“Hunt If you don’t know if the additional information would change behavior then why not just have these holistic schools provide the info since they have the data and it costs them nothing to provide the information on their websites.”
It’s pretty weak to insist that the college publish something to make you change behavior, when you can change your behavior all on your very own. If you feel you have a low shot of making it to Harvard, feel free not to apply there.
Visions of Tim Groseclose’s “Holistic” appear again in the rearview mirror. For the ones who are not familiar with the reference, here is the file. Warning! This is a rather large Excel file. Don’t open on your Iphone! http://timgroseclose.com/media/holistic.xlsx
Couple of years ago, I knew of about 7 people from my town with a 36 (5) or 2400 (2).
2 went to University of Texas (could have gone to CMU for CS - at least one said it was a financial decision), 2 went to Stanford, one went to Dartmouth, one went to Rice (could have gone to one school from HYPS but it was a financial decision). The last one may have gone to Columbia.
3 years ago, someone went to Yale.
Thanks Xiggi. I downloaded the Groseclose UCLA data from 2007-2009 and analyzed it with SAS. Among the applicants with the highest SAT scores (SAT > 2300) approximately 90% were admitted to UCLA.
In contrast using the Georgetown student profile, only about 50% of students with near perfect SAT scores and very high class rank (GPA ~ 4.0) were admitted. Among the top 30 schools some are more numbers driven than others.
VOR - if last year’s crop of 4.0/2400 came from a wide geographic range, and this year’s crop comes from a narrower geographic range, this year’s will have a lower acceptance rate. That’s an example why the info you think is so predictive isn’t.
A stats matrix won’t tell you your admissions chances.
Because elite admissions is based on more. All you learn is how many kids who impressed with their whole apps and got admitted last year also had what combo. It doesn’t say that your full app and supp convey the characteristics needed by that school. If a kid can’t comprehend that more than stats is considered, he’s in trouble.
Goodness, but the college supplied the number of kids last year, who had that same combo…and submitted a compelling app! Billy forgot to look at what makes a compelling app, assumed it was simply about stats. He sent off his $100, certain that with a miserable X% chance, it’s worth it. Billy made that decision. Not the targeted college.
This notion that a kid who doesn’t vet the college, in the first place, now has complete info, is foolish. As is the notion that just giving him the combo will awaken his missing anaytical senses. It’s superficial thinking.
We could ignore the silliness.
We just keep providing more explanations and one or two posters just keep insisting that a stats matrix would resolve Billy’s problem: lack of adequate anaytical and decision-making skills, probably also maturity and vision. Silliness.
“A stats matrix won’t tell you your admissions chances.”
Agree with you as usual, LF.
Not everyone high school in the country has Naviance. The affluent ones do. Naviance provides a stats matrix to all applicants before they apply. A basic stats matrix would provide some baseline information to all applicants and their guidance counselors. There could also be a warning that the stats aren’t everything and that non-academic factors play a very important role in the admissions process.
xiggi UCLA commissioned Prof. Robert Mare to prepare an “unbiased” report to investigate Prof. Groseclose’s claim that UCLA admissions was violating anti-discrimination laws.
Prof. Mare concluded on page 82 of his report that " My overall impression of the holistic ranking process for Freshman admissions at UCLA is that the system works much as intended."
Even though Prof. Mare found the following:
“if we adjust for ethnic identity group differences in the characteristics of applicants, a different pattern of ethnic disparity emerges. Among otherwise equivalent applicants, Whites, African Americans, and Latinos are overrepresented among those admitted and Asian American applicants are underrepresented. In the Fall 2008 cohort, to eliminate these adjusted disparities, it would have been necessary to admit 98 fewer White, 121 fewer Black, and 41 fewer Latino applicants, and 245 more North Asian and 49 more South Asian applicants.” Page 81 of report.
epiphany and lookingforward believe “A stats matrix won’t tell you your admissions chances.”
These same posters and the like have been arguing ad naseum that all the information that is in a stats matrix is available in many places that if only a student took the time to research this that they would have a good idea of their real chances at an elite holistic school admission. Now they claim that even that won’t provide much info about their chances.
How are kids and their parents to decide about applying to these holistic schools without the relevant data of admit rates based upon their general GPA/SAT profile? The statements of these posters are representative of the very issue about holistic that others have questioned. Those that think holistic is a good thing seem to favor opaqueness and nondisclosure.
Holistic reminds me of the Ally bank commercial where one child is given a toy pony and another child given a real pony. See the video to get the full impact what happens and the expression of the child given the toy pony is precious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GUPY4ZXZME
Pizzagirl Thanks for clarifying to bengalmom that stat matrix was for individual colleges and not one for High Schools. As to your post #259. Do you really believe that a 3.99 GPA student is in a similar position as 3.7 GPA? or would a 3.99 GPA be closer to a 4.0 GPA student? If you think about it I think you will change your mind about your posting.
Just want to chip in that Naviance can be quite inaccurate. I know for a fact only 2 people got into Yale last year and both of them are going, but it says 5 got in from my school and only 1 is going. Also, there’s no way 53 people are applying to Princeton this year, that’s close to 30% of the class.
Edit: And they still haven’t put in my SAT scores from November 2013. I do realize the above is self reported but it may still give people an inaccurate picture of how many people go to elite colleges and increase their confidence falsely.
"Do you really believe that a 3.99 GPA student is in a similar position as 3.7 GPA? or would a 3.99 GPA be closer to a 4.0 GPA student? "
But that piece of information by itself doesn’t tell me whether this student is “worthy” of being admitted to my college. The 3.7 student could be a better choice than the 3.99 and the 4.0. It’s all in context.
Pizzagirl I never stated that. I only pointed out the flaw of your statements on post 259. Hope you saw the video.
As you’ve been told repeatedly, one hour of online research–certainly within the ability of any student with aspirations for a highly selective college–should give a student a general idea of the GPA/SAT ranges that successful applicants tend to have, as well as an understanding of the broader set of qualifications that matter. More precision with respect to stats really won’t help much.
But if what you really want is ammunition to prove that highly selective schools are discriminating against high-stats Asian applicants, why should the schools cooperate?
Interesting point of view Hunt, you have just confirmed that what many posters have stated about “Holistic”, that it is about hiding the ball especially conscious or unconscious bad intent. Thanks for confirming what many were suspecting.
So are you confirming what I suspect about you–that you don’t really care about informing students about what is needed to gain admission to these schools, but rather to score points in the endless debate about whether Asian students are subject to discrimination?
Hunt Never said that. I was only responding to your post. All of my efforts have been to help ALL students get a fair shake at admissions. Providing information is key for kids Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, International, etc. I have talked about how schools game the system by providing incentive for students to take the SAT/ACT multiple times with its “superscoring” policies. How test optional policies encourage many unqualified students to apply so that those universities can game the ranking systems.
I have never argued that factors beyond GPA/SAT should not be considered.
I have advocated for use of affirmative action to benefit of the disadvantaged over the privileged even if that means that I or my family are the ones who would be negatively affected.
I have have taken the position that poor Whites should be given preference over Rich Asians in the admission policy. I have advocated that SES should be greater consideration than ethnicity in the admission policy.
Your post demonstrates exactly why holistic and opaqueness rues the day. It allows people to hide behind bad intent under the guise of doing good and then make accusations at others because their views are different.
The fact that somebody disagrees with you is not necessarily evidence of an ulterior motive.
No, but the fact that you concluded that everything I stated about more openness under the holistic system was an ulterior motive about Asian being discriminated against speaks volumes.
The Asian discrimination issue was raised by xiggi when he posted the “Holistic” book written by Prof. Groseclose. It just happened that Prof. Mare’s “independent report” which was used by UCLA admission in support of it’s proper use of holistic admissions had information and data showing possible Asian discrimination. I did not raise it. Xiggi did.
"Just want to chip in that Naviance can be quite inaccurate.’
For Heaven’s sake. Naviance, like all applications, is dependent on human beings to correct, update, and keep it current. It’s not “Naviance” that’s inaccurate but the human beings who report the information, or fail to. It is only as useful as the data supplied.