Talent and College Admission

“See what the Tufts Dean of Admission has to say about his talented admitted students (photo credit: HereToHelp).

With the Early Action / Early Decision round at a close, we’ve been receiving those exciting phone calls from our students and their parents. Oh, how we love this time of year! One student just showed up at our office dressed as a Brown bear, bearing a gift of a Brown University hoodie. When such a small percentage of applicants are accepted at their dream school, it’s no wonder that these students are very special.

Yes, of course applicants must have taken the most rigorous courses and have excelled in those courses. Of course applicants must have SAT or ACT scores that are in line with the college’s mean. But courses, grades, and standardized test scores are just the basics. The applicant’s personality, one that shines through essays, extracurricular involvements, and letters of recommendation, reveals the rest of the story.

A few years ago, we wrote a blog about Talent and College Admissions in which we highlighted the accomplishments of Barnard College’s accepted class. Today, Lee Coffin, Dean of Admissions at Tufts University, was kind enough to let the world know about the unique talents of Tufts’ Early Decision accepted students for the Class of 2016. He calls these talents his “Sweet Sixteen” and we’d like to share some of what he wrote with you.

“To highlight a few of the personalities heading our way next September, the ED class features a nationally-ranked Scrabble player from suburban Boston, a professional guitarist from New Haven, New Mexico’s ‘We the People’ state champ, the founder and president of the lumberjack club at a high school in Northern Virginia, a participant in Occupy Louisville, an equestrian from LA who competes in extreme cowboy racing and a blogger for Huffington Post. That’s quite a bunch!”

Coffin goes on in his blog post on the topic of his talented admitted students to write, “We’ll watch out for the Singaporean who’s been trained as a field medic as well as ‘counter-improvised explosive services’ techniques (he just finished his compulsory military service) as well as the community health student from Westchester County who reported ‘I am a ferocious, fearless and phenomenal skinny dipper.’ Indeed.”

Are you starting to get a sense of what it means to be a “talented” college applicant?