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

In my neck of the woods, leadership is measured by how many starups a highschooler started and sold for millions - basically serial enterpreneurship. There is even a private progressive girl's middle school focusing on STEM and startups as part of the curriculum

Related thread from 2010:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/81549
Teenage Entrepreneurs (WSJ)

Ashley, you raise an interesting point, regarding serial entrepreneurs. What is de rigueur in one area may be foreign in another area where it may represent thinking outside the box, relative to the local cultural norms.

Of course, starting your own NPO shows a laudable amount of community service as well as "leadership" so there is that. Really a lot of bang for the buck there.

*burrows deeper under scrapheap*

*shares Val's snack*

There is a surfeit of students who can do the academic work at the Ivies. If you accept students entirely according to an academic index derived from high school grades and test scores, applicants will obsess even more over those measures. If you give points for starting a business or an NGO or publishing scientific research, you encourage effort in those areas. Some of the accomplishments will be phony, but some will be real. Overall I think Ivy admissions should be more academically focused, but there are trade-offs to doing so, and the prestige and ever-increasing wealth of Harvard et al. suggest that these institutions know what they are doing.

If you assume that people are self-interested and will try to game any system created, you will not despair and burrow under a scrap heap.

I teach at a highly ranked(top 25) national university. Our admissions office is looking for strong academics AND extra activities that demonstrate deep involvement in one or more areas of real interest. Trying to be "well-rounded" with superficial involvement in a gazillion clubs and activities is less impressive.

Also, keep in mind that most colleges want a mix of talents each year. If we don't admit any violinists, what happens to the orchestra? We have talent scholarships for musicians, debaters, entrepreneurs, dancers, actors, visual artists etc. Depending on the college, students may not need to be planning to major in music, for example, to benefit in admissions by being a musician.

Our school offers a minor in dance (no major) but has a hand full of talent scholarships for dance. Every year we have accomplished dancers (ballet and other forms) performing in the dance company. They enjoy continuing dance in college before heading to Medical School, graduate school, and various careers.
Many other students don't receive talent scholarships, but may have helped their admission with the talents and interests they demonstrated.

Um, actually, this makes me want to burrow even farther under the scrapheap.

Signed, Hopeless Idealist

Yup, that is one of the local schools churning out self made multimillionaire high school grads who are already "leading" the world with their enterpreneurship and are busy maxing SATs and selling their startups for $200 millions.

Here is another story from the local high schools :
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/12/11/teen-whose-first-idea-sold-for-200m.html?

And high schools have "startup incubators" these days:
http://news.harker.org/students-sta...al-already-receiving-fantastic-response/

There's a causality problem here, because going to Harvard or Yale often leads one to riches and/or fame... but those qualities are often necessary to attend in the first place.


Yes, the supremacy of sociopathic greed in our society comforts me like a cup of warm milk.