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<p>No, but seeing as she has made at least 45 posts on this thread, many of them extremely verbose, it seems to me this thread has become all about QM’s ideas, interests, and defenses. </p>
<p>The original post was completely vacuous, so this thread has traveled the same paths as a lot of other threads. QM, I, and some others think the elite admissions process is flawed. Lookingforward is offended and thinks that anyone who doesn’t work in an admissions office cannot understand the subtelties of the process, especially if they don’t agree with her. And Pizzagirl feels that she must be CC’s version of Dr. Phil. </p>
<p>??? on your Dr. Phil comment; I don’t watch him so I don’t even know what insult you’re trying to fling at me.</p>
<p>If you think the elite admissions process is flawed, what would you do to fix it?
Admit based on racking-and-stacking scores alone?
Give certain winners of certain competitions “auto-admits” into the school(s) of their choice?</p>
<p>And if the elite admission process is flawed, then elite schools can’t be all they are cracked up to be - because part of what makes a school great are the students in it, not just the professors and the equipment. Where do the deserving but rejected students wind up going? Why is there never an answer to this question? Do they just disappear into the woods when they get rejected from MIT (or insert other super-elite school of choice)?</p>
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<p>While I do not disagree, I am still not sure where all of that fits into the APPLICATION process. Are we assuming that applicants send strong signals that they will pursue major CS over major LA? And if they did, how do they go about it? Are they assuming that the EC will emit such noise that it will be clear? Do they write specific essays about? And are such essays a good idea considering the prompts? </p>
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<p>Are you suggesting that a student interested in CS might be better served to downplay his or interest and deliberately present an image of someone who is more inspired by Proust or Camus than Steve Jobs or Zuckerberg? How does that work when there might be very little in the “standard” application that supports that notion? </p>
<p>I am raising that issue out of a belief that there is an inherent danger in molding an application according to a speculative reading of the tea leaves. On the other hand, I happen to think that an application that is true and genuine carries a better chance to appear … true and genuine. If that makes sense. Hence, my conviction that it will take a student that is genuinely involved in a broad spectrum of activities to sell it conclusively. Yep, that old show over tell thingie! </p>
<p>Lookingforward is offended
only about the way the thread is hijacked to go back over presumptions, Feynman, how special special kids are so, well, special and how we all owe them some special service because they will save the world- not to mention cracks about humanities.</p>
<p>*and thinks that anyone who doesn’t work in an admissions office cannot understand the subtelties of the process, * Nope. I do think some are so stuck on their assumptions and the conclusions they draw that it defies any sort of rational approach.<br>
Carry on.</p>
<p>colegealum, over time, I’ve seen the way you explore different angles.</p>
<p>xiggi - I leave it upto the Hernandezs of the world who can charge 50k on how to mold the application to show interest. At this level writing does not equate to showing. </p>
<p>As a parent I tell my kids what it takes to make the application fit the major of interest in terms of stating an interest and proving it. This takes 4 years of high school classes, summers, ECs etc and not filling in a common app during 12th grade. I have no earthly idea how an undeclared major makes into a college like Stanford unless they are named Bing or Gates. For us regular folks, it takes dedicated work through at least a 4 year period to prove interest. Common app is just a piece of paper but apparently they no longer even let you print it.</p>
<p>EDIT - I have thought about it some more and believe that I have a recipe to make STEM kids interesting to colleges and what it takes to get into specific colleges. However, I still have not tried to push a humanities kid through such a process and wouldn’t know exactly what it takes.</p>
<p>@gravitas - since you have kid who chose S over those schools on east coast for humanities, what do you think SHOWS interest in that area?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - your post 362 is exactly the kind of strawman argument I and some other people are objecting to.</p>
<p>I’ve said this already, but I’ll say it again: How would I change college admissions? By continuing to do a holistic evaluation of applicants, but tilting the balance slightly more in favor of academic qualities than it already is. This doesn’t mean racking and stacking applicants, it means that I’d probably be more likely to take the quirky intellectual type (who might or might not have perfect stats) than the president of Habitat for Humanity - even though I might take both over someone with higher SATs but less demonstrated passion. Agree with my priorities or disagree with them, but please stop inventing caricatures of my position. </p>
<p>“As a parent I tell my kids what it takes to make the application fit the major of interest in terms of stating an interest and proving it. This takes 4 years of high school classes, summers, ECs etc and not filling in a common app during 12th grade. I have no earthly idea how an undeclared major makes into a college like Stanford unless they are named Bing or Gates.”</p>
<p>My kids both got into top schools (OH GRANTED NOT MIT, THE EPITOME OF HUMAN EXISTENCE) without declared majors. S ultimately wound up in an honors program related to his area of interest, though he could have gone several different ways. D thought she’d major in XX and wound up in YY. Why wouldn’t they have gotten in? Certainly you get that top schools know that kids haven’t had exposure to every single potential major in the world in the limited set of classes that make up high school. If a kid is super interested in computer science, great, but if not, what’s the big deal? </p>
<p>Like I said, I have no earthly idea how a kid goes to college without having some interest in a specific area, even if it as esoteric as slavic languages. All it takes is working on those languages while in high school to know you have an interest in it or at least languages if we want to make it broader. I understand it is acceptable practice in US to be undeclared but as a parent, I consider it as “paying” for 6 years of college.</p>
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Sorry, but this is just garbage. There were absolutely no cracks about the humanities, unless you are including high school community service projects as part of the humanities. </p>
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<p>Many of your arguments start with the same phrases and jargon that we’ve all seen a hundred times come out of admissions office, and end with an appeal to authority. Sometimes you make good points, like, “Have you considered this?” But the answer is, well, yeah, I did consider that.</p>
<p>The bottom line is I just don’t agree, and in some cases I don’t think it’s possible for their to be some other explanation. For instance, the video resume’ of the Yale student that became a laughingstock once it got released–I just don’t see how it is possible for someone with that array of BS to favorably impress an admissions committee unless they were prone to fall for that sort of thing. <a href=“Aleksey the Great | The New Yorker”>Aleksey the Great | The New Yorker; </p>
<p>At this point, I will let this thread go where it will. </p>
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<p>It was a reference to you diagnosing psychological disorders, and also a reference to your penchant for blunt insults like calling people “losers.” If I need to spell it out, I don’t think you’re qualified to make any diagnosis like that, and even if you were, it is beyond inappropriate.</p>
<p>Completely agree with @apprenticeprof. I think admissions over values kids who have jam packed resumes and many leadership positions or some exotic extracurricular. Many of these kids are just hoop jumpers and don’t contribute much to the campus. Often they stop doing these activities once they are at college. </p>
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<p>I agree with this as well.</p>
<p>Re posts #357 and #360: Yes, I am a bit defensive on this thread. In post #207, PG remarked that I was too literal here and on other threads, and wondered whether I or someone close to me was “on the spectrum.” I am pretty sure that she meant the autism spectrum.</p>
<p>So, I am employing my “extreme verbosity” to deflect some of the hurled objects coming my way (rhetorically speaking).</p>
<p>People who happen to have the same viewpoint that I do, or a similar one, seem to be outnumbered on this thread. Is that a misperception?</p>
<p>Oh, I wanted to thank alh for the incredulity about PG’s comment (alh’s post #259).</p>
<p>lookingforward, it seems pretty clear to me that your view prevails in “elite” college admissions. You have won. You are in no danger that I can see of losing in the future. I have advised applicants who want to go to a “top” school to heed your advice, and pay no attention to me. So what exactly is your issue with my holding a contrary view?</p>
<p>Thanks for your post #369, collegealum314. I didn’t see any cracks about the humanities either. If I appeared to make any, it was probably just my extreme verbosity getting in the way.</p>
<p>“By continuing to do a holistic evaluation of applicants, but tilting the balance slightly more in favor of academic qualities than it already is. This doesn’t mean racking and stacking applicants, it means that I’d probably be more likely to take the quirky intellectual type (who might or might not have perfect stats) than the president of Habitat for Humanity - even though I might take both over someone with higher SATs but less demonstrated passion.”</p>
<p>Don’t you think this all comes out in the wash - there are some people more like you on adcoms and some people who favor the HFH person and some who favor the prep school kids and some who favor the kids with sob stories and it also equals out?</p>
<p>No, of course it doesn’t all come out in the wash. If some people see it my way and some people don’t, the result is a compromise that is still less preferable to each of us individually than either of our ideal outcomes. If I take turns cooking with a roommate who likes Italian food, while I like Indian food, splitting the difference is simply what has to happen under the circumstances. That doesn’t mean I can’t say “you know, it would be nice to have a roommate that also likes Indian food so that I could have it all the time, rather than just every other day.” </p>
<p>So directly to PG’s point that the top 20 colleges are all equivalent: For the overwhelming majority of students at these colleges, I think this is 100% true.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that the top 20 colleges are all equivalent for everyone, though. If you look at the patterns of successful raids of faculty from one university to another, I believe that you will find that most of the motion is uni-directional, looked at on a pairwise X vs. Y basis. Harvard can mostly recruit the faculty it wants away from other colleges. In fact, for many years, Harvard filled its tenured faculty ranks largely by raiding from elsewhere. There are some exceptions to this, of course. Harvard cannot necessarily get the Stanford faculty it wants. Other places may successfully raid Harvard, if the people in a particular department are insensitive to issues of race or gender (or for other reasons). Oxford and Harvard seem to cross-raid, as do some other pairs.</p>
<p>The movement of tenured faculty goes on across all levels of institutions. My postdoctoral advisor gave me the advice: Never move out. Only move up. He moved up twice in his career himself (all 3 universities either Ivy or CC Top schools). No question these moves were “up,” though. </p>
<p>If the faculty perceive these differences, is it so far-fetched to imagine that the types of students with a rarity of 5 per million (less than 7 standard deviations, I think) can detect differences, too?</p>
<p>I don’t find this hypothesis insulting. Do other people find it so? My university wasn’t top 20, and I think it has served me quite well, generally speaking. </p>
<p>I have no belief that MIT is the “epitome of human existence.” One of the faculty members I know moved up from MIT to Harvard. That was genuinely “up,” in his field, though it would not be “up” in all areas. I think it would be “way up” in some, perhaps level or down in others.</p>