Have you seen this essay from the WSJ? How not to get into college...

[Jane in NC]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123007804405131707.html

This was printed in the WSJ during the holiday hubbub, so I don't remember if it was mentioned or discussed here. Anyway, it is a good reminder on the advantage that some of our non-robotic kids have.

[Nicole M]

I hadn't seen that one. But just last night our dinner guests were telling us about a book that had some examples of essays that would not get you into college, so I wondered if this article would give the example I heard. A young man apparently wrote his essay about hunting. He didn't talk about bonding with his dad or enjoying nature, but simply about how much he loved to kill animals. Um. Nice.

But in all seriousness, thank you for posting this.

[Jackie in NE]

I love the WSJ. This is a good reminder for me to NOT micromanage the application process when the time comes.....

Thanks for posting.

[4wildberrys]

Wow---great! It sure gives us hope living in our small, mountain town SO removed from the rest of society and all the current trends in CC, AP classes, co-ops etc!! :D

[HollyinNNV]

Great article!
Holly

[Deece in MN]

Thanks for posting this! It was a nice shot in the arm for me today as I have been questioning our approach.
My dc may not be the most accomplished when it comes to their college apps, but I know they won't be a carbon copy of every other kid who applies. :)

[Beth in SW WA]

Thanks, Jane.

Ironically, it was my one thank-you note to the admissions officer at WWU 20 years ago that helped seal the deal -- so I could start in the Fall even though I didn't meet all the requirements (due to switching schools in 10th).

He called my house and said that because of my thank-you note (hand-written by me on pretty pink stationary w/ a Bible verse across the bottom) he was inviting me in the Fall, rather than Winter after I took a class I needed locally at our cc.

Either way, I only wrote 1 note -- not 8!

[Cindyg]

I might have a hard time getting in to college.

For one thing, I love semicolons and use them frequently. I've taught my son to do the same.

And the application question, "If you were a song, what would you sing?" that just leaves me baffled. I couldn't answer that. Songs don't sing. A better question might be, "What song would you sing to summarize your mood right now?" or "What song would you sing to tell us something about your personality?" In addition, I don't follow popular music. I doubt I could come up with the name of any song that would mean anything to the interviewer.

However, in the final sentence, the word whoa did resonate with me: "Whoa. Be yourself."

[Jackie in AR]

I might have a hard time getting in to college.

For one thing, I love semicolons and use them frequently. I've taught my son to do the same.


I found the semi-colon comment very odd; she seems to assume high school students don't know how to properly use them.

Other than that, it was a great article!

[Home'scool]

The other day I was talking to my 14 yo daughter about an applicant I had read about. This applicant had top grades, a full extracurricular schedule, and had done a bunch of volunteer/community stuff.

My daughter was a little taken aback and said "When does he get a chance to just live?"

My answer was that was his life. The secret to getting into the colleges is to foster a full, rich, challenging life and then get busy living it.

You shouldn't join a club because you think it will look good on your application. You will drag yourself through every hour spent there and feel exhausted at the end of the day. You should join a club that you love, that motivates you, and then when you spend 20 hours a week there you have enjoyed your life and done something that can look good on your application.

I think our job is not to package our kids for college, but to help them develop a rich full life. That life will then look great on applications. But fostering the life comes first, not the other way around.

Parents make the mistake of either forcing their kids to do things just so they can have stuff on their applications, or the equally big mistake of not helping them foster anything because they are afraid of stretching them thin.

The truly successful applicants are the ones who do have a ton of academic and extracurricular successes on their transcripts, but those items are there because the kid was pursuing a passion or a goal.

Take care of the little stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself.

[Gwen in VA]

Home'scool --

:iagree:

That was wonderfully said. I totally agree. Amen. Our goal is to educate our children's minds, bodies, and spirits, not to get them into college. The college acceptance should flow from who they are.

About the comment "Songs can't sing.....", I know at least one person who wrote a (successful) college application essay dissecting the essay question. That approach could easily come across negatively so I would use it with caution, but the goal is to be yourself on the application -- so if that is your child's approach, he should do it!

On one of the long-answer questions on the AP English language exam last year, my son had no ideas (the question involved knowledge of SCHOOLS that he did not have) so he wrote an essay critiquing the underlying assumption behind the question. He did well on the exam.....:D:D

[Katia]

The other day I was talking to my 14 yo daughter about an applicant I had read about. This applicant had top grades, a full extracurricular schedule, and had done a bunch of volunteer/community stuff.

My daughter was a little taken aback and said "When does he get a chance to just live?"

My answer was that was his life. The secret to getting into the colleges is to foster a full, rich, challenging life and then get busy living it.

You shouldn't join a club because you think it will look good on your application. You will drag yourself through every hour spent there and feel exhausted at the end of the day. You should join a club that you love, that motivates you, and then when you spend 20 hours a week there you have enjoyed your life and done something that can look good on your application.

I think our job is not to package our kids for college, but to help them develop a rich full life. That life will then look great on applications. But fostering the life comes first, not the other way around.

Parents make the mistake of either forcing their kids to do things just so they can have stuff on their applications, or the equally big mistake of not helping them foster anything because they are afraid of stretching them thin.

The truly successful applicants are the ones who do have a ton of academic and extracurricular successes on their transcripts, but those items are there because the kid was pursuing a passion or a goal.

Take care of the little stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself.

I love this post! It is so good and so true....I read it aloud to my dd. She and I agree totally with everything in here.

Last year, my dd belonged to a hs co-op that had classes, drama, etc. When we would get up in the morning, she would groan and say, "Do we have to go to .....?" Well, we had made the commitment so we went....but she was obviously dragging herself through every hour there (sound familiar?).

OTOH, she sang in the cc choir and on those days would jump out of bed, rush to get as much of her schoolwork done as she could then proceed to get out the door on time...she would come back simply glowing from this class.

Needless to say this year we dropped the co-op and stuck with the choir. Dd is happier than I've ever seen her....and she's found other things to be involved in that make her happy, not things that others think she should be doing. It has made all the difference in her attitude. She is now living her life and happy with it.

I hope that shows up on her college applications next year. :D

[Kelli in TN]

I wonder if my steadfast refusal to help my daughter "prep" for the group discussions and the interviews may have been what helped her get into the Scholars program? She was so angry at me and told me "All the other parents practiced with their kids but you refused." I kept saying "Just represent your views to the best of your ability."

And she got in. Hmmmmm, maybe authenticity really is what they want.:D

[Nan in Mass]

I definately "packaged". I had to make the mishmash of things we did look more or less like a standard transcript so that the college had some way of comparing my son to the other applicants. I also had to find ways to list the odder things in a standard-looking way on the transcript. I did it by using descriptive course titles and lots of footnotes explaining and a cover letter that explained how I had "translated" the information. It was only the paperwork that I translated, though. At the interview, my son looked and sounded like himself - ponytail, earrings, and all. He's incurably honest, tactful but honest. He would have been very hard to package GRIN.
-Nan

[Kelli in TN]

I definately "packaged". I had to make the mishmash of things we did look more or less like a standard transcript so that the college had some way of comparing my son to the other applicants. I also had to find ways to list the odder things in a standard-looking way on the transcript. I did it by using descriptive course titles and lots of footnotes explaining and a cover letter that explained how I had "translated" the information. It was only the paperwork that I translated, though. At the interview, my son looked and sounded like himself - ponytail, earrings, and all. He's incurably honest, tactful but honest. He would have been very hard to package GRIN.
-Nan

My parts of the application were "packaged" too. Mostly because I was concerned that all of these other kids were going to have packets from their public and private schools that had been put together by guidance counselors that do this as part of their job every day. How was a homeschool mom going to compete with that? Some friends from here on the boards helped me word, reword, reword, and reword the counselor's letter to make it sound good. It was all honest, they just helped me clean up phrases. They also gave me some advice on some of Sarah's wording in her essay, as did her English major sister. But we made sure that it was Sarah's voice.

But like your son, when Sarah went to competition weekend it was all her. I could not have prepared her for it if I'd wanted to. When she left us out in the lobby to go into the interview room, she was on her own.

[Gwen in VA]

Ditto here. I wanted the guidance couselor / transcript part of the package to be as "normal' as possible so the college could not (legitimately) question the caliber of my kids' education.

But the rest of the package was all theirs. Their distinctive personalities, passions, and style were all over their application. Our attitude was that if the college wanted them, great, and if the college didn't want them, they probably wouldn't have been happy there!