Reply to If I could start the process over .. this is what I'd do differently.

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "If I could start the process over .. this is what I'd do differently. "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Honestly? Hired a consultant at the start of junior year or even sophomore year. Shaping a clear "narrative" probably would have given DC a real shot at an Ivy. [/quote]

You can create that narrative on your own - I did for my kids. You need to look at their activities - find the common threads. Frankly feed the activities list into DeepSeek, Claude, Gemini or Chatgpt (only the paid versions) and ask it to analyze it for:

1. Evidence of major and which one (then choose the one that's the least popular for purposes of admissions)*
2. Give it an example of a narrative (you can get from the book soundbite, or from various national firms who do admissions webinars) and ask it to put a narrative together for you
3. ask for areas of weakness and what types of things kid can do over next summer or year to strengthen position
4. ask for suggested research topics for a capstone project that ties into narrative or standalone research
5. ask for ideal ECs at college that appear to correspond to these interests.

done and done.[/quote]

DP here. No disrespect but that is a bog standard narrative. What a CC helps you create is an extraordinary narrative that stands out and is aimed directly at entry to the Ivy League. They do know what they're doing. And most parent's are functioning just outside that kind of sphere.[/quote]

I did something similar to the above except without AI. And I just continued to help my kid refine it and refine it and refine it - starting winter of sophomore year. 
Kid had very defined academic interests and unique EC accomplishments already, so it was relatively easy though there was a glaring weak spot (test scores). 
Tied EC to academics in natural way - highlight of application.
Kid must have written 50 to 60 different essays as we tried to get the main thrust of intellectual vitality, personal qualities, curiosity, and community-orientation / collaboration into these supplemental essays. Personal statement has already received hand-written notes on EA admissions letters (did not discuss activities or major or any academic interest at all in the personal statement. Purely a values-based essay.)

So far the results are outstanding. We’ll see how the remainder of the private T 20s go.

Having been through this two times now, I would never pay money for any counselor who has not actually served at a selective university in an admissions role. Total waste of money: how people hang up their shingles and think they know what they’re doing here - usual results are because they have some great high achieving kids that do well - and they just help with logistics management around the edges.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics