Reply to What happens when elite schools shift away from test scores, grades, and AP?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Absolutely true, and some of the brightest, most passionate kids do not do as well in school these days because their form of learning does not correspond to the competition and demands of high school.  My DS is an example of this.  A well-read, passionate kid with math skills who really struggled in school before knocking the SATs out of the park (no prep), getting into college, and blossoming in a more intellectual environment. The structure of high school stifled rather than nourished his learning curve.  And this was one of the top schools in this region.[/quote]

I have a child like this. I think he should go to Harvard, but he'll never get there. He's an extremely thoughtful kid who rails against the idiocy of many of his classes, does indifferent work (I can hardly blame him) and gets Bs when he could easily get As if he jumped through all the hoops. I'm sure he'll do fine in college, but he won't be able to attend a highly selective college under the current admissions structure. He does not have the GPA, and that eliminates him before any of his other qualities, his intellectual abilities, his curiosity, his creativity can be considered. Even if he gets perfect SATs, he's out of the running.

I have a friend who does alumni interviews for Harvard. He agrees that my son would be great at Harvard, would thrive and grow and be a superb addition to the community. But without those grades, my son has no chance to have that experience. I'm sure my kid will do fine elsewhere, and in the long run, it doesn't matter. But there's a symbiosis at places like Harvard that's cut short when kids like mine are not part of the mix. A child who won't jump through hoops is more creative, more intelligent, more interesting than the ones who do. I admire iconoclasts, and perhaps Harvard and the other elite schools are finally realizing that if they want to continue to produce the most innovative thinkers, they will have to expand their admissions process to include kids whose minds do not fill little boxes and circles.[/quote]

If he's blowing off HS because it's BS, what outlet has he found for his curiosity/creativity/intellectual abilities?  If he's doing something interesting/impressive outside of school, GPA will matter less at some schools.  Harvard's always admitted kids who think outside the box but applicants have to manifest that trait in some way other than refusing to jump through hoops.[/quote]

Refusing to jump through hoops is an accomplishment in itself at my kid's high school, amid the intense academic pressure from his peers. Reading books and thinking is his outlet. Why is manifesting that trait in an outward way necessary? I agree he's got to find out how to show what he has to offer, but I don't think accomplishment is elite education should be about. It should be about pushing the most innovative minds, making them grow and expand until they have the maturity to implement or use their accomplishments. Our society rewards extroverts, as a PP has said. The child sitting in the corner reading a book and thinking might be formulating the next theory of relativity, but it may take 10 years for that idea to mature. It is a good question: how do you identify these uniquely talented kids? Many are underachievers because they're bored or nonconformists.

Harvard has heretofore chosen to ignore them in favor of kids who put their talents out there in the form of visible accomplishments. That's fine, and I'm not sure how else they are going to judge kids' potential otherwise, but my point is that this is an imperfect way of determining what these kids will achieve. Creativity, as Virginia Wolfe said, takes time spent alone in a room. Would she have gotten into Harvard? Probably not. She didn't have a lot to show for her intense intelligence when she was 18. [/quote]

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