This sounds a bit dumb, but.. - Page 3

wis75 · 10-01-2012, 01:31 AM

Eons ago I didn't bother applying to those top east coast schools partly because "need blind" admissions didn't exist in my day. Plus, even with tuition, room and board paid for I never could have afforded any clothes or activites to fit in. Plus- no way was I going to Radcliffe instead of Harvard! I did find out years later Harvard may have started accepting women in my year. A moot point.

Thank goodness the rest of the country uses better standards than trying to be "the Harvard of the West" or some such. There is life beyond the Atlantic rim and many schools better than Harvard in some fields (eg computer science). Many different ways to approach college, the Ivies aren't always the best for many top students (eg not liberal enough with the same majors).

Agree with the Common App creating more applications. A poster on the UW (Madison) thread suggests it as improving the school's status as well as making it easier for OOS students. I disagree- those that want the school will make the effort to do things the way that works best for UW. Different applicant pools in the east and midwest.

CameronAM · 10-03-2012, 06:52 PM

I guess simply saying that there are not enough seats for every applicant makes sense, but why is that they only consider certain people when reading applications? I don't think I'd look too far into the kid who graduated in the bottom one hundred or so people in their class, but why not look at the kid who kept solid grades in all of high school, even though they weren't a near all-around brilliant student?

chaosakita · 10-03-2012, 06:57 PM

Seriously how old are you? The problem with colleges is that more people want to attend them than there are spots. It's a simple arithmetic problem.

momofthreeboys · 10-03-2012, 07:48 PM

In your parents generation you went to the college you could afford or you went where your parents went. Somehow that's morphed into this belief that there are vast differences in colleges, somewhat spurred by the escalation of the middle class and a desire of that class of nouveau riche to be "elite" and the idea that all good can be ranked in some manner and that to be higher ranked yields a better product. This has created a pocket of schools that everyone wants and the concept of supply and demand. But if a student really sits down and can make a list of the factors that are important to him or her they will find that there are "many" colleges that fit that criteria. If you were to take a small "popular" college and admit everyone that wanted to attend you'd soon have a very large college much like the very, very good large universities....which would be reflected as they are in large universities with a wide variety of students with wide variety of capabilities and interests. It is a business model for colleges to be at a particular size...so look at the large universities and you will find what you appear to be searching for. Your false assumption is assuming that only smaller institutions are "great" institutions.

GolfFather · 10-03-2012, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by megan12

It's sort of how the system in the US used to be. Only the smart (and rich) went to Harvard.

I am sorry you are so misinformed.
Harvard (and many other schools) had a "closed system" of admissions (numerus clausus).
For a large portion of the 20th century, only a very small handful of highly qualified Jewish applicants were admitted to Ivy and other institutions.

Numerus clausus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

lmkh70 · 10-03-2012, 10:17 PM

They only have so many spaces. And if more people apply than they have room for, then they have to reject some. If they have 1000 openings and 1000 applicants, they will likely be stuck with a 100% acceptance rate. If they have 1000 openings and 100,000 applicants, they will have a 1% acceptance rate.

lmkh70 · 10-03-2012, 10:19 PM

For the record, I cannot stand Harvard. My children know my feelings and why. If they got full rides there, they all say they would still pass them up. It is probably personal, but, I cannot stand Harvard. And I do not think Harvard accepts the best and the brightest. I think they accept the wealthiest (pretty much legacies) and then people who fit in to the race card or other such hooks. Everyone I have ever known who went to Harvard (which is a small number of people) were not good people, and not bright. They ALL had some sort of hook, like legacy or race. The smart people I know, who maybe earned their way, went to other schools that I have more respect for. I am sure there must be SOME decent people at Harvard who have an IQ above 100, but I just have not met them yet.

colorado_mom · 10-03-2012, 11:33 PM

I've only known a few people that attended Harvard, and the were quite decent people. Sorry you've had bad experiences. lmk,

megan12 · 10-03-2012, 11:59 PM

golfather - I don't know, all my Jewish friends and family didn't have any trouble getting into ivies and others. They were at the top of their class, and they went to the top schools - Princeton, Penn, MIT, Northwestern, Harvard, etc.

I think there are vast differences between schools. The level of education at the top schools is definitely not the same as some lower down the list. I think there are some good large universities, but there are also some not so good ones. There has to be something for everyone. It's just a shame that the top students sometimes get the short end of the stick because there's so much competition at the top colleges.

blossom · 10-04-2012, 09:44 AM

Megan, Brandeis was founded because the elite schools had quotas limiting the number of Jews allowed- and so a bunch of Jewish philanthropists who cared about education started their own college. CUNY (a public university) was where top students of all ethnic groups ended up when they were barred from the private U's. You are using a couple of anecdotes to try and argue against reams of data (which the elite universities finally admit to be factual).

Which top students get the sort end of the stick? The kid in California who ends up at Berkeley and not Stanford? The kid in Virginia who ends up at UVA because his family couldn't afford U Penn or he couldn't get into JHU?

I'm not sure what you are arguing. But I don't think there has ever been a society in the history of humanity with so many exceptional educational offerings available to so many students.

Yes, the level of education at Yale is not the same as at Quinnipiac up the street or U New Haven down the road. But someone studying Fire Safety/Emergency Management at U New Haven is not likely to have been interested in Yale in the first place. There are very few students at U New Haven who are getting the short end of the stick because they couldn't get into Yale due to "so much competition". To be blunt- they are not what Yale is looking for, and Yale is not what they are looking for. That's not a bad thing.

lookingforward · 10-04-2012, 10:21 AM

why not look at the kid who kept solid grades in all of high school, even though they weren't a near all-around brilliant student?

College isn't closed to those kids. But, college isn't high school, where the community owes each kid those years of education. There are 3000 schools and kids should aim for the level where they will become empowered and succeed, find their leadership niche, if that's in them.

For the most competitive schools, think of the level of the academics and the skills of classmates. Is it fair to take a kid who "might" benefit from the stretch-- or might find himself at the back, struggling to keep up? It might help to get specific: should MIT take kids who did ok in math or kids who are at a higher level?

I think there's a suble tone here that anything out of the top 20 or 40 is subpar.

As for the extras, one's future potential is not all about high school stats. It's also shown in how the kid engaged and in what, to what degree. That's where you get to holistic, which I think may be the real target of this thread.

megan12 · 10-04-2012, 10:23 AM

The kid who gets the short end of the stick is the one who has all the grades for a top education but has to go to a safety school or less. Removing all financial situations as factors, I think that all the top students should have a better chance to go to any of the top schools than they do in the current admissions system. I do think there should be diversity and admittance for students who would not otherwise have been able to attend those colleges due to financial reasons, but not at the expense of kids who are some of the brightest in the country. There has to be a balance somewhere. And I've seen too many of those kids get shut out of those colleges because there are so many kids applying now that wouldn't have applied in the past.

I don't really know (or care) about the discriminations in the past - not really my complaint and totally off on a tangent of my original point. Maybe I shouldn't have stated, "the way it used to be". Maybe I should have stated "the way it ought to be". I just wish there were more slots for all the students who get straight A's and high SAT's than there seem to be currently. I feel bad for them because where do they go when they can't get in? They have to choose something that won't be as challenging or up to their level of intelligence. There is always a place for the average student, but down is the only way to go for the top students who don't get accepted at their target schools, which have now become reaches for everyone.

lookingforward · 10-04-2012, 10:39 AM

"All the grades" is a focus on stats, again.
If you apply to a holistic school with single digit (or low double digit) admit rates, you have placed yourself into a fierce competition. Not a lottery. They will look at the whole picture, not just hs stats, and cherry pick the ones they want most. It's their right. They want a sense of your potential at that college, not just how you did in your high school classes. They want a picture of your non-academic accomplishments and future potential, not just that you got A's. And, all they have to go on is your application- unlike teachers, family and friends, they only know what you present.

There are so many great colleges- and I really mean "super." The kids who don't get ito HYPS go to those, form a great body of highly competent kids, keep the bar up, there. But, I think there are hs kids with tunnel vision- who only want HYPS and everyone around them has fawned over their hs accomplishments, so they assume they deserve the highest tier of colleges. They forget what holistic expects, don't realize their own successes just put them into a pool of 10,000+ successful hs kids. They miss the chance to love other options. There is so much ground between "top" and "safety or less."

sevmom · 10-04-2012, 10:59 AM

blossom, actually, in Virginia it's possible for a kid to not be able to get into UVa but be able to get into a school like Johns Hopkins. We have friends who were very frustrated that their kid had great SAT's but grades were not that great . He had no shot at UVa (where all ducks tend to have to be in a row for admission-SAT,GPA,EC's)but got into JHU and were full pay. They would have loved to get that instate tuition! There are lots of great schools out there. To focus on just the top few seems very shortsighted. UVa stat wise was a safety for my instate kid but I think it was a great fit for him, better than many of the higher ranked schools would have been for him. He loved the big time sports and social scene there.

cobrat · 10-04-2012, 02:58 PM

Quote:

In your parents generation you went to the college you could afford or you went where your parents went. Somehow that's morphed into this belief that there are vast differences in colleges, somewhat spurred by the escalation of the middle class and a desire of that class of nouveau riche to be "elite" and the idea that all good can be ranked in some manner and that to be higher ranked yields a better product.

There has always been notions of elite and non-elite colleges. Only differences was that geographic differences, socio-economic class status, and other factors meant that what was considered "elite" was different.

For instance, even in the NE, I've heard dozens of older boomers and older folks who respected Federal Service Academies and CCNY/CUNY much more than the Ivies because the latter were mostly closed to those who weren't of the right religion, socio-economic class, and/or well-connected until sometime in the mid-'60s.

On the other hand, the Federal Service Academies and CCNY/CUNY were regarded as bastions of academic meritocracy where not being from a family that's part of the well-off well-connected WASP establishment wasn't held against you in admissions in the same period. Only your demonstrated academic merit and other demonstrable skills were required.

Quote:

Everyone I have ever known who went to Harvard (which is a small number of people) were not good people, and not bright.

That's not been my experience. While I've also met several who weren't good folks/bright, the vast majority were highly intelligent with some genuine geniuses thrown in, down-to-earth, and went way out of their way to not come across as fitting the negative Harvard/Ivy-league snob stereotype.