Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Ivy League Admissions.

I think this summer will be different, in that most of the things DD has looked at have thought ahead and included plans for remote work... some of the applications include an area where you have to indicate your willingness to stay in the program if it indeed becomes all remote. But they have had a year to prepare, and so have the students. My DDs research experience with remote research stuff has been relatively good, all things considered. She is missing out on certain things for sure, but has been able to learn and grow in other, unexpected ways. And at least right now, and for the near future, that has been better than she (and we) expected.
If I were making college decisions right now, I would try and get a good sense of how well the college adapted, how flexible have they been, how accommodating to their students’ needs? (Obviously balancing that with the faculty needs, community needs, all the support staff...). My two kids’ experiences have been pretty different- both ok, but quite different in approach, communication, etc.

after a follow up meeting with the consultant, not feeling so negative. Actually, I am more impressed with DD and thinking it was just sales technique.

Also, the reason I wanted to write. They have this whole division with professors/corporations that they can connect kids to do "papers" or internships. As mentioned, DD was a semifinalist in Technovation Challenge last year. Again participating. Someone from Google asked to be her mentor this year. I asked how is this different? She has to think of an app, build the app, write the business plan and pitch. She gets help from a Google mentor and launches an app. -- answer is that she will need all these sign ups to show it is real. And I am thinking how is that different than some given internship they provide from their contacts? And DD got this on her own?

And the research -- working with a professor so they can say they contributed to some paper that was published. Seriously. DD goes to UNC-W, (cancelled for 2020) and does diving and research with professors. Not published papers but how does that not count?

I think this is so ridiculous and canned. and of course $17K. But it is interesting to hear all this. I would think that DD's stuff is authentic and real and focused on her interests. How can colleges not see through this?

So forget fake athletic stuff, now it is "internships" and "research projects" with professors that somehow come out in time for application.

Did anyone see the stats on ED? Harvard had almost double the applications. And went down from about 950 in 2018, to 850 in 2019 to 750. So from 2019 to 2020 14% to 7%, approx. I don't have it in front of me. Also, from over 10,000 over 8,000 got deferred, so they were Harvard material, just not in the top 7%. And less than 1000 were rejected. So less than 10% were not Harvard material. Those are quite overwhelming. Now 350 got admitted in 2019 and deferred due to covid or whatever, so they took less in. And if they used an athletic spot in 2019 and deferred, the coach could not use that athletic spot in 2020. I could not get a breakdown between legacy/athletic etc. First time college kids were up a few percentage points. So if you are from middle class and up, great student, but no major hooks (like starting a world wide movement in girls education) in your ECs, then you are in the group of 8,000+. Can you imagine? 8,000 that are Harvard material and deferred? And think of the students applying to Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton. Very tough out there.

Maybe next year more students will apply to Yale or Columbia instead. It was like Harvard was the favorite flavor and no one thought strategically.

I wrote about this on College Confidential a year ago saying that people should use game theory and consider not applying to Harvard EA. My rationale was that Princeton dropped its EA program, and I believed (correctly) that most of them would EA to Harvard.

I think it's the test optional issue that has caused such a rise in applications to the HYPSM schools and other T-20 schools during the EA/ED round and likely the RD round as well once the numbers all come out. Do communicate with the GC often and well, especially if you are planning to apply EA or ED... it's much less stressful if you are first in line to get your stuff uploaded to Naviance/CommonApp/Coalition.

This whole consulting industry craze is a bit ridiculous to me. According to DD17, most of her cohort at her school have been paying for consulting services. We were actually offered a couple of hours of free service via my alma mater but we did not use it so I definitely wasn't going to pay for it. DD17 initially felt disadvantaged (she is my worrywart) but as it turned out, she was one of the very few in our district (much less our school) who were admitted Early Action into a HYPSM.

As for internships, in our experience some have continued online or will be converted to another at a later time.

Quantum, did your DD do SAT? I was reading on CC and it seemed that many who did the SAT got in. It was a comment made. Not sure of how accurate the comment was.

As for internships, not sure how useful it is, if it is 6 months from now. Though DD seems to be finding all kinds of cool stuff that works for her profile.

Yes, DD took the SAT and scored high but actually slightly lower than a bunch of classmates who scored in the 1570+ range (including DS) but were deferred from their HYPSM. On the other hand, she only took it once (since 7th grade) and didn't bother prepping as she had too many other things on her plate.

As for internships, it is what it is. DS landed a significant paid internship that was cancelled but may convert to next summer, which is too late for admissions but then that was not why he applied. Of course, I understand where you are coming from - DS was deferred from his EA HYPSM and it is possible that this internship could have made the difference. Your DD is taking the right approach in finding other things to fill the void.

are your dd and ds twins? They both applied this year? What do you think was different in your DD's app compared to your DS? It sounds like she had something unique.

Yes. Sorry, sometimes I forget and create confusion. To be fair, they apply to two different schools but both are part of the HYPSM group. Aside from high intellectual ability (both DYS but only DS SET), they have completely different profiles. It's also early days because we are still awaiting decisions from the RD schools. I will say this, DD is a talented writer and editor (many awards) and the essays are an
important way to stand out from the crowd. I am not sure about unique, but DD has accomplishments/recognition in both STEM and humanities as she is trying to combine them in her college and future career path. Overall, DD is artistic and even her resume/CV was a thing of beauty (graphic design wise) and she really knows how to promote herself. DS, on the other hand, put in maybe one-fourth of her effort (and last minite) into his EA college app and I realized after reviewing it neglected to mention some awards/achievements because they were lesser than the ones he included or he just forgot because they weren't important to him.