Reply to Any high school teachers here who can give some frank talk about which types of students get into the top colleges?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’ve been teaching AP for many, many years. Most of my students are the 4.0 unweighted GPA types. They volunteer, are varsity athletes, and they are doing all they can to look good for college. Some truly stand out, but most are very strong candidates.

And then college admissions come and the results appear random. The true stand-outs face surprising rejections and the “just” strong candidate got in instead.

Here’s what I think: students have to meet a threshold to make it into the “considered” pile at a college. But after making it into that pile, the choice itself appears random.

All the kids can really do is get themselves into the pile. Then cross fingers and hope for the best. [/quote]

I think you are accurate all the way until your point about the threshold to be considered pile. After that, it is not random though it may look that way to the outside. The decisions are based on things like.:
- Major (classics gets in over bio; gender studies over engineering; English over CS)
- Talent/ability (National award winning squash player gets in over varsity baseball captain; neither recruited. National ranked figure skater gets on over state champion soccer player; neither recruited)
- essays (what kids reveal in essays matters a lot more than people think.) There is a right way to do essays in the wrong way to do essays. Unfortunately, most HS English teachers advise kids to do the wrong thing. It’s not about overcomplicated sentence and essay structures. The writing should be at easy to read/grasp level; varied sentences, including some very short sentences; poignant, personal, and touching on at least 3-4 of your personal values. It should also not repeat anything covered anywhere else in the application, including your major.
- [b]LOR (an exceptional LOR can make a difference)[/b]

Look at the T10 scoring rubrics. You can see why certain kids get in once you understand the scoring. [/quote]

What makes a LOR “exceptional”?[/quote]

NP:

The best LORs I’ve written have anecdotes where the kid’s uniqueness or passion shine through. A kid who does exactly what they are supposed to do, no more or less, is really hard to write anything special about.

I’ve been asked to write 6 so far for next fall. 5 will be fine, positive letters—the kid “works hard, asks good questions, is a strong student, very reliable.” Kind, but bland.

The 6th will be stellar, because the kid has shown me all year they are stellar. 
—Proactively reached out to me before school started to tell me they’d miss the first week due to an opportunity to volunteer on the presidential campaign, could they pick up the first week’s assignments during open house? 
—When the software we were using for homework crashed, kid took it upon themself to borrow the textbook from the library and do the questions by hand, while classmates used it as an opportunity to have no hw for a night. 
—When AP exam time was coming, kid organized weekly study sessions for classmates (started as a few friends, expanded to 10 kids as others kept asking to join) and prepared materials to work through with their peers. 
—Asked good questions, but then researched and applied those concepts to questions they were curious about beyond material in the class. Came and shared with me excitedly during lunch one day how they had wondered whether about xyz, and showed me their mathematical process to collect random data, build a confidence interval, and run a hypothesis test to prove a theory. For funsies.

I could write 5 pages instead of 5 paragraphs. Because that kid exudes passion and interest in the world around them.

I’ve also written phenomenal LORs for the quiet shy kid who didn’t do a million ECs but overcame a LOT to participate in class discussions and tackle school—but that’s because the child opened up to me about life beyond the classroom before school every day.

If I don’t know your kid well, the letter will be bland no matter how wonderful they are in your eyes. Encourage your kid to form relationships and chat about life, interests, current events when teachers are open to it.[/quote]

Love this. Thank you for sharing.[/quote]

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