10th grader with no interesting ECs, top grades and scores

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks all for the advice. I do not think he will get into mit or the Ivy League schools. I am discouraging him from thinking with that mindset. With prep, I think it’s reasonable he will have over 1500 sat. He is a great test take and on track for 12 APs, he has 2 5s from 9th grade already. He is smart. He would be fine at a top school, at least academically, but I know he won’t get in since he isn’t special. I want to ensure he can at least get into a school like BC or BU at minimum. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Im sure your son is amazing. Nothing wrong with having your son aspire to some of the top schools, as long as his expectations are kept in check. It’s a difficult conversation to have with a teenager. It can be a difficult thing to accept as a parent! It’s important to understand the current landscape and what it means for someone with your son’s profile. My kid’s academic profile is a little weaker than your son’s, and they had a couple leadership positions (junior and senior year) and a part-time job (junior and senior year). Not STEM. Visiting colleges and finding safeties and targets they liked was very helpful. Accepted at several T-50’s and happily attending one. All the best to your son!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks all for the advice. I do not think he will get into mit or the Ivy League schools. I am discouraging him from thinking with that mindset. With prep, I think it’s reasonable he will have over 1500 sat. He is a great test take and on track for 12 APs, he has 2 5s from 9th grade already. He is smart. He would be fine at a top school, at least academically, but I know he won’t get in since he isn’t special. I want to ensure he can at least get into a school like BC or BU at minimum. Thanks for all the suggestions.

If he gets over 1500 sat and is among the top students for GPA I would do a few "reach" applications, maybe not to Harvard or MIT but to places like Cornell, Northwestern, Rice, Hopkins. The odds are not great but it's not out of the question imo. Just don't spend too much application effort there...you need to work on many apps to more likely schools. Manage expectations that these are "lottery ticket" apps with low odds.

Also, schools in the UK are an interesting idea. The top schools there like Oxford care mostly about GPA and test scores. Note that they have very strict requirements and rules about taking standardized tests. I think they like "first and only time" scores. It's a very different admissions process and student experience.

[Anonymous]

male as a humanities or classics major (esp to Brown or Yale) are generally in high demand.

is he taking latin?

[Anonymous]

My son was similar -a cerebral type who enjoyed school but not sports or organized activities -I am guessing your son may be an introvert? A few ideas:

- find a weekend job for your son - that is something he can write about in his essays - lifeguarding pays well right now; or be a math tutor; something that is a growth opportunity

- is there an academic subject that he excels at where he could do research - e.g. research on a science topic; or research on a humanities topic

- is there an academic subject he excels at where he could join an Olympiad team - e.g. math olympiad, chemistry or bio olympiad? (for MIT, they are going to want people competing on these teams, and/or also winning on these teams)

good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:gap year for an interesting EC

This kid does not need a gap year for the sole purpose of coming up with an interesting EC. Terrible advice!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let him be. don’t try to package or cultivate him in some fake way. Let the chips fall where they may. If it happens to be a top school down the road, then great. If not, there’s a whole big world of great places and opportunity outside T-25. You want him to have strong coping skills and a genuine sense of self, no matter where he ends up.

+1

[Anonymous]

We've got a kid like this but he has a few more ECs and his PSAT10 was 1500.

We focus on summer substance which means a pay to play program, a little work, a lot of sports.

Looks like he's picking it up this year on his own (applying for some fellowships and getting a little more engaged in a few clubs but that remains to be seen).

The thing is, this STILL doesn't guarantee much of anything. And we are a family where we are full pay on paper but full pay for $400K over 4 years isn't going to be a walk in the park.

We are likely shooting for merit aid at a T50 and trying to balance encouraging him to engage while also not making him have to fake his way through 2.5 more years of misery. It's just not worth it. The goal is to push towards a fit, not push for the sake of pushing.

[Anonymous]

I would respond in the same way I'd respond to my kid if they talked about another reach goal, and not putting in the effort.

If my high schooler was saying they wanted to go to the Olympics, but wasn't practicing outside of sports practice, not paying attention to nutrition, etc . . . I might draw my attention to the discrepancy once, but then I would let them figure out that the Olympics weren't for them. Same thing for a kid who wants to be a professional musician, but didn't want to practice. Or a kid who set a goal like becoming a doctor and wasn't seeking out the EC's med schools want to see.

MIT is a school for kids who eat sleep and breathe science and tech. A kid who isn't choosing to do anything additional beyond what school requires, likely doesn't have the drive or passion or stamina to do well there. So, I'd make sure my kid knows what's required to get there, and then I'd back off.

I might nudge on some EC's for other reasons. I think some kind of physical activity and some kind of service are good for kids. But not for college reasons. There are plenty of excellent schools where a smart kid who gets good grades can both get in and thrive, and I'd have confidence my kid would end up in one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:gap year for an interesting EC

This kid does not need a gap year for the sole purpose of coming up with an interesting EC. Terrible advice!

He's not mature enough. A gap
year will go a long way to both help him mature, give him better perspective and a stronger application

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS is a 10th grader at a suburban public. He is in all AP and Honors courses and a straight-A student. Just got back from PSAT and was in the 98th percentile without prep. He is a smart kid but seems to have no interests or EC that will make a different. He is on the golf team, and that's all he really does at school, and he isn't a great golfer/won't be recruited. I am trying to figure out how to make him interested in college apps and start to develop a passion or interest in general. Summer after 9th grade he did nothing. He wants to go to a place like MIT or an ivy, and that just won't happen even with good ECs of which he has none. I mentioned this to my friend who works at a top DC private and she bluntly said, well he will get into a school like UMD or BC/BU if he is lucky. I was taken aback as this is a kid who is at the top of his grade and views himself as "better than" a school like UMD or a 40/50 school like BC or BU. He won't be hooked for admissions anywhere, aside from us being full pay which I know is not a hook but she said it can make a difference at some SLAC. What do I do??????????

Your friend is correct. In fact, unless ECs are beefed up, assuming your kid can maintain grades through junior year, UMD/BC/BU will be reaches.

There are 4,000 colleges, but all of the "high stats" students apply to the same 60 or so colleges. It's Uber competitive. Forget about the T10.

[Anonymous]

No EC, no T10 unless you’re URM.

[Anonymous]

Encourage your kid to engage a little more for the sake of involvement itself is a great idea. He can find more like-minded peers and who knows, those peers can motivate or nudge him to be more involved. Involvement is important and beneficial at all stages of our lives. Once your kid goes to college, he’ll have an easier time finding his people if he knows that there are certain clubs/teams/events that interest him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a 10th grader at a suburban public. He is in all AP and Honors courses and a straight-A student. Just got back from PSAT and was in the 98th percentile without prep. He is a smart kid but seems to have no interests or EC that will make a different. He is on the golf team, and that's all he really does at school, and he isn't a great golfer/won't be recruited. I am trying to figure out how to make him interested in college apps and start to develop a passion or interest in general. Summer after 9th grade he did nothing. He wants to go to a place like MIT or an ivy, and that just won't happen even with good ECs of which he has none. I mentioned this to my friend who works at a top DC private and she bluntly said, well he will get into a school like UMD or BC/BU if he is lucky. I was taken aback as this is a kid who is at the top of his grade and views himself as "better than" a school like UMD or a 40/50 school like BC or BU. He won't be hooked for admissions anywhere, aside from us being full pay which I know is not a hook but she said it can make a difference at some SLAC. What do I do??????????

He is not ivy level, nor MIT or any top 10. The unhooked kids at those schools are naturally 99th percentile on standardized tests their whole lives , without prep. A large portion are 99.7-99.9. Thats why that person is telling you not possible or atleast highly unlikely.

Not sure about that. Some of those high scoring kids have had SAT prep since middle school or even elementary school!

Most have not. Mine are all 99th %ile and so were their friends from the high school who ended up at ivies and T10. These kids all discussed SAT and psat. None had any significant prep because they were already high scorers. There were several other high scorers who took the hard classes and who were still shut out of t20. The kids who prepped were the ones who were chasing the top kids, usually ones who got around 1300 on the 10th grade psat. These kids were the same ones who had tutors in middle school just to barely stay in math trVk that did BC in 11th and Multi and Modeling in 12th. Almost 25% of the graduating class was 98-99%ile. The school released all of this data on CTP/ERB testing throughout the years. The school placed into the top math group and top reading/latin group based on these tests in 4th grade. The superstars stayed the superstars for the most part, and the next group who got added to the top math later were the ones with the middle school tutors. Only the hooked ones in that group ended up at ivies/stanford/etc.
The Psat is easy for any true 99th percentile kid: no prep needed especially for math and for one who has any shot at MIT or stem at a t10. OP is quite borderline. Even if they got in, they would be in the bottom 1/4 on all the curves. That is a self esteem destroyer, to mostly B and C in college. Ivies grade inflate but bottom 1/4 is still B- and Cs in stem. It is B+ in humanities and athlete-easy classes but these are joke and employers and grad schools expect A’s in those. They expect more A than B in stem, as do med schools, in other words at least top half in ivy stem.
OP needs to aim for BC or Wake or the like for stem, or RPI or RIT for engineering.

The top kids are working hard to get straight As, get 5s on multiple AP tests, doing all these extra curricular to boost their resume. And then they skip studying for the SAT? Really?

DP. I dont think anyone said skip studying and no review! PP is correct from our experience—the top kids do not need much prep.
They just do a practice test or two. The school makes them do Psat 9, 10, 11. The school(public magnet) encourages doing practice tests june-july after 10th and taking ACT july or SAT august before 11th and then take it again if needed. A few practice tests and or khan academy for any repeat errors is all a 99%ile kid needs. Many of them can just walk in cold and score above 1500. These kids want 1550+ so of course they prep some.
Mine are at different ivies and did not spend more than a couple hours a week for a couple weeks getting ready for the SAT. It is very similar to PSAT and that was easy with no prep.
Parents and students should not underestimate the portion of extremely smart good test takers and efficient studiers there are at ivies. They are not schools for kids who want to coast and they are not filled with kids who are “the same” as the kids who get 1350-1450 but had tutors all through school and took the SAT 6x to finally get a 1500. Most of the peers are incredibly intelligent as well as highly creative and eager to study hard and chase opportunities. The environment at ivies and other elites(family at Northwestern and Chicago) is intense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest a well chosen summer camp/program/etc. that could align with a choice of major or area of focus. Even if it looks a little "pay to play" it could give vocational insight.

I would let your kid know that the lack of ECs is making him uncompetitive for top schools and that's his choice.

But he will probably be able to excel at a state flagship if he's a good student.

I would recommend you have him watch Youtube videos about schools that aren't the usual suspects (not Ivy, not UMD). Ask him to pick out some schools to take a closer look at over the next two years. Find out why he picks the ones he does.

I always recommend Pitt. It's my undergrad alma mater. You can go anywhere for grad school with a Pitt degree and high GPA.

He wants MIT and you are recommending #70 U of Pitt? We only use Pitt as a last safety on our list.

PP. Pitt is a great school. You can get into any grad school if you do well there. I got a free ride at Michigan's MBA after Pitt and some work experience. My best friend went to Harvard Law. My husband got a free ride to Georgetown for grad school. Lots of people want MIT. Only a few get accepted. I hear Pitt is popular with TJ students now.

You are free to decide what is a safety. But watch out for being rude. If your kid picks up that attitude, it may come back to bite them. Most high-powered workplaces have determined and excellent employees from a variety of backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest a well chosen summer camp/program/etc. that could align with a choice of major or area of focus. Even if it looks a little "pay to play" it could give vocational insight.

I would let your kid know that the lack of ECs is making him uncompetitive for top schools and that's his choice.

But he will probably be able to excel at a state flagship if he's a good student.

I would recommend you have him watch Youtube videos about schools that aren't the usual suspects (not Ivy, not UMD). Ask him to pick out some schools to take a closer look at over the next two years. Find out why he picks the ones he does.

I always recommend Pitt. It's my undergrad alma mater. You can go anywhere for grad school with a Pitt degree and high GPA.

He wants MIT and you are recommending #70 U of Pitt? We only use Pitt as a last safety on our list.

PP. Pitt is a great school. You can get into any grad school if you do well there. I got a free ride at Michigan's MBA after Pitt and some work experience. My best friend went to Harvard Law. My husband got a free ride to Georgetown for grad school. Lots of people want MIT. Only a few get accepted. I hear Pitt is popular with TJ students now.

You are free to decide what is a safety. But watch out for being rude. If your kid picks up that attitude, it may come back to bite them. Most high-powered workplaces have determined and excellent employees from a variety of backgrounds.

You hear this from whom?

Your experiences post Pitt are irrelevant unless you are 22 years old.