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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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

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