Lessons learned so far: 2024-2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kindness, really? Maybe I'm being cynical here, but please explain to me how a 17 year old teen demonstrates their kindness in a college app without it sounding disingenuous? And now that this is "a thing," every application will have kids trying to convince AOs how kind they are. It's ridiculous.

Letters of recommendation which you can’t control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kindness, really? Maybe I'm being cynical here, but please explain to me how a 17 year old teen demonstrates their kindness in a college app without it sounding disingenuous? And now that this is "a thing," every application will have kids trying to convince AOs how kind they are. It's ridiculous.

Perhaps, kindness isn't exactly the right word. I see it more as caring about others, things like helping kids with homework, being supportive of other kids dealing with personal emotional difficulties, standing up for other kids being bullied and subjected to various kinds of harassment (sometimes as seemingly little as not letting friends kick another kid out of a group), providing rides for classmates who can't otherwise get to games, practices, concerts. Concrete, real world things that don't need to be exaggerated or fictionally created.

My son had a little of this in the background of his essays and LORs, and I think it helped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kindness, really? Maybe I'm being cynical here, but please explain to me how a 17 year old teen demonstrates their kindness in a college app without it sounding disingenuous? And now that this is "a thing," every application will have kids trying to convince AOs how kind they are. It's ridiculous.

Nope it’s absolutely a real thing.

And perkiness. They want do-ers. Get up and go.

Get up and go, action is not the same thing as kindness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kindness, really? Maybe I'm being cynical here, but please explain to me how a 17 year old teen demonstrates their kindness in a college app without it sounding disingenuous? And now that this is "a thing," every application will have kids trying to convince AOs how kind they are. It's ridiculous.

Perhaps, kindness isn't exactly the right word. I see it more as caring about others, things like helping kids with homework, being supportive of other kids dealing with personal emotional difficulties, standing up for other kids being bullied and subjected to various kinds of harassment (sometimes as seemingly little as not letting friends kick another kid out of a group), providing rides for classmates who can't otherwise get to games, practices, concerts. Concrete, real world things that don't need to be exaggerated or fictionally created.

My son had a little of this in the background of his essays and LORs, and I think it helped.

Appreciate this. That makes the concept more relatable and my kid has definitely done some of those things you have listed. Can't imagine him mentioning those things on a college app though - he's not one to express his emotions in overt ways.

He has been especially supportive of a close friend whose parents are immigrants, knew nothing about college pathways, programs, classes to take and has been advising him for the past 3 years as well as giving him rides to sports practices/tournaments. I told my son he should mention this on a summer program app he applied for and he simply would not do it. He talked about peer tutoring at school, but that is really a much less personal experience.

Sorry don't mean to derail. It just seems that kids have to do, be, reveal so much even if that's not really a part of their personality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kindness, really? Maybe I'm being cynical here, but please explain to me how a 17 year old teen demonstrates their kindness in a college app without it sounding disingenuous? And now that this is "a thing," every application will have kids trying to convince AOs how kind they are. It's ridiculous.

Perhaps, kindness isn't exactly the right word. I see it more as caring about others, things like helping kids with homework, being supportive of other kids dealing with personal emotional difficulties, standing up for other kids being bullied and subjected to various kinds of harassment (sometimes as seemingly little as not letting friends kick another kid out of a group), providing rides for classmates who can't otherwise get to games, practices, concerts. Concrete, real world things that don't need to be exaggerated or fictionally created.

My son had a little of this in the background of his essays and LORs, and I think it helped.

Appreciate this. That makes the concept more relatable and my kid has definitely done some of those things you have listed. Can't imagine him mentioning those things on a college app though - he's not one to express his emotions in overt ways.

He has been especially supportive of a close friend whose parents are immigrants, knew nothing about college pathways, programs, classes to take and has been advising him for the past 3 years as well as giving him rides to sports practices/tournaments. I told my son he should mention this on a summer program app he applied for and he simply would not do it. He talked about peer tutoring at school, but that is really a much less personal experience.

Sorry don't mean to derail. It just seems that kids have to do, be, reveal so much even if that's not really a part of their personality.

PP: Hopefully, I’m not belaboring this, but not every high school student has the empathy to do what your son does. You really should be proud of him.

For admissions, some schools put a big emphasis on community and what the applicant can contribute to it, sometimes with a supplemental essay about it, and your son should try not to be shy about revealing how his sense of community includes being supportive of others, with HS examples.

Hope things turn out well for him.