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[quote=Anonymous]My high school aged kid has a great opportunity this summer, a paid research job related to what he thinks he wants to study.  It was competitive, with maybe 5% of applicants getting a slot.

He is a kid with a pretty significant trauma history.  I won't go into details, but he has been through a lot.  He is usually very private about it, and certainly wouldn't bring it up in a college application, but his teachers at school do know, because he was part of the school community for some of the time when it was going on.

At his interview, the interviewer brought up the traumatic situations.  My kid was a little taken aback.  He had no idea how the interviewer even knew, but later realized it was probably in the letter of recommendations his teachers wrote.  When he got the acceptance, he was convinced that he got it because the interviewer felt sorry for him.  He is stuck on the idea that it would be "unfair" for him to take advantage of the opportunity.

He was a strong candidate.  High stats, great EC's etc . . .   So, while it's possible that one of the things they considered was that he accomplished all of this under circumstances that derail a lot of kids, I don't think the trauma was the only factor that got him in.  I also feel as though, for a kid for whom a lot of things haven't gone his way, if this thing goes in his favor that's just evening things out.  He's in a school full of privileged kids who, just like DCUMoms, spend a lot of time fixated on the possibility that some other kid might have a slight advantage over them, with little insight into their own advantages.  [/quote]

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