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"Race" in College Applications FAQ & Discussion 12
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Replies to: "Race" in College Applications FAQ & Discussion 12
Activities Supplement
"Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences that was particularly meaningful to you. (Response required in about 150 words.)"
Summer Activities
"Please tell us how you have spent the last two summers (or vacations between school years), including any jobs you have held. (Response required in about 150 words.)"
Engineering Essay
"please write a 300-500 word essay describing why you are interested in studying engineering, any experiences in or exposure to engineering you have had and how you think the programs in engineering offered at Princeton suit your particular interests."
The college I interview for doesn't have a specific set of rules about research, such as try to evaluate research in more detail. Instead I am instructed to evaluate applicants on a group of characteristics that are extremely similar to what the website says they are looking for in applicants. For each criteria, I write a summary about how the applicant meets that criteria and give a numerical rating. The research sounds like an interesting and meaningful activity that would be a good example of multiple evaluation criteria, so if I were interviewing, I'd be likely to ask questions and try to get the applicant to go in to more detail.
Princeton as well as other HYPSM... colleges make it easy to switch between majors, so a lot of students do switch majors. However, I'd expect many of these switches are to similar fields. For example, a prospective EE major who has never taken an EE course during HS might switch to a CS major at some point during college. The same Princeton quote that mentions they high major change rate also mentions, "The only exception is for students who indicate that they will be applying to the bachelor’s program in the arts or in science and engineering. Within those two programs, they are encouraged to explore the academic offerings until they declare their majors after either their freshman year in science and engineering or their sophomore year in the bachelor of arts program." As such, while Princeton may not be as big on being passionate about their prospective field as certain other colleges, they still want students who appear to be highly capable in their prospective field of study and likely to stay in the general engineering/science area. And I'd expect they still would be interested in hearing more about the research. The essay/statements in my previous posts seem to direct such elaboration, and I think it would also be likely to come up during the interview. Several comments on the Princeton admissions website hint at wanting detail about such activities.
In other words, not getting the maximum number possible of the best students in the country is a feature, not a bug.
That really depends on your definition of "best" --not the college's.
I think most of the Ivies & equivalent colleges place high value on social and interpersonal qualities like leadership. They may also value other difficulty-to-quantify qualities, such as artistic talent.
They aren't accepting students based on legacy alone -- they are just giving some well-qualified legacy students a bump over equally well-qualified unhooked students. Because they don't have room for all the well-qualified students who apply, so they make the choices based on their own agenda or needs.
None of these colleges are looking to pick the "best" students-- they are looking to assemble the "best" class. And that means a class that fits their model of what each year's entering group should look like, not the particular qualities of individual students.
It's also interesting that the SES preference does not appear to be applied to URMs in the same way it does to ORMs. Part of this effect likely relates to a maximum hook boundary for non-athlete hooks. At some point, you can't push the scales further in to combining multiple hooks into a huge superhook and need to insure that the students are qualified. There appears to be almost exactly 0 benefit for being "disadvantaged" among Black applicants, as if the flag is not considered. This fits with Black being the only race for which the portion of disadvantage admits was lower than the portion disadvantage applicants.
Percent of unhooked applicants and admits who are SES "disadvantaged*"
White -- 6.4% of White applicants, 14.6% of White admits
Asian -- 10.8% of Asian applicants, 21.9% of Asian admits
Hispanic -- 24.3% of Hispanic applicants, 37.4% of Hispanic admits
Black -- 29.2% of Black applicants, 28.5% of Black admits
*Harvard's definition of SES "disadvantaged" seems to correlate with less than ~median US income
Regression Coefficients for Disadvantaged, Unhooked and Full Controls
White and Disadvantaged = +1.5, White and not Disadvantaged = 0
Asian and Disadvantaged = +1.35, Asian and not Disadvantaged = -0.3
Hispanic and Disadvantaged = +3.0, Hispanic and not Disadvantaged = +2.0
Black and Disadvantaged = +3.9, Black and not Disadvantaged = +3.9
Percent First Gen: Freshman Survey
White -- 10%
Asian -- 15%
Hispanic -- 41%
Black -- 24%
Legacy Reported Income: Freshman Survey
>$500k income -- 46%
>$250k income -- 79%
SES "Disadvantaed" -- ~1%
I found some confirmation of my suspicion that the colleges dig a little deeper here:
[For the full text of my source, Google "Legacy Demystified: How the People You Know Affect Your Admissions Decision" It's a blog post, so I can't link directly to it.]
Math 19-21 -- 3 quarter version of single variable calculus
Math 41-42 -- 2 quarter version of single variable calculus
Math 51-53 -- differential and integral calculus in several variables, linear algebra, and ordinary differential equations
Math 61-63M -- covers the material of the Math 50 series at a much more advanced level with an emphasis on rigorous proofs and conceptual arguments
Math 61-63DM -- covers the same linear algebra material as the Math 60CM series and otherwise focuses on topics in discrete mathematics, algebra, and probability theory at an advanced level with an emphasis on rigorous proofs
HYPS... type colleges also generally encourage a supportive and collaborative atmosphere, rather than a competitive one. This includes things like encouraging/expecting students to work together on problem sets, having no problem with giving the vast majority of the class A's if the vast majority do A quality work, favoring admitting students who display the desired cooperative and supporting other classmate traits, etc.
When I was a student, I generally couldn't tell you who the top students in a particular class or my major were. For the most part, I didn't know what their grades were or how much/little they studies for exams. I didn't even known what the average grade was on exams within my major. I only knew how I did and a few of my friends did. Since then, I've seen grade surveys that suggest the vast majority of grades were A's. I've seen students go so far as to risk an honor code violation to encourage classmates who appeared to be struggling and/or have given up to keep going on exams. It did not seem like a competitive beat out your classmates type atmosphere.
“Dear HYPS: You should accept me because I am the pure embodiment of your institutional needs and wants. I have Jared Kushner levels of social capital -- call him and ask. I’ll be a great “culture carrier” and an expert from day one at bending the system to my advantage. A lot of my friends will be accepted, too, so you could say that we’ve already begun networking, and can you imagine the power we’ll be able to amass once we leverage the resources of HYPS? I know you can and I’m counting on that. And what will I do with that power? Whatever I want, obviously, but I probably won’t bite the hand that feeds me. At least as long as it continues to feed me.
I concede that there are kids at my school who have overcome difficulties, work harder, score higher, are more talented and driven, and are now and always will be fundamentally better people than I am, but you know, you can’t really compare individuals, right? Morality and deservedness don’t come into it! I love that! That’s the perfect value for me to spread from my HYPS-enhanced position of social power! And with me, unlike with those nervous, self-motivated achievatrons, you won’t have to worry about imposter syndrome. Can you imagine, a Winthorpe-McCash?! Ha ha ha! Finally, I need hardly remind you that accepting me will make Mother and Father pleased as punch, and, ahem, energize them to contribute in ways that are important to you. Just say the word and mention some numbers.”
Basically I think DeepBlue has the story straight, but while he doesn’t mind defending this system as charming and rooted in tradition, I hate it. I see plenty of reasons why society should pressure top institutions to act more ethically. If that doesn't mean abolishing legacy preferences right away, it should, at a bare minimum, mean being honest about how all preferences like AA, legacy, etc. really work.
They would have admitted some students who served some institutional goals in different ways, not necessarily "unhooked". And not necessarily with higher or better academic credentials or stats.
As @SatchelSF says, filling their classes with the “best” students academically, however defined, isn’t what these places are about. If they did that, they wouldn’t be able to satisfy various other institutional imperatives - there’d be a lot fewer URMs, athletes, first-gens and people with special talents, for starters. These places are looking to educate tomorrow’s leaders in many areas, not just academia/research. They also need access and resources for their mission, which alumni engagement is very helpful in providing.
Regarding MIT and Caltech, so often cited here, if, as with them, the preponderance of your operating budget is met by research grants, 90% or more of your undergrads are STEM majors, you’re focused almost to the exclusion of anything else to educating the leading scientists and technologists of tomorrow (a niche in which you have a dominant position), traditions and alumni relations aren’t major factors for you and, as such, you’re prepared to sustain a much narrower range of activities and departments than HYPS, diversity and legacy considerations probably won’t be very relevant to your thinking.
Here is the bottom line. Holistic admissions is designed to cement the existing status quo. Think of it in those terms, and you won't go wrong in your analysis.