The Super Applicants

[DFW HOYA]

Some of these kids' accomplishments are really over the top.

nymag.com/news/features/24398/

(By contrast, I entered Georgetown with an 1180 SAT, spent summers mowing lawns and watching baseball games (as opposed to, say, biomedical research or building villages in India), and my major HS extracurricular was probably cropping photos and writing taglines for the school yearbook.

The way you read about these uber-driven applicants, I don't think that would get me in junior college today. )

[Jack]

Just what the world needs, another article to hype the difficulty of competition to get into top colleges and raise anxiety levels in Mamaroneck.

I could not be bothered to read all of those cases, but I assure you there are still plenty of kids who are getting into Georgetown (and even Harvard) who mow lawns and scoop ice cream during the summer. Certainly the academic compotent has gotten more competitive since 1981, and the extracurricular stuff does get ratcheted up in certain markets, but the idea that you have to be win a Grammy or cure cancer to get into college helps no one.

[JimmyHoya]

The problem is, people can write they interned at some place with a 13 word title with 9 different adjectives all with at least 4 syllabals and 3 foreign, pretentious sounding names and yet it's all the same xeroxing.

[LizziebethHoya]

The funny thing is, mowing lawns and scooping ice cream is so unusual now that its turning into an advantage again.

I lifeguarded at an inner-city pool for 3 summers...and my parents are making my bro and sis do the exact same thing. I learned more there than I could have at any high school internship.

[HoyaInsomniac]

I do alumni interviews for Admissions and while it's great for some kids to do 43718381574 things, it's even better when they can talk intelligently and deeply about one thing in particular that really interests them. Most people have plenty of interests, but it's passion that will get you into Georgetown. I tend to give more weight to the kids who do one thing consistently and well rather than to the kids who just want name recognition.

[reformation]

Acouple of thoughts:
1)I think it would be more interesting to see what happens to these overachievers 5 yrs from now--there was a great british documentary series 7up/14up/21up etc that tracked kids every 7 years--someone should do this kind of thing in the US
2)Gtwn did not seem to be high on any of these kids lists--though only a couple of the kids seemed really distinctive rather than just piling on a ton of extracurriculars

[HealyHoya]

Ridiculous. I mean, whatever happened to the good ol' days of just buying your kids way into a top/ivy league school? I miss those simpler times...