I don't think so. The weird activities I've seen are for weird kids. Or kids so deep into a random hobby that everyone at their school (including teachers and counselors) knows about it. It's just their thing. And with the grades etc., they do get it. But I don't see normal kids "doing weird activities to get into college". Its usually kids that are quirky to begin with. They were never going to do MUN, debate, etc to begin with. |
Umm. This is fabulous. Going to tell my violin-playing nephew to move over to Fiddle competitions. https://www.fiddlecontest.org/ |
Don't you need to reconcile this for (1) the HS the kid is coming from, and (2) the major? All of the TJ discussion on here, tells me that some kids won't have a chance at T10 if they don't take BC (unless they are an art major?) |
People saying collegevine and possibly other "experts" say to fabricate activity if one of kid's hobby is reading. Instead of just listing reading, say they organized a reading club etc...Agree or not agree? |
In NYC there are a lot of paid (by city) summer internship opportunities. Pick a cause, develop community connection, learn from the experts. ECs should not be that difficult to do. Sometimes I wonder if these moms having difficulties in EC is because they are having their sons prepping for SAT and math competition during summer. Then come on here to complain about it. There is really no need to fabricate anything. Purely organic. |
Recruited athlete. |
Private schools particularly feeder schools are more holistic. Kids are basically grouped into three levels by their grades, top, middle, bottom. The bottom ones are usually nepo babies and academically non-performing. For the top 1/3, holistic process, you will then look at their test scores, and ECs. In our school it doesn't appear there are many doing crazy ECs. Mostly school related clubs and varsity. |
Give it up already. No one cares your kid “reads”. |
Same at our private. But this is the critical difference btw public and private high schools. |
NP here. Generally speaking even hooked kids are doing highest math offered by HS to get into T10. Kids these days are taking math at community colleges and are listing MVC, Linear algebra etc so you really need high rigor in math! |
Not true at my DC’s private high school. AP Calculus AB is fine unless you are applying to be a STEM major. |
Not for us. Plenty do just AB and get into T10. Mostly humanities. Our private discourages community college math. 40% go to T25. |
I have thought the same thing! |
We know a student who did just that in 2021, started a reading club and did a bunch of things related to reading to put on the app. They still got WL at UVA in state and shut out of all ivy types and Vanderbilt. Their course rigor was awful but the GPA was one of the highest in the class. Scores mid 1400s. ECs do not make up for a lackluster transcript. The top schools took the students with the high rigor and real activities. |
Similar to our high school, but MVC is a track for the top 10% or so, the next 20% does BC. It is hard to get into UVA in state without BC from this school. It is always high school dependent |