College admissions are subjective. At Harvard, the difference between accepted and rejected can be as little as 0.07%.
You can have the perfect application and get rejected.
Thatâs not what happened to Johnny…
Johnny gave everything he had and then gave more. It feels like a horror story, but itâs really a tragedy.
The tragedy wasnât the rejection. Itâs what he gave up in the name of college admissions.
Johnny did everything he was supposed to, but he didnât become anyone.
Weâre going to tell a story over the next several emails. Itâs the story of Johnny, written from several perspectives.
Itâs a story of hope.
The conveyor belt rolls on.
The admissions officer, a 25-year-old Taylor Swift fanatic, clicks a button. A new app appears: JOHNNY ATLAS
She has 5 minutes to evaluate Johnny.
No one can be busier than 168 hours a week allows. Johnny isnât busier or harder working than the other 49 kids that the admissions officer reviews today.
Heâs not harder working than the 250 last week, and he wonât be harder than the 250 next week.
The system calculates a GPA and rigor score, and the transcript is translated to a college-wide standard. The admissions officer doesnât even see the +âs andââs that Johnny fretted over. She has no idea that Johnnyâs chemistry teacher is an academic thresher and that chemistry is really hard for Johnny.
She also doesnât see Johnnyâs 3s on the Chemistry or US History AP exams. She has no idea that Johnnyâs APUSH teacher left in November, and he spent over 200 hours studying independently.
She doesnât know that Johnny traded his âshotâ at a great ACT/SAT score to get two unreported 3s.
Clearly, Johnny is good at soccer, and itâs good that heâs captain, but he wonât play for the college. The admissions officer has no clue what Platinum Cup means. And it seems like every high school athlete plays travel.
Leadership in Student Council and Interact Club are titles, but Johnny doesnât show them any impact.
Johnny volunteered a lot, mainly through the NHS. But signing up and going just means attendance.
Johnny founded an Autism Club. That could be interesting, but Johnny didnât really do anything with it. Johnnyâs essay hinged on his autistic cousin. The admissions officer finds the combinationâŚconvenient.
Ask the admissions officer, and sheâd almost certainly say, âGreat kid, Iâm sure.â Johnny Atlas is exceptional at his school, but there are 27,714 high schools in the US.
The admissions officer feels no guilt, but thereâs no real shot for Johnny.
Every day brings a queue of 50 applications. Most read like Johnnyâs; the admissions officer drowns in his own sea of leaders, club founders, and achievers.
The differences are subtle and subjective. Five minutes after opening Johnnyâs app, the admissions officer clicks Next.
“7 more apps until lunch⌔
You donât apply to a college. You apply to an admissions office.
I said it at the top, and Iâll repeat it. You can do everything right and still get rejected.
Maybe you were a whisper away. Maybe the first-round admissions officer got dumped by text that morning. Maybe the pool you competed against was especially tough. Maybe you lost in the âhorse tradingâ of admissions committees. Maybe it was about the collegeâs yield.
But Johnnyâs chances were killed by busyness. That linear, straight shot to the top left him with awards and titles but no story and nothing to say about himself.
Johnnyâs admissions officer wants to help kids. The horse race takes all of that away. It homogenizes and cheapens great kids on paper and in their souls.
The real lesson of Johnnyâs story is the hydrogen bomb of college admissions â authenticity, a person in the process of becoming. It clears away all the sticks and stones and stoplights of high school life.
Itâs undeniable when you see it. Itâs the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.
Like all great stories, your application made them feel alive. And that, more than anything, is what they want.
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