<p>I remember a father on the UVa forum 3 or so years ago. His instate daughter with 1500 + SAT’s and 4.0+ GPA was waitlisted. He was incensed. He went on and on over numerous posts about the unjustness of it all -kids with lower SAT’s and GPA 's were getting in, etc. He finally admitted after numerous people pushing him on the issue (what else does your kid bring to the table essentially?), that his daughter really had not done anything special outside of her academics (and had also been waitlisted at a women’s college). It really was not that big a surprise that she was not admitted because UVa has tons of applicants these days, admits holistically and looks for the whole package- but he obviously thought she should have been an auto-admit based on her SAT’s and GPA, no questions asked. </p>
<p>Remember that these admissions committees are processing thousands of applications. I have to believe that there are people flipping through applications, going, “Stats too low,” “Stats too low,” “Good stats but nothing else,” etc. It’s just too Pollyanna-ish to expect them to say, “Stats are too low for our current needs, although I am sure that the applicant has many other positive qualities,” or “The stats are good, but there is nothing else in the application that stands out, although certainly it is possible that the applicant has many positive traits that are not reflected in the application.” These shorthand remarks are not really insults to the teenage applicants–although I certainly agree that admissions people should show discretion in how they express their criteria in public.</p>
<p>apprenticeprof, I think perhaps one point of disagreement here is that some of us think the most selective colleges are already doing what you describe. The appearance of occasional anecdotes that suggest they don’t always do this may simply show that sometimes they make mistakes, or that some of those stellar applicants had high school disciplinary actions for cheating (or something else like that).</p>
<p>IIRC this whole discussion began when seemingly unpredictable rejections were reported and some of us thought the appropriate response should be “sometimes they make mistakes” while others assumed there was something in the application reflecting negatively on the applicant. In the case of students who are accepted to peer schools, it doesn’t seem like there was something negative in the application. Anyway, that’s not the jump I want to make one way or the other.</p>
<p>The peer school might just have felt the student was a fit for their particular school and so accepted them. Just because another school rejected a kid, doesn’t necessarily mean there was something "negative " in the application. They just might have felt they had other kids who were better suited to their particular school. There just are not enough spaces for everyone. And I do believe “sometimes they make mistakes.” I don’t think any process is perfect.</p>
<p>PG, your comments in #578 are the longer version of my statement about “operationally equivalent.”
To me, the actual difference between the two versions is not “trees falling in a forest,” though.
If a tree falls over in a forest and no one sees it, then the next time you walk through the forest will the tree be back up?</p>
<p>alh, I agree with you that if a student was accepted to a peer school, it is unlikely that there was something negative in the application. . . . although it might be a case of a student whose hobby is fishing for sport (rather than for food or “catch and release”) and an admissions committee member at a particular school who is sympathetic to fish. Negative for one college, but not necessarily for others.</p>
<p>I think that there are sufficient probabilistic elements in “top” school admissions that a student might not be admitted to any of three “top” schools (say) to which he/she applied, and still there is nothing wrong with the application. And the application shows plenty. That is a whole 'nother discussion.</p>
<p>sevmom: Basically I agree with you, but if we are talking about Ginny Math/Science Genius and she is head and shoulders on top academically, and doesn’t get into MIT, but gets into all the peer schools to which she applied, “fit” becomes a puzzle to me. And I’ll just have to make the leap that MIT made a mistake in that case.</p>
<p>^extreme hypothetical, of course</p>
<p>adding: If she gets into no schools, I still don’t want to make the leap there was something personally damaging in that application… unless she is my own kid and I need to investigate what happened.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Xiggi - My premise is that a good humanities kid has a higher probability of being admitted at a specific school compared to an equally good STEM kid. This was somehow morphed into how a kid might be encouraged into claiming to be one. I disagree with that notion altogether and I don’t give a rodent’s behind if someone wants to do it.</p>
<p>Sevmom, UVa is one of the most impossible to predict because they are so committed to trying to serve kids from all over the state (which has wide variations in ed quality and opportunity.) Plus, depending on where you live, TJ throws everything off.</p>
<p>As for BJ: he did not say “has nothing more to put on the table”</p>
<p>Tpg, you are on the right track, imo. Just make sure that, beside proving out academic strengths and interests and the ability to stretch, she also has the right balance of activities in and out of the hs, including some meaningful community service. </p>
<p>Folks, my take is: better to cover your bases than to assume only one or two things matter and then get the hard lesson. CYA. </p>
<p>I know that, lookingforward. One of my kids went there. And the guy I was talking about who was so angry was from Northern Virginia (not TJ). He and his daughter made the big mistake of probably viewing it as a safety. My kid had similar stats and great EC’s and we never viewed it as such or thought he had the right to be viewed as an auto-admit. The daughter was also not admitted to , I think, Wellesley , and I think they really had no back up plan because they thought she would have no problem. </p>
<p>Sevmom, UVa is one of my favorite schools.
I was concerned not to take D1 to see it too early, lest it throw off her thoughts about every other place.
My high performing godsons got shut out. </p>
<p>Yes, I love UVa. My son did think of applying to 2 different top 10 schools but in the end decided to apply ED to UVa (when they still had it). This was 2005 and we could not have allowed him to apply ED to anything but our state schools for financial reasons. He loved UVa the first time he saw it and saw himself there from the beginning. But, he was a typical 17 year old and did consider the idea of applying to more "[prestigious ", higher ranked schools. I thought at the time and still do that UVa was the best fit for him of the three schools he had in mind. We were just lucky it was instate!</p>
<p>One of their admissions deans (retired, not Dean J) used to be on CC, somewhat admitting his role, but not registered. </p>
<p>Parke Muth, maybe? He handled international admissions for a time.</p>
<p>PM’d you. Yes. </p>
<p>You are quite right, lookingfoward, BJ said that the student “brought nothing more to the table.” Probably I have been reading too much into this statement (rather than taking it utterly literally). I apologize for that. </p>
<p>But I think that a lot depends on how you interpret “brought nothing more to the table.” Does that just refer to what the applicant managed to set down on the admissions committee’s table? I think that some applicants in the past didn’t know what MIT was looking for. </p>
<p>I know you wanted to avoid regionalisms, but where I come from what an applicant “brings to the table” is what an applicant “has to offer.”</p>
<p>Incidentally, one of the posters on an MIT thread said that they were told by admissions staffers that the average stats of the admitted students at MIT are lower than the average stats of the applicants to MIT (Friendlier MIT Admissions site, post #8 by OperaDad, a little less than a year ago). Interesting.</p>
<p>“PG, your comments in #578 are the longer version of my statement about “operationally equivalent.”
To me, the actual difference between the two versions is not “trees falling in a forest,” though.
If a tree falls over in a forest and no one sees it, then the next time you walk through the forest will the tree be back up?”</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter. I’m only walking through the forest once (I’m only accepting students once).</p>
<p>"I think that there are sufficient probabilistic elements in “top” school admissions that a student might not be admitted to any of three “top” schools (say) to which he/she applied, and still there is nothing wrong with the application. "</p>
<p>Given the low admissions rates of these schools, of COURSE a student could be not admitted to all of these schools and it doesn’t mean there is something “wrong” with the application. Honestly, I don’t know a nicer way of saying “duh.”</p>
<p>"But I think that a lot depends on how you interpret “brought nothing more to the table.” Does that just refer to what the applicant managed to set down on the admissions committee’s table? "</p>
<p>Well, of course. THAT"S ALL THE ADCOM CAN POSSIBLY KNOW ABOUT THE STUDENT - what they set down on the adcom’s table. </p>
<p>Qm, “what he brings” reflects what assets he offers. Offers, not your guess. What he brought refers to the assets he did show. How the heck do you know what he brings, outside his geo diversity, SES or the particular hs versus another- and stats/rigor- without his putting it there? </p>
<p>How? You don’t know he’s 1100/800, there is no such measurement. You don’t know he has spark or the vision and endurance to make something of his potential. Don’t blame this, ha, on your region. This stuff is either there or not. You are asking adocms to assume it exists, when it’s an application and he didn’t show it. Would you hire based on a guess? “He seems smart, doesn’t show any experience, but I just know he’ll save the company?”</p>
<p>I think we’ve cycled through this word interpretation enough. </p>
<p>I actually agree that the adcoms are, as far as I can tell, mostly going about it right. I’m sure I’d have specific points of disagreement with certain priorities or judgments - in fact, I know I do – but as a whole, the principle of accepting the obvious academic stand-outs and then sorting through the more typical academic applicants based on other qualities and institutional needs seems basically sound, and I think that is what is going on.</p>
<p>There are some people on the thread, however, who seem to be suggesting that regardless of what is actually going on, they don’t think that schools should even be expected to give much additional weight to specifically academic factors once the student has cleared the school’s low bar; Gary’s excellence in math is nice, but so is Bobby’s fascinating family background, and neither one is more important than the other assuming both students are academically capable of doing the work. Whereas I’m saying that even if a school fills the great majority of its seats using that kind of holistic process, there should be (as I think there are) a certain group that should lie outside of it.</p>