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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Parent of Class of 2022 HS grad here — kid is CS major and admitted to 2 of the top 3 universities. I know most people do not listen to free advice, but for the ones who do, here it is….Focus your perfect stats kids HS years and application on two things. (1) What has your kid done to help others in their community? (2) How will they use the elite school education to help others in their community. It’s not about the perfect stats or the awards, although those help. It’s NOT about how well the essays are written — it’s about the HS experience affecting your kid in some way that they ended up genuinely helping others (not racking up hours at a food pantry), and what are they going to do beyond getting a good job that will change the world for the better?? Without the desire and evidence of having a positive impact on their community, my kid would have been at a safety school (which is really not as bad as some make it out to be!) Oh and leadership “titles” do not count as much as actual leadership — can your kid lead others without a formal title? I’m not saying that being President of a club is bad, just that the kid needs to do something after they get the title….or do lead others without a title. Make sure to have documentation — news articles etc.

Or “When others zig, your kid should zag.” Do something different. For CS, do not do robotics or build apps that no one uses. I cannot say what my kid did without doxxing, but this is also important. Why should a college pick your perfect stats kid who was President of their Robotics Club over the 100’s of other similar kids? What sets them apart?

I hope that makes sense![/quote]

Can you give some examples ? [/quote]

Sure…obviously these are not what my kid did but I hope they help.

(I will say that my personal advice is not to tutor at places that teach math or send too much time on a single club like robotics unless it’s one of the best in the country.)

Try to get a paid internship, but an unpaid one will do too. Often your city will need some help with their IT systems. If you build something for them, it will be used and will make you stand out from the crowd! If you can be paid for building it, even better. Startups often look for talented high schoolers, so scour the web looking for them, use LinkedIn or use parent’s network. Can you get a research position at a university? Again connections come into use here; not sure “cold calling” is the way to go. If you have an internship one summer, don’t do something different the next summer. Continuity is good when it comes to jobs and internships, as it shows your bosses liked you! That’s like a Letter of recommendation that you don’t submit!

Something I heard in an podcast was that elite colleges have tons of resources and they are looking for kids who will be motivated and have the skills to make the most of the resources. Your college application should show evidence that you have already done that in your high school years.  Another tip: they say pay-to-play programs should not be reported on applications. I would say that they are sometimes OK. After my kid was rejected REA from one school, I watched a YouTube video by a kid who had been accepted there — he said one of his activities was pay-to-play. From then on, we decided to list a couple of pay-to-play activities on the application. My kid made sure to connect the dots in activity listings or essays to show how they used learnings from the paid activities to do something big in our community outside of the high school (so it was more than a check-the-box activity, KWIM?). And we made sure to get news articles about it. Local reporters are willing to highlight awesome things that kids are doing, so I would encourage reaching out.

For school year activities I would look at Math (either accelerating in coursework or other competitions like AIME) or CS competitions (USACO, etc)

Here is a heart blog — https://holdmeback.com/to-stand-out-start-by-looking-in/

The other thing colleges care about is what you have done for others? Have you stood up for a kid who might have been vulnerable? Have you done anything with DEI? The best thing will be to do it for at least 2 years — maybe have a book drive and connect it with something else in your story.

These things also help with Coke Scholars etc. Oh yeah, that reminds me — an excellent place to see what other kids have done and be inspired to come up with your own ideas is to read the bios of kids who win scholarships. Apply for all the scholarships you possibly can. Even if you do not get them, the practice writing essays pays off. And if you’re lucky, you will get one honor that will snowball!

An excellent book to read is How to be a High School Superstar by Cal Newport IIRC. I read it only recently — my kid had bought it in 9th grade, but I had never read it. Looking back at it, we did many of the things he says. Also listen to the Yale Admissions podcast. I forget what it’s called but it’s very good and we based a lot on that. College Coach is another one, but not all of their episodes are that helpful. There are other podcasts too.

Hope this helps! I could go on and on, but I have chores to do. Cheers![/quote]

This is pretty creative trolling.

City IT departments are not looking for “help” from high school kids unless a parent is a council member and can force them to accept the kid.  Startups are not looking for high school kids.  And I say this as the owner of a small software company that gave my kid an internship during COVID.

99% of what’s written on DCUM about IT and CS is written by people who have never worked in the field and have no idea what they are talking about. [/quote]

+1,000. That PP is completely clueless.[/quote]

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