Intellectual Curiosity, Kwasi Enin, and the College App Essay

I've been mulling over Kwasi Enin's Ivy League grand slam for the last few days, reading his college application essay, and reading public comments about him. I collected my thoughts in this new Huffington Post article, "Teachable Moments: Kwasi Enin and the College Application Essay." Here is an excerpt.

"There are simply not enough places at these few schools for all the students with perfect grades and perfect scores. Which brings me to Kwasi's essay, what it reveals about him, and what it reveals about what top schools seem to be looking for.

"It is necessary to have good grades and high SATs for admission, and often a lot of AP courses, and extra curricular activities in abundance -- but in 2014, it is no longer sufficient for these schools. But you might be asking, what else is there that a high school student has to show? How about these? Intellectual curiosity. The ability -- the hunger -- to translate the lessons of one subject to other subjects. A craving for knowledge.

"Intellectual curiosity -- a phrase I rarely hear from anyone these days -- is different from 'academic achievement.' I don't think it's a quality you can fake. And based on Kwasi Enin's essay, he has it in abundance." READ MORE