1. Colleges are impressed by a lot of extracurricular activities.What a high school student does outside the classroom is important. Extracurriculars can make the difference when seeking admission to colleges that have three times as many straight-A student applicants as they have space. At one Ivy League college, I heard admissions officers describe applicants as, for instance, the violin-playing quarterback or the math-medalist poet. They never mentioned more than two activities. They wanted depth, not breadth. If the student was a baker, they wanted to see him enter his blueberry pies in county fairs. If the student was a writer, they hoped for copies of her op-eds that ran in the local newspaper. To them, five or six activities was a waste of time and space on the application.
4. A student has little chance to get into a top school without an SAT prep course. I spent a lot of money on the course my daughter took her junior year. These courses teach important things and give students confidence walking into the exam. But we have data showing such courses did little good for students who listened in their high school classes, did their homework and took a few practice SAT exams from the book in their counselor’s office. My daughter raised her score 10 points after the course. That cost me $100 a point.
5. The harder a college is to get into, the more it will ensure a bright future. It is difficult to persuade tribal primates like us that this isn’t true. We are genetically wired to respect pecking orders. If we see a college listed No. 1, we want to go there. When its admissions rate falls below 10 percent, we are even more excited. Research indicates that the most selective schools look good because they attract so many of the students with character traits, such as persistence and humor, that ensure success. Those students acquire those traits long before they get to college and do just as well in life if they attend a school nobody heard of.