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i thought this incident might be of general interest. i took an asian applicant whom i teach on the standard group tour at MIT. in some respects, this kid is typical of a lot of asian-american applicants... top grades, but best at math and sciences; not very social, shy by american standards; confidence and self-image largely unformed. i am sure you all know that "passion" is a big buzzword in college admissions. colleges want to know what stirs your soul. i'd say this kid feels that his soul is his own business and that anyone who asks about it is just very impolite. i rather agree with him but then again i'm not applying to colleges, and i can understand their desire to have enthusiastic students. the passion fashion is not going away any time soon. i think there are many parents out there from all backgrounds (not just asians) with kids who are well-qualified and inwardly enthusiastic about studies, but nonetheless undemonstrative and not at all enthusiastic about self-promotion. parents need to take the lead in working on their child's presentation and self-image for the purposes of college admissions. even a shy kid can learn to sell himself with a bit of practice. you as parents must make that practice happen. but learning how to put one's best foot forward is only half the battle. too many shy kids are taken in by people who know how to toot their own horn. parents have to help dissect the bluster of the self-confident and make their kids believe that they are just as good as the blow-hard other guys. i failed in that regard. i did not prepare this kid for the kind of college students he would meet at MIT. but something similar could have happened to a lot of kids at a lot of colleges.

it was a good tour with a good student guide. a senior. bright. high-powered. impressive. and at one point, someone asked her a general question on her impressions of the MIT experience. she answered, "i believe that MIT has prepared me in such a way that if tomorrow you took me to any place in the world and asked me to do anything, i could do it". nice answer. memorable. obviously rehearsed, but i liked it. i smiled and turned to my kid, who was staring at the ground with a sick look on his face. turns out, he had been thinking throughout the tour that these MIT students were all better than him, and her statement was practically the coup-de-grace that killed his desire to go there. so for the next ten minutes, i talked under my breath to him about how MIT students were exactly the same as him in high school, and not let them cow him, blah blah blah. but it was too little, too late. and that was my fault. with the right preparation, it could have been different.

but was our guide really such a superwoman? well, at one point she stopped the group in the middle of a loading dock where four huge trucks were trying to maneuver. they honked for like ten minutes until a professor came out of a building yelling "i can't teach my class... can't you move your group so they'll stop honking?" she looked around, "oh, are they honking at us?". genius. but the worst was that she led us quickly through a maze of corridors and staircases, never looked back, and lost half the group, never to be seen again. her reaction, "well if you can't keep up, you're going to miss out". sorry. a group leader is
responsible for the group. when you lose half your group, it's YOUR fault, not the group's. to me, her reaction meant that, no matter how high-powered and bright, she was just not capable of accepting responsibility. so much for doing anything anywhere.

i'm not coming down on her in particular or MIT. what i am suggesting is that my kid (bright, responsible, but not self-confident and certainly not a self-promoter) was completely snowed by another, slightly older kid who knew how to maximize her presentation. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOUR KID. be prepared. at top colleges, you'll meet top students. but they're still just kids, probably no better than your kids, even if they talk a good line. most parents know that, but high schoolers don't. to some, college students can seem like super race for which they will never be qualified. my kid never got over his introduction to MIT and was practically relieved when he was rejected. in the long run, my mistake didn't much matter since he was admitted at his first choice. but it could have seriously mattered.

By Texas137 (Texas137) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 02:17 am: Edit

I think you are kicking yourself for something that is not your fault (or the MIT tour guide's). There are always people who project more self-confidence than others. And insecure people can always find something to feel insecure about, even if they have to imagine it. Traits like that are apparent in kindergarten. You might move more to the center with age, but it's unlikely that many people switch totally from one extreme to the other. This is partially a cultural thing, but certainly can be pure personality thing. I know lots of middle class white males who get clammy-handed and uncertain in certain situations, in spite of being just as well qualified as anyone else. And a 4 year age difference can loom large until well into people's 20s.

The "passion" business doesn't mean that kids are supposed to take after P.T. Barnum. Most colleges do not do evaluative interviews, so even the most adroit, self-confident kid is probably not going to have an opportunity to show that side directly to colleges. I think kids show passion by having a few activities that they go into deeply over a long period of time. You can show that without major soul-baring. Maybe you've been designing web-pages or playing a musical instrument 20 hours a week since 4th grade. That shows passion. You don't have to swear on a bible that you've dedicated your life to improving the lives of lepers and then wax poetically about it in public.

By Nymom (Nymom) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 07:38 am: Edit

You make some good points, Tex, but I think that the key word here is "marketing," not necessarily in the personal interview (which is probably the least important factor), but in how the student puts together the entire application. An application package should be put together as carefully as any business presentation; many fine students lose out to equally fine students who do a better job of selling themselves on paper.

By Texas137 (Texas137) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 12:20 pm: Edit

I agree with you, Nymom. Fortunately, putting together a fine presentation on paper is pretty independant of ability to put on a good "show" in person, or the introverts among us would never have a chance!