AMA My smart but unremarkable & unhooked kid is heading to a Top 10 college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are your kid’s stats and demographics?

+1. And where do you live, and is your kid public or private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the things?

There are many facets of it but if I had to put a label on it, I’d call it “strategy.” Knowing your kid’s strengths and weaknesses and matching them to a school that values the strengths and that your kid likes. Approaching this as a game is a mind shift that pays dividends.

Interesting... what were your kids strengths, and which schools did they apply to?
How were you able to identify which ones value those strengths?

Just found out that my nephew is heading to one of the Ivies next week (not Brown, Cornell or Dartmouth or Columbia). According to him, he had neither a good grade (3.5 GPA with two AP classes) or SAT score (1400). He is, however, making a lot of money as a youtuber and tiktok influencer. He has about 500K subscribers on youtube and 200K of followers on tiktok. He didn't have any hooks or ECs in high school. I guess Ivies prefer him over someone with perfect SAT and GPAs.

What you are describing is a hook. It is a lot of work to get 500,000 subscribers on YouTube. This is something he spends significant amounts of time doing. I would also argue that his grades and SATs are quite respectable.

[Anonymous]

One of the most useless threads I've read in a long time. #fail

[Anonymous]

GPA and SATs?
Can you tell us what high school he attended?

[Anonymous]

nice trolling

Look folks you can't rely on the common app to get into an elite college lol

take the time to know what the school is looking for and tailor every aspect of the application to whatever that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the things?

There are many facets of it but if I had to put a label on it, I’d call it “strategy.” Knowing your kid’s strengths and weaknesses and matching them to a school that values the strengths and that your kid likes. Approaching this as a game is a mind shift that pays dividends.

Interesting... what were your kids strengths, and which schools did they apply to?
How were you able to identify which ones value those strengths?

Just found out that my nephew is heading to one of the Ivies next week (not Brown, Cornell or Dartmouth or Columbia). According to him, he had neither a good grade (3.5 GPA with two AP classes) or SAT score (1400). He is, however, making a lot of money as a youtuber and tiktok influencer. He has about 500K subscribers on youtube and 200K of followers on tiktok. He didn't have any hooks or ECs in high school. I guess Ivies prefer him over someone with perfect SAT and GPAs.

What you are describing is a hook. It is a lot of work to get 500,000 subscribers on YouTube. This is something he spends significant amounts of time doing. I would also argue that his grades and SATs are quite respectable.

elite schools are looking for return on investment through endowments and that requires leadership and this is exactly what is required to get something like that

That's also why legions of asians with high stats are rejected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the things?

There are many facets of it but if I had to put a label on it, I’d call it “strategy.” Knowing your kid’s strengths and weaknesses and matching them to a school that values the strengths and that your kid likes. Approaching this as a game is a mind shift that pays dividends.

Interesting... what were your kids strengths, and which schools did they apply to?
How were you able to identify which ones value those strengths?

Just found out that my nephew is heading to one of the Ivies next week (not Brown, Cornell or Dartmouth or Columbia). According to him, he had neither a good grade (3.5 GPA with two AP classes) or SAT score (1400). He is, however, making a lot of money as a youtuber and tiktok influencer. He has about 500K subscribers on youtube and 200K of followers on tiktok. He didn't have any hooks or ECs in high school. I guess Ivies prefer him over someone with perfect SAT and GPAs.

What you are describing is a hook. It is a lot of work to get 500,000 subscribers on YouTube. This is something he spends significant amounts of time doing. I would also argue that his grades and SATs are quite respectable.

low grades, low scores and this are even low social media numbers, especially for TikTok. I call BS somewhere unless there is an actaual hook we are not hearing about because this student was not admitted opterhwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What high school? Because top of his class at a high FARMS high school IS a hook.

Huh?

A much higher percentage of the class at high income schools gets into T10’s than at FARMS schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the things?

There are many facets of it but if I had to put a label on it, I’d call it “strategy.” Knowing your kid’s strengths and weaknesses and matching them to a school that values the strengths and that your kid likes. Approaching this as a game is a mind shift that pays dividends.

Interesting... what were your kids strengths, and which schools did they apply to?
How were you able to identify which ones value those strengths?

Just found out that my nephew is heading to one of the Ivies next week (not Brown, Cornell or Dartmouth or Columbia). According to him, he had neither a good grade (3.5 GPA with two AP classes) or SAT score (1400). He is, however, making a lot of money as a youtuber and tiktok influencer. He has about 500K subscribers on youtube and 200K of followers on tiktok. He didn't have any hooks or ECs in high school. I guess Ivies prefer him over someone with perfect SAT and GPAs.

What you are describing is a hook. It is a lot of work to get 500,000 subscribers on YouTube. This is something he spends significant amounts of time doing. I would also argue that his grades and SATs are quite respectable.

low grades, low scores and this are even low social media numbers, especially for TikTok. I call BS somewhere unless there is an actaual hook we are not hearing about because this student was not admitted opterhwise.

Wow sorry for my extremely poor spelling, my tablet keyboard is having trouble.

[Anonymous]

Why did you feel the need to start an asinine thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No parent who would care enough to hang out in this forum would call their kid "unremarkable"

? Most people are unremarkable. The college admissions game is to make kids stand out. Hence the conundrum.

[Anonymous]

OP, I asked what a parent brag sheet is. Sorry people are being mean to you, but could you tell me? Because I really don't know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I asked what a parent brag sheet is. Sorry people are being mean to you, but could you tell me? Because I really don't know.

Many high schools ask parents and students to answer 5-10 questions and send that document back in. Things like “what is your kid’s greatest strength?” and “what is the first thing a college should know about your kid?”

I think you should give those questions some thought. Think about how the answers you give them, which they’ll probably just cut and paste into their recommendations, will fit with other things that you kid’s application would benefit from. If your kid is selling her application as “Smart kid who loves to tutor others in math,” then it isn’t helpful for the counselor to bang on about how your kid loves English classes and is part of the Model UN team.

It’s the old adage of tell them what you’re gonna tell them, tell them, and then tell the what you’ve told them. Admissions officers have 10 min tops to read an application, so lay it out for them. You want the to remember “oh that’s that interesting applicant who tutored some struggling students in math and turned around that one kid’s grade during the pandemic!” Or something like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the things?

There are many facets of it but if I had to put a label on it, I’d call it “strategy.” Knowing your kid’s strengths and weaknesses and matching them to a school that values the strengths and that your kid likes. Approaching this as a game is a mind shift that pays dividends.

Interesting... what were your kids strengths, and which schools did they apply to?
How were you able to identify which ones value those strengths?

Just found out that my nephew is heading to one of the Ivies next week (not Brown, Cornell or Dartmouth or Columbia). According to him, he had neither a good grade (3.5 GPA with two AP classes) or SAT score (1400). He is, however, making a lot of money as a youtuber and tiktok influencer. He has about 500K subscribers on youtube and 200K of followers on tiktok. He didn't have any hooks or ECs in high school. I guess Ivies prefer him over someone with perfect SAT and GPAs.

So he’s going to UPenn?

Exactly - they love entrepreneurs

The story is getting old. I hope not all high school students will start a youtube or tiktok channel.

Anyone can get a YouTube or TikTok channel. Can you get lot of viewers to watch your channel?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I asked what a parent brag sheet is. Sorry people are being mean to you, but could you tell me? Because I really don't know.

Many high schools ask parents and students to answer 5-10 questions and send that document back in. Things like “what is your kid’s greatest strength?” and “what is the first thing a college should know about your kid?”

I think you should give those questions some thought. Think about how the answers you give them, which they’ll probably just cut and paste into their recommendations, will fit with other things that you kid’s application would benefit from. If your kid is selling her application as “Smart kid who loves to tutor others in math,” then it isn’t helpful for the counselor to bang on about how your kid loves English classes and is part of the Model UN team.

It’s the old adage of tell them what you’re gonna tell them, tell them, and then tell the what you’ve told them. Admissions officers have 10 min tops to read an application, so lay it out for them. You want the to remember “oh that’s that interesting applicant who tutored some struggling students in math and turned around that one kid’s grade during the pandemic!” Or something like that.

PP you responded to. Thank you very much for this response, I think it makes a lot of sense. I am very happy for your child. Congratulations, this is an exciting time!

I think your approach makes a lot of sense, but I am curious. Did your child do well generally with top schools? I don't mean any disrespect, it's just that getting into one top school-- it could really be any random thing that got them in. Whereas, if they got into several top schools, it may indeed have a lot to do with the approach that was taken.