I get the sense that you and 'fny are talking past each other. You both have some strong points, and you both have some weak points.
- If a smart student has strong learning strategies, high school classes as a general rule should not be difficult to get good grades in. There are exceptions for demonstrably capricious teachers --these teachers should definitely be avoided and are generally not difficult to identify except in one's first year of high school (even then...). If a student struggles in a class or in a certain discipline (e.g., math or foreign languages) in high school, then I humbly suggest that they are either not that smart, have significant gaps in their learning strategies, or have some sort of learning block. IMHO, all of these things if they persist throughout high school are potentially valid reasons to reject a person from an elite university since they will cause much bigger problems later.
- Contrary to what 'fny says, you can actually get quite a few Bs in high school and still get accepted to an elite school. Ditto with an SAT score that is not close to 1600. The catch is that the applicant needs to make up for it elsewhere in the application. Really interesting candidates don't have problem with this.
- If you think studying Greek and Latin tenses for 20 hours a week is the key to getting a high SAT verbal score, then I think you have been grossly misled. For smart kids, just regularly reading and understanding "high brow" magazines like The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, The Weekly Standard, The New Yorker, etc. is more than enough to build a very healthy SAT-ready vocabulary as well as high level reading comprehension skills. If you mention the idea of Greek and Latin roots to smart kids, they will be able to figure out what a lot of the core ones are based on their reading. Note that this type of reading will also give them good schemata for higher level writing.
- The "it's for your own good" comment definitely seems arrogant, and it kind of is. That said, it's kind of right, too. It's rough to see a smart kid struggle at an elite school because they lack some fundamentals that a lot of the entering class comes in with (e.g., study strategies, writing skills, background knowledge, etc.). That said, the ones who can "drink from the firehouse" despite mediocre grades are usually obvious to admissions committees since they excel to a phenomenal level on some other vector (e.g., international science fair winner, amazing inventor, etc.).
- You are half right with your comment on risk aversion and taking a risk on a B-student. Without any other evidence that this hypothetical B-student will fit in and/or excel, they are likely to be unhappy as well as be a minor or negative contributor to their peer groups (i.e., they will have to be "carried" in group work and/or they will set the team back by not being able to do adequate work). One of the things that makes elite schools amazing (as well as some honors programs at 2nd tier schools) is that you can learn a lot from your peers.
- Note that I think 'fny is largely talking about the standards for Caucasian and Asian non-athlete non-diversity applicants from the NE corridor and the west coast. There are a metric shit ton of B-students (and worse!) at elite schools. They tend to be recruited athletes (esp. in football and basketball, but in other sports as well), diversity candidates (note that this is not just racial diversity, but also geographical diversity), z-listers, or people coming in with a lot of social capital. There are also vastly different standards for applicants at universities like Penn where they apply to a school within the university. For example, the average profiles for Wharton students and Nursing students are quite different, and this difference can sometimes be magnified by other factors like geographical preference (e.g., a nursing student from rural PA might have an application that would shock a few HNers).
This is a pet topic of mine. If you have any more questions, I will be happy to answer.
I'm curious, what is your background? Have you worked in an admissions office? Everything you say makes perfect sense, when screening resumes for hiring you see a lot of ivy resumes that are good, but all sort of blend together. Then you see someone from a strong school, but with some crazy side project and it's an instant fit.
+ What do you recommend as reading to parents? E.g. my daughter is blessed with a great memory (e.g. memorized the periodic table at 3.5 years). I'm aghast at how bad the world of parenting media is. Our goal is to set her on the path to use her talents in interesting, fulfilling ways, not to turn her into an automaton.
My personal area of expertise is cognition and learning. One of the more interesting projects I have worked on was trying to figure out why demonstrably high-intelligence people underperform (often significantly) in medium-term high-stakes tasks (short answer is lack of motivation, poor strategies, and/or anxiety). I have also studied and done work on the performance of high-IQ individuals, and college admissions was definitely a sub-topic of this research and work.
As far as admissions matters, I have worked with and/or on admissions committees for two Ivies at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. I have never been an admissions officer myself (I am on a different career path), but I am really glad the people who do those jobs seem to love it -- it can be a surprisingly tough job.
A few comments:
- RE similar/boring resumes from Ivy students -- The dirty little secret is that only about 10-30% of Ivy grads actually stand out intellectually. The rest are very meh -- smart and often hardworking, but definitely meh. This doesn't change after they graduate. This may seem to conflict with other comments that I made in this thread, but it actually doesn't. There are a ton of Ivy students who are bringing other things to the table (e.g., recruited athlete, social capital, diversity metrics, etc.), so getting good grades and a good SAT score is enough to push them over the top. Said another way, they may not be interesting intellectually, but they are interesting in other ways that the school values.
- RE strong school crazy side project -- These are the people I love. The best part is that for the most part it doesn't really matter where they go to school -- they will be winners in life. Seek these people out as often as possible, and your life will be rich.
- RE recommended reading 1 -- I am slightly embarrassed to say that I am not up to date on recommended readings for parents since I basically "roll my own" research-backed plans at this point. That said, I can tell you some of the authors I have read who shaped my concepts of learning. I am a neo-Piagetian, so my bias will show in the following list of academic authors: Jerome Bruner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Howard Gardner (be careful about derivative works by others -- they sometimes bastardize his original work), Robert Sternberg, Lev Vygotsky (usu. in summary... he wrote in Russian), David Perkins, Robert Kegan (esp. In Over Our Heads), Kurt Fischer (esp. Human Behavior...), Eleanor Duckworth, and Jean Piaget (seriously, just know the basic idea of stages of child development -- his ideas have been significantly refined over the past few decades). Just search Amazon for these authors, read the reviews, and pick one that sounds interesting. Most of the books are accessible for non-academics, but they are backed by solid research with accompanying solid research publications. Given that I have just given you a list of accessible graduate level readings...
- RE recommended reading 2 -- For high school students and soon-to-be college applicants, I have heard that Cal Newport's books are good. Note that I have not read them myself, but the comments on Amazon and various blurbs seem to show that he is on the right track. That said, I hope that he doesn't provide a formula ("just do these 15 steps to get into your dream school"), because a strict formula won't work since people and contexts can often be very different. I would hope that the main takeaways are abstracted one level so that they can be applied to a variety of contexts. Other than that, I don't have much for you.
- RE great memory -- I am curious about why your daughter memorized the periodic table. Was she encouraged to? Did she do it naturally? Is she normally encouraged to memorize things? Feats of memory often turn into a type of parlor game that young children can use to get positive feedback from adults, and it's an unfortunately easy crutch to lean on. If you are looking for a non-automaton, I would try to steer clear of heavily rewarding this behavior if at all possible. Specifically, let them know that it was a good job to memorize something, but that memorization needs to have a purpose. The big rewards should come with the higher-order thinking accomplishment that the memorization facilitated. That's just my opinion...
- RE general parenting -- Kids are intellectual sponges -- they are naturally born scientists, artists, and sociologists. The best thing you can do is facilitate their exploration and model best practices for them. Help them push their own intellectual boundaries in a relatively safe way (easy to say, hard to do -- short hint is to bring them back with a small success once they have hit cognitive break down). Model good processes for them -- for example, likes-dislikes-questions-improvements review process, revising (or refactoring code, or drafts for papers, or studies for art, or whatever similar concept that top performers do for revisions and development), etc. Modeling good empathy practices from a young age can reap huge dividends. I could go on......
- RE parenting media -- It's hard to do one-size-fits-all media on good parenting. As I mentioned before, people and contexts can vary widely. Another issue is that sometimes parents are bringing their own issues to the table, so seemingly good parenting advice can sometimes go sideways when interpreted through the parent(s) with issues. A top-notch parenting book would probably start with "make sure you have addressed all of your own major issues" and would lose a big chunk of their readership/market right there.
OK, wall of text achieved. I will stop here. Let me know if you have more questions, and we can touch base via other means.
- If a smart student has strong learning strategies, high school classes as a general rule should not be difficult to get good grades in. There are exceptions for demonstrably capricious teachers --these teachers should definitely be avoided and are generally not difficult to identify except in one's first year of high school (even then...). If a student struggles in a class or in a certain discipline (e.g., math or foreign languages) in high school, then I humbly suggest that they are either not that smart, have significant gaps in their learning strategies, or have some sort of learning block. IMHO, all of these things if they persist throughout high school are potentially valid reasons to reject a person from an elite university since they will cause much bigger problems later.
- Contrary to what 'fny says, you can actually get quite a few Bs in high school and still get accepted to an elite school. Ditto with an SAT score that is not close to 1600. The catch is that the applicant needs to make up for it elsewhere in the application. Really interesting candidates don't have problem with this.
- If you think studying Greek and Latin tenses for 20 hours a week is the key to getting a high SAT verbal score, then I think you have been grossly misled. For smart kids, just regularly reading and understanding "high brow" magazines like The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, The Weekly Standard, The New Yorker, etc. is more than enough to build a very healthy SAT-ready vocabulary as well as high level reading comprehension skills. If you mention the idea of Greek and Latin roots to smart kids, they will be able to figure out what a lot of the core ones are based on their reading. Note that this type of reading will also give them good schemata for higher level writing.
- The "it's for your own good" comment definitely seems arrogant, and it kind of is. That said, it's kind of right, too. It's rough to see a smart kid struggle at an elite school because they lack some fundamentals that a lot of the entering class comes in with (e.g., study strategies, writing skills, background knowledge, etc.). That said, the ones who can "drink from the firehouse" despite mediocre grades are usually obvious to admissions committees since they excel to a phenomenal level on some other vector (e.g., international science fair winner, amazing inventor, etc.).
- You are half right with your comment on risk aversion and taking a risk on a B-student. Without any other evidence that this hypothetical B-student will fit in and/or excel, they are likely to be unhappy as well as be a minor or negative contributor to their peer groups (i.e., they will have to be "carried" in group work and/or they will set the team back by not being able to do adequate work). One of the things that makes elite schools amazing (as well as some honors programs at 2nd tier schools) is that you can learn a lot from your peers.
- Note that I think 'fny is largely talking about the standards for Caucasian and Asian non-athlete non-diversity applicants from the NE corridor and the west coast. There are a metric shit ton of B-students (and worse!) at elite schools. They tend to be recruited athletes (esp. in football and basketball, but in other sports as well), diversity candidates (note that this is not just racial diversity, but also geographical diversity), z-listers, or people coming in with a lot of social capital. There are also vastly different standards for applicants at universities like Penn where they apply to a school within the university. For example, the average profiles for Wharton students and Nursing students are quite different, and this difference can sometimes be magnified by other factors like geographical preference (e.g., a nursing student from rural PA might have an application that would shock a few HNers).
This is a pet topic of mine. If you have any more questions, I will be happy to answer.