<p>@makennacompton wrote: “Sorry, mom, if you really wanted the Ivies, the EC should have been a sport. There are tons to choose from.”</p>
<p>Wow… just wow. It stuns me that a parent might be so prescriptive to their child as to specifically target their ECs as ones favored by the Ivys. </p>
<p>I think the only thing you accomplish is create a generation of rule followers rather than create a generation of people who can think for themselves. </p>
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I think some are overestimating how much importance many colleges place on geographically diversity. Harvard has said they actual have the reverse of the policy implied by the quote and instead give preference towards local applicants, as quoted below (<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/02/24/5_questions_for_harvards_admissions_dean/?page=full”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/02/24/5_questions_for_harvards_admissions_dean/?page=full</a> ):</p>
<p>“We have always had a policy of admitting a Boston or Cambridge student over others when the credentials are approximately equal.”</p>
<p>The selective colleges we frequently talk about on this forum usually show a much larger portion of their class from the areas that we’d expect to receive the most applications, instead of anything resembling much more difficult admission for nearby students. Results from Parchment members almost never show a significantly higher rate of admits for similarly qualified students who are out of state. For example, among Parchment members with a 3.9+ GPA and 2100+ SAT while taking 4+ APs, the difference in acceptance rates for in state vs out of state for various selective colleges is below (I am choosing colleges in higher population states with a decent sized undergrad class, for a larger sample size):</p>
<p>Similar Admit Rate For In State and Out of State
Stanford - 24% in state vs 25% out of state
Columbia - 43% in state vs 44% out of state
Berkeley (in last 4 years) - 87% in state vs 90% out of state</p>
<p>**Possible Preference Towards In State<a href=“may%20also%20relate%20to%20larger%20number%20of%20hooks,%20such%20as%20legacy”>/b</a>
Berkeley (before last 4 years) - 94% in state vs 68% out of state
Harvard - 50% in state vs 28% out or state
Cornell – 82% in state vs 66% out of state
Penn – 55% in state vs 43% out of state
Princeton - 37% in state vs 31% out of state
Chicago - 80% in state vs 70% out of state</p>
<p>Possible Preference Towards Out of State
Caltech - 34% in state vs 46% out of state</p>
<p>I think the outrage actually comes from a place of love. We look at our kids and we don’t see the surface—we see everything that went into that making that surface. Other people see the 2350 SAT and the 3.9 UW GPA. The resume that includes yearbook editor and president of the ecology club (but no major awards). Good…but not exceptional in the rarified world of elite universities. We see how hard it was for her to learn to read and how kids laughed at her speech in fourth grade. We know that even though he can debate with the best, he cries himself to sleep when he gets a B on his math test. We’ve been with them when they go to bed at 1:00 and get up at 5:00 to prep for the SAT2 test that they didn’t really want to take in the first place</p>
<p>And when we see a charmingly articulate fourth-chair viola from Long Island get interviewed by CNN about how he feels about his 8 Ivy acceptances, we say “hey, my kid is just as deserving!” </p>
<p>And that may be true. </p>
<p>But I think we are doing our kids a disservice by focusing energy on how unfair life is. It is unfair, by the way. To my hookless daughter and my son with his athletic hooks. And to everyone else’s, too. I think we’d be better off figuring out how to make the best of what we’ve got and acknowledge that while an Ivy rejection may sting the ego (even the heart) of a high-achieving kid, it’s not the end of the world. </p>
<p>I actually don’t have a problem with the methodology…even when it works against my child. Because I know she has alternatives.</p>
<p>But if anyone knows of an elite university who is really looking for a six-foot tall, Lithuanian flute player who can destroy the world alarmingly fast on her favorite computer game “Plague,” let me know. We’ll add it to her list. </p>
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<p>Or applicants with direct genetic lineage from the donor? :)</p>
<p>“If an unhooked student is an outlying data point, then yes, I’ll assume there is something else I’m not aware of at work. I don’t see what is wrong or sinister about picking on the obvious explanation when there is one available. When i walk outside and feel drops of water on my head, I say “I guess it is starting to rain.” I don’t say “I guess some coolant from the air conditioning unit in a nearby building is leaking.” On the other hand, if it a bright and sunny day, I might indeed look for another explanation.”</p>
<p>Why do you need an “explanation” though? No one seems to need an “explanation” when a regular unhooked white kid gets in.</p>
<p>And the problem with the “explanations” is that it presupposes a one-off type of situation - that the decision was no, and then a factor was laid in, and it became yes on the basis of that factor alone. It’s not that the 2400 alone got you in, or the legacy alone, or the editor of the student newspaper, or being black, or whatever. It is that <em>in the totality</em> of what you offer and bring to the party. I swear, there are some on here who are conceptual and get this, and there are others on here who I seriously think are so literal they don’t get this.</p>
<p>Data10, it is not inconsistent that Harvard gives a pref to Boston/Cambridge students and also values geographic diversity a la the kid from North Dakota. Both of those things can be true simultaneously. </p>
<p>^ You betcha. And to get that one kid from WY or ND, they can easily slip out one from outside metro Boston. Or NYC, CT or NJ.</p>
<p>Some need to re-read the thread, see the whole. See how the pieces from different posters fit together… Oops, too long. But I do think it would reflect the variety of ways an adcom looks at an a app- part this and this and this, hoping you don’t stumble over that and that. </p>
<p>First, apparently professors do occasionally complain about admissions policies. Isn’t that what happened at Yale, such that the administration changed their institutional priorities regarding the number of slots reserved for recruited athletes? Second, let’s suppose a hypothetical school admits 50 subpar applicants because they are children of big donors. What are the odds that any one professor is going to encounter more than one or two of them during their time on campus? Even then, how does he know why they are underperforming? He might wonder if they are partying too much or have poor study habits despite their high school success. If a professor does notice a trend and can attribute it to a particular cause, it’s more likely going to be a complaint about athletics, since athletes tend to stand out by wearing team gear/practice clothes, and by missing class due to travel. And how many professors are going to dare to be un-PC enough to say, if it happened be true, “Please raise the standards for x minority group. They’re just not cutting it.” They would risk being accused of opposing AA, or of being labeled a racist.</p>
<p>Cobrat, there is indeed a lot of venom on this board toward recruited athletes, and probably more than for AA since it’s not as dicey to talk about it.</p>
<p>This is a discussion board. People discuss. Not everyone has a personal vested interest or axe to grind in the topic beyond a general interest in college admissions. One of my kids benefited from preferential admission as an athlete, and the other may have also. So I am not a parent of a kid or kids who didn’t get the golden ticket and that’s why I am saying what I am. I happen to think these policies aren’t right, in part because it causes people to suspect that URM admits might be less qualified. It was embarrassing for my kids to publicly get the National Hispanic Achievement recognition for their PSAT scores, since the standard for that is lower than the National Merit standards their Asian and Caucasian friends had to meet to be similarly recognized. Also, they ended up getting the National Merit recognition too, so it was silly and unnecessary. S asked the principal to not mention it, but he did anyway. Ugh. Having those programs can feel as though the powers that be are saying to the minority kid, “We understand you are less capable of achieving high scores as people of other ethnicities, so we’re lowering the standards so you too can succeed.” Ugh again.</p>
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<p>You mean like in this civil engineering class?
<a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/static/innovations-slideshow/athletes/images/4fisher.jpg”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/static/innovations-slideshow/athletes/images/4fisher.jpg</a></p>
<p>Related article: <a href=“http://innovations.coe.berkeley.edu/vol4-issue10-dec10/athletes”>http://innovations.coe.berkeley.edu/vol4-issue10-dec10/athletes</a></p>
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True, but the post I replied talked about Harvard not wanting to have a large portion of the class being from suburban Boston, which seems to conflict with Harvard saying they favor admitting kids from Boston over equally qualified candidates elsewhere. And the title of this thread says " SWF northeast need not apply," yet the Harvard link mentions “special consideration” towards applicants from New England states and explicitly mentions favoring local kids. The Parchment results suggest Harvard is far from the only selective college that may give preference to students from the college’s home state. </p>
<p>Maybe they also give preference to the applicant from Wyoming, and try to have at least 1 admit from the state in each class. Maybe not. The actual number of entering students from Wyoming over the past 12 years as listed in IPEDS are below. Nothing looks non-random about the distribution:</p>
<p>0 students - 75% of years
1 student - 17% of years
2 students - 8% of years
3+ students - none</p>
<p>However, the distribution does not look as random for the 6 available years before that:
0 students - none
1 student - 100% of years
2+ students - none</p>
<p>collegealum: Yes, other institutional priorities definitely come down from above. In fact, that is what makes them a hook. </p>
<p>ucbalumnus: The genetics thing – I guess that was a Freudian slip.</p>
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<p>Not out in the larger popular media discussions and what I’ve heard. If anything, many of the same folks who have serious issues with racial preferences as one factor in college admissions seem to vociferously defend athletic preferences or legacy/developmental admits. </p>
<p>I find that inconsistency a bit odd if one’s arguing in the name of academic meritocracy as demonstrated athletic talent is separate from demonstrated academic bona-fides and legacy/developmental preferences isn’t too far removed from aristocratic-like practices where one’s privileged social class and connections mattered much more than qualifications for holding many critical public and private sector positions. </p>
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<p>Thank God for the disparity at Princeton favoring in-state New Jersey. The Jersey kids simply flood everywhere with apps and are tiresomely rejected everywhere. Glad that Princeton picks up the slack on its home turf!!</p>
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<p>Do legacy and developmental preferences actually have much public support? They resemble typical corruption and nepotism that most people tend to be critical of in public, but grudgingly accept will never go away and would not be above taking advantage of themselves if the opportunity arose. Of course, the colleges’ motivation for such preferences is to keep the donation money coming.</p>
<p>But (in general, not just in a college context), nothing seems to get people as riled by as perceived unfairness based on race or ethnicity (or religion in some situations and places).</p>
<p>@weatherga
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<p>It’s the applicant’s job to present that picture. </p>
<p>Are all “typical applicants” up to the task? Of course not – that’s why the decision NOT to admit is quite easy for Ivy ad coms to make in most cases. They spend a few minutes looking at an app… they think “Meh” – and they move on. </p>
<p>I think all competitive admission processes have some sort of process where the reader is expected to assign a simple score to every application they read – maybe just “yes, no, maybe” - or maybe a 5 point ranking with the only students considered for admission being those who are ranked 4 or 5. So the “meh’s” get marked as “maybe” or given a “3” and dropped … because when the school is only going to accept 8% of its applicants, they probably find at the end of the process that they’ve marked too many for admission, so they have to move some of those top-end candidates to the waitlist. They never get around to looking at those “maybe” candidates.</p>
<p>Does that mean that some strong applicants get overlooked in favor of weaker applicants who attract attention? Yes. But that’s part of the process. I can’t count the number of times my daughter was passed over at a dance audition in favor of some dancer with far weaker technique who happened to have an engaging smile and just danced bigger. </p>
<p>And it’s the same process that applies for job applications, or applications for prestigious fellowships, or running for election. The person who is better able at projecting and communicating their own story tends to get the jobs or the fellowships, or win the elections… </p>
<p>And those are the types of students that Harvard and Princeton and Stanford want – because those are the students who continue to grab attention down the line, earn recognition down the line, and their accomplishments reflect positively back on the school. Then everyone assumes that the Ivy education leads to success and they also want to attend Ivies – when the truth is that the Ivies are simply pretty good at picking the kind of students who will experience that sort of success down the line. </p>
<p>And no, the student doesn’t have to have done anything all that earth shattering. Living an “ordinary middle class life” is not disqualifying – but extraordinary people tend not to lead “ordinary” lives no matter what the circumstances of their birth. That doesn’t mean that they always do the types of things that you would consider amazing… but they tend to follow a somewhat different path than others around them.</p>
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<p>I think that is one of the things that gives kids an edge who have competed in sports or dance or debate or whatever. They’ve learned not just how to win, but also how to come back after losing. </p>
<p>And they have also learned these truths: (1) No matter how good they are at whatever they do, there’s always going to be someone who is better; and (2) Just because you manage to play your best game or do your best performance ever, doesn’t mean that you win; and (3) Sometimes things just aren’t fair, and an umpire makes a bad call, or a weak dancer or actor gets a part simply because they look the part, or sometimes simply because of favoritism. </p>
<h1>calmom I wish I could like your post more than once. :)</h1>
<p>The other thing… life is NOT a zero sum game. Sure, maybe getting in to Harvard is, but life itself? Nope. Someone else’s success doesn’t mean you can’t also succeed. There are other paths. </p>
<p>Yes, yes, and yes! </p>
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<p>This is the phrase that has been running through my head all afternoon after reading the comments on this thread. </p>
