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I picked David because his achievements seemed more concrete. The "marketing" and "sustainability" stuff sounded like fluff to me. I didn't read much more of the article after I found out he chose the other guy.
Every one of my friends who has volunteered has coincidentally highlighted that experience in some admissions essay two years later.
What's the deal with these joke admissions to American universities. President of some silly high school club? Who cares?
I picked David because his achievements seemed more concrete. The "marketing" and "sustainability" stuff sounded like fluff to me. I didn't read much more of the article after I found out he chose the other guy.
Steve's accomplishments are surprising. I wouldn't have the slightest idea how he went about them; I'd have to ask to get the full story. (The article names this the "failed simulation effect".) I totally agree with you that it sounds like fluff, but it's unusual fluff.
David's accomplishments are unsurprising. I know exactly how one gets to be the captain of a varsity sports team while keeping up an interesting hobby outside of school. Impressive, concrete, but doesn't provoke any further questioning from me.
I wouldn't pick either of them just from a few sentences. I'd want to see the full essays.
I thought Steve was impressive because he was uncommon. By definition, every high school with a track team has a captain of the track team; you're likely to see hundreds of Davids in a given college admissions department. It's much less likely that you'll encounter someone who worked with an NGO or the UN--even if Steve's abilities or perserverance weren't exceptional. Still, I think there's something to the model. I…
I agree with your point, but this sentence is not true.
I picked David because his achievements seemed more concrete. The "marketing" and "sustainability" stuff sounded like fluff to me. I didn't read much more of the article after I found out he chose the other guy.
It's not just that he picked the other guy, he expects everyone to agree with him, and yet like you I chose the "wrong" guy. Explaining the "amazing" reason that everyone picks his choice seems much less impressive at that point, particularly as it mostly seems like an ad for a book. Does anyone actually talk like this (from the comments): It’s interesting that you mention science fairs. I actually have a chapter in…
In my personal experience, the majority of people do not think like this. When I was going through grade school, my parents/teachers/etc. often did use words like "awe-inspiring achievements", even for fairly mundane things like getting perfect scores on standardized tests. I got into Amherst through a process very much like the article describes (I had terrible grades but had worked at an all-teenage dot-com startup and aced my standardized tests). In the "brag session" where the director of admissions lists all the awe-inspiring resumes of the incoming freshman class, she said "And one of the students passed 8 AP tests without taking a single AP class", and a murmur of appreciation passed along the crowd. Really, it's not that hard, you read a book and then you pay $75 for a test - but most of them don't know that.
I think it's great that there's more understanding going around of what achievement actually stems from. But that understanding certainly isn't universal, and in the meantime, you can hack people's perceptions of you by playing to the blind spots in their own knowledge. "Everything is impossible until I know how to do it, and then it's trivial."
Okay, it was at this point where I switched and picked Steve over David.
Captain of the track team sounds impressive, until you consider that there would be 400 other captains sitting in an academic reviewer's inbox. Now I'm not really sure if this is impressiveness, but it sure stands out if I had to sift through a hundred or a thousand applications, and this one guy writes about his experience in the UN.
I picked David because his achievements seemed more concrete. The "marketing" and "sustainability" stuff sounded like fluff to me. I didn't read much more of the article after I found out he chose the other guy.
Meanwhile Steve may have some lofty motivations for his career path, but it says nothing about how well he actually does these things.
FTA: "He’s not brilliant. super passionate, or ultra-hard working — instead, he accomplished something that’s hard to explain. "
And that impresses people?
I picked David because his achievements seemed more concrete. The "marketing" and "sustainability" stuff sounded like fluff to me. I didn't read much more of the article after I found out he chose the other guy.
The article makes the mistake of confusing "surprising" for "impressive". Steve's accomplishments are surprising. I wouldn't have the slightest idea how he went about them; I'd have to ask to get the full story. (The article names this the "failed simulation effect".) I totally agree with you that it sounds like fluff, but it's unusual fluff. David's accomplishments are unsurprising. I know exactly how one gets to be…
Good point there. After reading your comment I reread the article, and it does seem more reasonable to replace all mentions of "impressive" with "surprising".
That being said, to an academic reviewer, surprising may very well equal impressive, especially when the transcript is read along with a thousand others ...