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> Today, do any colleges even consider this? In the time you work flipping burgers, you could just as easily become leader of 12 after-school activities that lo

by noahlt 16y ago

> Today, do any colleges even consider this? In the time you work flipping burgers, you could just as easily become leader of 12 after-school activities that look "impressive" on a resume. Most college application forms have, in addition to after-school activities, a section for employment history. I don't know how much it counts for, but it's not ignored.

wnewman 16y ago
Noahlt wrote "Today, do any colleges even consider this?" It probably depends on the school. Perhaps in some pretty perverse ways. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Espenshade and Radford study yet. It's quoted at e.g. http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=28258 http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=28258 . Apparently "Being an officer or winning awards 'for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, 'has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions.' Excelling in these activities 'is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission.'" The scuttlebutt I'd heard is that Caltech was and is the highly selective school most interested in straight-up academic performance. Anecdotally in the 1980s my grades and SATs and decent MAA contest score and after-school job writing PDP-11 and Z-80 assembly language got me into Caltech, but they sure didn't impress Stanford or MIT. My brother had similar academic qualifications and test scores, but did a lot of photography and ran the yearbook instead of doing much programming, and he got into MIT the next year. Caltech was my first choice anyway, but my father was an enthusiastic Stanford alumnus, and he was grouchy about me not being admitted. Around my sophomore year at Caltech he sent me a clipping from the alumni newspaper lamenting how Stanford did poorly in the Putnam math contest (http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam.html http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam.html) and suggesting that alongside all the other baskets for people with nonacademic qualifications, the admissions office create a basket for people who are just extremely academically impressive.

by noahlt 16y ago

wnewman 16y ago

Noahlt wrote "Today, do any colleges even consider this?" It probably depends on the school. Perhaps in some pretty perverse ways. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Espenshade and Radford study yet. It's quoted at e.g. http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=28258 http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=28258 . Apparently "Being an officer or winning awards 'for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, 'has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions.' Excelling in these activities 'is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission.'" The scuttlebutt I'd heard is that Caltech was and is the highly selective school most interested in straight-up academic performance. Anecdotally in the 1980s my grades and SATs and decent MAA contest score and after-school job writing PDP-11 and Z-80 assembly language got me into Caltech, but they sure didn't impress Stanford or MIT. My brother had similar academic qualifications and test scores, but did a lot of photography and ran the yearbook instead of doing much programming, and he got into MIT the next year. Caltech was my first choice anyway, but my father was an enthusiastic Stanford alumnus, and he was grouchy about me not being admitted. Around my sophomore year at Caltech he sent me a clipping from the alumni newspaper lamenting how Stanford did poorly in the Putnam math contest (http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam.html http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam.html) and suggesting that alongside all the other baskets for people with nonacademic qualifications, the admissions office create a basket for people who are just extremely academically impressive.