mostly just measuring ram and processing speed.

There is decent correlation between test results and creativity but it's not a strong correlation. A lot of creatives are frequently inductive and tests tend to heavily favor deductive reasoning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are tons of kids who get into top colleges with the formula of:

Top grades in hardest tracks
Tippy top test scores
Enough ECs to pass muster as well rounded

This was me and most of my friends, who were all top 25% (and usually top 10%) at Ivy graduation.

Ok grandpa

[Anonymous]

Well, for example there is joining your schools Model UN club, and then there is winning 6 gavels at national competitions. The first means nothing, the second means something to AOs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How did yours stand out?
Grade inflation, mid range test scores, no test scores. Don't most seniors seem the "same?"

Students do not do the same ECs: a subset have deep and meaningful ECs to them and they are able to convey why they care and their impact in the app. However that alone is not what makes them stand out, for the vast majority of successful admits: it is the rigor and grades and LOR that are among the best in the high school class. Now that TO is old policy, scores are also used. Midrange scores are fine, using pre-TO college ranges on CDS, and do not hinder an application.

AO's have no trouble seeing past grade inflation, and they care much more about rigor anyway. It is the big unknown on DCUM when people post stats and wonder why their kid with a 4.0uw and 1500 did not get in to any T25s but friends who also took 8 APs did. It makes people think it must be ECs. AO's look at the transcript first and put the courses selected by your student in the context of what is offered by your high school. They assess, some with a detailed rating system, the rigor of your student's schedule in each core area, based on the options taken by other students at the school. For the elite schools they want to see the student has challenged themself at the highest level in every core area. After they look at rigor they look at performance--grades --compared to others who took the same rigor. The AO knows the high school in detail and has data on current and prior years GPA cutoffs for different tiers of the class.
3.9-4.0uw, 1450+ SAT could easily be barely above the middle of the class in some high schools, and in many DMV top public and privates, there are dozens who have these stats. The AOs admit one of these students over others with the same stats due to differences in rigor and even LOR more than differences in ECs.
Read Jeff Selingo's book and DeanJ's many blogs and vlogs on how the decisions are made. EC's are almost never among the top 3 deciding factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, for example there is joining your schools Model UN club, and then there is winning 6 gavels at national competitions. The first means nothing, the second means something to AOs.

True, but the caveat is that if the 6-gavel student did not challenge themselves with coursework in the high school, yet the "basic" Model UN club member who explained how important the club was to them and why, also happened to take all of the hard courses and get As... and has letters indicating they were an engaged student, maybe even an extra letter where the UN teacher noted they were a team player who helped the younger students more than anyone else...the AO will pick the second student every day of the week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No everyone is not crocheting, birdwatching, apple pressing and coin collecting.

thankfully
enough with the weirdness

Those are not weird. How mean!

Highlight of my life was being the backup assistant treasurer of my high school’s apple pressing club. Life has been a bit of a bore since then. Sort of like Neil Armstrong post-1969, or Sinatra post-Ava Gardner.

Cute. I remember my first apple pressing party.

However, I quit apple pressing so I could focus on melon cross-breeding. My creation, the wahoneyloupe, really gave me a leg up on the admissions process. Planted a seed with the AO, if you will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, for example there is joining your schools Model UN club, and then there is winning 6 gavels at national competitions. The first means nothing, the second means something to AOs.

True, but the caveat is that if the 6-gavel student did not challenge themselves with coursework in the high school, yet the "basic" Model UN club member who explained how important the club was to them and why, also happened to take all of the hard courses and get As... and has letters indicating they were an engaged student, maybe even an extra letter where the UN teacher noted they were a team player who helped the younger students more than anyone else...the AO will pick the second student every day of the week.

Yes, but it would never be the case that a 6 gavel winner would take easy coursework. If he's in the range and has slightly less rigor and slightly lower test scores than the basic Model UN member... the 6 gavel student will get in each time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How did yours stand out?
Grade inflation, mid range test scores, no test scores. Don't most seniors seem the "same?"

By doing better at the same "damn EC" than the other kid. Ditto for the same "damn curriculum" and same "damn SATs".

[Anonymous]

We're no longer in the DMV area, and I keep hearing how rigor is important to the DMV kids. But anecdotally from kids I know here on the west coast, it's not always the highest rigor that gets admissions. Personally, I know kids who stopped at AP Calc AB and had a couple Bs at Stanford (even though kids at high school topped at AP Calc BC or higher), and a kid with a total of 4 APs at Harvard (from a highly ranked private school with tons of APs). Neither had a significant hook, except the Harvard kid was a creative and the Stanford kid had a unique story to tell. Both Asian and not underrepresented.

[Anonymous]

The ONLY EC that matters in the eyes of the AO is the one that the kid did it because of pure passion or interest.

And let me tell you all - barely any of the kids have a passion for anything. So all these EC's are a waste of time.

PS: My kid is doing something of true interest - not exceptional but something along the lines that she will major in - and I am 100% confident that will give her a leg up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The ONLY EC that matters in the eyes of the AO is the one that the kid did it because of pure passion or interest.

And let me tell you all - barely any of the kids have a passion for anything. So all these EC's are a waste of time.

PS: My kid is doing something of true interest - not exceptional but something along the lines that she will major in - and I am 100% confident that will give her a leg up.

Agree. You also need to know how craft the narrative for the AOs to understand it is the kid’s passion and how to pull virtually all ECs into that passion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The ONLY EC that matters in the eyes of the AO is the one that the kid did it because of pure passion or interest.

And let me tell you all - barely any of the kids have a passion for anything. So all these EC's are a waste of time.

PS: My kid is doing something of true interest - not exceptional but something along the lines that she will major in - and I am 100% confident that will give her a leg up.

How would the AO know? Kids can lie...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're no longer in the DMV area, and I keep hearing how rigor is important to the DMV kids. But anecdotally from kids I know here on the west coast, it's not always the highest rigor that gets admissions. Personally, I know kids who stopped at AP Calc AB and had a couple Bs at Stanford (even though kids at high school topped at AP Calc BC or higher), and a kid with a total of 4 APs at Harvard (from a highly ranked private school with tons of APs). Neither had a significant hook, except the Harvard kid was a creative and the Stanford kid had a unique story to tell. Both Asian and not underrepresented.

Don't underestimate both of these.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ONLY EC that matters in the eyes of the AO is the one that the kid did it because of pure passion or interest.

And let me tell you all - barely any of the kids have a passion for anything. So all these EC's are a waste of time.

PS: My kid is doing something of true interest - not exceptional but something along the lines that she will major in - and I am 100% confident that will give her a leg up.

Agree. You also need to know how craft the narrative for the AOs to understand it is the kid’s passion and how to pull virtually all ECs into that passion.

100%
there was a good example of art & environmental stuff on here a few weeks ago (Crimson or Command sample activities list). All of the ECs were tied together into a passion that wasn't bizarrely inappropriate or overly ambitious for a teenager. All seemed very achievable and down-to-earth but felt "truthful" because it wasn't so "big".