Some apps just land well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2025 parent here. What I am noticing among DC's friends is kids getting into everything or nothing. There are a handful of superstars in the grade, pretty widely known (small school). And even among that cohort, it's pretty clear that some kids are just hitting the mark with AOs. One girl we know has (so far) gotten into UM, UVA, Vandy, Emory, USC, and Hopkins. I predict she'll get into 3+ Ivies. And then similarly qualified kids have been rejected everywhere.
Who knows what the magic is - particularly strong recs, a "story" that hangs together...who knows?

Update: The girl above got into 4 Ivies, include 2 of HYP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2025 parent here. What I am noticing among DC's friends is kids getting into everything or nothing. There are a handful of superstars in the grade, pretty widely known (small school). And even among that cohort, it's pretty clear that some kids are just hitting the mark with AOs. One girl we know has (so far) gotten into UM, UVA, Vandy, Emory, USC, and Hopkins. I predict she'll get into 3+ Ivies. And then similarly qualified kids have been rejected everywhere.
Who knows what the magic is - particularly strong recs, a "story" that hangs together...who knows?

Update: The girl above got into 4 Ivies, include 2 of HYP.

Major??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2025 parent here. What I am noticing among DC's friends is kids getting into everything or nothing. There are a handful of superstars in the grade, pretty widely known (small school). And even among that cohort, it's pretty clear that some kids are just hitting the mark with AOs. One girl we know has (so far) gotten into UM, UVA, Vandy, Emory, USC, and Hopkins. I predict she'll get into 3+ Ivies. And then similarly qualified kids have been rejected everywhere.
Who knows what the magic is - particularly strong recs, a "story" that hangs together...who knows?

Update: The girl above got into 4 Ivies, include 2 of HYP.

Major??

Something STEM. Biology maybe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I've noticed this. However a lot is major choice among kids from private high schools. Colleges know that everyone over a 3.8 coming from high school ABC is going to be well prepared and can do the work. So they pick the one who will study what they need them to study.
Then you add in some charisma and an extracurricular or two that backs up the obscure major and they get in everywhere.

Fun fact: We know 2 families at our private who did this with the same obscure major/EC (deliberately chosen) and they had to coordinate their DC's applications so they wouldn't apply to the same school (PS it worked, both got T20 ED).

Is this major Classics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the magic dust is people skills and good (written and oral) communication. Some people are just naturally born with it, and then hone their skills further. Others, like my autistic son, will never be good at that, no matter how hard they try.

Agree and this is far better than pretending to have an obscure interest to game it. Certainly they are eyes wide open on that tactic at this point. Part of the reason Yale has mentioned selecting people for interviews, to validate it all.

I've seen a couple of kids w manufactured interests and paid for research that got into T20 schools. One even said, he's not interested at all in that major but it worked. Felt like a sucker telling my kid to be honest with their voice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it possible that these are the kids with the truly off-the-charts recommendations?

After all, the same recommendations go to all the schools. My sense is that there are a few kids every year who are top of the class AND have genuinely strong and real relationships with the teachers and counselor who write their recommendations. So they’re a completely different level of effusive, specific, and authentic that most high-stats kids have.

Basically, in a world where everything else can be curated, fished, or faked, there’s still one piece of the application that has the potential to be truly genuine and therefore illuminating.

I think Dc is an example of that. Kids at school with much higher grades/scores were rejected from the same T10 schools dc was accepted to. No crazy ec's but well rounded. The only factor that remains are essays and recs. I think dc must have had one amazing recommedation letter.

[Anonymous]

Rec letters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the magic dust is people skills and good (written and oral) communication. Some people are just naturally born with it, and then hone their skills further. Others, like my autistic son, will never be good at that, no matter how hard they try.

+ This! My DS is an extreme introvert and his apps did not land well at all. That said, he’s doing very well in college (STEM) and even landed a paid internship in a research lab — so there is hope! 😊

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the magic dust is people skills and good (written and oral) communication. Some people are just naturally born with it, and then hone their skills further. Others, like my autistic son, will never be good at that, no matter how hard they try.

Agree and this is far better than pretending to have an obscure interest to game it. Certainly they are eyes wide open on that tactic at this point. Part of the reason Yale has mentioned selecting people for interviews, to validate it all.

I've seen a couple of kids w manufactured interests and paid for research that got into T20 schools. One even said, he's not interested at all in that major but it worked. Felt like a sucker telling my kid to be honest with their voice

You (and I) did the right thing. There were times in the HS process I had to check myself. But I sincerely believe that it isn't good for kids to create a "story" for them that isn't genuine. What does that tell them about themselves?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the magic dust is people skills and good (written and oral) communication. Some people are just naturally born with it, and then hone their skills further. Others, like my autistic son, will never be good at that, no matter how hard they try.

Agree and this is far better than pretending to have an obscure interest to game it. Certainly they are eyes wide open on that tactic at this point. Part of the reason Yale has mentioned selecting people for interviews, to validate it all.

I've seen a couple of kids w manufactured interests and paid for research that got into T20 schools. One even said, he's not interested at all in that major but it worked. Felt like a sucker telling my kid to be honest with their voice

You (and I) did the right thing. There were times in the HS process I had to check myself. But I sincerely believe that it isn't good for kids to create a "story" for them that isn't genuine. What does that tell them about themselves?

Some kids do have genuine stories. But no one’s shown them how to tell it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the magic dust is people skills and good (written and oral) communication. Some people are just naturally born with it, and then hone their skills further. Others, like my autistic son, will never be good at that, no matter how hard they try.

+ This! My DS is an extreme introvert and his apps did not land well at all. That said, he’s doing very well in college (STEM) and even landed a paid internship in a research lab — so there is hope! 😊

We were worried about this with introverted DS and decided to avoid the Ivies lottery despite tippy-top stats. He was unlikely to do well in interviews and had little interest in leadership, or any kind of game-playing. We also suspected his smart but very quirky essay would land much better at a WASP, which was a much better fit for his temperament anyway. It worked out, thankfully, but we were very worried about a spectrum-y kid in a process that highly favors extroverts and future "masters of the universe" types. Also felt LORs were a question mark, not in terms of academics but in terms of soft skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the magic dust is people skills and good (written and oral) communication. Some people are just naturally born with it, and then hone their skills further. Others, like my autistic son, will never be good at that, no matter how hard they try.

+ This! My DS is an extreme introvert and his apps did not land well at all. That said, he’s doing very well in college (STEM) and even landed a paid internship in a research lab — so there is hope! 😊

I'm happy to hear it's gone well for your DS. Parents of introverts do have to approach this process differently. I asked HS guidance counselor team about advice for introverts, and they really didn't have any.

[Anonymous]

Yes!!! I am helping two kids. One has got into amazing schools and the other did not. They applied to most of the same schools. The former took my advice and asked me to review most things. The latter was more independent. So I think better packaging helps so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the magic dust is people skills and good (written and oral) communication. Some people are just naturally born with it, and then hone their skills further. Others, like my autistic son, will never be good at that, no matter how hard they try.

Agree and this is far better than pretending to have an obscure interest to game it. Certainly they are eyes wide open on that tactic at this point. Part of the reason Yale has mentioned selecting people for interviews, to validate it all.

I've seen a couple of kids w manufactured interests and paid for research that got into T20 schools. One even said, he's not interested at all in that major but it worked. Felt like a sucker telling my kid to be honest with their voice

You (and I) did the right thing. There were times in the HS process I had to check myself. But I sincerely believe that it isn't good for kids to create a "story" for them that isn't genuine. What does that tell them about themselves?

Some kids do have genuine stories. But no one’s shown them how to tell it.

The kids I helped this year did not even have stories. But the one who took my advice who landed well because she had me point out things AOs would not like. The other kid only had me look over his personal statement. Who knows what he wrote in his supps. He did not do as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it possible that these are the kids with the truly off-the-charts recommendations?

After all, the same recommendations go to all the schools. My sense is that there are a few kids every year who are top of the class AND have genuinely strong and real relationships with the teachers and counselor who write their recommendations. So they’re a completely different level of effusive, specific, and authentic that most high-stats kids have.

Basically, in a world where everything else can be curated, fished, or faked, there’s still one piece of the application that has the potential to be truly genuine and therefore illuminating.

Yeah- I think that’s why my kid did so well last year