I think the key is being a unique combination of things and doing all of them well. I have seen this work.

Football quarterback and fashion designer who is featured in the local newspaper and sells clothing.
Basketball captain and regional orchestra flutist.
You get the idea.

Anonymous wrote:There are so many kids doing exactly the same things and describing them in the same ways that yes, it’s more memorable and interesting if an application is a little different.

Yes and no. There are a thousand soccer forwards, but if you are the one that can get the ball in the net and you're also the valedictorian, you're going to attract more interest than the other 999.

I don't know if Male versus female is still relevant. but very short time ago, if you were a female that was uncommonly talented in physics or chem, that would be more uncommon then an interest in biology and would be an attractive attribute. For males it might have been the opposite.

At this point, college and graduate level stem is under attack and losing funding, so I don't know if these uncommon abilities will continue to be as desirable as they have been recently.

Anonymous wrote:There are so many kids doing exactly the same things and describing them in the same ways that yes, it’s more memorable and interesting if an application is a little different.

Does that make them uncommon or just not fake?

There are so many kids doing exactly the same things and describing them in the same ways that yes, it’s more memorable and interesting if an application is a little different.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think going against type helps.

Athletes, STEM kids, business kids, there are stereotypes

If the app shows something that surprises the AO, that may get the applicant more consideration.

Huh? It's the uncommon athletes that have unusual high-level athletic abilities that get recruited. It's the uncommon stem kids that explorer uncommon stem pursuits or excel in a way above average way that are desireable admits. Not sure about business kids but I'm sure the ones that are uncommon in a good way are the ones that attract the admissions committees.

At our Metro area public high School, most of the really top admits are athletes of uncommon ability and stem kids of uncommon ability.

Indeed. I remember there was one who invented a soap that cures cancer, simple and elegant solution that doesn't involve parental resources.

Anonymous wrote:I think going against type helps.

Athletes, STEM kids, business kids, there are stereotypes

If the app shows something that surprises the AO, that may get the applicant more consideration.

Huh? It's the uncommon athletes that have unusual high-level athletic abilities that get recruited. It's the uncommon stem kids that explorer uncommon stem pursuits or excel in a way above average way that are desireable admits. Not sure about business kids but I'm sure the ones that are uncommon in a good way are the ones that attract the admissions committees.

At our Metro area public high School, most of the really top admits are athletes of uncommon ability and stem kids of uncommon ability.

I think going against type helps.

Athletes, STEM kids, business kids, there are stereotypes

If the app shows something that surprises the AO, that may get the applicant more consideration.

Anonymous wrote:Trust, y’all judge my actually uncommon kid 😂 what you want is uncommon common, like the movies where the supposedly ugly girl is actually clearly beautiful but just has glasses.

This

Trust, y’all judge my actually uncommon kid 😂 what you want is uncommon common, like the movies where the supposedly ugly girl is actually clearly beautiful but just has glasses.

I can't think of anything worse than trying to be intentionally uncommon.

The Admittedly guy (former Wharton AO) is really, really big into uniqueness.

Unique or uncommon majors are a WHOLE new application strategy for big national college consulting firms:

https://www.ivyscholars.com/unique-college-majors-application-strategy/

https://www.commandeducation.com/resource/applying-to-unpopular-majors/

If you are thinking uncommon trumps high stats, you can are thinking in the wrong way.

It’s high stats + being uncommon.

Low stats, uncommon: 09
High stats, uncommon: 99
High stats, common: 90.

OP, it's the new "everyone's kids are above average." Now everyone's kids are uncommon.

Have seen several recent posts or podcasts mentioning the real application benefit of being uncommon.

In the Game's recent podcast, he mentions that colleges want what they don't have or don't see a lot of. Sara H also mentioned it in a thread today in AN (the benefit of being uncommon as to major, honors, ECs, essays - all of it). Lee Coffin seems to hyper-fixate on "uncommon" application profiles.

In your experience, is this true? How much do uncommon (or rare) ECs trump high stats? Is this a strategy or a tip everyone else already knew?