Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How to get noticed by college admissions officers?

She'a already active in local Audubon and has won or placed in a few kids' birding contests. Bird stamp contest is a great idea--I should look into that for her. Research is a great idea for when she is a little older, but we're already active with things like Great Backyard Bird Count, backyard nestwatching, etc. We even had researchers come to our yard and mistnet and band, which was completely awesome. We are definitely doing the kid-oriented bird stuff that is available, and with gusto. All this is very easy for us since DH is really involved in this and enjoys it. But it is a true passion for her.

It would be great if someone sponsored a survey of parents of freshmen, to see a) what college their kids were accepted at, b) what scores c) what extracurriculars d) was legacy involved.

Yes, although as I know a teen with this passion I don't think it's all that unusual or weird. But it's helps to be able to show that you have done something with the passion. Work with the local Audubon society, join in with bird counts, submit her art to contests.

Do you mean a survey here? If you go to College Confidential there is a lot of information on that sight. My school system belongs to Naviance, an online tracking program, and it tell me a) & b) for our school. Although I am not sure how much it gives about extracurriculars.

I have to say, I would not visit College Confidential today. They did a major site upgrade last night, and it is really not too user friendly right now... I think they will be sorting out the issues for a while, particularly some things that make the new version pretty hard to read (formatting stuff that takes a while to fix). I would wait and visit in a couple of months.

Another thing one of my kids did was log data into Nestwatch (Cornell's site). If she had substantial effort invested in that, she could also take about that (and quantify it) on her apps. My kid's Nestwatch efforts were sort of minimal, so she didn't talk about it on her apps. But it would be a good thing for a kid who had made a solid investment of time over a few years.

I think the federal duck stamp art competition has a junior category. For some reason I can't get to the web page now, so I can't check the age ranges. But that could be another option.

I can't speak from a great deal of experience on admissions, however, having recently gone through the process of seeing my eldest DS apply for scholarships, it was really interesting how differently even state colleges within the same state weighted qualities, scores, activities, and other information / facts. The three state colleges where we lived were VERY much different. One focus on diversity, another on a couple of test scores and not much else, and the third was looking for an extremely well rounded student.

And "e) was a major financial donation involved?"

and,

if so, "f) how much money?"

DH mentioned that the head of his fundraising group donated a million in addition to her husband from another class, who donated a few million more and their son still didn't get accepted to Harvard. A few years earlier, he said a classmate that came from huge legacy, building named after an ancestor, had his father donated 10 million but they wouldn't let his daughter in unless she did another year at top boarding school and got better grades.


Curious if 100 million got you a free ride. I know someone who gave 150 million to Yale but have no idea what scores his kids had, but this was at least a decade ago.

Having interviewed for top 10 schools including Ivies for a number of years, my observations for "getting noticed" would be:
1) Have very strong test scores- at least 2250 or 2300 on SAT, 34 average ACT, Commended or national merit for PSAT, lots of 4s and 5s on AP tests.
2) Be in top 10% of competitive high school by GPA, GPA over 4.50 on a 4.0 scale.
3) Have interesting activities- esp. at national level. Founding a nonprofit, competing with robots at national level, etc.
4) Interesting essays.
5) Interesting person to interview.
Many kids have generic sounding activities- captain of tennis team, volunteer reading to kids at local library, etc. I doubt a lot of kids get in with major financial donations. You have to first have the stats (really high test scores and GPA) and second the activities. It's not enough to be a ballerina or fence; if you get in via sports, you have to be good enough to fence for Princeton, or wherever.

Be female and show soccer talent as an 8th-grader, so that you can fill the Title IX quota:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/s...r-a-college-then-starting-9th-grade.html
Committing to Play for a College, Then Starting 9th Grade
By NATHANIEL POPPER
New York Times
JAN. 26, 2014

SANFORD, Fla. — Before Haley Berg was done with middle school, she had the numbers for 16 college soccer coaches programmed into the iPhone she protected with a Justin Bieber case.

She was all of 14, but Hales, as her friends call her, was already weighing offers to attend the University of Colorado, Texas A&M and the University of Texas, free of charge.

Haley is not a once-in-a-generation talent like LeBron James. She just happens to be a very good soccer player, and that is now valuable enough to set off a frenzy among college coaches, even when — or especially when — the athlete in question has not attended a day of high school. For Haley, the process ended last summer, a few weeks before ninth grade began, when she called the coach at Texas to accept her offer of a scholarship four years later.

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I wish the young woman the best, and the picture of her with her little sister is adorable. But do colleges know she meets their academic standards before she has even started high school?