Going Geek:

What Every Smart Kid (and Every Smart parent)

Should Know About College Admissions

John Carpenter

Going Geek: What Every Smart Kid

(and Every Smart Parent)

Should Know about College Admissions

by John Carpenter

Introduction

If you go to the library or to a bookstore, you’ll find dozens of books written about how to get

into college. From “insider’s guides,” written by former admissions officers who claim to have

the secrets of undergraduate admissions, to rankings and descriptions of the most selective

universities and colleges, they all seemed geared to help you find the quickest, most sure-fire

way to get into the college of your dreams. And that’s good--except for one thing: most of those

books are written for the mass public with the idea that everyone thinks the same way, wants the

same thing, and should go about it in the same manner.

This book is different. The idea here is that if you’re reading this book, then you’ve already set

yourself apart from most people. You’re eager to go to college not just for all the fun--and

believe me, college is fun, but you’re one of those people who really likes to learn, and you’re

looking forward to exploring all you can without the restrictions of high school hanging over

you. You actually enjoy learning things. Some folks might find you to be a little odd, but you’re

okay with that. In fact, you may be smiling right now, thinking about just how smart you are and

how much you love the weirdness that goes along with being smart.

Going Geek is for the intellectually gifted kid who gets it. You. Because, let’s face it, you’re the

one who’s going to lead the planet to a better place and undo all the crap that the people ahead of

you have created. And later, many of those other kids who--well, who just aren’t that bright--

will be looking to you for leadership and will be waiting to invest their money in your projects.

But first you have to get there--wherever there is, and before that, you have to get into a school.

Into college. And you’re in luck because despite whatever you read in all the other guidebooks

or hear from admissions officers around the country about being phenomenally well-rounded or

having great community service or possessing amazing leadership skills, it is the really smart

kid who excites professors, and every dean of admissions knows it.

This book is written to help you, the kid who genuinely gets excited about geeky things, show

off your best attributes. It is designed to help you create an application that reflects the brilliant

star that you are--no matter what your grades look like, no matter what your SAT or ACT scores

might be, no matter what obstacles you’ve had to overcome. So if this sounds interesting to you,

get ready to think because I am going to challenge you a little bit as you put together an amazing

application.

Chapter One: Identifying Your Inner Geek, Part One

Let’s talk for a minute about the kind of geek you are. What? You didn’t realize there was more

than one type of you? Sure you did. Haven’t you taken one of those on-line geek tests before to

see where you fall on the nerdy scale? Actually, those “tests” are pretty funny, and you might

enjoy rating yourself, but I digress--and it’s only the first paragraph! My point is this: standing

out because you enjoy thinking is a good thing, so let’s figure out the kind of thinker you are and

start from there.

Like just about anything, there are several ways of being really bright, and the challenge for you

(and for people in college admissions) is to identify who you are as a learner and also as an

academic performer. I can’t emphasize this enough: your best shot at convincing admissions

officers that their institution will benefit from your contributions is to let them see how you think

and act in an academically challenging environment. So, our first steps have to be for you to

understand exactly the kind of learner you have been up to now, with examples.

The important thing is to be able to describe yourself honestly. Knowing who you are is the best

place to begin. Being able to articulate how you learn, how you process what you learn, and how

you use what you learn will increase your chances of being admitted to any college. Your goal is

be able to present a very clear picture of who you are as someone who gets excited by academic

ideas. That all starts by understanding the kind of geek you really are.

Here are six high school seniors--mostly fictitious but comprised of very real characteristics of

actual students who have already graduated and gone on to college. See if any of their habits or

personalities resonate with you. Of course, being the unique person you are, you won’t be

exactly like any one of the students described here, but you may see some of yourself in two or

three of them.

Marco

As a junior, Marco was a high school national mathematics champion. He loves math at all

levels and finished AP BC Calculus as a sophomore, with a 5 on the exam. To continue in math,

he has taken courses at the city campus of the state university where he lives. By the time he

graduates, he will have earned 5’s on his AP exams in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, US History,

Economics, and French Language. He loves reading but prefers studying for a purpose. He has

formed study groups for each of his subjects with two or three other kids, and his idea of a fun-

filled evening is reviewing class notes for his Econ class, recounting the ways that his teacher,

who is also brilliant, uses very weird humor as he finds tiny errors in the way the students have

constructed their work.

Marco has earned the highest GPA in the class, and he has a perfect SAT in math as well as in the

three subject tests he has taken. His SAT reading and writing scores were only 780 each, a

shame he bears good naturedly. He is the oldest in his family of four siblings, and neither one of

his parents attended college. He knows that he will have to depend completely on scholarship

and financial aid money in determining where to go to college.

Marco is large, non-athletic, and always happy. He’s the kid who tells the joke about two guys in

the jungle who come across a desperate, starving man-eating tiger. One kid whips out his i-

phone and looks for an app where he can enter all kinds of data about the tiger’s approximate

size and speed to calculate how fast he has to run to escape the tiger’s deadly jaws while the

other kid starts tightening the laces on his sneakers. “What are you doing?” the second kids asks

his friend. “I’m figuring out if I can outrun this man-eating tiger,” he replies; “what are YOU

doing?” The second kid smiles and says, “I’m just getting my shoes tied so that I can outrun

you.” At first glance, many people would think that Marco would be the guy punching data into

his i-phone, but in reality, he’s the smarter one who understands he really only needs to run faster

than his buddy even though the chances of Marco outrunning anyone are pretty slim indeed, and

he knows it.

Hannah

Hannah loves to talk. At times, she drives the rest of us mad with her need for conversation, but

she finds real pleasure in the exchange of ideas and the subtle challenge of contradicting people.

Some of her teachers don’t understand Hannah and think that she is trying to draw attention to

herself. She has friends, but none of them fall into the popular group at her school. That doesn’t

bother Hannah in the least. Most of the kids in that group aren’t really interested in thinking

about why things exist the way that Hannah does.

Hannah’s school doesn’t offer a class in philosophy, which she loves, but in Latin she learned

about the Epicurean Catius who wrote about finding the highest good within the physical world.

(De rerum natura et de summo bono for any Latin geeks.) So, she starts the philosophy club after

school, which becomes really popular among the artsy kids, meets her current boyfriend, and

falls into bliss. Topics include the impermanence of beauty, measuring time, and whether or not

anything can really be known. And while the club goes on very successfully for the whole

semester, Hannah’s real love continues to be science as she considers engineering and biology

possible majors at college.

Hannah loves language obviously, and she is a beautiful writer who creates clear and readable

prose effortlessly. Her mother is Nicaraguan, her father Italian; she has traveled widely and

speaks both Spanish and Italian fluently. She scored higher than anyone else in her eleventh

grade class on the PSAT, but because she isn’t a citizen of the US, she wasn’t recognized by

National Merit.

Weisheng

The only child of a single Chinese parent, Weishing came to the US when he was three. He and

his family gained citizenship through a lottery. Weisheng attends a public school. He is fluent in

English and spoken Chinese. He has never been back to China.

He loves theatre and alternative music, but he is not so crazy about anything else related to

school. He is a constant worry to his mother though the two have a close relationship. His GPA

hovers around a 2.5 but his SATs are all in the very high 700’s.

As a sophomore, he memorized the entire version of the Odyssey in his English textbook and

recited it for his class, stunning everyone. He sang the role of Judas in the school’s production of

Jesus Christ Superstar, stealing the show from more popular student actors. He plays classical

piano at home as well as bass guitar, flute, and synthesizer. On weekends, he is often found

guest-performing with local bands in under-18 clubs. His i-pod is always on.

Almost everything in school is easy for Weisheng, but classes are boring and most of his

classmates seem ridiculously immature. He doesn’t care about sports or school spirit or

community service. He does, however, love poetry and has read and also written more poetry

than probably any of his teachers. By the time he graduates, he will have had two poems

published in national literary journals though none of his schoolmates will know about it.

He wanted to take AP Englilsh as a senior because he recognized the authors on the reading list,

but his low grades as a junior prevented him from being approved for the course. Without telling

anyone, he read every book on the list over the summer before his senior year, and took the easy

class, Writing for Seniors, instead. People automatically categorize him as a user even though he

doesn’t use drugs nearly as much as most kids in his school.

Ernie

A violinist since age four, Ernie is also gifted in math and language. Things are easy for him, but

his time is always compromised. He practices violin at least three hours a day during the week,

and on weekends he studies with a private tutor and performs with a community group of

musicians at the local arts center. His school music program is underfunded, and though well-

intentioned, the director can’t provide Ernie with the level of challenge or teaching that he needs.

He is breezing through IB Music, higher level, and he is one of a small group of students at his

school who are taking a full IB Diploma program.

Ernie sometimes can be hot-tempered, but he never really means to be unkind. He has little

patience for teachers who get hung up on process instead of looking to find the answers. And he

seldom has time for homework due to his violin lessons--a situation that has had a slight effect

on his GPA.

At the mid-semester marking period during his sophomore year, Ernie’s teacher gave him a C

even though he had made perfect or near-perfect scores on every quiz and test; what Ernie hadn’t

bothered to do was homework. When he explained that he didn’t need to write out the

homework because he understood the problems when he read them at home, his teacher laughed

at him. So that same night, Ernie stayed up all night and wrote out every homework problem in

the textbook for the next nine weeks, in order to get it all done and out of the way.

Ernie really wants to attend college at a selective national university where he can continue

studying music while also majoring in history or pre-law, but he realizes his 3.5 GPA might not

be high enough.

Suriya

Some girls just seem do to everything right, and Suriya is one of those people. She is detail

oriented and highly organized; she is involved with about ten different projects any given week,

ranging from Arts Council to Special Olympics; she is a champion debater who has led her

school to victory in many tournaments. She is active and well-liked.

Her parents are both doctors, and Suriya is also considering a career in medicine, but she also

likes several different subjects equally well: English, history, art, dance are all as appealing to

her as math and science. She spent a summer working in a graduate studies research lab,

recording the percentage of lead concentration in various samples of drinking water; it gave her

the opportunity to use various reactors, to work alongside professors doing real research, and to

have her name as a co-author on the finished scientific paper published in a journal of geological

sciences. She also was named a national science scholar as a result of this research.

Suriya loves football, too. She is a huge fan of her school’s team as well as her state university’s

team though she considers the state school her fallback option and secretly only plans to attend

there if she doesn’t get in at a top private school. She has a good head for sports statistics and

often amazes people by how much she knows about any football team’s passing numbers, NFL

or college ranking, or odds against other teams. She is amazing at football trivia.

She reads novels as fast as she can pick them up, but there never seems to be enough time for her

to read as much as she would like to. She really enjoys Jodi Picoult novels, but also loves a good

biography or historical novel. In grade nine, she read all the Bronte sisters and then moved on to

Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Wilkie Collins.

Angela.

A huge fan of history, Angela fell in love with Abraham Lincoln in the fourth grade. While many

kids outgrow their grade school interests, Angela only added to hers, reading everything she

could about statesmanship, slavery, equal rights, and the Civil War. She convinced her family to

spend their summer vacation in Pennsylvania one year to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, in

Illinois one summer to visit the Lincoln museum, and in Ontario later to pay tribute to where

many people escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad.

She knows just about everything about the history of her own city in the Midwest, in a matter-of-

fact kind of way. On a visit to any historical society or museum, she often recognizes people in

obscure portraits or those for whom buildings and institutes are named. She knows who all the

streets downtown were named for, too, and their significance to local history.

Her dream is to become a historical authority on all things related to Civil Rights and to write

several books. In fact, she has already begun her first real attempt at a historical novel, having

finished about 200 pages, based on women serving as spies in the Civil War. Angela has a small

group of friends, but most people think her passion for history is a little over the top, and

secretly, Angela occasionally wonders if she should take more interest in pop culture as most of

her peers do.

Angela has suffered many a teasing over the years for her single-minded love of the past, and her

number one goal in finding a college is that it be a place where people treat one another with

respect, thus giving her the freedom to explore fully the topics she cares about. She has no

interest in sororities, but she does love sewing and dress-making, and cares deeply for the small

circle of girls who are her friends.

--

Each of the students in the preceding pages is different from the others, but one thing they all

have in common is that they are intellectually curious. They may appear very different in what

they like and in what they like to do, but a strong desire to discover things, to see connections, to

learn more unites them.

You are also part of that group if you can identify an area where no matter how much you learn,

it seems that you just can’t get enough. You’re always interesting in learning more, in continuing

to read, in finding out what else there is to know. This is what college professors love--students

who share their enthusiasm for a topic. And it is exactly the kind of student whom admissions

officers are eager to admit--when they can identify them.

Admissions officers are the good guys here, but they have an impossible job--especially at highly

selective institutions where the ratio of admitted students is somewhere around one out of five to

ten. Our goal is to make it easier for them to see your strengths.

So, let’s begin with an assessment of YOU. If you were to write a short description of yourself

such as one of the descriptions of Marco, Hannah, Weisheng, Ernie, Suriya, and Angela, what

would it include? Try that now. And then ask a close friend to write a short description of you as

well. And finally, ask your parents to do the same thing. Once you have all three, compare

them, and see what common threads exist.

What we are beginning to build here is the fundamental concept of the kind of learner you have

been. Eventually, we will add to it, modify it, and shape it into a description that shows off your

wonderful geekiness. But for now, don’t think so much about how it might look at the end; just

write.

Identifying Your Inner Geek, Part Two.

In the last section, you took a good look at yourself as a learner. What did you discover? What

were some words or phrases that came up again and again about the things you like? What were

the ideas that you, your friends, and your parents all recognized? What did they see that you

hadn’t?

Using the observations of people around you is important in self-examination. It’s like using a

mirror to see what you look like from a different point of view--or two mirrors even. Of course,

the philosopher inside us will remind us that reflections are never true images but rather

approximations of who we are, and that perception is always skewed and never perfect; however,

this combined point of view is much more complete that none at all, so let’s go with that as we

work to understand ourselves better.

In the 1950’s two psychologists named Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham created a model to help

people develop self-awareness in interpersonal communication. They called it the Johari

window because a) their names were Joe and Harry, and b) the diagram of the model looked like

a window.

The basic idea is that of the four sections (or window panes) of the diagram, one represents all

we know about ourselves that other people also know about us; one is what others see in us that

we do not recognize; one represents what we know about ourselves but others do not; and the

last stands for what is not yet known or cannot be known about ourselves by us or by anyone

else.

The window panes that admissions officers see are the first and the second, and your goal is to be

sure that what they see represents you accurately. That means being aware of your public self

(the person that you will present in your college application) by being intentional about it, being

as aware as is philosophically possible about your blind spots so that nothing is working against

you, and making others aware of your hidden self by sliding some of that (the good stuff) over

into your public self. One huge error that many high school seniors commit is not realizing how

much of who they are and what they have to offer a college or university often remains unseen in

that third window pane, the hidden self, and as a result, if no one but you (or your mother) sees

your gifts, your talents, and the kind of learner that you are, then no one can admit you to their

institution. The college application is the perfect vehicle for transporting some of what lies in

your hidden self over to the public self--that is, for those who are smart enough to realize it. And

clearly you are one of those smart people.

One word of caution, however: because we’re all human, there are probably things in our hidden

selves that should remain hidden. Think of the inappropriate postings you’ve seen on Facebook

and you know instantly what I mean.

So, let’s continue with discovering who you are as a learner in order to communicate that

effectively through your application. Let’s talk about your grades. Are grades important to you?

They are to admissions officers. And no matter how fair or unfair they are, your grades

communicate a strong message about how successful you might be in college.

So, right now, own your current GPA--whatever it is. What it reflects is the way you have

performed in the classroom over the last few years. Most GPAs begin with first semester in

ninth grade, but some don’t include grades until your sophomore year. Some schools weight

grades--meaning you get extra points for classes that are considered tougher or honors classes;

some schools consider all grades equally. Whatever your scenario your school uses doesn’t

really matter as much as where you fall in the spectrum of GPAs at your same school. Also, you

should probably count on the fact that many college admissions offices have practices that

include refiguring your GPA, using their own system. For those that do, they sometimes take off

the extra points (if you have a weighted system at your high school), and they usually don’t

figure in grades for religion courses or arts courses. But don’t sweat any of that right now. What

we need to figure out first is where you fall GPA-wise in the range of kids at your school.

Most schools now use an on-line resource that gives you access to all kinds of statistics so that

you can compare your GPA to the GPAs of other kids from your school in the past who applied

to the same colleges you’re interested in. Check that out. It is really helpful in guiding you to a

place where you can understand what your statistical odds are to be admitted. Don’t worry if

your GPA is slightly lower, and don’t be too confident if it’s slightly higher than the average

GPA of an admitted student from your school, but do use that info wisely in helping you choose

where you’ll apply. We’ll talk about that more in the chapter on how to figure out where to

apply. (Chapter Five.)

Your grades do not define you, nor do they define your potential at the undergraduate level, but

college admissions officers do use them as one factor in trying to figure out if they should admit

you. Obviously, the higher the better, but the number is only as important as the way you have

risen to academic challenge all along.

And your grades also tell part of a story, but seldom the whole story. What do your grades tell

about you? Do they explain some of your other commitments? Do they reflect your ability to

pursue a topic in-depth? Do they show a progression from year to year?

Remember Ernie, the kid who practiced violin every day? He’s worried about his GPA not being

high enough, and he actually has reason to worry at some colleges. At very highly selective

institutions where five times as many qualified people apply and where numbers are a priority,

Ernie might get overlooked for another student who has higher grades. However, at many of

those same colleges that are competitive in admissions, Ernie might have a chance if he presents

a complete picture of how he learns, how he has performed, and how he will thrive once he gets

to college.

Or what about Weisheng, the kid who memorized the entire Odyssey, loves poetry, and plays

beautiful music but whose GPA was a 2.5? He has a huge obstacle to overcome, and his options

for college will probably be fewer, but by presenting a complete picture of who he is as a learner

and highlighting exactly where he has been successful, he may still have a chance at many pretty

cool schools. Interestingly, his options for college may even represent more creative approaches

to an undergraduate degree--especially at really competitive places. But much of his chances

will ride on how successful he is at communicating his love for ideas to college admissions

officers.

The key phrase is complete picture--as in comprehensive, thorough, and consistent. GPA is a

factor in that total picture. Whatever yours is, own it, present it, know the story it tells, and don’t

make excuses for it.

Let’s go back to the self-description you wrote and what your parents and friends told you, and

now factor in your GPA. You are beginning to see the outline of the geek that is you. Let’s flush

it out a bit more with the grades. Answer these questions:

why is your GPA so high (or low, or medium)?

how did that happen?

what does it say about your priorities?

what does it say about your test-taking or homework skills?

what does it say about your follow-up?

what does it say about the way you communicate to your teachers about what you’ve

learned?

what does it say about your outside time commitments?

what does it say about your most enjoyable subjects?

what does your GPA really represent?

For some people, the GPA says, “Hey, I love working hard and getting all the answers right!”

For others it says, “It wasn’t always easy, but I have worked very hard and here’s proof that I

have been successful.” Or this: “I took courses that were really hard and wasn’t able to put as

much effort into them as I wish I had.” Or this: “I didn’t try nearly as hard as I could have, but

you know what? I didn’t really care about grades and still don’t. I enjoy learning, but I’m not all

that excited about doing a lot of the required work.”

Whatever your GPA says about you, add that to your description for now. If what it says isn’t

exactly what you wish it said about you, relax. By the time we finish looking at the complete

you, there will be enough of everything else that’s good about you to strike a balance and present

a pretty good picture of your intellectual self. In the interim, however, continue to think about

what are the things that you really like to learn and where you have been successful learning

them.

And for however much time you have left at high school, get the highest grades you can get.

Work hard. Lean into the inner geek that craves conventional rewards.