But wait a minute–if hooks exist, then kids with them occupy some of the limited spots–meaning that unhooked kids don’t get them. If (for example) Harvard did away with athletic recruiting entirely, but kept the freshman class the same size, some different kids would get in. The same is obviously true of all hooks.</p>
<p>I think it is true, though, that just because a hooked kid from your high school got in and you didn’t, that doesn’t mean you would have gotten in if he didn’t exist. But it might also be true that you would have had a better chance of admission if the school didn’t give any preference to anybody for that hook.</p>
<p>Here’s a thought experiment: It has been revealed that the regional adcom from XYZ college, a highly selective school, has been accepting bribes from some applicants to get them into the school. He was able to cover up his scheme for years because he only solicited bribes from students who clearly had the academic credentials to succeed at the school. He has admitted, however, that bribe-paying students were admitted who would otherwise been rejected.</p>
<p>Your highly-qualified kid was rejected by this school. You were never asked for a bribe. Are you angry about this? And at whom are you angry? What do you think should be done about it?</p>
<p>Having seen plenty of apps, I would NOT automatically take the 2300. Folks, the full app package is the key. Not some sad life tale, not standing at the GC office looking at someone else’s standing, not prez of stu govt and prom queen. The whole. And while you are all fixated on stats and hs hierarchy, you do your kids and others a disservice by assuming a bright top performer can pull together a bright app full of signs of potential at that single digit college. Think about all this. Think about all those pages and questions in the CA.</p>
<p>For the 2200/2300 question, I wouldn’t take either, if the only item in their files were the test scores. The colleges which practice holistic admission emphasize that admission is not determined by test scores alone–nor by test scores and GPA alone. </p>
<p>Even expanding the criteria to recommendations and essays (only) could well tip the scales one way or the other. Add in the general area of interest, and it’s possible to see that the “better” overall score might not be chosen.</p>
<p>If the 2200 score breaks down to: 800 cr, 700, M, 700 Wr, planning to study History, I might well take her over 700 cr, 800 M, 800 Wr, planning to study History. </p>
<p>@Hunt: I’d be mad at the school. And I would take XYZ college off my kids’ lists. I would not want my kids attending a college that had admissions policies (tacit or otherwise) that I fundamentally disagree with.</p>
Well, we all know in these elite college, considering the self-selecting nature of their applicant pool, how “low” one has to get to be categorized as “unqualified”. I don’t think many if any at all believe that the preferential treatment to any group is applied to the “unqualified” but some would argue it’s applied to “less qualified”, which makes sense because otherwise it wouldn’t be qualified as a “preferential” treatment. </p>
<p>Regarding whether someone’s spot was “taken” by someone else, I think Hunt’s post in page 59 covered it quite ‘comprehensively’. No one can possibly know exactly whose spot is taken by whom, but the general shrinking of the available spots for unhooked or over-represented applicants will affect every one of applicants that fall in this category (or cannot take advantage of any of the systematic preferential treatments). </p>
<p>I’ve never understood why it is so difficult for people to answer a hypothetical question, especially when it is virtually a tautology. If SATs mean anything, it is obvious that you will accept the person with a higher score all other things being equal. Yes, all other things are never completely equal. But they might be equal enough that a small difference in SAT score is the most significant difference between two candidates.</p>
<p>Oh please Pizzagirl, a high SES student has 2200 and a low SES student has a higher score. There are no other known differentiating factors. And you can’t even commit to the low-SES higher-score student? Wouldn’t taking the higher SES student with a lower score be, to use your word, ‘silly’?</p>
<p>"Here’s a thought experiment: It has been revealed that the regional adcom from XYZ college, a highly selective school, has been accepting bribes from some applicants to get them into the school. He was able to cover up his scheme for years because he only solicited bribes from students who clearly had the academic credentials to succeed at the school. He has admitted, however, that bribe-paying students were admitted who would otherwise been rejected.</p>
<p>Your highly-qualified kid was rejected by this school. You were never asked for a bribe. Are you angry about this? And at whom are you angry? What do you think should be done about it?"</p>
<p>I think part of the difference here is that presumably the bribing students said “I’ll give you $X if you get me in.” URM’s who get thumbs on the scale (whether light or heavy) aren’t explicitly asking for those thumbs to be put on the scale. Moreover, in your hypothetical, the bribe becomes a brick – it’s a guarantee, a quid pro quo. </p>
<p>“But wait a minute–if hooks exist, then kids with them occupy some of the limited spots–meaning that unhooked kids don’t get them. If (for example) Harvard did away with athletic recruiting entirely, but kept the freshman class the same size, some different kids would get in. The same is obviously true of all hooks.”</p>
<p>True. But by the same token, the 10 spots that are currently occupied by kids from Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho would go elsewhere too. Being from Montana, Wyoming or Idaho is just as much out of someone’s control as being born a certain race. But no one grumbles that “their spot” was taken by the white kid from Montana.</p>
They might if they knew about it. And some people might support some hooks, but not others. I support affirmative action, for example, but there would be other practices that I wouldn’t support–for example, I wouldn’t support any college limiting the number of any ethnic or religious group in order to prevent there from being too many of them. I distinguish “not enough” from “too many”–not everybody would make that distinction.)</p>
<p>You misunderstand the process. They set goals, they do not set aside “seats”. There is not a one-to-one correspondence because they can and do admit students who fill multiple priorities. That’s why the baseball-playing black kid with the 5.0 GPA is so appealing to them. He’s an athlete. Check. He’s African-America. Check. Low SES. Check. </p>
<p>And, oh yeah, based on his GPA, he’s also a scholar. Check. </p>
<p>So of course he gets admitted. They look at his app and they see that admitting him means they’ve hit the trifecta. </p>
<p>But you postulate a “set aside” that would have the 1 kid taking 3 seats (URM, athlete, low SES). And he’s not. He’s taking one. And that one happens to be his own seat, not someone else’s – because he’s fully qualified for admission. </p>
<p>I sincerely doubt that with the current numbers that the Ivy’s are having to relax admission standards at all these days based on race. Maybe 30 years ago, yes. But not today. Not with the volume of applicants to these schools. </p>
<p>I think that when you look at a scatterplot of admitted students and see an outlier on the low end – that outlier is far more likely to be a development case or a recruited athlete. The admissions question is: what does this student bring to the school? With current numbers, the market value of race as a diversity factor has gone down – but a specific spot on an athletic team or a $X in donor dollars still may have some value in some circumstances. </p>
<p>If they are assigning these applicants to different pools for evaluation – an assertion that some have made, but which I don’t know to be true – they still have enough highly qualified applicants with those pools so that they will be able to turn away many who don’t make the grade. So you still have a school that is admitting the students IT wants who meet the academic standards that it has defined for itself. And you know from statistical data that those academic standards are pretty darn high. </p>
<p>^That is what I was trying to say several pages ago. If there is an admissions target for URMs, students are being selected from WITHIN THAT GROUP to fill the targeted percentage. Which is why I suggested that the white/Asian kids are really competing against each other.</p>
<p>“Pizzagirl, surely even you would take the 2310 over the 2290 if they were otherwise identical.”</p>
<p>Ok, sure, if they were identical twins. On second thought as a mother of twins myself, if they were identical twins, I’d either accept both or reject both. I couldn’t do that to a family!! (Hey, lookingforward, what <em>does</em> happen with twins in these circumstances? Do adcoms give any thought to the pain of admitting one and not the other?)</p>
<p>But I think that’s the whole point, Hunt – these colleges aren’t saying “I want to limit Asians because Asians are yucky.” They’re saying “I want to ensure a critical mass of Afr Americans.” That comes out of everyone else’s hide, but it’s not <em>targeted</em> at anyone else. </p>
<p>But just to play devil’s advocate - let’s pick on Brandeis. You don’t think Brandeis gets a little tired of Jewish applicants at one point and all else being equal, might decide to pick a non-Jewish applicant over a Jewish one just to freshen their appeal to a broad audience? </p>
Come now, calmom. They may not set aside a specific number of seats for each hook, but they clearly work to get enough people holding the various hooks–for recruited athletes, it’s really pretty explicit. I imagine they are happy when somebody comes along who is able to satisfy multiple institutional needs, or who doesn’t need any hook to justify admissions. That’s gravy.</p>
<p>I have no problem with hooks–but I’m not going to pretend that their existence doesn’t limit opportunities for the unhooked. My own kids were hooked, and I think it very well may be that they wouldn’t have been admitted to that particular school without the hook.</p>
<p>Identical qualitative rarely happens. Add in geo diversity.
If both twins are super, I’ve seen a desire to take both. But I did say super. Sometimes, they are not equal fits. </p>