A question of fit?

unbelievablem · April 18, 2007, 9:41am

as i have said in the past – while stats about the admitted students may help one understand a school’s standards to some extent, unless you know about the stats of those rejected, you don’t really know just how tough it is to get into the very selective schools – and most of them simply don’t make that info available. 
here are a couple that do - <a href=“http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/applying/profile.php[/url]”>http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/applying/profile.php</a>
<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University;

if over 70% of applicants with over a 750 are being rejected, how can anyone claim that they should have a 50-50 shot at getting in so that they can be an “average” student at a school?

when you have top stats and have had people tell you your entire life that you’re smart - so smart that you must be in the top 1% of the country - and your gpa and sat’s seem to confirm this – its easy to fall in to the trap of thinking you are somehow entitled to the surround yourself with similarly smart people in college – but age 18 is a great time to start learning about the realities of the world – you may yearn for a place where you will be “average” – but then you have to accept what comes with merely being “average” – something that many of your hs colleagues already learned to deal with – when you are “average” you’re just not entitled to much of anything – you can’t have it both ways – an environment in which you are “average” and yet still be entitled to be in that environment.

marite · April 18, 2007, 10:14am

The original question was about fit, not chances of admission.
So, let me take a couple of examples (i know, purely anecdotal, not statistical evidence).

A. top 5% in his school, high scores (not sure how high, but pretty sure 1500+). Admitted EA at MIT, doing splendidly; was invited to be CA for a tough weed-out course after acing the course as a freshman.
2.B. similar profile, also doing splendidly at MIT.
C. similar profile, ditto.
D. even higher scores, but decided against MIT because of lack of fit (too hands-on).

In these 4 cases, the deciding factor was not the SAT scores or level of intellectualism of the students, but the perceived atmosphere at MIT. It suited 3 out of the 4 very well, but not one of them.

curious14 · April 18, 2007, 12:04pm

Marite,

“A student with 1500 SAT–and other demonstrated signs of intellectual abilities–has at least a 50/50 chance of being admitted to any of the most selective schools”

IMO this statement is simply false, unless you include in the population those students who are recruited athletes, URMS, legacies, development candidates, celebrities or the children of celebrities, or have distinquished themselves at the national level in some way. If our hypothetical candidate were in any of these groups they would have a really good chance of admission those who are not have a much smaller chance.

marite · April 18, 2007, 12:08pm

A 50/50 chance of admission is also a 50/50 chance of rejection. Rejection is what happens to the majority of applicants to the most selective schools.

The MIT students I mentioned? Not one of them had a hook.

curious14 · April 18, 2007, 12:29pm

Marite & others,

If the point of your post #82 was that students who resemble my hypothetical candidate sometimes get into the most selective colleges where they are in fact average students, I accept the point. I would have accepted the point without the examples. My point is that they are unlikely to be accepted at these schools and generally end up enrolling in schools where they are in the top quartile of students. A lot of these students probably like that and it would be a good fit for them. Some of these students, like my hypothetical candidate, don’t like it and for them it is a bad fit. My original post was intended as part inquiry, part complaint. What I don’t understand is why the suggestion that it ought to be easier for smart (top 1%) students to find schools where they will be surrounded by their intellectual peers and stand a good chance of being admitted met with such a barrage of anger.

curious14 · April 18, 2007, 12:37pm

unbeliveable,

You seem to be trying to explain to me why it is difficult for these students to have a 50/50 chance of admission at these schools. I understand why, I just think it would be good to have at least a few schools where the “whys” were not so true and the probability for my hypothetical candidate to find what he is looking for was higher. It does not have to be the Ivy League it could be a couple of LAC’s tucked away in some remote region.

curious14 · April 18, 2007, 12:54pm

Marite,

In response to post 78 & 79, this is data in the same sense that the NYC telephone directory is data. How does is bear on the issue?

btm · April 18, 2007, 12:59pm

I think that there are several issues here:

First, with all due respect, many parents on this thread seem to argue their children case (myself included) making the argument particularly sensitive. I wonder how many opinions would change depending on their own outcome (again myself included) Just some food for thought :)

Second, based on the sample described in my earlier post #10, unfortunately I have to agree with Curiouss observation in post #83. With extremely few exceptions, the kids I personally know have not had any chance for getting into HYP or other selective Ivies. Mind you, I am talking abut a high school where an entire class of ~700 kids was admitted solely based on one combined test score at or above 93rd percentile. Amongst those kids, with one exception, the ONLY ones admitted to selective Ivies were some of the ED/EA applicants, recruited athletes, URM, legacies, developmental admits or combinations of the above. As I have already pointed out, some of the applicants I know have very impressive national level achievements that did not help them a bit. I would agree that some of these kids might be nerds with nothing going on for them, but ALL qualified applicants with almost no exceptions? Youd have to conclude that high-test scores and other PERSONAL qualifications (whatever there are) making student an attractive candidate (which, BTW, is not necessarily the same as a good fit!) for a top college are mutually exclusive.

I think that the answer is much simpler the demographics (in our case NYC) outweighs any personal achievements including high test scores unless one has some other hooks that they cannot control (legacy, URM etc). Sadly, this was confirmed by all insiders I spoke to, as well as by colleges themselves. I hope, AdOfficer wont mind me posting the exact quote from one of his PM. In his own words (and I do respect his opinion and knowledge):

Looking at what the admit rates are for [several selective Ivies] - coupled with the fact that you are from NYC and your daughter goes to a school that sends A LOT of applications to these schools - I can’t say I’m surprised by her decisions. These two Ivies slaughter NYC apps every year…there’s just so many of them. Particularly at Penn, legacy plays a MAJOR factor in admission there, too, and with so many Penn alums living in NYC…

It’s really a crapshoot applying to East Coast schools with admit rates lower than 20% when you’re from NYC, REGARDLESS OF HOW BRIGHT AND TALENTED YOU ARE.

cangel · April 18, 2007, 1:16pm

Amen BTM.

Curious, the answer to your question in posts 85 and 86, is in Btm’s post. your hypothetical student will have his best chance outside his geographic region. Now even that is beginning to change, because of the sheer numbers of excellent students from the greater NYC area, and the NE corridor, but I said best chance. I agree 100% with BTM that unfortunately being from NE just doesn’t help at most of the “big name” private schools, both large and small. The number of applicants from a given school is important, too.
Geography and number of applicants from a given high school, really do affect the size of the pool that the individual person is competing against, and can work to the benefit of a BWRK, or against that student.

emeraldkity4 · April 18, 2007, 1:41pm

coupled with the fact that you are from NYC and your daughter goes to a school that sends A LOT of applications to these schools - I can’t say I’m surprised by her decisions

I have heard this alot from students on the east coast.

To drag out my daughter as an example again-and to go back to middle school
one reason why we didn’t go with public middle school was , not only were the classrooms huge and the curriculum amorphous, but she was a cute little blond girl, who would probably be welcomed into any class, and then forgotten about because she didn’t stand on a desk and demand more.
What we saw in private schools, was that, they already had many cute little blond girls and were looking to add maybe an athletic Samoan boy, or a class clown, so that impacted her acceptances from what I saw.

From what I have heard ( to use a stereotype) if you are a upper middle class, Jewish, gifted and verbal male, from NYC, you will have better luck applying to Stanford, than Columbia, because they have BWRK from NYC coming out their ears.

For so many of the very top schools it sounds like they could exchange their accepted students, with the ones on the wait lists, and the classes would be indistiguishable. So many really bright students out there- and grad school seems even worse.
One student for example graduated Summa Laude from her top university ( Patriot League)- two years trying to get into grad schools, including safeties even. No takers.

I shudder to think what grad schools will be like when my 16 year old is trying.

interesteddad · April 18, 2007, 1:45pm

Marite:

Just to provide a little context for the Duke quote, those are pretty small numbers in the context of 17,000 applications. I would suggest that the small increase in 1550+ applications could be explained by:

a) The increased use of expensive SAT prep tutoring and multiple test sittings.

b) The increased number of Asian American applicants, who tend to present higher test scores at elite colleges, often as a result of motivated, sustained test prep.

interesteddad · April 18, 2007, 2:03pm

Maybe my daughter’s college is not selective enough, but I think this whole “national ECs” thing is a myth. I have looked at the stats for over a hundred accepted students here on CC over several years, and few had “national level ECs”. Most has something interesting they were involved in at the local level and did an effective job of communicating an intellectual spark. Again, maybe it’s not a super selective college, but I see a lot of “regular, smart kids” getting accepted. I suspect another common theme was that these kids were catalysts in their high schools (not the same as quote “leadership positions” end-quote) and that came through in the recommendations.

I know just a little about some Harvard students and I don’t think that national level ECs are required there, either. What is required is a demonstrated “spark”. I think that is the point Marite is trying to make. Her son wasn’t a household name like Yo-Yo Ma or Natalie Portman, but he exuded talent and passion in a specific area.

To me, it is self-defeating to complain about the system. Be cynical about it, but enjoy the game. Look at it as a challenge – like a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Spend the effort looking at the big picture. What experiences have you had? What do you enjoy? What’s been a rewarding challenge? What could be the focus of a college application that would allow an admissions committee to picture a living, breathing teenager who would contribute to the vitality of a campus community?

marite · April 18, 2007, 2:08pm

Idad:

I agree that 1,300 applicants with SATS of 1550 is small in a pool of 17,000. I assume that the number of applicants with SATs of 1500 is slightly larger, possibly 1,600. The Duke adcom could thus have selected its entering class of 1600+ by just looking at the SAT scores and be done.

EDIT:
Do we know whether more Asian-American students are applying to Duke? I know that between S1 and S2, at our hs, more students have gotten interested in Duke, but the interest seems largely to have grown among Caucasian students. S has two friends from his summer program at Duke, both of them are orginally from the South, and were attracted by the generous finaid as well.

marite · April 18, 2007, 2:15pm

So is the thread about fit or about admission?
I have information about S and his friends, who got into HYPSM, and a few other top selective colleges. Not a single one of them had national ECs or even state-level ECs. A few had hooks in one or another school, but many did not or were also accepted at schools where they had no hook.
Of course, you don’t like anecdotes; you prefer hunches and guesses.

interesteddad · April 18, 2007, 2:37pm

Of course. I don’t think there is a knowledgeable parent on this board who doesn’t understand the demographic challenges of elite college admissions.

I’ll lay it out in black and white. My daughter’s school had 5400 applications this year and mailed 890 acceptance letters including 152 in Early Decision.

53% of the acceptances went to US minority students. 6% went to international students. So, 41% went to US white students. Out of 5400 applications, that’s only 365 acceptance letters to white US applicants. For the entire country – including at least one each from 51 states and territories.

Legacies, recruited athletes, and ED are all overrepresented in that in that pile of letters, because all three of those groups tend to be signficantly whiter than average.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this pile of letters doesn’t leave room for every white applicant from NYC, Westchester County, or suburban Boston with a high SAT score and a dog-eared copy of the USNEWS rankings. So, yes…if you look at it from the narrow perspective of a tradtional white northeast corridor US applicant, admissions is indeed “tougher” than it used to be when these schools were 100% white. Much tougher. We all understand the odds. I think it’s fair to say that most of us factored those odds in our discussions with our kids while they were assembling their college lists. I know that most of the college search my daughter did was specifically designed to unearth schools that were attractive and that tilted the odds more in her favor. She knew there were schools where the odds were simply prohibitive. Big deal. I know that the odds of me buying a Ferrari this year are prohibitive. No point in crying about it.

What is driving us crazy is the notion that if our kids had ended up at, say, the sixth college on their lists, they would have not been “intellectually” challenged. That view is not only patently false, it’s incredibly arrogant. The fact that a student has a 1500 SAT at a school with a 75th percentile of 1350 doesn’t mean squat if the school has an intellectually curious campus culture. The original poster could have gotten dozens of good suggestions by giving us something…anything…besides a hypothetical SAT score to go on. In fact, the exclusive focus on SAT scores means that the hypothetical student is probably not intellectually challenging enough for many of the schools we might have suggested.

marite · April 18, 2007, 2:39pm

I took a look at the CB’s 2006 report. It lists scores of 750-800 for the math and critical reading portions separately (I did not take into account the writing section since the thread is based on a 1500/1600 score). There were nearly 26,000 who scored high on thecritical reading section and nearly 33,000 who scored high on the math section
Assuming that the half of the students scored 750+ in both sections, the total number of 1500+ scorers would be around 29,000. If some were seriously lopsided but still managed to have an aggregate score of 1500, the figure would be a bit higher but not necessarily very much so.
How large of the entering classes of the most selective universities and LACs?

btm · April 18, 2007, 2:41pm

EK I accept your condolences :)

This seemed to be true several years ago. Now the East Coast students have over flown into the West Coast dwarfing their chances of admission into Stanford as well. The problem is that most selective colleges are located on the East Coast, so there are fewer choices (though there are certainly lots of good ones) if students from the NE seek geographic diversity.

On the other hand, a friends son from Berkley, an upper middle class, Jewish, gifted and verbal male (no hooks), have recently been admitted into 5-6 Ivies and waitlisted in Harvard. While I admire his achievements and very happy for him, he would be bunch a dozen in D school. It might have helped that he has applied into language programs.

IDad -

We did try to enjoy the game and we have not even being cynical about it (earnest) the big difference is that we truly believed that D at least had a shot and it clearly appears now that she had not not based on her personal experience, but on many others My big concern is not that she did not get into her first choice school this is really not a big deal - but that now she indeed may become cynical. When you play a lottery, you at least have a small chance, but it seemed that she did not even hold a ticket I dont want her to acquire why bother attitude, but on the other hand this experience has been so draining

unbelievablem · April 18, 2007, 2:43pm

i am trying to explain why your underlying premise is illogical.

i repeat again – you can’t have it both ways – if you want the student to be average at the desired school – to be surrounded by similarly intelligent students – you have to accept the fact that they only have an average chance of getting into those schools. period. you are both seeking to have your hypothetical student find a school where he can be just one of the crowd and at the same time lamenting that he be treated as one of the crowd when it comes to admissions. other than you wanting this paradox to exist, there simply is no reason for it to.

the only way for this to exist is if there was a school inhabited by the very smart that simply wasn’t appealing to very many of them so that the acceptance rate for them could be nice and high, while still limiting the number of those less intelligent getting in. i don’t think logic argues for that existing either, now does it?

interesteddad · April 18, 2007, 2:54pm

I don’t know for sure. To be honest, I never spent much time digging into Duke’s admissions after my daughter visited.

However, according to USNEWS, Duke has a substantial Asian American enrollment (14%), so I would assume they have been seeing the same increases in applications as many elite colleges.

Based on the reputation Duke enjoyed when I was a high schooler in the South, I think the school has two distinct applicant pools. A long-standing large customer base of super qualified students from D.C. and points south and a newer applicant pool from the northeast corridor and other national markets. Those two customer bases are probably somewhat different. I have to think that Duke would be a major target for good students in the Asian American communities of southern cites, including D.C., the Reasearch Triangle, Atlanta, etc.

oldolddad · April 18, 2007, 2:56pm

BTM:I see you point. I think the issue of the geographical diversity and the concentraion of top kids in individual high schools near many large cities is a huge issue. On one hand parents want to live in a place that has good educational choices but doing so increases the concentration of top talent there which in turn makes it harder to stand out among peers at the school or in the area.
The OP’s hypothetical student has different odds at top schools depending on where he/she lives.

A question of fit?

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