<p>It seems self-evident that no one adcom member is ever going to completely “get his way.” I don’t think that’s unfortunate. We all have our subconscious / unconscious biases, whether ti’s for the quirky intellectual type or the student-athlete or the kid-with-a-sob-story or the Eagle Scout or the underprivileged kid. Unless you try to assign these things points (sob story is worth 50 points! Eagle Scout is worth 60! newspaper editor is worth 70!), that’s how it goes. That’s why it’s a committee, and that’s why there are discussions. The person who “overfavors” quirky intellectuals will be balanced out by the person who “overfavors” the HFH president. They’ll each get some of their preferred type, but there will be enough checks and balances so that the class doesn’t fill up with only their preferred type. This is called how life works. </p>
<p>Your Italian / Indian food example doesn’t work, because the goal isn’t to have all of one type of food - the goal is to have a mix of all the different foods. Therefore, it’s <em>good</em> that your preference for Indian is balanced out by someone’s preference for Italian. </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>So they detect differences. So what? Are these students SOOOOOOO very brilliant that they’re going to outgrow the professors and the classes and the fellow students and the opportunities at Elite-but-Not-MIT within 20 minutes of hitting campus? These are 18 yo kids. No matter how smart they are, they have a lot of learning and growing and development to do. And if they can’t make that happen at oh-so-inferior JHU or CMU or (insert elite school of choice), then they’re just entirely too full of themselves and I for one am not interested in giving people who are that full of themselves the time of day.</p>
<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. </p>
<p>So you don’t believe what the colleges state? Based on what? But I don’t claim authority. I just happen to be able to note, eg, the extent to which academics does play, ime. And I do tell kids to try to learn directly from the college websites- not from CC notions that, say, you need to cure cancer, be so quirky (QM and I have previously discussed when quirky becomes odd and suspect,) or have “passions” at age 15.</p>
<p>* I think admissions over values kids who have jam packed resumes and many leadership positions or some exotic extracurricular. * Again, based on what? You think, you heard something? Some wacky kid you know did this? You believe CC when they say to stand out in some ridiculous ways? It’s not jam packed resumes (these fallacies resurface so often, anyone question the sources?)</p>
<p>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."<br>
Apprenticeprof, what exactly makes you think this isn’t mighty close to how it works? I’d replace quirky with something about spark and the dreaded same words I repeat- which I’ll skip for now since some suggest they heard them enough. (And still disagree.) </p>
<p>And the keyword is “demonstrated” that you used in front of “passions.” Being president of HfH- that’s no tip. That’s a title.</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>I might be overly dense tonight but I am not following your post at all. Perhaps the terms such a showing interest are what confuse me when you apply in to majors or activities. Same thing for undeclared majors. Do you know any applicant who is a declared major at Stanford? Perhaps it is an issue of semantics, but I do not follow your points about showing interest. </p>
<p>Again, I believe a successful applicant prepares the application who presents who he IS in the best light, but not necessarily one that tries to answer to a hypothetical “preference” perceived from adcoms. </p>
<p>PG, would it trouble you to think that the answer to the question you posed in #381 might be “yes”? Not that the super-bright students would outgrow everyone else on the campus within 20 minutes of showing up, but sometime within the span of four years?</p>
<p>I have known a few people who did outgrow their campuses (really) and transferred in the middle of their undergrad programs. (They weren’t all super-geniuses, and their original campuses spanned a pretty wide range.)</p>
<p>On other threads, I have said that I think it is sub-optimal if the super-bright students, who are very small in number, are not admitted to a “super-top” school. It’s not a tragedy, nor a disaster. I just mean sub-optimal. And in principle, it would be easy enough to change this by accepting that student instead of one for whom the top 20 colleges are all equivalent. (Not that I think this is going to happen any time soon.)</p>
<p>Further, on PG’s #381: Hardly any of the people I do think of as “super-geniuses” in my field are “full of themselves.” I’d be hard pressed to identify two. Most of the people I encounter who are “full of themselves” are hardly super-geniuses.</p>
<p>But the whole thing is “suboptimal” because MIT simply can’t admit all the people who would benefit from it. That’s why they have a 5% admit rate. Oh well. </p>
<p>Pizzagirl, my reasoning here is that if I think I’m right to value what I value in this particular area, there’s no merit in even-handedness. You’re right that the example of taste in food isn’t an exact one, because that’s merely a subjective preference, in the same way that my preference for the humanities over STEM is purely subjective. To the extent that I might allow that preference to unconsciously affect decisions were I on a search committee, it is good that I would be counterbalanced by people like QM who might have the opposite inclination.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my larger views on admissions standards are a matter of educational philosophy. I don’t just think it would be nice to have more students admitted on primarily academic grounds, I think it is the right way to run a university. Therefore, I think it would be better if more people on these committees shared my view. Perhaps a better analogy is that of a political party. If I believe strongly in the policy positions of Party A, I always want party A to win - why wouldn’t I? </p>
<p>I know you were asking PG, but doesn’t this “outgrowing” speak to a fundamental weakness in these so-called super-bright kids? Why can’t they take initiative and push themselves beyond what their professors are capable of teaching? How have we had other geniuses throughout history who have not been supported by an MIT-caliber academic bubble, but who have still achieved great things? The logic here suggests a troubling sort of co-dependency on the institution to provide “optimal” support for students who would apparently not thrive to the same extent elsewhere. Not only that, it implies an eventual stagnation on the part of these special students. What happens when they finish their BS, their MS, their PhD? Is the non-tragedy only an issue for the finite length of time it takes to get a terminal degree? Why are we not concerned with their development their whole lives?</p>
<p>PG, you have stated before that the top 20 or so colleges are essentially equivalent. Why couldn’t one of those colleges [Harvard, for the sake of argument] admit the 20 or so applicants for whom Harvard <em>is not</em> essentially equivalent to every other place in the top 20, and let go 20 of the students for whom Harvard <em>is</em> essentially equivalent to the other places in the top 20? </p>
<p>(Perhaps Harvard does this already–I don’t have evidence one way or the other. But the intensity of the opposition to this suggestion makes me wonder whether Harvard actually does this.)</p>
<p>I think the number of students Harvard admits each year is large enough to accommodate the suggestion without disrupting the admitted student community.</p>
<p>Hypothetical preference is irrelevant as far as I am concerned. I can’t imagine someone who did 7 years worth of Math in high school including 3 years of college courses can claim to be interested in liberal arts to show a preference. However, someone who studied 4 languages during high school can clearly prove they are interested in languages.</p>
<p>Hmm, sally305, post #388. One of my cousins is an artist. He attended a small LAC that is quite well regarded. He actually did outgrow the art faculty there, at least in some senses. His professors told him that certain things could not be done technically in print-making. He found that they were wrong about it. He left for a different university, where the professors were ahead of him in all respects. It was definitely better for him. Afterwards, he studied in Europe for quite a while. You can see the two latter influences in his work many years later, although his work is unquestionably original. </p>
<p>It’s not the “support” that a top university provides–it’s the challenge, and in some cases the knowledgeability. </p>
<p>^ I definitely think there are a few literal readers, though you aren’t one, and I’ve been pretty impressed how concise you are with your posts. My only complaint is that lots of the jokes go over my head for a few days. We all bring a different POV, that’s for sure.</p>
<p>*That’s a choice. No one is forced to play that game I’m glad I live in the Midwest where there isn’t such mania over the top 20 schools. Plenty of extremely bright kids go off to big 10 state flagships and don’t “arrange” their lives around needing to get into top 20 schools. My kids certainly didn’t. I’m really sorry some people work themselves up in a lather of top 20 or disaster, or MIT or disaster, but that’s their own darn fault. *</p>
<p>So you approve of the game or you don’t? Your kids applied ED to elite schools and were accepted, so you didn’t exactly opt out. And you hang out with us on this board. If all this is so unimportant, why aren’t your kids at your state flagship? Why aren’t you thumbing your nose at all the elitist nonsense, instead of just a few places?</p>
<p>If you think your kids’ colleges are better fits for them than some other schools might be, why isn’t it possible the same might be true of other posters’ kids? Why do you feel justified in judging the appropriate fit of schools for the kids of others? And what kind of education is best for those other kids? Or adequate?</p>
<p>Why don’t you want every kid accepted ED to their first choice, just like your kids? </p>
<p>Yes, I know that isn’t realistic. And you want everyone to just quit whining.</p>
<p>lookingforward: Other admissions officers on this board identify themselves. Is it rude to ask why you don’t? Why you are incognito and they aren’t? I’ve been wondering for a long time and finally had to ask.</p>
<p>texaspg: are you suggesting someone “claim” an interest in something to impress adcoms? to give themselves an edge? or am I mis-reading?</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. "</p>
<p>THERE IS NO RECIPE. Good lord. This is like saying, there’s a recipe to be attractive to you, and it’s one part blue eyes and two parts being 5’10" and so on and so forth. There is no one single recipe because the goal is to have a bunch of different types who complement one another. What is so freakin’ hard about this? It’s a really simple concept.</p>
<p>Are all of your friends identical ln their looks, personalities, preferences and interests? Or do you have a range of different people as your friends, all of whom are appealing and intriguing to you on various dimensions? Your friend who’s brilliant, your friend who makes you laugh, your friend who understands your deepest emotions, your friend who is great at making you feel better, your friend who dares you to do things you wouldn’t ordinarily dol. Is there “one recipe” for someone to be your friend?</p>
<p>@lookingforward, I know many people from Penn (as well as peers from high school who went to other top colleges) who are examples of what I described. They look a lot more impressive on paper than they are in person. A lot of these kids who had tons of leadership positions and fantastic grades in high actually into huge grade grubers who don’t particularly contribute much to creating a positive and intellectually vibrant campus. They are too busy looking out for themselves and their bad attitude really puts a damper on a lot of things (I just learned to ignore this).</p>
<p>For example, a lot of the premeds just follow the standard path of obsessively trying to preserve their GPA and dabbling in research/volunteering since that’s what they think they are supposed to do. What about all of the kids who go into finance? The majority aren’t doing it because they like it, in fact many are miserable working in banking in such. They do it because they view it as a prescribed and prestigious way to make money without having to actually be creative or think critically.</p>
<p>“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>
<p>So they admit on the strength of jam-packed resumes and then these kids get to campus and don’t contribute much. So then they go ahead and admit the very next year on the exact same criteria. That makes no sense. </p>