Angry over the college admissions process

Pizzagirl · November 30, 2012, 12:13pm

I was mathy, but apparently not uber-mathy This is the program I was in, though it has changed since my day. More focused on applications to social sciences, and taken with a double major (in my case, economics).

[Core</a> Curriculum, Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences – Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University](<a href=“http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/program/core-curriculum.html]Core”>http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/program/core-curriculum.html)

Beliavsky · November 30, 2012, 12:14pm

My impression is that the sizes of the incoming classes at the elite schools has changed little over the years, while the U.S. population continues to grow. Therefore any selection method will leave out increasing numbers of excellent applicants. I wonder if the growing demand for seats at “good schools” should be met by the good schools expanding their class sizes, by the creation of more good schools, or by moving more education online.

What stops Harvard from expanding its class size? Dormitory space, classroom space, not enough faculty, or a desire to maximize scarcity value? I’d guess dormitory space is important, since when I read stories about universities with too many matriculated students, the problem of housing them is usually mentioned. If the problem is a shortage of on-campus housing, the simple solution is to accept some students who are required to find their own housing.

I earlier posted some statistics about the huge Harvard endowment and the economic value of its tax exemption. I don’t think the tax-exempt inflation-adjusted endowment per student should be allowed to grow beyond a certain level. Universities could be required to shift excess endowment funds into an account that is subject to the investment taxes
other people pay. Capping the tax-exempt endowment per student would encourage universities with excess funds to serve more students rather than hire more administrators.

vonlost · November 30, 2012, 12:29pm

All factors will simultaneously be at capacity, generally. There won’t be a surplus of dorms, classrooms, professors, staff, etc. It would take a simultaneous increase of everything to increase seats.

Beliavsky · November 30, 2012, 12:32pm

Great potential demonstrated in what way? Studies such as

[The</a> Validity of the SAT for Predicting Cumulative Grade Point Average by College Major](<a href=“http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/8/researchreport-2012-6-validity-sat-predicting-cumulative-gpa-major.pdf]The”>http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/8/researchreport-2012-6-validity-sat-predicting-cumulative-gpa-major.pdf)

have not found that the SAT underpredicts the grades of URMs or of first-generation college students.

JHS · November 30, 2012, 12:35pm

What makes you think that serving undergraduates is the only mission of a university, and the only reason for granting it a tax exemption? There are plenty of tax-exempt institutions that do no undergraduate education, and maybe no direct education (in the form of “classes” and degrees) of any kind.

As for administrators, I would bet that practically every university in the country has more administrative staff per $1m of endowment than Harvard.

Dormitory space is a huge constraint on class size. Yale is currently spending about $700 million to build two new colleges to get its undergraduate class to roughly the same size as Harvard’s. Expanding would be even more expensive for Harvard, which does not have a lot of low-cost real estate convenient to its existing college facilities.

lookingforward · November 30, 2012, 12:36pm

QM, you keep cycling to ques/statements that suggest soft issues, as opposed to acquired info.

whether the Admissions Office is really that well tied in to the faculty, to know what the faculty think. Actually, I think it is more likely that the MIT Admissions folks interact mainly with admissions personnel at other top schools

That’s whats baffing me on this thread- from a hard science scientist. Where is the principled inquiry?

This works beautifully for our work with students- suggesting variables, encouraging them to pursue breadth with their questioning. All the “Yes, buts…” But on this thread, I don’t find it good enough, logical enough.

It took 3 seconds to find that “3 kids under 650” number. But, laid out as your question was, it will have the effect on the slient readers of: wow, that’s right, they take sub par diversity kids all the time, they bend for them why not for the brainiacs? Etc.

Just based on ime, faculty can input specifics in certain arenas where process, readiness, and awareness of cutting-edge shifts matter most and/or to ensure the overall composition of the accepted pool in that major is right for the dept. Not all faculty, not little brown bag lunches to make sure every prof is happy. But, a prof willing to serve as a dept link, up to a certain point. No faculty know wants to divert 3 months to reading app after app.

QuantMech · November 30, 2012, 12:40pm

lookingforward, I have posted many times that I favor affirmative action.

QuantMech · November 30, 2012, 12:47pm

I suspect that the number of admitted students scoring under 650 on the SAT M has changed since Marilee Jones’s days. This is something that the Common Data Set does not capture. Perhaps someone could use the cached files to look at the numbers back in 2005 or 2006, when about 1% of the class had sub 600 SAT M.

The change, if there is one, is all for the better.

lookingforward, I would be happy to run quite a few analyses based on hard data, but the public access to data is really rather limited. The data are in the hands of the admissions office.

At my university, we do analyze how the student profiles at admission correlate with later performance, and we tweak the advising to limit the student failures that cannot be attributed to World of Warcraft and its ilk.

sally305 · November 30, 2012, 12:49pm

I would say the greatest potential lies within your second option. It is far easier for decent schools to become “good” or “great” by recreating the elements of top programs–in STEM fields, this would involve luring away the best faculty, enhancing lab and other facilities, funding research, and so on. Of course this is easier said than done, and it takes time, but if a university wants to move the needle on its reputation and desirability, “attracting top STEM students” can be a strategic goal supported by endowment and other resources. In other words, view the current “shortage” of top-tier STEM spots as a business opportunity, and respond to it by filling the void.

Periwinkle · November 30, 2012, 1:01pm

Absolutely False.

In the 2003-4 common data set for MIT, 0 (zero, nada, zip, zilch) enrolled students had sub-600 SAT M scores. [MIT</a> Office of the Provost, Institutional Research](<a href=“MIT Institutional Research”>MIT Institutional Research)

In the 2004-5 CDS for MIT, again, 0 (z,n,z,z) enrolled freshmen had sub-600 SAT M scores.
[MIT</a> Office of the Provost, Institutional Research](<a href=“MIT Institutional Research”>MIT Institutional Research)

lookingforward · November 30, 2012, 1:11pm

QM, your feelings about AA don’t matter. What I am pointing out is the impact of some of your statements.

shravas, could you quickly canvass your friends on the idea of admitting non-AA applicants with SAT M below 650? Maybe it’s just me, but I see an implication in there. It may be a left field question, a station-break, in a very fast paced thread. But it appears to be a directional question. (Maybe a loaded question.)

The point isn’t running data (could be,) it’s all these “I don’t know but I think” comments. Eg, that you think adcoms interact more with other adcoms, that someone else thinks being an adcom is a low level job for folks with limited other prospects, that someone thinks old Jones hires are impacting MIT’s present and future. It’s all supposition, but used to support an argument. It goes on. That’s where I am baffled. Now that I have said that, I will try not to come back to it.

ps. my primary training in the nature of objective inquiry came from the social sciences, where one risks categorizing, stereotyping and value-judging broad swaths of peoples or institutions, if one doesn’t recognize preconceived notions, slants, suppositions and prejudices. (And, goals.) That’s why I am too sensitive to both broad generalizations and resting conclusions on anecdotes. Each has their values, but each has their potholes.

QuantMech · November 30, 2012, 1:19pm

Re Periwinkle, #2110: You are quite right, my mistake. It appears that 2007-08 was the only year that MIT admitted students in the 500-599 range on SAT M (1%). Please confirm that I am reading the Common Data Set correctly–might need to get my glasses prescription adjusted. 2007-08 was the final year that Marilee Jones was in charge of admissions. She resigned between regular decision and waitlist decision.

QuantMech · November 30, 2012, 1:22pm

Re the effect on the silent readers, mentioned by lookingforward in #2106: I in no way believe that MIT takes “sub-par diversity kids” all the time. If you already hold that view, you will obtain no support from me for it. Please reconsider.

QuantMech · November 30, 2012, 1:24pm

Also, lookingforward, you might look up some of the old posts on the MIT admissions forum by Ben Jones (no relation to Marilee Jones); he was an admissions staffer to the best of my knowledge. Tell me how you read them.

Sue22 · November 30, 2012, 1:27pm

I may have been an English major, but I still appreciate hard numbers. Here are the MIT SAT math stats for 2003-2012. Year, median 50 percent range, percent scoring 600-690, percentage below 600.

2003-2004, 730-800 25th to 75th percentile math scores, 11 percent scoring 600-690, 0 percent below 600

2004-5 730-800, 11, 0

2005-6 740-800, 8, 0

2006-7 720-800, 13, 0

*Marilee Jones’ departure

2007-8 720-800, 12, 1

2008-9 720-800, 14, 1

2009-10 720-800 12.5, 0

2010-11 740-800, 7.5, 0

2011-12 740-800, 7.7, 0

A zero does not mean that there was not a single student, only that the number was small enough that it would be rounded to zero.

In 2003 the acceptance rate for MIT was 16.4 percent. Last year it was 8.9 percent.

lookingforward · November 30, 2012, 1:27pm

Gauntlet alert? If I hold that view?

Benjones’s last post was in March, 2009. That is forever ago, both in terms of college admissions and this thread.

Beliavsky · November 30, 2012, 1:35pm

In a CC thread “How do you become an admissions officer?” someone wrote “adcoms tend to be young, recent alumni of the colleges they work for”, and other posters wrote similar things. These statements are consistent with “The Gatekeepers” by Steinberg, and that book discussed adcom pay, which I found surprisingly low. No special training is required to be an admissions officer. In books about the admissions process I rarely see statistical analyses of what has worked and what has not. So I think of admissions committees as a group of people with no special qualifications who indulge their hunches, often leave after a few years, and who do not try to measure objectively how good of a job they are doing.

Billy Beane changed baseball recruiting by applying statistical methods. College admissions needs someone like him.

JHS · November 30, 2012, 1:52pm

Please. College admissions involves a tremendous amount of retail-level gruntwork – going out and making presentations at high schools, answering questions from potential applicants and their parents, reading and scoring application after application. So, yes, many of the footsoldiers of college admissions are young, recent graduates. In my limited, unscientific experience, they tend to be selected for being seen as successful undergraduates (good grades, for instance), for having a lot of community involvement as students (lots of “leaders”), and for having upbeat, enthusiastic personalities. Obviously, they are not the sort of people who thought it was important to secure a post-college job with a six-figure starting salary before they graduated, or else they wouldn’t be working there. They tend to really, really love their college. Actually, they tend to be great kids, who are smart, thoughtful, and kind.

Their bosses are not tyros. They are middle-aged professionals who often change institutions frequently (getting fired, or getting poached), and are basically paid for performance. Those are the Billy Beanes, so to speak, or David Axelrods, and I doubt there is a major university anymore that doesn’t have one. They use a lot of data, they are extraordinarily strategic in their use of resources, they have 5-year plans and very specific objectives. Sometimes they run the admissions department, and sometimes they are called “Dean of Enrollment” and the admissions chief reports to them.

So, yes, a lot of the people sitting around the table at decision time are wet-behind-the-ears, but smart and broad-minded, former campus BM/WOCs. But what they are doing there is not floundering around, but applying policies devised, trained, and supervised by consummate pros. Just like a real business.

Pizzagirl · November 30, 2012, 2:29pm

Thank you, JHS.

Beliavsky, I know this is hard for the uber-quant folk to understand, but the abilities to a) present well in front of crowds and b) be relatable and engaging with individual students / parents who are often nervous are important skills, too. Not everything reduces to quantification.

xiggi · November 30, 2012, 2:50pm

While it may vary at different institutions, a quick review of the backgrounds of the young adcoms might challenge the notion that they come from the same institution. In fact, more than a few adcoms have admitted than they are tasked to review applications at a school they would have had … no chance to be admitted themselves.

Since MIT is the placeholder here, check the past statements of the beloved Ben Jones in this regard.

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