APPLYING TO THE MOST SELECTIVE COLLEGES IS A DIFFERENT GAME!

The private extremely selective colleges make admission decisions in a way you may not recognize. Remember, we are talking about the most competitive colleges, especially the private colleges and universities. Understand, please, that many in-depth articles and books are published about this process, often adding good insights; this is a very basic introduction to selective admission.

Here is the game:  Selective colleges BUILD A CLASS!

Let me be cold blooded and real. Suppose you have great grades and great SAT scores and you are applying to Yale, Brown, Penn, Wesleyan, and Swarthmore. You have looked at the academic freshman profile and you are in the top half. You're in, right? Not necessarily! Because a great majority of the kids who apply have great grades and great SAT scores, nothing is certain. These colleges are overwhelmed with smart applicants who have worked hard and have taken care to succeed in high school! If you are a hyper scholar with academic prizes and awards, your academic record may be enough; but for most people, great grades and test scores just get them into the pile of people to be seriously considered.

So, how do these colleges decide? They build a class! This means that they look at your academic record very carefully (in relation to the quality of your high school and in relation to the other kids who apply from your school), read your essay, look at your recommendations, look at your accomplishments and talents, read the notes they wrote after the interview with you… and decide if you fill a slot, a want they have for the class.

What do they want?

• They want kids interested in different majors,
• they want runners,
• they want oboeists,
• they want poets,
• they want choral singers,
• they want lacrosse players,
• they want community activists,
• they want traditional leaders of their high schools,
• they want leaders who created a Republican club,
• they want leaders who created a gay alliance club,
• they want kids who started a chapter of Amnesty International,
• they want folk singers,
• they want computer geeks who make more money consulting than their parents,
• they want kids who spent three summers pouring their hearts and souls into a poor community in Haiti,
• they want photographers,
• they want artists,
• they want kids who perform arias,
• they want kids who tortured their math teachers with calculus questions the teachers couldn't answer,
• they want kids who have performed in Guys and Dolls,
• they want kids who performed in the Laramie Project,
• they want future doctors and lawyers,
• they want cellists who played at Lincoln Center,
• they want future anthropologists,
• they want kids who will teach in Harlem,
• they want concert pianists,
• they want basketball players,
• they want kids who are business hotshots who will work for big banks, spend a few years on the President's Council of Economic Advisors, and donate huge sums to the college,
• they want hip hop artists,
• they want kids from Taiwan, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Argentina and 35 other countries,
• they want kids from the inner city,
• they want kids from the suburbs who have used their privilege to develop an interest or greatly contribute to others,
• they want kids who have written a short biography of 50 family members, going back several generations; going back to sharecropper days,
• they want kids who arrived on a boat, poor and unable to speak English, and now, only a few years later, are on the top of their high school class,
• they want kids who threw their souls into an election and they want kids who didn't (but who wrote a published article about the existential angst of looking for meaning in a pluralistic society dominated by corporate greed),
• they want kids who worked on an ecological project to save a forest in Hungary,
• they want kids from a tiny town in Wyoming who read and write poetry and communicate with poets in New York and San Francisco,
• they want kids who have read Kant, Hegel, and Locke and can articulate the historical and philosophical threads to Sartre and Camus and maybe Susan Sontag,
• they want patriotic kids and anarchists,
• they want kids who have worked to help support their families (and won't expect these kids to have many extra curricular activities),
• they want kids who rap on street corners in LA,
• they want kids who perform in poetry jams,
• they want kids whose claim to be scientists are substantiated by the two advanced Biology classes they took at their high school, the Biology class at the local college, and their summer job at a biotech firm,
• they want kids who are captains of teams,
• they want kids who have never been to an athletic event but who consistently attend lectures at the local bookstore,
• they want kids who speak three languages,
• they want,
• they want,
• they want…

THEY WANT KIDS WITH PASSION, kids who have found interests and have thrown themselves into something for a long time and yes, are masters of their interest. They want kids who are an inch wide and a mile deep — not necessarily well-rounded kids. They want lopsided kids and a balanced class.

Kids who attend these types of schools tell a similar tale:  “It seems everyone here brings a huge amount of something.”

One student, (while talking online to another new student the summer before they started as freshmen), received this almost sarcastic question:  “Well, what massive skill do you bring?”

THAT IS IT! What do you bring and offer? That TICKET will make the difference.

Need proof? This from a letter of admission to one of these selective schools:

“Congratulations! And welcome to the class of 2009!”

“The Admission Committee has completed its decisions – and we are excited by the results. We were happy to see another record number of applications, but we were even more delighted with the quality of our pool and of the admitted class. Once again, we are welcoming students with sterling academic records and impressive personal talents and achievements: National Merit and National Achievement finalists; National Hispanic Scholars; Intel Science Competition finalists; published poets and writers and winners of the National Council of Teachers of English award; nationally ranked athletes; debate champions; musicians who have performed with national symphonies; plus award-winning artists; social activists; entrepreneurs; community volunteers; student leaders … And the class displays astonishing diversity: geographic (all 50 states and 30 countries), ethnic, socio-economic, and religious.”

“As you know, ours is a community which is enriched by the strengths of each member. We look forward to your participation in, and your contribution to, our academic and extracurricular endeavors. We believe you, in turn, will find support for your intellectual and personal development during this important period in your life.”

Do you hear it?  “Well, what massive skill do you bring?”

Colleges want a diverse and special blend of people. The blend will have unique characteristics for each school. If you are an experienced and perceptive college traveler you will see and feel very different things on two apparently similar campuses. Two schools that have very high grade and SAT averages, with 90% of the kids coming from the top 20% of their high school class, can be incredibly different. One might be filled with competitive kids with many on the path to investment banking houses on Wall Street. The second school (same stellar profile) may have an iconoclast tone set by the students who write and perform in plays and sing in cafes. Both schools will want and will have everything, but there is a trend and a tone for you to discover.

If you are accepted to these schools, the MOST important factor is: Do you really fit there … is this the right school for you?