How to Get Your Kid Into a Top School--Part 3

Here is a list of things I think the best schools actually care about:

"Good enough" test scores (on the ACT, I suspect anything above a 32 is good enough. There is no need to continually retake it in an attempt to get a 35 or 36). Since I live in the West, where the ACT is the standard, I don't think I could say accurately what the SAT scores are for an equivalent here? 700's?

"Good enough" grades in school, with an occasional B or C in a class your child did not like—a perfectly normal and reasonable decision to make. I would estimate a 3.8 is good enough on average, but I'm sure it varies. I suspect that a kid who has a "D" in one class and then outstanding grades in all the others is actually doing themselves a favor. That one "D" speaks volumes about the teacher, not about the kid. And it makes for great conversation at an interview. Be prepared to talk about it, not defensively, but with dignity and humility.

Hard classes. The focus on getting good grades in all classes tends to train kids to want to take classes they know they can get an A in. This is an extremely bad habit. Taking hard classes every year and dealing with lower grades or perhaps excelling is going to make your child stand out. On the other hand, there is probably no need to take hard classes that are not interesting to your kid.

AP classes are in my opinion the standard of the best teachers and best curriculum in the national high school world. I have seen even mediocre teachers rise to the challenge of AP material and get kids to pass. The earlier your kids take AP classes, the earlier they are learning the level of college material they will need to study. Passing the tests is less important. It's the class that matters. And no, in my opinion CE classes are not nearly as rigorous.

Real hobbies, without a stamp of approval from the adult world. If your kid is making great youtube videos, don't think that telling them to join the swim team is going to be better. Passion is what schools are looking for. Kids with passion change the world.

A narrow interest in only one field. This may not be what every college is looking for, but there are specialty colleges that may be even better for your child. If you have a child who is great in art and lousy at math and science, you may do that child a disservice to insist on tutoring in math and science. You may be better off finding a great art mentor for your child and then building an incredible portfolio of stunning artwork. If your child is great in one area, it can make up for a lot of deficiencies, at college and in real life.

Teach your kids to write essays with their own voice (as per yesterday's post).

A normal social life. Despite the idea of Tiger Mothering, dictating too much of your child's time to academic or other pursuits can backfire on you. Don't insist that they go into any one particular activity, but encourage their own pursuits. If they have friends over to play Pokemon or Starcraft, that is building community and it will serve them well in college and in life. You may be surprised to discover that these interests may help rather than hurt their chances to get into a top college.

Hard work and focus on what really matters, not jumping through hoops. If your child chooses to take more academic classes instead of the ones more and more ridiculously required for graduation, guess what? It is likely that the college will not care and may not even notice. High school graduation matters a lot less now than it did in the past. Just make sure you are up front about this. You can say your child is partly home-schooled, which they are. All good parents are homeschooling.

Real social awareness. Participating in bogus service projects a thousand times is worth less than one real moment when your child sees someone in need and gives up a coat or a sandwich. It may make you crazy to replace the coat, but I believe that you can tell the difference between kids who see other people and kids who don't.

Hope was not the valedictorian of her school. I hold no grudges against the young man who was, who had a 4.0 and fewer AP classes and got into a less prestigious undergraduate institution. But I also told her not to focus on trying to annoy teachers into giving her the A rather than the A- because it didn't matter. Hope took 12 AP tests in her three years of high school (9th grade is in the junior high in our part of Utah). She also took numerous college classes from the local university while she was enrolled in her junior and senior years.

What about extracurricular activities? Hope was in orchestra and swim team her sophomore year, but she dropped both her junior year because she didn't have time for them. She got a job with her father's company as an intern over the summer and during the school year and learned computer programming in the real world. She became a certified Labview programmer. Was she ultra-focused on computers? Yes, she was. That's what she wants to do with her life? Did she have a patent pending, as she was worried that so many other MIT applicants had? No. She did spend time with the Lego League of another school, using her programming skills because she was genuinely interested in that.

In general, Hope did things she wanted to do. She did not have a long list of service projects she was involved in. She is sincerely dedicated to her church and she worked hard in or out of the leadership there. She was also involved in doing triathlons with our family. She was equally involved in visiting England to see David Tennant and Catherine Tate (two of her heroes from Doctor Who) in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. She crocheted a doll of David Tennant as Doctor Who and wrote about what crocheting had taught her about her real life. One of the professors who read that essay told Hope that of all the students he had known at MIT, her essay gave him the best picture of her unique personality. Win.

My second daughter, Sage, excelled in music from a young age and I began to have to drive long distances to take her to teachers and various musical opportunities. However, Sage did not enjoy high school, in part because she felt (rightly) that the seniors were always given preferences for parts in plays and other musical opportunities regardless of the talent of younger students. She took several AP classes, ranging from European History to Music Theory, Psychology and Physics. She also spent a lot of time in choral groups and in plays, until she gave up and decided she hated high school midway through her junior year. She then smashed her entire senior year in with the last half of her junior year and graduated with honors at the age of 16. She had a 34 on the ACT and ended up deciding to take a year off before she applied to colleges because she was so exhausted.

She had also written and performed an entire CD of her own music at a professional studio and was pursuing a career as a vocal performer. She had an offer of a lucrative contract with a local talent studio before the funding dried up, and she has worked both at a local restaurant as a waitress and as a copy editor for a local publishing house. She can tell interesting stories about real sexism in the workplace, when the restaurant she worked for hired back a man arrested the day before for inappropriately touching one of the other waitresses. I think that real world experience is invaluable, though I suppose if I could have protected her from it, I would have.