How to Get Into Art College With Bad Highscholl
Listen to my interview with Shirag Shemmassian (transcript):
For many of our students, getting into a good higher is a top priority. They work like crazy to get perfect grades, spend years enrolled in examination-prep courses, and sign up for every extracurricular activeness available. Afterwards all, this is what they have been advised to do.
Information technology turns out that this widely prescribed triad of perfect grades, perfect test scores, and a laundry list of extracurriculars may be a bit…imprecise. In other words, a lot of what we think will go students into highly selective colleges might actually have the opposite effect. What's worse, a lot of those activities can be incredibly fourth dimension consuming, energy draining, and expensive.
Shirag Shemmassian
Shirag Shemmassian has had plenty of experience with college applications. He attended Cornell University and UCLA himself, spent several years as an admissions interviewer at Cornell, and now, through Shemmassian Bookish Consulting, he teaches students and their families how to accomplish higher admissions success.
Over the years, Shemmassian has learned what factors actually make colleges take notice, and what he has to share might surprise you lot.
"Parents and students don't actually know where to get for loftier-quality information," Shemmassian says. "Information technology seems like everyone around them is doing everything…enrolling in the most difficult classes, trying to go the highest standardized test scores. Simply beyond that, they're not really certain how to stand out. Should they bring together every society or activity? Students are all hearing the same communication, so they, of form, end up looking like every other applicant. What they thought they should do is actually contributing, in big part, to them not standing out."
Here we'll accept a look at three mistakes students brand in the name of getting accepted into their top higher choices. Shemmassian explains why these choices are counterproductive, and what students should be doing instead.
Mistake 1: Taking *ALL* the Tough Classes
"Height schools are looking for students who challenge themselves academically," Shemmassian says, "and of grade the more than AP classes or honors classes y'all enroll yourself in, the more it's going to seem similar you challenged yourself. And then information technology makes sense, right?"
Simply every one of those classes requires a great deal of study fourth dimension outside of class. If class loads completely max out all of students' bachelor free time, it limits their power to pursue other things. And those "other things" are ultimately what volition make a educatee stand up out to colleges.
"Say y'all're applying to Yale for admissions, and the person on that admissions committee sees a ton of applications, mostly from students who are incredibly loftier achieving, and so they have perfect or virtually perfect grades, they have perfect or near perfect SAT scores. So if yous're that person, how could you differentiate amongst these candidates? Practice you just shut your eyes and put your fingers on a few names and admit them? No. That'south not the style information technology works, right? They're actually looking for the superstars outside of the classroom. At present if y'all've enrolled in too many AP or honors courses, it takes abroad a lot of time that you would otherwise exist able to devote to extracurricular activities."
Students are all hearing the same advice, so they, of course, end upward looking like every other applicant.
So what should students do instead?
Shemmassian says students should absolutely accept challenging classes, just not necessarily all of them. "So if there are five AP courses being offered by their school for that grade year, then maybe have iii. If you feel like it'south a subject field you're peculiarly stiff in, you could take four, because the fourth one isn't equally difficult. The goal is not to think too much about the number of them, but to brand sure that you exit fourth dimension to pursue other things."
Mistake two: Doing Whatever Information technology Takes to Maximize Test Scores
When information technology comes to college admissions, of course SAT and Human activity scores matter. But Shemmassian explains that "focusing or over-focusing on standardized tests takes abroad time from what truly matters, which is building that unique extracurricular profile to stand up out."
When students spend years enrolled in test-prep courses and devote hours studying for, taking, and retaking these tests for the sake of a few more points, they are using up time that would be better spent deepening their experiences within some expanse of involvement. And even if a student does attain those perfect scores, without anything else to differentiate him, he simply won't stand out.
It'south important to remember that information technology's not all 1600 scores who are going to Ivy League schools.
Instead, students should take a more reasonable approach that values a good examination score, merely not at the expense of other activities: Pick a period of time to really focus on test prep—Shemmassian recommends about a semester—during which time a student should written report intensely, take the ACT or SAT a few times and shoot for a score between the 25th and 75th percentiles of admitted applicants at their schools of selection.
"If you visit whatsoever schoolhouse'southward website, you can look at a class profile, and they will very conspicuously take the data there. Then the 25th to 75th percentile of admitted applicants' Sat scores, for example, say they're 1480 to 1540, correct? That'due south the range that you should aim for. Anything above that is a bonus…there are many students who get above the 75th percentile who don't make it. And with whatever middle 50th percentile, of course, 25 percent of students who arrive are above those numbers, 25 percent of students are below those numbers…information technology's of import to remember that it's not a bunch of 1600 scores who are going to Ivy League and UC schools and other meridian schools like that."
One time these first ii mistakes are out of the way—once a student is no longer spending every hour of their gratis time studying for tests or maximizing their course load—how that educatee spends the remaining time is what will brand the biggest difference to college admissions officers.
Mistake 3: No Extracurricular Focus
"People think that colleges want to admit 'well-rounded students,'" Shemmassian says. And so students join as many clubs and teams as possible and try to pursue leadership positions in each 1.
In reality, "Colleges are really looking for educatee bodies that are collectively well-rounded, comprising a bunch of specialists who together are an incredibly well-rounded and diverse pupil body. They're not looking for students who do a little bit of a lot of things."
Instead of being Jacks of all trades, students should figure out what they're actually passionate nigh, and so go a specialist—what Shemmassian calls a "Michael Jordan"—in that surface area.
Merely wlid if a student doesn't know what to specialize in? What if she doesn't feel she has natural talent in whatsoever one area?
"It starts very minor," Shemmassian says. "Then if the student is interested in art, they might start out with just doing their own artwork, possibly teaching other students in their community to pigment, maybe it'southward students from a low-income school that don't take resources or access to art classes and things like that. So y'all tin encounter what your educatee demonstrates interest in and have that footstep. So you're exploring at the first."
If that student continues to work inside that field, growing her skills, taking on leadership roles, and finding ways to serve the customs in that same field, rather than pursuing ten other things, she becomes a specialist." Even though you're not necessarily Picasso or anything, when you have these incremental steps and beginning making connections in the customs and get-go getting attending, by the time y'all employ, y'all look like a Michael Hashemite kingdom of jordan."
Less is More than
If there is ane theme that unites all three of these, it's that students who want to get into top colleges demand to be doing less of the stuff that doesn't make a big impact so they can do more of what does.
For students whose schedules are packed with an insane number of classes and activities, this advice should come equally a relief, giving them permission to effigy out what actually matters to them, what they were put on this earth to practice, then devoting plenty of time to pursuing that.
Sounds like a recipe not just for higher admissions, but for a happy, good for you life. ♦
You can acquire more than near how Shirag Shemmassian helps families succeed with higher admissions at Shemmassian Bookish Consulting.
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Source: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/college-admission-mistakes/
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