Reflections from 2025 HYPSM admit(s)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This strategy is not hard to map out. I was able to come up with 3-4 very niche ideas for how to expand/scale my DC’s interests over the 4 years of high school into something with measurable community impact and a big spike for college applications. DC refused to play along. Not all kids are as compliant as PP says. It isn’t hard to find or create really unique, interesting ECs in the DC area, but you really need a certain type of kid that is willing to play this game. Mine was not one of them.

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This 1000%. I have 3 kids and two of them refused to play this game. They were fantastic students but categorically refused to spend 4 yrs of high school focused on a rare type of plant or the needs of a people group in Kazakhstan. One ended up at an Ivy despite this and one is at different top20.

My third kid is super compliant. If I told her, "you need to spend 5 hours a week focused on crafting with mixed metals and studying astrophysics" she would do it. She wouldn't initiate it but she would do it if I prodded her along.

[Anonymous]

I think this is a rather old strategy: pretending you are interested in less competitive but niche majors to bypass the competition of popular majors. Only works if the kid is mature and smart so they are willing to play the college game following adult’s design.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a rather old strategy: pretending you are interested in less competitive but niche majors to bypass the competition of popular majors. Only works if the kid is mature and smart so they are willing to play the college game following adult’s design.

Short term - HYPSM - awesome job mom! Long term - weak person - underachieving life and never good enough. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Mine did same successfully last year as well.
T10.

But simply added another predictable/pre-prof major on - the niche application interests were authentic…

[Anonymous]

Puke. My kid was accepted to Princeton and Harvard and did none of this. Completely unhooked. Just a smart kid who was completely honest with the schools as to who she is. She did not try to manipulate the process.

[Anonymous]

DS was accepted to HYP with a genuine niche major. While he’s taking every elective in the subject matter that he has space for, he’s majoring in something with actual job prospects.

[Anonymous]

My unhooked kid is at an Ivy and this just sounds so sick.

He just did the things he loved. By Fall of Senior year, you could see a pattern. His “narrative” (even hate that - blah) was easily pieced together.

We never “packaged” our kids or gunned for anything. They were naturally motivated/smart and always got As, top scores without us doing anything. Both were heavily into a sport they were not recruited for as well (did get re ruined for very low academic, tiny schools).

It might very well work, OP. But doing this and telling kids to just change once they are on campus just feels so creepy to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I agree. My DD's barb was on a niche aspect of Chinese Opera music, and making it more accessible to teens in her community. She got into Yale REA this year!

I found it very hard to believe there are teens that care about Chinese opera musics at all- no matter how accessible

[Anonymous]

This makes these colleges sounds very unappealing- filled with a bunch of kids with fake interests to create some special narrative. No way any 15-17 is naturally enthralled with the things people make up to put on these applications.

[Anonymous]

Can you tell us for those of you who got in the school/scores? Is it a barb with a 1450 and 3.8? Or are we talking tip top?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My unhooked kid is at an Ivy and this just sounds so sick.

He just did the things he loved. By Fall of Senior year, you could see a pattern. His “narrative” (even hate that - blah) was easily pieced together.

We never “packaged” our kids or gunned for anything. They were naturally motivated/smart and always got As, top scores without us doing anything. Both were heavily into a sport they were not recruited for as well (did get re ruined for very low academic, tiny schools).

It might very well work, OP. But doing this and telling kids to just change once they are on campus just feels so creepy to me.

same w my two kids at HYP now. unhooked. no spike or barb developed during HS. but quantifiable results in school: elected to school positions, won major debate/MUN/mock trial events on state or national level. They both pieced together unique career interests out of what they had done/read/studied/did a summer thing related to so they would be memorable in a committee meeting: Northern Virginia kid interested in post-nuclear war/low light agriculture. also won state MUN tournament, elected president of 250-member service club, and has a 36 on the ACT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My unhooked kid is at an Ivy and this just sounds so sick.

He just did the things he loved. By Fall of Senior year, you could see a pattern. His “narrative” (even hate that - blah) was easily pieced together.

We never “packaged” our kids or gunned for anything. They were naturally motivated/smart and always got As, top scores without us doing anything. Both were heavily into a sport they were not recruited for as well (did get re ruined for very low academic, tiny schools).

It might very well work, OP. But doing this and telling kids to just change once they are on campus just feels so creepy to me.

same w my two kids at HYP now. unhooked. no spike or barb developed during HS. but quantifiable results in school: elected to school positions, won major debate/MUN/mock trial events on state or national level. They both pieced together unique career interests out of what they had done/read/studied/did a summer thing related to so they would be memorable in a committee meeting: Northern Virginia kid interested in post-nuclear war/low light agriculture. also won state MUN tournament, elected president of 250-member service club, and has a 36 on the ACT.

I want to say I know what that means, but I don't.
This is clearly bizzard/weird.
If HYP is into this kind of stuff but not kids who have more mainstream interests, there is a problem.

[Anonymous]

All that deception, just for a shot at HYP. What a waste. I am sure it works, but at what cost?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All that deception, just for a shot at HYP. What a waste. I am sure it works, but at what cost?

Then you go there and have to compete with kids who got in genuinely and are naturally driven. No school is worth this. Its better to use your teens being authentic and figuring out what you really love doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All that deception, just for a shot at HYP. What a waste. I am sure it works, but at what cost?

Then you go there and have to compete with kids who got in genuinely and are naturally driven. No school is worth this. Its better to use your teens being authentic and figuring out what you really love doing.

Institional priorities are 30% of the class. As long as the kids are academically strong, there is no concern. We all know these kids are genuinely interested in other stuff, wall street, premed, tech.