<p>@psalcal, ever thought why people think this way? </p>
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<p>For the Class of 2017, Brown’s admissions rate was 9.2%. But no matter how hard you stare at the figure of 9.2%, this is not the admissions chance for every applicant. I think it is unjustified to call good folks “fools” if they understand that their chances may deviate multiple percentage points higher (or lower) than the overall admissions rate.</p>
<p>Take a gander at the Brown admissions facts for 2017:</p>
<p><a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University;
<p>-15% of salutatorians who applied were admitted</p>
<p>-14.2% of applicants who scored 750-790 on SAT Critical Reading were admitted</p>
<p>-12.5% of applicants who scored 33-35 on the ACT were admitted</p>
<p>-4.3% of applicants who scored 550-590 on SAT Math were admitted</p>
<p>I could go on, but I think the point is made. I don’t see any fools here except those who come on CC and give incorrect information</p>
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Your MIT example was highly impressive at a national level. Getting all A’s in high school with excellent LORs from HS teachers and/or high school awards is usually only impressive on a school or regional level. If you have a HS student who is equally impressive on a national level, I think you’ll see very different results. For example, last year I analyzed the Stanford RD thread. The vast majority of posters whose out of classroom activities were impressive on a state or national level were accepted, regardless of stats. I also wouldn’t assume that your top MIT student will get hired where ever he chooses. He’ll probably have an impressive resume that easily gets him in the door for interviews (might not be as easy, if they are focusing on work experience), but at many companies, if you don’t do well in the interview, you aren’t going to be hired. Interviewers are not just looking for the academic criteria we tend to focus on, on this forum. For example, the applicant might be get a very bright kid who consistently gets excellent grades, but if he comes across as arrogant and self-centered with poor teamwork skills, he probably is not going to be hired. </p>
<p>And by the way, I found that Ivies can consistently make up their incoming class exactly 20%+/- Asians, 20%+/- AA/Hispanics, year after year, interesting. Of course they have the right to pick whoever they deem the best fit. No problem there. The problem I have is the denial of the “racial” managing fact in top school admission process. </p>
<p>As to my child, I tell him to work hard to be among that 20% Asian students. And he did, very successfully. </p>
<p>And first job is only first job. Everything that;s been said about job disappointments can happen throughout life. </p>
<p>When elite colleges say they review applications holistically, I trust they are sincere. However, the amount of applications they are handling each year, the “guidelines” AO’s are following to fulfill various institutional needs and the differences in how well AO’s are doing their job are making the implementation of the holistic review process - let’s say less effective sometimes. When ALL eight quite different colleges “holistically” decided to accept one candidate with a “standard Ivy League profile”, it’s understandable that some people would ask what strong “hook” this candidate possessed to make him so desirable? And it’s a reasonable/educated guess that it might be his race because colleges do acknowledge that they are seeking racial diversity and AA is the most under-represented race on campus. That such a notion has encountered so much resistance here is surprising to me. </p>
<p>I am not sure about the “segregation” someone earlier mentioned, but I think it would become a liability or price of the way the racial diversity is currently pursued by these colleges IF it has become prevalent that an AA student on campus is “naturally” questioned if they were there as a “diversity case”, same as when an Asian student was suspected to be an over-achiever with tiger parents, or a white student a recruited squash player, legacy or someone from Wyoming… </p>
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<p>And in a big high school they don’t even know that, especially if classmates are participating in activities that are not school-related. There are almost 3000 students at D’s school. That’s a lot of people to “know.”</p>
<p>D is a dance girl. You would think she’d know who the best dancers in the school are. But she’s a ballerina/contemporary dancer (think Abby Lee type competitions…but not nearly as polished). Two of her best friends are also excellent dancers, but she didn’t realize that until they got to know each other through class or band, because one is a champion ballroom dancer and the other has studied and performed Indian dance since she was toddler. The best dancer in the school probably is a kid D knew in grade school who has a hip-hop dance crew that has performed professionally. Until he showed up for a dance show audition, nobody knew about him either. </p>
<p>There’s a shy girl in D’s P.E. class who is a published author (just bought her book off Amazon!). Another girl in D’s class has a YouTube channel with thousands of subscribers; recently she was invited to be on a panel of successful teen You-Tubers at a convention in LasVegas. Both are just “average” kids to most of their classmates. </p>
<p>Kids know their friends. They know the kids they compete with and against. But there are a lot of kids out there who participate and excel in nontypical activities that more school-oriented kids may never know about.</p>
<p>I think CCers tend to “mis-estimate” what makes a truly unusual candidate, the rare type when activities and background may trump average or slightly below average scores. Take, for example, Emile Rosales, who says he plans to apply to colleges (for video editing/digital media) in a few years; his academic background is probably no real standout–a 24 year-old with a year or two of community college under his belt. But for the past 6 years, he’s run–and lived well from–a Youtube channel with over 600 million views and over 800,000 subscribers, where his new videos get over 50,000 views in 24 hours. He’s literally fulfilled a dying boy’s wish to meet him. He’s probably going to be one of those applicants where demonstrated accomplishment trump stats–but there’s very few applicants who can match that. It’s not an “every county has one” or “every high school has one” level of accomplishment.</p>
<p>Benley, you realize each kid gets multiple reviewers, right? And depending on the school and major, may get a faculty look. </p>
<p>I don’t know Rosales, but you realize a Youtube channel is not necessarily a trump card-?<br>
The guy Wired says makes his living playing old Nintendo games? Ok, so if he wants video editing (does he need a degree in this?) maybe it’s not HYPabc.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the issue is that the admissions process in American academic institutions has been expanded to include things other than intellectual capacity. Athletic ability, legacy, donation potential, race, geographical preferences, international status, children of those employed by the university etc. It is clear that the top Universities have moved the proverbial “cheese” but we are still running the same course and keeping the same old expectations. The reality is that one can no longer equate admission to the top schools solely with demonstrated academic ability. Why we keep doing so is beyond me. It is what it is. It is the applicants that have to adapt.</p>
<p>I think it is significant to note that there are some very highly respected institutions globally that do seem to weigh demonstrated intellectual ability more heavily. MIT does not consider alumnae relations, and as far as I know they do not formally recruit for athletics. State residency is also not considered at MIT. Oxford and Cambridge specifically state on their websites that while they welcome well rounded students, what they are primarily interested in is your academic abilities. They are not at all interested in what sport you play or what you have done in your spare time, unless it is somehow related to your academic pursuits.</p>
<p>So I guess there are different “models” but in the end you have to adjust your expectations to the model that the schools you are applying to utilize.</p>
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But those “improved” admission rates are still fractional – a 15% chance is better than a 9% chance, but it is still mostly a ticket to rejection. Same is true of Harvard’s 21% Early Action rate-- any kid who wants to go to Harvard is well-advised to apply early… but 4 out of 5 of those early applicants are going to be turned away.</p>
<p>If I flip a coin I’ve got a 50% chance of winning; if I am betting on the result of a die toss, my odds are only 1 in 6. But either way, if I lose, I lose. The difference is that if I’m intent on winning, then I’m a lot smarter to place bets on coin flips than die tosses. </p>
<p>"I humbly disagree. Let’s say for instance that a kid gets straight A+s in his engineering major at MIT, wins the award for research and a general award for the best in his major. Add to that that the profs in his department say he/she is the best student they have seen in about 20 years. That person would get into the top 5 grad schools and will win an NSF Fellowship and any other research fellowship. And it won’t be a problem to get hired at the best engineering firms. If they so desire, McKinsey and Boston Consulting will probably hire them unless they come off really strange in the interview. Same goes for the Wall Street firms which are looking to hire quants.</p>
<p>For the equivalent performance in high school (say they have equivalent national recognition and have performed against similar competition), I’d say they would be lucky to get into one of the top 5 or 6 schools."</p>
<p>I’m with Data here. The equivalent performer in HS probably has a peer group of 2,000 or so across the country (I’m making up numbers, but if you add together perfect single sitting SAT scorers plus Siemens/Olympiad/chess Master/ participants in the longitudinal study of extraordinary math talent as identified at age 12/RSI etc. I’m probably at least in the ballpark.) The equivalent performer of your MIT kid (and I think there have been two handfuls of kids who have graduated with a 5.0 GPA majoring in engineering in the last century so it is really not very common- getting an A at MIT is very hard but not that big a deal. NEVER getting anything but an A is truly extraordinary) probably has a peer group of 50-- the top kid at the top 50 universities in the country. And to your point that the faculty think this is a once in a lifetime (or once in 20 year student) then the peer group won’t be 50, it will be 8 or 4 or 10 depending on how deep the bench is that particular year.</p>
<p>Do any of you realize how many high schools there are in America? How many Vals? Do you comprehend that competing against 2,000 other kids on academics alone-- and then since the colleges are not just taking the top scorer/Val kids but also the kid whose concerto was performed at Carnegie Hall last year and the kid who just published a novel- whose scores will be lower but they are still extraordinary, your own town’s “golden kid extraordinary” just may get shut out once the competition is no longer your HS, your county, but the whole world???</p>
<p>I am so sympathetic to the kid who wanted to be at Cal Tech but ends up at CMU or RPI or Case or Rochester. And I am so sympathetic to the kid who wanted to be at Swarthmore but ends up at Middlebury or Bowdoin or Beloit or Rhodes. But the mere fact that we are arguing about this for a gazillion pages proves to me how robust the American university system is. If you have a kid in the UK who gets shut out of Oxbridge he or she is heading to Leeds or Manchester. If your kid gets shut out of Leeds, he or she is heading to a Polytechnic. And anyone else- is pretty much shut out. No second chances, your kid who had ADD in middle school and wasn’t tracked into a university curriculum is going to get a technical certificate in something or head off to beauty school.</p>
<p>And guess what- name one profession where going to Penn State instead of U Penn, or Baruch instead of Harvard means you positively absolutely cannot gain entrance. You are not likely to be hired to develop trading algorithms at DE Shaw coming out of University of New Hampshire but there are hundreds of hedge funds or private equity firms or investment banks where you can get hired. And if you had a weak college GPA because your HS math wasn’t strong and you bombed Freshman year, get yourself the CFA after you graduate and SOMEONE in finance will hire you.</p>
<p>This is America, land of second chances. And I’m as elitist as they come in many ways but I find much of this discussion ridiculous. What is it about an 8% admissions rate that is so difficult to understand?</p>
<p>Best or not best, there is still a parameter that the kids are being measured against. Our high school is huge too. Most kids grew up together since kindergarten, so there are ~12 years of seeing the same group of kids, and along the way, you tend to know a lot about who did what, not only in school, but in ECs. There are local weekly newspaper, monthly magazines, school bi-weekly newspaper, school semi-annually award ceremony, which cover not only in school achievement, but other things. My child participates in a non-school EC, which we do not like to publicize; but that didn’t prevent parents from congratulating me a few days after he won a major competition… My point is, there is a level of understanding of where kids stand, academically and EC wise. </p>
<p>Sue22 said "I get annoyed by the assertion, often repeated on CC, that all the students know each other’s qualifications. If you had asked the kids in my son’s graduating class about him they probably would have said that he was an above average but not exceptional student with mediocre ECs (a club co-presidency, JV sports and a few assorted activities) whose legacy status got him into his college. What the vast majority of his peers didn’t know, because he didn’t tell them, was that he was the anonymous poet publishing in the literary magazine etc… home to a mom sick as a dog from chemo to treat the cancer diagnosed the first week of his junior year.</p>
<p>You may think you know these applicants but it’s very possible you’d be surprised at what you don’t know about them."</p>
<p>^^This. Read it several times. It is hubris to think that you really know everything about a kid. You know about their school related activities. Some of the kids who are doing great things outside of school are also humble. They may not talk about their accomplishments outside of school to others. If you asked them, they would tell you, but they don’t advertise. I can guarantee that the majority of the kids in my son’s public HS of two thousand kids had no idea that he was a classical composer and pianist. His musical school activities were related to choir. Furthermore, some kids have things going on at home about which you know NOTHING. Does that make them a better candidate? Who knows. However, I agree with Sue22. You don’t know everything about the students at your school.</p>
<p>I personally don’t know of a single college that puts hs kids on its admissions board. </p>
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<p>When was admissions based solely on intellectual capacity? At what point in the past was it based on intellectual capacity?</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, in the American system, admissions in the 19th century depended to a large extent on the family’s social standing, the ability to pay, the sports the young man played, and whether he could pass the college’s admissions test, usually in Latin and Greek.</p>
<p>The current system gives intellectual capacity far more weight than ever before.</p>
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<p>That still doesn’t mean that their definition of “best” is the same definition held by the schools to which they apply. They may have an “understanding” of where students stand in their hs with regard to certain criteria, but they haven’t read the essays or the LORs, they don’t necessarily know what kind of qualities the schools are looking for, they don’t know how the student communicated what they could bring to the school, and on and on. </p>
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<p>Because that is over simplistic thinking. Earlier in this thread there was a link to an article about an African American kid from Oakland tech who had been admitted to several Ivies. So you might assume that his race was his “hook”. But the article listed other accomplishments, including a league MVP award for his prowess in baseball. He also had a 5.0 GPA and played several musical instruments. </p>
<p>Was his race a factor? Probably. Was it the only “hook”? No – we know that he plans to continue to play baseball in college – so to the casual observer, he’s a URM getting preference – to the college, he’s a two-for-one deal – a desirable athlete who also happens to meet a demographic need. Does that mean that this kid would be picked over a better, white ball player? Probably not, if the school’s coach has a say. But the point is: everyone is honing in on one quality (race) when we can look at the big picture and see that the kid actually multiple qualities that make him an attractive candidate. And also know that there are plenty of white kids from the his geographical area being accepted to those colleges (though probably not from his neighborhood and not from his high school). </p>
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<p>Let alone a decahedron die, which is closer to the odds for an Ivy acceptance.</p>
<p>So is it really the case that our brightest students don’t understand math? They’re Harvard-eligible, yet don’t understand odds and percentages? Sure, they are disappointed that they aren’t in the 6% who did get accepted. That’s the sadness part. But the anger and hurt comes from the feeling that they didn’t have the same chance of being admitted as some other students due to their genetic makeup that determines outward appearance.</p>