<p>If the school is need blind…how would the adcoms KNOW the student is full pay. And how would they know the student is a URM?</p>
<p>@GullLake:</p>
<p>At privates where there isn’t a wall between admissions and fin aid, I can see that. Granted, most privates are not need-blind, but HYPS, with their endowments, do not need full-pay students.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that the full application packages are 13-16+ pages. I think it is not right to call that “self-presentation,” however. I’d estimate that the component of true self-presentation is about half of that (or less).</p>
<p>Hunt earlier described what a good, but overloaded GC would do. That should not be over-generalized into common practice, though. I have read scholarship applications at my own university from time to time, and I have some sense of the range of GC letters, from perfunctory to actually good. They don’t necessarily correlate well with the quality of the student.</p>
<p>Cal rewarding URM status? Yep, that must be it! </p>
<p>By the way, the story was recent. Check the admission history at Berkeley. </p>
<p>Gotta change your reading, Gull.<br>
Maybe, trolling.</p>
<p>@xiggi; Good catch! That actually escaped my sleep-deprived brain.</p>
<p>"Are you really serious? Chicago might not have a football team anymore than creates the “knowledge” of schools every Saturday afternoon in the Fall, but it is hardly unknown. After all, Chicago is not Williams or Reed! And as a bonus, most people will know the city where Chicago is located!</p>
<p>Do you really believe that the general population has not heard about the Obama connection? Or that they never heard Bush and Kerry went to Yale?"</p>
<p>I don’t even think the average Joe in the Chicago area knows much about the University of Chicago, unless they live in Hyde Park. They’re more likely to have heard of Northwestern only because of the presence of sports, which hits their radar screen. </p>
<p>I guarantee I could walk into any Radio Shack or Hallmark store or whatever in my suburban Chicago town and ask “what are the best colleges in the country” and U of Chicago won’t be mentioned. They might eke out a Harvard or a Princeton, most likely none of the other Ivies.</p>
<p>But again, so what. It means nothing about the quality of any school, and it’s of no concern whatsoever what the average Joe knows or doesn’t know. GullLake, it’s of no importance what the other kids in your high school know or don’t know. Do your own search on your own criteria / merits.</p>
<p>That Stanford question about the letter to the roommate? Disclaimer: I don’t know anyone in Stanford admissions, nor anyone who reads applications for them.</p>
<p>But–bearing in mind that free advice is worth what you pay for it–here’s my take on that question: Mention your roommate. Use the word “you.” Use it a lot. Ask questions of your roommate. Look for things that you have in common. Use the same type of diction that you would if you were on a roommate-matching website, looking for a roommate. Humor is good. Be positive. Bear in mind that your roommate may come from totally different circumstances than you do, and don’t include anything that might be viewed as socio-culturally insensitive. Don’t freeze up just because writing the letter “is a test,” according to lookingforward.</p>
<p>Also, you should not include anything that reveals a “fixed mind set,” in the universe of Carol Dweck.</p>
<p>It’s not exactly rocket science.</p>
<p>Apologies for the proliferating imperatives in the second paragraph. There’s a lot of that on this thread, and I do not mean PG, even though post #146 ends with an imperative. Post #146 is well worth pondering. </p>
<p>GullLake…you claim to be the smartest kid in your high school class. You actually posted that on a thread you started here.</p>
<p>That being the case…you should be able to figure out how to do your own Chicago application. Why all the fishing for advice?</p>
<p>My advice for the Chicago application? Have fun with it!</p>
<p>@Sunflowergirlryd. That’s great! My point was that my daughter’s affiliation with the Girl Scouts was almost certainly in her favor. Of the four highly selective schools she applied to, she was wait-listed by two, admitted by two, and rejected by none.</p>
<p>It’s my suspicion that high-stats URMs are among the most desirable applicants at super-selective schools. If they are also full pay, that would be gravy. (Side note: if her stats are decent, Malia Obama will be perhaps the most desirable applicant ever.)</p>
<p>I may be a bit of a Pollyanna, but I tend to think that schools that claim to be need-blind pretty much are. They still admit a substantial number of full-pay students, because the criteria they apply to admissions tend to appear more frequently in families with money, for various reasons. There’s nothing nefarious about it. I don’t know what happens at colleges that are “need-aware”–perhaps they look for students that will meet multiple institutional needs, including financial needs.</p>
<p>Hunt, it’s not just high stats. A lot of great URM and low SES kids are reaping the benefits of some now-established mentoring programs, good teachers, opportunities, etc, and accomplishing much. That’s sort of lost in the usual assumptions their hs offer nothing, no APs, lousy GCs and teachers, their grades are inflated and all they have time for is babysitting siblings and/or a job- and that they can;t escape peer pressures. In many respects, it’s vision and empowerment that leaves the usual “planned pep rallies” kids in the dust. I personally think many will be surprised over the next ten years by who’s “catching up.” There are already some stats out about Hispanic kids. And I know someone will have an anecdote or two about why this is impossible. </p>
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<p>Hunt, your suspicion is probably correct. </p>
<p>There are, however, a few additional shades of grey because selective colleges have done a much better job in balancing the racial distribution than the economic one. As you know, we have access to the research of Carnevale and Hoxby to describe the details of this imbalance. Accordingly, the schools continue to “catch two birds” by participating in programs such as Questbridge, with the given attraction of having a large pool of qualified URM students with both financial need and the commitment to attend an … expensive school. In the end the schools spend their financial aid money to meet their stated diversification goals and find it helpful on the yield curve!</p>
<p>Regarding Malia, while chances are probably close to zero that her stats would not be high, she will be a formidable target at every CC darling school. With the background of her parents, the FCOTPOTUS is simply gravy. She can look at Chelsea as a strong role model in terms of academic career. </p>
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<p>Here is my take on the roommate essay. </p>
<p>First of all, the uber-obvious is that there are NO wrong approaches nor wrong answers. It represents the chance for an applicant to present a different image and use a different tone. While essays are directed at an adult (adcom) the roommate essay is directed at a peer, This said, there are fewer differences when a smart applicant remembers that all of his essays might be better if written to an imaginary best friend … and thus be void of all those attemps to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, and intellectualism than is actually possessed. </p>
<p>As long as it written from the heart and addresses issues related to spending the next year together, about every subject would work. My own take is that the deeply intellectual essays that pretend to present a psychological profile are not the best option. A simple slice of life along the lines of what a student might want to share in the first evening is what the doctor ordered. Inasmuch as I would prefer an essay that is a presentation of the writer, a question or two might work but it should NOT be about the roommate. It remains an essay about the … writer. Same thing as the (bad) essays written by applicants about their pets or grandparents or favorite authors! The essay is all about the writer! </p>
<p>For the record, even people who have read successful applications at Stanford cannot state for sure if an essay “made” the candidate or if the applicant was accepted despite the essay. The famous tortilla essay comes to mind. It created a bunch of copycats by people who never understood the original one was a :“despite a bad essay” case. </p>
<p>All in all, the Stanford roommate should be the easiest to write as long as one understands its simplicity. It should be an essay that only the applicant could have written. But that in itself might be why LOF calls it a test! I also happen to think that the roommate essays are the ones Dean Shaw likes the most! </p>
<p>^But it is read by admissions, it is not really to a peer. Instead of writing it as to an imaginary friend, I sometimes suggest kids write to as if to one of us they have gotten to know- another adult stranger, which includes using the right filters. Same old thing I always say, “It’s your college app.” Mind your app.</p>
<p>The difference is it’s presenting a social side. Since the top colleges want kids who can integrate well, cooperate, explore, are grounded, etc, show that. Raise no flags.</p>
<p>Location plays a big part as well. One study stated that there are now essentially zero high-potential URM candidates in HS in the Bronx who are overlooked by the elite privates and don’t know about the fin aid opportunities and other opportunities at elite privates because those schools recruit that area so heavily now and contrasted the Bronx with Bridgeport, which doesn’t get recruited nearly as heavily.</p>
<p>Bridgeport, at least is in the Northeast, which gets a fair amount of info about the Ivies just by being close by. There are probably even more high-potential URM kids in Paducah or rural MS who have no idea that they can go to and pay for an elite private or the advantages that that could confer.</p>
<p>Well, obviously the Stanford roommate essay can’t actually be about the roommate, because the identity of the roommate is unknown when the essay is being written. It’s been years since I read the prompt, but isn’t it supposed to be a note to the roommate? Does anyone normally write only about him/herself in a note to someone else?</p>
<p>lookingforward’s take that it should really be written as a note to an adult stranger is very interesting, and not what I would have expected, I must admit.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>At the risk of being contrary, I do not entirely agree with the notion of writing to an adult stranger because the adcoms happen to be adults. One needs to really address the note to someone they feel a possible connection with, and not write it to please an adult reader. The note is addressed to a peer. Imagine a conversation between two yound friends in a plane. The adult in the next seat migh be observing, but he is not part of it. The adcom here might be observing with a scorecard but the tone of the note remains one that might happen between peers. This is why this essay is very different from others, albeit written with the same guidelines that relate to all other essays, namely to be personal and offer a significant insight that is NOT part of the rest of the application. </p>
<p>Because there are no right or wrongs, the exact content does not really matter as much as its presentation. This is an opportunity to be a bit whimsical and lift the corner on a special attribute. </p>
<p>As an example, it would have been totally expected for Bill Clinton to discuss politics until the late hours with his roommate. Writing to his roomamte that he looks forward to discuss Tricky Dicky’s Watergate might sound good to an adult, but writing “And, if you do not mind, I will bring my dear friend Sax along. Do you also play an instrument? Robles 203 might be the best suite on campus for our band of two!”</p>
<p>The opportunity here is to show that Bill played an instrument for … fun. This might not be covered in the rest of the applications. It also shows he would not see Stanford as solely a place for academia and for the adcom, it also shows (with some subtility) that Bill paid enough attention to name a dorm. </p>
<p>And all of this in an apparently insignificant couple of sentences. This said, as always, it is easier to “see” the essay and feel the vibe it transmits as opposed to trying to explain it! </p>
<p>You’re both sort of right. It should be written as a note to a peer, but keeping in mind that it will read by an adult.</p>
<p>So, in my opinion, I think it would be good to write: “Dear future roommate: I hope you’re a bit of a night owl like me, because I’ve heard that one of the best things about college is sitting around the dorm discussing all sorts of fascinating topics into the wee hours–everything from current movies to esoteric philosophy. I’m hoping that’s really how it will be.”</p>
<p>On the other hand, don’t write: “Dear future roommate: I hope you’re a bit of a night owl like me, because I like to relax with a few beers and play Super Smash Brothers into the wee hours every night.”</p>