Anonymous wrote:Yes and no. My kid ran a successful business for years - it was his passion and we did help with marketing a little (not his strength) and with his tax filings and investments but honestly we could not do what he did - his technical knowledge far surpasses ours. So it was totally his thing and the way he made money. That said, he was rejected at almost everywhere despite being at the top of his class so I wouldnt recommend starting a business to impress an AO, at least in our experience.

Sounds like you didn't apply to any realistic safety schools.

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Anonymous wrote:I was just reading the Linkedin profiles of a few kids from area high schools who were accepted to Ivies this cycle and several set up national level projects in 8th grade.

My 8th grader is not capable of complex web design, canvasing hundreds if not thousands of people, etc. There is zero way kids think of this on their own and then execute things.

Exactly! My smart middle school kid goes to sports 5x per week. He is very athletic. He hangs out with his friends and watches YouTube. He loves to ski, fish and is an excellent golfer. None of his hobbies are really solid for a college app. It would have been 30 years ago.

Business owner here. Tell him to keep up the golf. If he's good and he knows how to socialize, this will probably help him in the real world more than the college name on his resume!

He is a great golfer for his age. He will be joining his high school golf team.

Yes and no. My kid ran a successful business for years - it was his passion and we did help with marketing a little (not his strength) and with his tax filings and investments but honestly we could not do what he did - his technical knowledge far surpasses ours. So it was totally his thing and the way he made money. That said, he was rejected at almost everywhere despite being at the top of his class so I wouldnt recommend starting a business to impress an AO, at least in our experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just reading the Linkedin profiles of a few kids from area high schools who were accepted to Ivies this cycle and several set up national level projects in 8th grade.

My 8th grader is not capable of complex web design, canvasing hundreds if not thousands of people, etc. There is zero way kids think of this on their own and then execute things.

Exactly! My smart middle school kid goes to sports 5x per week. He is very athletic. He hangs out with his friends and watches YouTube. He loves to ski, fish and is an excellent golfer. None of his hobbies are really solid for a college app. It would have been 30 years ago.

Business owner here. Tell him to keep up the golf. If he's good and he knows how to socialize, this will probably help him in the real world more than the college name on his resume!

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Anonymous wrote:My kindergartener has a nonprofit with a pretty good online advertising team.

Hoping to direct admit to HBS after 2nd grade

My sixth grader is a board member of three of his peers’ non profits.

My fourth grader had to do a hostile takeover of a friend’s non profit. They were too far behind metrics.

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Anonymous wrote:Not always a ruse. My DS started a sneaker resale biz during covid lockdown using allowance money. After about $5k, he asked for money to scale. We made him do a business plan and gave him a small boost, but that was the extent of it. He was also the youth member on an actual board of an actual large non-profit. Also on his own. Can never say those things got him into college, but he applied to only T20 schools and got into 9 of them. Would chalk it up more to looking like he took initiative to do something during covid at all.

Not sure what you mean by actual - as if it’s impressive? Lots of places intended for adults have a token spot for a youth member.

"Actual" meaning reputable and known, and not made up for a college application. No impressive, just legit. Yes, many do have youth members, but you still have to be asked, which usually means you did something to be asked.

Anonymous wrote:I have been reading about some of the non profits, charities and businesses these high school students supposedly founded and I can’t help but be wary that the parents had to have helped. I have a 14 year old who will be starting high school this fall. We have the resources to do this type of activities but it would be mostly Dh and me. Is this what we need for our kid to get into a good college?

My son is a strong student and athlete.

An acquaintance of mine set one up for their child. It just happens to be related to the father's work as a high-level exec in the entertainment industry. I wondered if he had just made some tweaks to one that one of his friends had done. It seems so implausible that a kid could or would set something like this up on their own that it's laughable.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes in elementary school get wuth the times dear

Doh. So the pp above who said I was three years late was not kidding.

Ugh. I feel like I have to start these with my son this summer. I also have another kid in middle school and one in elementary.

They’re kidding. You’re fine.

But the part about starting to set these up now is real, right?

I want to leave it up to my kids but they will likely be totally shut out. We have resources to help.

NO. Besides, by the time your kid is a junior, everything will change.

Ask parents who developed well-rounded kids and ended up in a "pointy person" application world.
Ask parents who wasted their kid's time and $$$$ on test prep and wound up in a test optional world.
Ask parents who paid for super expensive "service trips" and "college experiences" and applied in a world were those were seen as pay to play scams.
Ask parents who used a college consultant who swore by the side-door, and then spent time in prison.
Ask parent who tried to do everything" right" by their kids and had kids apply in a world where immutable characteristics were most important.

Give your child the gift of a childhood. Give them experiences and support they things THEY become genuinely interested in. Let them be real people and the colleges will see them for who they are. Authenticity will be the next 'big ticket' to college.

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Anonymous wrote:These projects are nothing more than the high school version of the second grade science project. Parent conceived, directed and constructed, with a tiny bit of help from the child. Because those are the projects that win!!!

OP here. DH and I had no help from our parents. My son did Science Olympiad and some of the build events were insane. I doubt my child will ever win one of these competitions on a national level. He placed 5-10th place on several events but that is just states.

When my kid was in 4th grade, his class had to do projects on the Titanic, the Terrcotta Army, (and something else - I can't remember). My son made some sort of poster on the Titanic, but kids from his class had giant 3-D models that had been professionally built. It was ridiculous -- and clearly obvious it had not been created by the student.

I don't know a single HS kid who has a non-profit or start-up, yet I keep hearing about it like it's ubiquitous. I think it's all on paper.

I know a HS kid who had a start up. He created some sort of innovative dog collar, was a participant in something like a shark tank for young inventors. Great test scores and grades otherwise. No bite from the Ivies, but got into Carnegie Mellon.