<p>With that narrow definition of achievement, I think it’s rather likely that some other child will surprise those parents and even the students by getting admitted to MIT or CalTech. That’s just crazy (sorry) but there are so many ways of showing one’s prowess in math and technology other than getting into a selective summer program or a Governor’s schools for math/technology. Often it is the stealth student who concentrates on their own work that make it in, surprising the more “obvious” students.</p>
<p>I think Caltech loses out to MIT for two main reasons. Its size - most high school students don’t want to attend such a small college, and its M/F ratio. (Which may be affected by its reputation for looking mostly at academics.) I don’t think that they only look at academics by any means, given the Caltech supplement. (There was “The Box” a square you could fill with anything creative to represent you, and a question about an ethical dilemma you faced.) And bookworm has it right, there was at least as much variety of kids at Caltech as anywhere. I enjoyed seeing them in plays, seeing the stuff they put together for their amazing parties, and when I worked in an on campus library talking to them about their papers.</p>
<p>@mamalion Great post. The idea of “risk taking” as being part of the package that institutions are looking for may help explain why “perfect” applicants are losing out to their imperfect less risk-averse peers. You have to put yourself out there—enter competitions, try new things, invent and explore—to stand out.</p>
<p>"Last night the Notre Dame women’s coach said that she has to go watch film. Assessing the competition is what you do if you want to succeed in athletics. When my D goes into an important race, she knows who is racing with her and how fast they can run. That helps her determine what her strategy needs to be to do her best. She won’t win just yet, or perhaps ever, but she wants to do her best. It’s part of excelling at your EC. "</p>
<p>It’s like you’re not understanding – EC’s don’t HAVE to be competitive. Your kids’ ECs (sports) happened to BE competitive, but that doesn’t mean they all are. And I certainly don’t think of academics as competitive in the sense of competing with others. Look, no one was more of a gunner for good grades than I was when I was younger, but it was about competing with <em>myself.</em> Not trying to best anyone else. </p>
<p>Yep…D’s high school rarely places students in universities like Rice, Emory, Tufts, or Vandy. But, surprisingly, a senior who announces that he or she is going to a certain school on the lake in the midwest is no big deal. And, probably not coincidentally, two of D’s LORs (a favorite teacher and her GC) are graduates of that same university.</p>
<p>I am more interested in the high-achieving Asian kid (and I do NOT mean just on SAT and GPA) who is kept out by an URM who has a weaker overall application, and does NOT have SES disadvantage.</p>
<p>Why should the Asian kid go to CMU, and not the URM?</p>
<p>And who said Society should be working night and day on this? - there is no need for sarcasm. I think it is not fair, among many other things in society that are not fair. I would favor race-blind review of applications that takes account of actual SES and individual adversity.</p>
<p>If any universities are attempting to limit Asian students, it is likely that they are doing so to keep white enrollment from falling too low, as there are not enough URMs for URMs to be the main issue in that sense.</p>
<p>But sorghum, you are assuming the URM has lower stats than the ORM - there is no way to know. And as has been pointed out ad infinitum here - after a certain threshhold, the stats don’t matter. Plus it is quite a leap to assume the high achieving Asian kid would get in if not for that URM; that is nothing but blatant racism.</p>
<p>TheGFG - a woman at my health club only counsels minority students to top tier schools. She started doing it through her church and someone introduced her to me. By then, yes my D was receiving boat loads of mailings from these schools anyway.</p>
<p>I repeat I am NOT talking about stats, I am talking about the whole package. I believe a substantially weaker overall package will gain admission for an URM - EVEN if the URM is not from a disadvantaged family, compared especially to many Asian candidates.</p>
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<p>We know there is a shortage of high stat URMs. </p>
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<p>Don’t accuse anyone of blatant racism on such flimsy logic.</p>
<p>How would you know that the Asian lost out to that specific URM (or any URM)? I guarantee we could go through all the denied students and pick out someone who has a “better” package than an admitted student. Does that mean the that denied student lost his seat to that particularly admitted student?</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl: When you say “you can’t have it both ways”, I hope you don’t mean that the current process has no room for improvement, or it’s doomed to be as imperfect as it is? A process with “holistic” in its name is a perfect candidate for continuous improvement. There’s more than one and there’s even a better way out there to form an interesting class many people want to be part of. The “better way” should not be judged by how many people will be turned down (and therefore disappointed at the end results) but rather how the system does what it’s supposed to do while minimizing the debate we are having now, which is full of guesswork and angst over factors out of one’s control. While life is chaotic in nature, some of the chaos in this “man made process” is just not necessary. To let people question and appeal for changes is the first step leading to a better system/process, IMHO.</p>
<p>Sorghum, how do you know the high performing Asian kid didn’t lose out to a white girl just like the OP’s daughter, who happened to come from an upscale community near Juneau Alaska instead of Belmont Massachusetts? Your arguments would have more credibility (I don’t mean you personally- I mean the collective YOU on this thread) if you weren’t quite so insistent that there’s a black guy out there taking away some more deserving kids spot.</p>
<p>If that were so- take a walk through Cambridge MA and ask, "why the heck are these elite schools so clearly divided between Caucasian and Asian kids, with a very small smattering of “all others”???</p>
<p>But Slackermom, it would be extremely rare for a child to not have the grades to get nominated for a governor’s school in science and math but to somehow mysteriously have the ability to do the work at MIT, wouldn’t it? It would imply that the ‘stealth’ candidate managed to slide by without ever doing work in a math or science class that was on the same level as the expertise that he or she was demonstrating in other ways. Wouldn’t it be a bit like a concert pianist who never got an A in a high school music class? How likely would that be, really?</p>
<p>Agree, @benley. Here is the link to that Amherst admissions committee clip where even some admissions officers acknowledge the arbitrariness of the system and state that low income/high performance is an application advantage over higher income/high performance.</p>
<p>One of the admissions officers admits that his decisions “change lives”. So I guess the considerations run deeper than something like Grinnell is just as good as Amherst so you are all fools to raise an issue if you didn’t get into Amherst. Otherwise, what points do we think the Amherst admissions officers, themselves, are missing about the process?</p>
<p>Momzie, how do international students get admitted to these schools then? Their entire systems of education are different. Their national competitions are different.</p>
<p>Also, a serious pianist might never take a single music class in high school (why would they waste elective credits on curriculum that is far beneath their abilities?). You’d be amazed at how much high-level training is available in some communities (obviously, big cities but also college towns with strong music faculty that take on younger students privately). Same goes for dance, except the best studios in many places have no connection to any academic institutions at all.</p>
<p>“I am more interested in the high-achieving Asian kid (and I do NOT mean just on SAT and GPA) who is kept out by an URM who has a weaker overall application, and does NOT have SES disadvantage.”</p>
<p>But Sorghum - you’re assuming that the high-achieving Asian kid had a spot - let’s call it spot #759 in the entering class - and that particular spot was “stolen” or given away specifically to another kid. How can you assume that? Why do you say spot #759 was “given” to the lower-stats URM? What if it were given to a lower-stats Asian? Or a higher-stats white kid? You seem to think certain people are “entitled” to spots and that URM’s only deserve them if they are higher than every single Asian (or white) kid. </p>
<p>Look, if I have white kid A with 2100 SAT and white kid B with 2300 SAT, and the college accepts white kid A, it doesn’t mean that white kid B’s spot was “stolen” by white kid A. </p>
<p>But now make it black kid A with 2100 SAT and Asian kid B with 2300 SAT, and all of a sudden the Asian kid’s spot was stolen. How does that work again?</p>
<p>I think you all on CC far overstate how much adcoms think about race. Sure, it’s there. But you all exaggerate as though it’s the ultimate or most important component in the portfolio / evaluation. </p>
<p>“Here is the link to that Amherst admissions committee clip where even some admissions officers acknowledge the arbitrariness of the system and state that low income/high performance is an application advantage over higher income/high performance.”</p>
<p>Well, of course there is arbitrariness. I mean, duh. The only way to not make it arbitrary is to do a rack-and-stack or pure numeric consideration. Arbitrariness is part of life. It’s part of the jobs you get, it’s part of who you wind up dating / marrying, where you wind up living, etc. It’s arbitrary that I went to the college I did; if I had dated a different guy in high school, I might not have known about it. It’s arbitrary that I met my husband when I did; if I had been assigned to a different dorm my freshman year, I might have never met him. It’s arbitrary that I was born to a family that had XYZ characteristics. It’s arbitrary that I’m the oldest of 2 versus the youngest of 8. The desire you guys have to predict and control everything is just not healthy or realistic. </p>
<p>@Pizzagirl - You have it right. It’s pure pettiness. </p>
<p>You all think you understand WHY someone is accepted over others, but you aren’t involved in the process. </p>
<p>I think I need to unsubscribe from this thread because it’s getting too frustrating. I understand the level of frustration of your kid not getting into a school you think it’s deserved. It’s VERY frustrating. But lashing out at others? This indignation about race as the reason why they were picked over your kid is incredibly foolish and petty. It’s shortsighted. It only serves to frustrate you. </p>