Seems like the common disdain (among many posters here and supposedly some colleges) against community college courses in comparison to high school AP courses covering similar material is misplaced in at least some cases.
Introductory statistics is one of those courses where the college courses is a semester, while the high school AP courses is typically a year.
I think you might be right, but another way to think about this, and the way Iâve been thinking about it since I read the article, was that in many of these cases, non-competitive just means that an experienced AO at Duke (e.g.) would put this application in the bottom half or so of the applications from a particular school, and knows that theyâre not going to accept anyone whoâs not in the top half of applications.
Itâs not that the students arenât competitive candidates, itâs just that itâs a competition with very limited spaces and a process with very limited time. They know who their process is going to end up weeding out eventually, so they are weeded out earlier. The average hired application reader may not be doing that, but an experienced AO (and a Head of Admissions) can.
Great description! I think you have captured it in a nutshell.
For those who enjoy the topic of student writing: as I was walking my dog this evening, I recalled this delightful piece of satire:
The 1250-Word Expository Student Essay UNPLUGGED
by Mandy Berry
Ever since dinosaurs roamed the earth, college students have started essays by crafting vague, generalizing first sentences that suggest, though not in a pushy or assertive way but, rather, vaguely, that the beginning of every argument, not to mention every attempt at scholarly narrative, should coincide with the beginning of time. Itâs a bold move because it allows for a space of only 3 or 4 following sentences inside which to create a nearly impossibly massive temporal/spatial shiftâwhich must necessarily (and simultaneously!) also be a conceptual, or at least a topical, shiftâfrom the beginning of the universe to the more humble, and ideally more specific, present time goal or goals of the essay itself. Thus, dinosaurs roaming the earth must transform itself into the student writer identifying, and then examining the effects of, for example, Virginia Woolfâs critique of âfamilyâ in To The Lighthouse. One expects, then, that the narrative shift from dinosaur time to current essay-writing time will require the skill of using language as precisely and as economically as possible.
This expectation, and the larger expectation that produces itâthat writing is a somewhat controlled, directed process performed by human agents who have something to write and who desire to communicate that something to other humansâare going to be challenged by this essay more times and in more ways than you can yet imagine; and they are not going to help you as a reader frame, understand, or evaluate this essay. In fact, in the largest possible sense, whatever this expository essay claims to be aboutâand it may not claim to be about anything, or it may, or it may do some unpredictable combination of claiming and not claimingâthis essay is actually a performance of everything in the world it is possible to do with language, sentences, and paragraphs in a state of complete dissociation shaped only by a hyper-awareness of time (it is due in one hour) and of space (it must be approximately 1250 words long). In other words, this essay suggests, and indeed shows, in ways of which it is itself not conscious, that the scene of the production of its own writing is nothing more nor less than a volatile pressure cooker of radical detachment on a schedule.
Now that this essay has offered an introduction, itâs time to offer another introduction. The first one didnât accomplish what it meant to accomplish because it turns out that moving from dinosaurs to Virginia Woolfâs novel To the Lighthouse is too gargantuan and difficult a task to accomplish quickly. However, at this crucial early point, it is unthinkable to allow that this essayâs approach to beginning itself may have been a bad idea, or an impossible feat, because it has begun, and it has picked up some momentum (which will soon be spent), and it has already accrued a not insubstantial amount of itself even prior to mentioning Virginia Woolfâs To the Lighthouse in any meaningful or extended way. So, while the dinosaur thing may have been imperfect as a strategy, its benefit is obvious: this essay now exists. The drawback is also obvious: nothing of substance has been written on an actual topic that corresponds to the assignment sheet. Then again, this essay barely remembers the assignment sheet that can no longer be located. Obviously, in lieu of knowing much at all about what this essay is doing or should be doing, this is the precise moment and location at which to insert a thesis statement: Virginia Woolfâs novel, To the Lighthouse, is an example of how details, setting, and character development all work together to show Virginia Woolfâs ideas about the family.
This essay does not yet know what Virginia Woolfâs ideas about the family were nor if she actually had any ideas about the topic of âfamily;â it may or may not take a stab at what Virginia Woolfâs ideas about the family were, or might have been, at some later point. The best policy at the moment is for you as a reader to share this essayâs own skepticism toward the idea that anything in the preceding thesis statement is true or, if it is true, is of any consequence whatsoever. What this essay does know right now and knows is critically important is that Virginia Woolf committed suicide. This creepy, well-recorded fact is undoubtedly the true meaning of everything ever written by Virginia Woolf, who was inconceivably both well respected and a lunatic, although this essay doesnât exactly know how the act of suicide is itself a meaning but it is. She never had children, and she killed herself by walking into a river and drowning. Right now, as every bit of energy that this essay can produce is already dangerously near total depletion, you should have no memory of the content of the thesis statement located above. Virginia Woolf never had any children of her own, and she committed suicide.
This is an orphan paragraph, a short, irrelevant paragraph that does not merit being a paragraph at all. It may or may not contain information that belongs somewhere else. It was inserted after the rest of this essay was written upon discovery that more words were needed to fulfill the length requirement. The only effect of this paragraph is a feeling of incoherence of the kind that one imagines might accompany time travel. Virginia Woolf was childless her whole entire life.
To explain the first component of the thesis statement, details, the essay now moves to a discussion of details. At the same time, just as it nears the potential scene of the production of something that might resemble a concrete thought about a text, this essay is going to start shutting down. The idea, the tentative desire in operation, is that the remainder of the essay will write itself, operating like a checklist of items from the thesis statement except when it does not which is usually an effect of sentences inserted later as explained above re: orphan paragraphs. But actually, for the most part, as a result of the not-yet-on-point intensity of effort involved in the startup process, this is also the location at which the essay begins to get in touch with its own exhaustion. There are bright moments of bold, relational assertion however inaccurate: Virginia Woolfâs writing is extremely detailed, more detailed than is typical in other writing. There are also moments in which exhaustion is made manifest: Ernest Hemingwayâs writing in his masterpiece The Old Man and the Sea published in 1951. There are also moments that defy existential categorization presented as analysis: Hemingway does not use as many words as Virginia Woolf. Words are what create details. Virginia Woolf uses lots of words and writes very long sentences filled with lots of words. There are requisite yet unmoored attempts to provide textual evidence: Here is an example of Virginia Woolfâs profligate use of words: âShe had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.â There are also astonishing moments of entirely missing the point as an effect of a robot-like attachment to the essayâs own thesis statement checklist: This one sentence contains 37 words and that is exactly what I mean about details. Hemingway would have written this sentence in less than 7 words, probably closer to 4. But he would lose the intense impact of Virginia Woolfâs profligate use of words that creates details.
Now the essay turns to an act of confused but earnest desperation: Despite not being an author who used lots of words to create details, Ernest Hemingway also killed himself. He had some children, but he was an alcoholic. Time to use the spellchecker and then perform a âword countâ operation. Now all the essay needs is an additional 10 words to
Word count: 1251
So, say youâre a kid who lives in an urban area wheee a zip code covers both a small, affluent area and a larger low income area. Might that go in a studentsâ favor! Thinking of DSâ friend who got in ED to Brown and my kid who got in EA to a public Ivy. Zip code would make both appear as they could be low income. (Though I guess ED to Brown, finances would be known?)
I agree that experienced AOs can easily rank students from a particular school. But I donât believe whether they are in the top half or bottom half of a given schoolâs class is what puts them in the âdiscardâ or âcontinue onâ piles. I believe what does that is institutional priorities.
As an example, our recruited athletes are often chosen over much more capable students. Sometimes the recruited athletes are even the weakest of our schoolâs applicants to a given school. But recruited athletes are an institutional priority.
And if the AOs were routinely keeping the top half of any high school (at least through the first round), how can we explain the fact that some high schools almost never get a student acceptance, while other high schools (feeders) get many. The answer again is institutional priorities: If a student is in the unhooked bucket (not athlete, donor, URM, FGLI, faculty kid etc) which would a college logically pick? Student Aâa top student with top scores from a regular middle class public with accomplishments in the sorts of ECs that signal middle class or Student B-- a top student with the same scores who attends an expensive feeder and who has ECs that signal wealth and connections? All else equal ,the answer is Student B. Because wealth and connections are an institutional priority at elite schools.
So this is why I think itâs important for students to understand institutional priorities. Because if you tell them that they got rejected because there were others at their school who were stronger this is often not true. And if you say something vague about being ânon-competitiveâ this is also misleading. Because this makes it sound like there is something wrong with them, when there isnât anything wrong with them that connections and an expensive day school couldnât fixâŠ
(Now are there students from all types of schools who just arenât strong who apply to elite schools anyway and get put in the discard pile right away? Sure, there are some of those, especially with test optional. But Iâm not talking about those. Iâm talking about the strong students who apply, the ones that the elite schools say are qualifiedâŠand I believe them when they say this.)
Note that Landscape slices information by census tract, not zip code, so itâs a slightly different granularity. Zip codes are designed for mail delivery, not for geographic analysis. You might find that your census tract has a different socioeconomic mix from your zip code. You can look up info on your census tract here: https://censusreporter.org
Not aiming to debate - just suggesting that this is a âyes, andâ situation. Yes, athletics are an institutional priority at many highly selective institutions (which Iâve seen you have strong opinions about), as are (usually) legacies, donors, and children of faculty/staff (thus the ALDC acronym). But thatâs also clearly not nearly enough to explain the entire admissions decision process, where there are many unhooked students (even if you donât know them) who are admitted and many more who are not.
Also, in general (and specifically for recruited athletes), those applications are not being read at the same time and in the same manner as other applications anyway - the âten before tenâ guy isnât reading athletes at that moment, and yet heâs able to make decisions around competitiveness.
Please donât read my âhalf and halfâ analogy too literally - which I should have made clear. Itâs not that I think theyâre sorting applications exactly in that way. Iâm just saying that an experienced AO knows which applications, even with very similar statistics, are more or less likely to make it through their admissions process, and they can do an initial filter out. Those students might have been âcompetitiveâ by the interpretations weâve seen in the past (the students are academically qualified for the school based on quantitative statistics), but may not be âcompetitiveâ based on the AOâs knowledge of the schoolâs holistic admissions process and how choices get made. This is pretty normal stuff for any decision funnel with multiple people involved in the decision and multiple steps in the decision process, really.
I always assumed bias by AOs against CC classes (vs APs) is the âunknown factorâ as there is no official standard curriculum in same way there is for AP. I would guess there is pretty big variation between CCs across countryâŠ(Assuming AOs have a bias against them, which I only know about from reading blogs and such). I also suspect they review this holistically too- if everyone from a HS takes CC classes it probably reads different than if 1 does.
Generally I agree that AP > DE/CC classes (but not all students have the choice). There can be huge variation in AP classes as well. Even though CB publishes a standard curriculum, teachers can do what they want. This is one of the reasons that many students get 1s and 2s on AP tests.
Agree implementation of AP is WIDELY variable, but base curriculum isnât, which was my point:) AOs have no idea what a CC course title means at all.
Some AP teachers at our HS do not implement the CB curriculum, they have their own. My understanding is that is not uncommon.
This is why AOs sometimes look up the actual CC courses. Note we also look up some HS courses as well, especially at schools that donât have APs and/or advertise their rigor is the same as or greater than AP (because, well, it often isnât).
There are a few well known private schools which actually have the resources and student body to support a beyond AP curriculum, but the vast majority of schools making such claims do not.
I hope itâs not too off topic, someone can move this if it is⊠but in your opinion, are community colleges in different states thought of differently? We are in California and locally our community colleges are very well thought of. Many students (almost all in the top 30% or so) at our public high school take multiple classes at our CCs in addition to AP classes. These classes are generally thought of as just as good, if not better than APs, and definitely more interesting. It is interesting to hear that AOs may not share this view.
For my own two so far itâs been a chance to take classes in their areas of interest that are not offered at high school.
I expect soâŠnot dissimilar from differences across HSs or even four year colleges.
It seems it is a HS by HS situation (and sometimes regional) whether DE classes are a thing or not. Iâm in Illinois where we also have CCs that are quite goodâŠbut not many students in our area (suburban Chicagoland) take CC/DE classes because the HSs tend to have strong course offerings at many levels, for example, math thru multivariable calc. I know there are other reasons students might take CC/DE classes, the variability across the country is interesting.
To make sure I am understanding the argument here, is it correct that you are saying that
Any sources or references for these assertions? Iâd like to learn more.
Very few kids from our HS (we are in MA) take CC classes and DE is also not particularly popular. I think it is a regional issue - in MA community colleges donât get a lot of respect. Certainly, very few students at our HS start at CC and then transfer to a 4 year institution as is fairly common in CA (we send about 90% directly to 4 year college).
One aspect of the app that the AOâs at Yale have consistently stressed as being very important to them are the LoRâs. I am sure that they take into account different levels of âtime/skillsâ of teachers/counselors between well resourced and lower resourced schools. I think what they look for in the LoRâs are signs indicating potential, relative strengths and aspects of character (curiosity, persistence, empathy, leadership, teamwork). Also does the LoR match up with how the applicant is presenting themselves through their essays and ECâs. This part of the app is not visible to the student and their family and may be the cause of a âsurpriseâ, good or bad.
It requires significant resources, highly trained teachers, and a critical mass of students who have been consistently well prepared and capable of doing the work for secondary schools to offer curriculum beyond the AP level. Hence Exeter is able to offer serious proof-based math courses. A public school, or less distinguished private school, in a similar situation could; very few would be in a similar situation.
Like grade inflation, exaggerated claims of the rigor of high school curriculum abound.
I am very surprised AOs have time to look up CC course catalogs. But I applaud them if they do.