Reflections from 2025 HYPSM admit(s)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you tell us for those of you who got in the school/scores? Is it a barb with a 1450 and 3.8? Or are we talking tip top?

3.85 private
test optional.

[Anonymous]

No wonder top 10 is filled with fake and insecure kids who are willing to do anything to get ahead.

[Anonymous]

Any suggestions for activities and how to make a ‘barb’ for a student at MCPS magnet that is interested in STEM with focus on environmental science /environmental engineering/ marine biology/conservation/environmental policy ? Still trying to focus but open to any suggestions. Student is in 10 th grade now. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My unhooked kid is at an Ivy and this just sounds so sick.

He just did the things he loved. By Fall of Senior year, you could see a pattern. His “narrative” (even hate that - blah) was easily pieced together.

We never “packaged” our kids or gunned for anything. They were naturally motivated/smart and always got As, top scores without us doing anything. Both were heavily into a sport they were not recruited for as well (did get re ruined for very low academic, tiny schools).

It might very well work, OP. But doing this and telling kids to just change once they are on campus just feels so creepy to me.

same w my two kids at HYP now. unhooked. no spike or barb developed during HS. but quantifiable results in school: elected to school positions, won major debate/MUN/mock trial events on state or national level. They both pieced together unique career interests out of what they had done/read/studied/did a summer thing related to so they would be memorable in a committee meeting: Northern Virginia kid interested in post-nuclear war/low light agriculture. also won state MUN tournament, elected president of 250-member service club, and has a 36 on the ACT.

I want to say I know what that means, but I don't.
This is clearly bizzard/weird.
If HYP is into this kind of stuff but not kids who have more mainstream interests, there is a problem.

it's a real field of study. it's okay if you haven't heard of it, but that doesn't make it "weird"

Low-light agriculture is a critical area of study regarding both mitigating climate change and preparing for potential catastrophes like nuclear winter. While nuclear energy acts as a low-carbon, high-efficiency power source to support sustainable, high-tech farming and food security, a, nuclear war could trigger severe climate change, leading to global "nuclear winter" conditions, which would severely restrict light for agriculture.
World Nuclear Association


Low-Light Agriculture and Nuclear War (Nuclear Winter)
A large-scale nuclear war could produce massive amounts of soot, blocking up to 95-99% of sunlight, resulting in freezing temperatures, reduced precipitation, and minimal crop production for years.
The Pennsylvania State University


Reduced Yields: A nuclear winter could cause an 80% drop in annual corn yields.
Alternative Crops: Research indicates that in a low-light catastrophe, certain crops, such as sugar beets and spinach in temperate regions, would be more viable, while tropical forests might offer limited food production due to slightly better conditions.
Emergency Solutions: The most promising, though challenging, food solutions include mushrooms, seaweed, and the rapid scaling of greenhouses (using timber, plastic film) for some, though not enough, food.
Nutrient Challenges: The combination of low light and high ultraviolet (UV) radiation from a destroyed ozone layer would severely damage plant tissue.
The Pennsylvania State University


Nuclear Technology in Climate-Resilient Agriculture
Nuclear science, specifically through the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre, helps agriculture adapt to climate change:
Mutation Breeding: Techniques like irradiation (e.g., gamma rays or ion beams) are used to develop "climate-proof" crops, such as heat-tolerant rice in Bangladesh and drought-tolerant beans in Cuba.
Water and Soil Management: Isotopes are used to track water movement and improve efficiency in irrigation and fertilizer use, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50%.
Food Security: Food irradiation is used to extend the shelf life of produce and manage pests.
International Atomic Energy Agency


Nuclear Power for Sustainable Agriculture
Nuclear energy supports sustainable agriculture by providing reliable, low-carbon, baseload electricity.
World Nuclear Association


Clean Energy Transition: Nuclear energy is essential for meeting climate goals (e.g., Net Zero) by substituting for high-carbon fossil fuels.
Controlled Environment Agriculture: While vertical farming is energy-intensive, nuclear power could potentially supply the electricity needed for high-tech, artificial light, or "electro-agriculture" systems that can produce food in low-light environments.
Risks: However, climate change itself poses risks to nuclear infrastructure; in a high-emission scenario (RCP 8.5), up to 91% of nuclear reactors could face significant ambient temperature increases, affecting cooling capacities by 2040.
International Atomic Energy Agency

Okay, that's all good.
Are your kids at HYP majoring in low light ag or nuclear ag? Or are they doing econ right now? Be honest.

bio major. did do a low light mushroom study last year (junior year) so interest continues.

this is what colleges say they want. put SOMETHING in the career interest box. Put a career interest! Nobody is holding you to it.

again, my kids did 4 years of high school with no grand strategy, just doing what interests them. if you do that, you have a much better chance of filling out a career interest box with something organic. was Mock trial related? No. That's okay too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I mean, Harvard has bills to pay too. So they’ll gladly take money from insecure and obviously wealthy parents who can pay to involve their dc in activities that boost their application prospects. It’s all so gross but you do you. And then they can say they are ‘need blind’ too.

^I'm the PP you're replying to. You're making a big assumption that we're a full-pay family and we're just paying out the nose for application-boosting activities. You're wrong. And the ECs that my youngest participated in were things like research with a local professor & volunteering at a nonprofit for kids with disabilities. We paid $0 for either EC, but yes- we did help her by driving her to volunteering, helping her fill out the research assistant paperwork, and encouraging her interest in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any suggestions for activities and how to make a ‘barb’ for a student at MCPS magnet that is interested in STEM with focus on environmental science /environmental engineering/ marine biology/conservation/environmental policy ? Still trying to focus but open to any suggestions. Student is in 10 th grade now. Thanks!

Start a new thread. Provide details about your kid. There was one last year discussing environmental major, full of excellent suggestions.

[Anonymous]

I like how some people on this thread act like their kid got into princeton or harvard by not doing these types of things. While I believe that maybe they didn't have some niche area of interest, they had to have something. Couldn't just be a bench warmer on soccer team that volunteered at nursing home playing bingo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are fortunate to have a daughter who was accepted to all of the HYPSM schools back in 2025. We are unhooked in every aspect of the word.

I am not here to engage with people who call me a troll or try to discredit the premise of the post; I am laying the facts of our experience down and you may choose whether or not you want to believe me. Quite frankly, I don't care if you don't believe me. If you choose to believe the post, I hope that it will be useful. I am also not here to discuss ethics.

It seems to me that the best way to get into these schools, nowadays, is to use what I call now a 'barb' instead of a 'spike.' What this means is to go all-in (extracurriculars, essays, classes) on one incredibly, incredibly niche field. This departs from the typical sense of a 'spike' in that a spike is far too broad. Spikes are often synonymous with a field of study: computer science, environmental science, politics, healthcare, etc. But a barb is far spikier than a spike. It means that you must specialize within that spike. Spikes have now become well-rounded, and well-rounded applicants have become rejects.

So, you could choose to go 'all-in' on ways that Native Americans interact with the environment. Or go all-in on compilers in computer science. Or spend your time lobbying for laws that challenge deceptive interrogation tactics. Or architecture in hospitals. Or a specific gene in the ostrich genome (this one's probably too specific Hahaha).

In a way, we found success by targeting all of our daughter's ECs at that one particular topic. This leaves no question for the AO as to what place the student will take on campus, what labs they will engage in, what classes they will take, what clubs they will join, and what their future looks like. It's makes your regional AO's job (advocating for you in committee) incredibly easy, because they can just refer to you as "that student who is interested in making exonerees" or "that student who has a deep passion for colonial Japan's rise" or "that student who has worked on protest theory for years."

Barbs also lend themselves to great awards to put on an application. Such deep intellectual rigor, research, and involvement is often rewarded.

And this might be a little unethical: what sweetens the deal at these schools is that you can change your major before you even arrive on campus. There is no commitment to any of these barbs. No self-respecting person is going to major in Inuit cosmologies, but a self-respecting high schooler may very well choose their barb in that field.

This is also a very high-variance strategy. If rejected by all T10s (or whatever), you may be stuck studying political science at UMD or UConn. This strategy has been very successful in recent years, but that's of course anecdotal.

Curious to hear thoughts, questions, etc.

This is interesting and I am sure many parents on here appreciate your willingness to share

[Anonymous]

Yuck. Just yuck. Also, please join me in hating posters who paste in long threads from ChatGPT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and the idea of strategic position is so nauseating to me that I feel like writing a letter to our admissions office to let them know about what I read in this forum and others.

To be clear, I am not attacking the OP. She did what she felt she had to do to benefit her child. However, favoring students with unusual niche interests is clearly not the best way to find the most authentic students. Maybe this approach was more authentic 10 years ago before college admissions officers and parents pushed it en masse, but clearly this is no longer the way.

professors are all about strategic positioning

They want the kids with the genuine interests, not the ones cultivated by parents and admissions counselors.

The point being made is that they often underestimate how far kids game the system without parents or counselors. Any smart kid can research and pick up college admissions trend nowadays, reddit, dcum, or better yet gpt. Kids, especially the "driven" kids, understand what it takes to get there. No one lives in vaccum, simply labeling something "genuine" just because parents didn't participate is somewhat naive.

These kids need to be careful at this point, because as the strategy becomes widespread it can also lose its luster and possibly even backfire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and the idea of strategic position is so nauseating to me that I feel like writing a letter to our admissions office to let them know about what I read in this forum and others.

To be clear, I am not attacking the OP. She did what she felt she had to do to benefit her child. However, favoring students with unusual niche interests is clearly not the best way to find the most authentic students. Maybe this approach was more authentic 10 years ago before college admissions officers and parents pushed it en masse, but clearly this is no longer the way.

You don’t have to write to them, as they’ll figure that out after seeing thousands of applications that are interested in how to further refine the salt to make French fries taste better. The thing is, a strategy works until it doesn’t work anymore — when that has become common knowledge among private consultants! Those very top colleges might deliberately be looking for those who can do this nonsense ahead of others, as the same people would do well in consulting and marketing and sales and investment jobs!

[Anonymous]

This is both depressing and uplifting. It’s depressing that parents now spend so much time figuring out how to game Ivy admissions and help their kids present a compelling but fake version of themselves. It’s uplifting that I didn’t have to do any of that to get into HYP years ago to spend four years with a group of largely well-rounded peers, even if I’ll die much sooner than most of you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you tell us for those of you who got in the school/scores? Is it a barb with a 1450 and 3.8? Or are we talking tip top?

3.85 private
test optional.

Columbia? That's the only one remaining test optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you tell us for those of you who got in the school/scores? Is it a barb with a 1450 and 3.8? Or are we talking tip top?

3.85 private
test optional.

😱😱😱

This works only for Princeton, I’m afraid.

[Anonymous]

NP - When parents do this, they tell their kids during their most formative years that

1) I don't think you're that special if people find out who you really are

2) I'm preemptively taking away your chance to experience what it's like to earn your own way because I already knew you wouldn't succeed

3) I care about flexing HYPMS to strangers more than I care about giving you an authentic education that develops your real interests and talents

I worry for OP's DD. When life gets hard (and it will for everyone, even if you "went to school in the Boston area"), the poor kid will always have a nagging voice in her head that her own mother doesn't have confidence in her.