Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD entering freshman at HYP. No hooks - white UMC girl from northeast who is not an athlete or legacy and needs financial aid. Top 10% of her class - one of the top 3 publics in our state. Grades not perfect but strong throughout and she took the full "challenging" courseload. SAT strong but also not perfect, just at the average for her school. In general I think for most selective schools the stats piece is the first hoop to jump through, not what gets people in. What really distinguished her was all the "holistic admissions" stuff - she dedicated herself to an interesting range of ECs and was able to tie them together in her app via the essays in interesting and thoughtful ways. She was a bit of a unicorn in her school and that worked to her advantage. Her LORs were strong I believe, although I didn't read them I believe at least one of them was along the lines of "one of top students in my career" stuff. I don't know why she got in, but I would say that she demonstrated deep commitment to a few activities and interests in a way that came though as pretty authentic in her application.

Does anyone who isn't at Princeton use HYP this way? It seems like a way to pretend to not disclose a school while actually doing the exact opposite? Because who gets into Harvard and doesn't just say Harvard?

I actually thought Cornell, not HYP. HYPs take top 1-2% students. Cornell, top 10%.

PP again - hmm this may be true at your kids' school. Our school tends to have kids getting admitted to the most selective schools from across the top decile (and sometimes 2nd decile.) They report by decile only so I don't know where my kid or anybody else's kid fell in that range. However, based on what I have gleaned from this experience I think that these parent boards tend to overestimate the importance of perfect stats (I believe this is what you mean by the top 1-2%.) These schools turn away kids with perfect GPA/SATs all the time, we know this. The school my daughter is going to turned down our valedictorian the year before. The stats are just the starting point and beyond a certain point of high achievement there's a diminishing rate of return on going for perfect. My understanding is that they much prefer the kid with strong but slightly less than perfect stats who has shown themselves to be a passionate and committed learner. When I think of the kids I know who have gone to the Ivies, MIT, etc etc that is what they have in common.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD entering freshman at HYP. No hooks - white UMC girl from northeast who is not an athlete or legacy and needs financial aid. Top 10% of her class - one of the top 3 publics in our state. Grades not perfect but strong throughout and she took the full "challenging" courseload. SAT strong but also not perfect, just at the average for her school. In general I think for most selective schools the stats piece is the first hoop to jump through, not what gets people in. What really distinguished her was all the "holistic admissions" stuff - she dedicated herself to an interesting range of ECs and was able to tie them together in her app via the essays in interesting and thoughtful ways. She was a bit of a unicorn in her school and that worked to her advantage. Her LORs were strong I believe, although I didn't read them I believe at least one of them was along the lines of "one of top students in my career" stuff. I don't know why she got in, but I would say that she demonstrated deep commitment to a few activities and interests in a way that came though as pretty authentic in her application.

Does anyone who isn't at Princeton use HYP this way? It seems like a way to pretend to not disclose a school while actually doing the exact opposite? Because who gets into Harvard and doesn't just say Harvard?

I actually thought Cornell, not HYP. HYPs take top 1-2% students. Cornell, top 10%.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD entering freshman at HYP. No hooks - white UMC girl from northeast who is not an athlete or legacy and needs financial aid. Top 10% of her class - one of the top 3 publics in our state. Grades not perfect but strong throughout and she took the full "challenging" courseload. SAT strong but also not perfect, just at the average for her school. In general I think for most selective schools the stats piece is the first hoop to jump through, not what gets people in. What really distinguished her was all the "holistic admissions" stuff - she dedicated herself to an interesting range of ECs and was able to tie them together in her app via the essays in interesting and thoughtful ways. She was a bit of a unicorn in her school and that worked to her advantage. Her LORs were strong I believe, although I didn't read them I believe at least one of them was along the lines of "one of top students in my career" stuff. I don't know why she got in, but I would say that she demonstrated deep commitment to a few activities and interests in a way that came though as pretty authentic in her application.

Does anyone who isn't at Princeton use HYP this way? It seems like a way to pretend to not disclose a school while actually doing the exact opposite? Because who gets into Harvard and doesn't just say Harvard?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD entering freshman at HYP. No hooks - white UMC girl from northeast who is not an athlete or legacy and needs financial aid. Top 10% of her class - one of the top 3 publics in our state. Grades not perfect but strong throughout and she took the full "challenging" courseload. SAT strong but also not perfect, just at the average for her school. In general I think for most selective schools the stats piece is the first hoop to jump through, not what gets people in. What really distinguished her was all the "holistic admissions" stuff - she dedicated herself to an interesting range of ECs and was able to tie them together in her app via the essays in interesting and thoughtful ways. She was a bit of a unicorn in her school and that worked to her advantage. Her LORs were strong I believe, although I didn't read them I believe at least one of them was along the lines of "one of top students in my career" stuff. I don't know why she got in, but I would say that she demonstrated deep commitment to a few activities and interests in a way that came though as pretty authentic in her application.

Does anyone who isn't at Princeton use HYP this way? It seems like a way to pretend to not disclose a school while actually doing the exact opposite? Because who gets into Harvard and doesn't just say Harvard?

I'm the PP - so I thought it was totally weird too when I used to see parents do this, but have come to realize on anonymous boards it feels a little better than being specific about the school because I don't want my kid identified or recognized. I have no idea if other parents use this for same reason. In any case, the schools have nearly identical admission rates so for discussions like these reasonable to group them. And the message I was trying to convey, more than a specific thing about where my kid is going to school, is that the highly selective schools that use holistic admissions really do seem to care about more than just stats. Trying to figure out how to get your kid in based on someone else's application is probably not particularly fruitful because I really do believe that the kid who has been self directed and pursued things they really care about stands a better chance than the kid who has been pushed by a parent to achieve certain stats or pursue high visibility ECs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD entering freshman at HYP. No hooks - white UMC girl from northeast who is not an athlete or legacy and needs financial aid. Top 10% of her class - one of the top 3 publics in our state. Grades not perfect but strong throughout and she took the full "challenging" courseload. SAT strong but also not perfect, just at the average for her school. In general I think for most selective schools the stats piece is the first hoop to jump through, not what gets people in. What really distinguished her was all the "holistic admissions" stuff - she dedicated herself to an interesting range of ECs and was able to tie them together in her app via the essays in interesting and thoughtful ways. She was a bit of a unicorn in her school and that worked to her advantage. Her LORs were strong I believe, although I didn't read them I believe at least one of them was along the lines of "one of top students in my career" stuff. I don't know why she got in, but I would say that she demonstrated deep commitment to a few activities and interests in a way that came though as pretty authentic in her application.

Does anyone who isn't at Princeton use HYP this way? It seems like a way to pretend to not disclose a school while actually doing the exact opposite? Because who gets into Harvard and doesn't just say Harvard?

Anonymous wrote:DD entering freshman at HYP. No hooks - white UMC girl from northeast who is not an athlete or legacy and needs financial aid. Top 10% of her class - one of the top 3 publics in our state. Grades not perfect but strong throughout and she took the full "challenging" courseload. SAT strong but also not perfect, just at the average for her school. In general I think for most selective schools the stats piece is the first hoop to jump through, not what gets people in. What really distinguished her was all the "holistic admissions" stuff - she dedicated herself to an interesting range of ECs and was able to tie them together in her app via the essays in interesting and thoughtful ways. She was a bit of a unicorn in her school and that worked to her advantage. Her LORs were strong I believe, although I didn't read them I believe at least one of them was along the lines of "one of top students in my career" stuff. I don't know why she got in, but I would say that she demonstrated deep commitment to a few activities and interests in a way that came though as pretty authentic in her application.