Being uncommon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the key is being a unique combination of things and doing all of them well. I have seen this work.

Football quarterback and fashion designer who is featured in the local newspaper and sells clothing.
Basketball captain and regional orchestra flutist.
You get the idea.

Yep, the state championship winning point guard who is competitive Irish dancer and gold medal in archery

And wants to major in pediatric bio-culinary astro-political international game theory

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the key is being a unique combination of things and doing all of them well. I have seen this work.

Football quarterback and fashion designer who is featured in the local newspaper and sells clothing.
Basketball captain and regional orchestra flutist.
You get the idea.

Yep, the state championship winning point guard who is competitive Irish dancer and gold medal in archery

And wants to major in pediatric bio-culinary astro-political international game theory

No, because that doesn't tie together. I think you are just making fun of it. Some kids do have unusual interests. They stand out because they are tied together. And make sense.

I've actually seen the competitive equestrian who is also a medalist in archery get into multiple T5 using that background as the base for studying women's mobility on horseback and understanding women's history through the female body, through horses and arrows.
Studying Gender Studies and early British history with a sub-focus on warfare and geography.
Founder of the archery club in HS.
Nationally ranked equestrian.
History research project on how Eleanor of Aquitaine leveraged mobility into actual political power.

[Anonymous]

Needs to be something not offered in schools. Signed parent of uncommon kid. Yes it moves the needle.

[Anonymous]

None of this sounds any different from anything that has come before. How does a student "stand out" from the crowd whether it is called "pointy" or "unique" or "quirky" or "uncommon" or whatever comes next.

[Anonymous]

You don't have to be unique. What you have to be is the best (or top few) of people who resemble you.

Play violin, get stacked against all the other violinists
Play bassoon, het stacked against the few other bassoonists.

Same for all other ECs and academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO the huge takeaway is actually drop the youth club sports insanity. If your kid is super talented, do it, but not at the expense of not doing anything else. Chances are your kid is just "good" or "great" and they really need other stuff to stand out. Interesting stuff, not things at the school level like clubs.

My nephew got into a college as a committed recruit for being good/great at baseball.

Could he have gotten in somewhere better if he studied and was smarter instead of playing sport? Maybe, but he liked the sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the key is being a unique combination of things and doing all of them well. I have seen this work.

Football quarterback and fashion designer who is featured in the local newspaper and sells clothing.
Basketball captain and regional orchestra flutist.
You get the idea.

The fashion thing is a bit of a hook but basketball and flutist isn't. They'll take a better baller and a better flutist. No one need a basketball-playing flutist, because you can't do both at the same time.


Now, a dancing flutist or a funny basketballer (Globetrotter) is unique in an interesting way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to be unique. What you have to be is the best (or top few) of people who resemble you.

Play violin, get stacked against all the other violinists
Play bassoon, het stacked against the few other bassoonists.

Same for all other ECs and academics.

But where it's good to be uncommon is that it's MUCH easier to be the top violaist than the top violinist. That's true even in professional orchestras. DCYOP recruits talented-ish young violinists and gives them free lessons and promises of elevation to the top orchestras if they swap to viola. Now take that and divide the number by 100 for kids who fit some super niche that a college needs to fill or finds intriguing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think going against type helps.

Athletes, STEM kids, business kids, there are stereotypes

If the app shows something that surprises the AO, that may get the applicant more consideration.

Indeed. Top stats and rigor are tablestakes; uncommon or unique yet in an authentic way, tips the scales.
It is very common at kid's ivy to be Engineering as well as deeply involved in music or other performing arts. It was rare in the magnet high school to be a stem nerd with top stats, top rigor, and also have demonstrated history of highly artistic pursuits, with recognition/awards in the stem areas as well as the arts areas. Kid found their people--at an ivy. Two of the other ivy/T10 schools, based on admitted student days, seemed to also have an extra numbers of stem kids with similarly creative interests, but not quite at the same level as the ivy they chose. The 4th admitted day top-20 school did not have that mix: stem kids were stereotypical/unidimensional.
Other "uncommon" patterns from the non-engineering friends at the ivy DC chose: Econ major who wrote code for investing club in high school and also was a published novelist, began writing in middle school, still writes; Math and CS double major who is a visual sculpture artist; just a few examples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are thinking uncommon trumps high stats, you can are thinking in the wrong way.

It’s high stats + being uncommon.

Low stats, uncommon: 09
High stats, uncommon: 99
High stats, common: 90.

Exactly.

Only a handful things can offset low stats (defined as less than the school’s 25th percentile.)

Being “uncommon” is not one of them, unless that “uncommon” thing happens to be an institutional priority at that school that year. (Like an oboe player whose accolades or musical submission knocks the socks off the music faculty … on a year when their current star oboe player will be graduating.)

Otherwise, the value of being “uncommon” may come into play when a school is trying to decide which high stats kids to accept and which to waitlist or reject. (Again, “high stats” means different things for different schools. For some schools, a 3.8 and 1450 would qualify as “high stats” while at other schools that would not.)

Finally, we know many high stats kids with “common” profiles who got into T20 schools in the past three years. It happens. Not every kid on these campuses is a unicorn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughters HS in NY had a kid that was interesting. He was good looking, tall, white male with very blue collar parents with low income from a tiny house and first in his family to go to college.

He was also Valevictorian, perfect SAT, of a very large 2,000 person HS that did actual grading. Meaning numerical on score of 1-100. So it was clear he was.

He also had movie star looks. Was an adjunt professor at Columbia and was employed by a Nobel Prize window to give him advice. He was a true genious.

How smart Harvard offered him a free ride preapplication and so did Columbia.

Been to dozens and dozens of HS graduations and he was only one I saw that was special.

Our kids are not. Well unless your 17 year old is a professor in Ivy leagues, tutoring a Nobel prize winner and looks like a Movie start with a perfect SAT and GPA.

He was in at FirstGen + valedictorian (likely with room to spare on the valedictorian part.)

After those two pieces, the rest is bonus.

[Anonymous]

This only applies in areas that are overrun by perfects stats/scores kids. Leave the Tri-state/DC/SF areas and all you need are the latter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think going against type helps.

Athletes, STEM kids, business kids, there are stereotypes

If the app shows something that surprises the AO, that may get the applicant more consideration.

Are you referring to like the neurodivergent kiddos?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the key is being a unique combination of things and doing all of them well. I have seen this work.

Football quarterback and fashion designer who is featured in the local newspaper and sells clothing.
Basketball captain and regional orchestra flutist.
You get the idea.

Yep, the state championship winning point guard who is competitive Irish dancer and gold medal in archery

And wants to major in pediatric bio-culinary astro-political international game theory

No, because that doesn't tie together. I think you are just making fun of it. Some kids do have unusual interests. They stand out because they are tied together. And make sense.

I've actually seen the competitive equestrian who is also a medalist in archery get into multiple T5 using that background as the base for studying women's mobility on horseback and understanding women's history through the female body, through horses and arrows.
Studying Gender Studies and early British history with a sub-focus on warfare and geography.
Founder of the archery club in HS.
Nationally ranked equestrian.
History research project on how Eleanor of Aquitaine leveraged mobility into actual political power.

gender studies ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think going against type helps.

Athletes, STEM kids, business kids, there are stereotypes

If the app shows something that surprises the AO, that may get the applicant more consideration.

Are you referring to like the neurodivergent kiddos?

Like no. Referring to uncommon excellence that would be a desirable addition to the institution.