Anonymous wrote:
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.

My thought is I hope the self-motivated kid "stuck" studying at UMD ends up passing your by in grad school or the workplace.

Ok you have one kid who made it to all HYPSM. Something about her application resonated with the admissions officers. Congrats. But I don't think everyone should be following your advice. Mine as just accepted early to 1 HYPSM this cycle. I suppose he had a spike (and barb) as do most interesting kids who are accepted to HYPSM.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How committed to this niche field should the child be? My kid is a sophomore and is dead set on one school, but her main focus in general is STEM so she is focused on that and wants to make the most of the opportunities that she has regarding STEM at her private school so she focuses less on the niche field.

I'm the author of the thread -- I think there are two considerations:
1. what is the caliber of the school your kid is looking at?
2. what part of STEM is she particularly interested in? or if that is unanswerable, what part can she tolerate?

To be quite honest, STEM applicants nowadays are a dime a dozen. Everybody is very used to seeing clubs for teaching poor kids STEM, doing some basic research, joining a robotics teams. These things are all great if they are things she enjoys and I would definitely encourage her to continue them if that is the case. I would also encourage her to put more emphasis on participating in or creating opportunities outside of school: shows initiative and more genuine interest.

But you would need to specialize much further to target schools at the tippy top I think. My daughter was STEM and she chose to address a specific environmental issue in the area we live in.

Harvard and Physics is her intended major.

Interesting, good luck to her! Off the top of my head, maybe nuclear physics could be a good way to specialize?

Barb: US PAN at MSU, Brookhaven, think Princeton has some sort of plasma lab. Getting published would be great. But barbs also transcend disciplines. Also consider lobbying for nuclear power, contributing to nuclear safety literature, looking into bid stacks, researching use of nuclear in other countries.
General: STEM clubs, USAPhO, robotics, circuit building for E&M

Just spitballing. Hopefully this gives you some good ideas.

Thank you for the great ideas.

Anonymous wrote:
Give me one detailed example of someone got into HYPSM with a spike but not barb?

Typically, these types of people are URMs or hooked in some sort of way. For a URM, joining a robotics team, beginning a STEM club, and maybe even participating in USAPhO can be enough. I'm not trying to start an argument about AA or anything, or debate on the merits/flaws of it. This is just indisputable.

Anonymous wrote:I think you just invented a new term in lieu of spike. The difference between a spike and a barb is close to zero. Barb is the embodiment of the spike. No one can actually claim a spike without specific embodiment (barb), or it wouldn't be a spike. They all have to go deep at some point for the spike to work.

Give me one detailed example of someone got into HYPSM with a spike but not barb?

Maybe you're right, but it's just semantics at the end of the day. I do agree that barb ∈ spike. But I think barbs are more manmade, and I like the sound of the word. Regardless, the point of the post is that traditional senses of spikes are no longer feasible and that we have to refine (or sharpen? ) our understanding of the word.

I think you just invented a new term in lieu of spike. The difference between a spike and a barb is close to zero. Barb is the embodiment of the spike. No one can actually claim a spike without specific embodiment (barb), or it wouldn't be a spike. They all have to go deep at some point for the spike to work.

Give me one detailed example of someone got into HYPSM with a spike but not barb?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How committed to this niche field should the child be? My kid is a sophomore and is dead set on one school, but her main focus in general is STEM so she is focused on that and wants to make the most of the opportunities that she has regarding STEM at her private school so she focuses less on the niche field.

I'm the author of the thread -- I think there are two considerations:
1. what is the caliber of the school your kid is looking at?
2. what part of STEM is she particularly interested in? or if that is unanswerable, what part can she tolerate?

To be quite honest, STEM applicants nowadays are a dime a dozen. Everybody is very used to seeing clubs for teaching poor kids STEM, doing some basic research, joining a robotics teams. These things are all great if they are things she enjoys and I would definitely encourage her to continue them if that is the case. I would also encourage her to put more emphasis on participating in or creating opportunities outside of school: shows initiative and more genuine interest.

But you would need to specialize much further to target schools at the tippy top I think. My daughter was STEM and she chose to address a specific environmental issue in the area we live in.

Harvard and Physics is her intended major.

Interesting, good luck to her! Off the top of my head, maybe nuclear physics could be a good way to specialize?

Barb: US PAN at MSU, Brookhaven, think Princeton has some sort of plasma lab. Getting published would be great. But barbs also transcend disciplines. Also consider lobbying for nuclear power, contributing to nuclear safety literature, looking into bid stacks, researching use of nuclear in other countries.
General: STEM clubs, USAPhO, robotics, circuit building for E&M

Just spitballing. Hopefully this gives you some good ideas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How committed to this niche field should the child be? My kid is a sophomore and is dead set on one school, but her main focus in general is STEM so she is focused on that and wants to make the most of the opportunities that she has regarding STEM at her private school so she focuses less on the niche field.

I'm the author of the thread -- I think there are two considerations:
1. what is the caliber of the school your kid is looking at?
2. what part of STEM is she particularly interested in? or if that is unanswerable, what part can she tolerate?

To be quite honest, STEM applicants nowadays are a dime a dozen. Everybody is very used to seeing clubs for teaching poor kids STEM, doing some basic research, joining a robotics teams. These things are all great if they are things she enjoys and I would definitely encourage her to continue them if that is the case. I would also encourage her to put more emphasis on participating in or creating opportunities outside of school: shows initiative and more genuine interest.

But you would need to specialize much further to target schools at the tippy top I think. My daughter was STEM and she chose to address a specific environmental issue in the area we live in.

Harvard and Physics is her intended major.

Anonymous wrote:How committed to this niche field should the child be? My kid is a sophomore and is dead set on one school, but her main focus in general is STEM so she is focused on that and wants to make the most of the opportunities that she has regarding STEM at her private school so she focuses less on the niche field.

I'm the author of the thread -- I think there are two considerations:
1. what is the caliber of the school your kid is looking at?
2. what part of STEM is she particularly interested in? or if that is unanswerable, what part can she tolerate?

To be quite honest, STEM applicants nowadays are a dime a dozen. Everybody is very used to seeing clubs for teaching poor kids STEM, doing some basic research, joining a robotics teams. These things are all great if they are things she enjoys and I would definitely encourage her to continue them if that is the case. I would also encourage her to put more emphasis on participating in or creating opportunities outside of school: shows initiative and more genuine interest.

But you would need to specialize much further to target schools at the tippy top I think. My daughter was STEM and she chose to address a specific environmental issue in the area we live in.

How committed to this niche field should the child be? My kid is a sophomore and is dead set on one school, but her main focus in general is STEM so she is focused on that and wants to make the most of the opportunities that she has regarding STEM at her private school so she focuses less on the niche field.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I agree. My DD's barb was on a niche aspect of Chinese Opera music, and making it more accessible to teens in her community. She got into Yale REA this year!

PP again, I should also disclose that she is a legacy at Yale, but I do believe (as does she) that it was her barb that got her in, not her legacy status!

Hard to say, as maybe legacy status is what tipped her into admit over other similar candidates or changed what would've been a defer to an admit.

Agree as well. DD's "barb" was about lobbying for nutrition policies and programs that support a specific population in a local underserved area. She's headed to Harvard.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I agree. My DD's barb was on a niche aspect of Chinese Opera music, and making it more accessible to teens in her community. She got into Yale REA this year!

PP again, I should also disclose that she is a legacy at Yale, but I do believe (as does she) that it was her barb that got her in, not her legacy status!

OP, I agree. My DD's barb was on a niche aspect of Chinese Opera music, and making it more accessible to teens in her community. She got into Yale REA this year!

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.