Angry over the college admissions process

Parents Forum
2241

<p>With regard to the athlete question, my impression is that for schools with a slot system (not MIT, but just about every other school in D3-D1) the system works like this:</p>

<p>1) first a potential athlete must have above a certain academix index to be considered
2) then the best athlete at a certain position who satisfies #1 is recruited.
3) player agrees to take spot or not take spot, is issued an “ikely” letter if at ivy league, official offer if from a typical D1 school
4) if player does not agree to take spot, the coach moves onto someone else.</p>

<p>Big football schools like Ohio State don’t admit 10 QBs, but they recruit the best one they can get and get them to commit early. </p>

<p>I was not a recruited athlete, so feel free to correct any misunderstandings I may have about the process.</p>

2242

<p>We keep discussing these math geniuses (sounds like they are actually not geniuses but have to work hard to to get to that level, so what prevents others if given the same chance) and why they need auto admits. Other than someone knowing some who might not have been admitted, I am yet to see a single person state that they were not admitted to MIT and they fit this criteria.</p>

<p>Is this whole argument a strawman?</p>

2243

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I don’t know, there is sure a lot of overlap at our high school. I’m sure there are instances of good student/lousy tester and vice versa, but it isn’t the norm here. Usually we have around 20 kids with 4.0 and around 30 to 40 NMSF and there is a lot of overlap on the lists. We had a couple Presidential Scholars back to back and they basically performed pretty much perfectly on everything, and I think they were admitted just about everywhere. </p>

<p>And to read the chance threads around here, no kid ever got anything wrong on anything :)</p>

2244

<p>QM- all we have to say is we disagree there should be auto admits, at all. this isn’t a matter of throwing numbers at it.</p>

2245

<p>C.alum, try this <a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~ivyorg/ivysummary.pdf[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/~ivyorg/ivysummary.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

2246

<p>texaspg, In #2092, bogibogi said that he knew two kids who were USAMO qualifiers that were turned away by MIT. I then asked where they ended up, but I don’t believe he answered that.</p>

2247

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<p>Gosh, collegealum - you went to a high school that specifically selected for math / science ability and interest, and you don’t understand that for the vast majority of students out there, their public hs math teachers haven’t a clue that these contests even exist and can’t serve as any kind of resource? That’s sort of a willful let-them-eat-cake attitude.</p>

2248

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<p>No, that’s a very blunt understanding of the process. They don’t rank the athletes on athletic prowess only and then simply go down the list - #1, will you accept? yes / no. If no, #2, will you accept? and so forth. The usual considerations of do I want this person at the school, would they be a good fit, etc. still apply. It’s a PROCESS, not an auto-admit.</p>

2249

<p>This “Academic Index” provides a way to compare the academic qualifications of admitted and matriculated student-athletes to their classmates within each school, while creating a common vocabulary for discussions across schools.
The Academic Index system is not designed, and does not presume, either to be the basis for individual institutional admission decisions or to result in identical admissions decisions at each Ivy school. Admission to Ivy schools is extremely competitive; each institution makes admissions decisions independently; and all applicants are evaluated on a range of personal and academic considerations.</p>

<p>Coaches are not allowed to make commitments.
When assessing a candidate’s interest in an institution, coaches are expected to avoid placing pressure on the candidate to commit to attending the institution if admission is offered. Under no circumstances should a coach suggest that he or she has control over the applicant’s admission and/or award of financial aid.
From January through March 15, admissions offices may advise applicants of the probability of admission; e.g. likely, possible, unlikely, etc. No commitment by the school or applicant is involved…but no final information may be released until the common notification date, except for denials. Prior to March 15, all contact and discussion should use probablistic language.</p>

2250

<p>collegealum314–I would add to your timeline that fit on the team is also an important factor in the recruiting process-on both sides. The “best” QB, meaning the #1 ranked HS recruit isn’t always the best fit for your team and may not be supported through the process. There is a high school basketball player near us that is one of the most amazing players I’ve ever seen in all my years of coaching. He announced his list of potential schools and quite honestly, he is too good to go to several of those schools. Not that they are bad schools many are in the top 25(20-25), just that they don’t have the talent to support HIS talent. Barring injury, this kid WILL be an NBA superstar he is THAT good. </p>

<p>When our DD was going through the recruiting process, the first question she was asked by every single coach was what is your GPA and ACT score. They aren’t going to waste their time on kids that can’t get into the school. She was not applying at any top 20 schools, just regional LAC’s for the most part.</p>

2251

<p>Sevmom, as much as I would like to share that information, it would be prudent of me not to considering that there are only a handful of kids who qualified for USAMO 3+ times. If anyone was bored enough to search, they could easily figure out who I was talking about and I think it’s best to not advertise their disappointment.</p>

2252

<p>bovertine–in our Val’s case, her test scores were still high enough to get her into all but the tippy top schools. The kids ranked below her, however, had scores high enough, along with the 3.7+ GPA’s to get into any school. Our school doesn’t weight grades so those would be on a 4.0 scale. It’s rare to have more than one or two 4.0 students at our school. The school pushes the kids to challenge themselves and getting a 4.0 is extremely difficult. The top 20% or more at our high school is consistently attending CC darling colleges though :D. The next 30 % or so go to lesser schools like Stanford, Berkeley, etc. :D. Our national math and chemistry finalist, however, did not get an auto-admit to MIT :D.</p>

2253

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<p>I think there’s some misunderstanding of the position being taken here.<br>
We are NOT saying “you buy your way into USAMO success” by being affluent, etc. Obviously qualifying for USAMO is an accomplishment, and a very high one.</p>

<p>What we are saying here is that our reason for not liking it as an auto-admit is that ACCESSIBILITY TO USAMO is, at least currently, highly highly skewed to a very small set of schools and a very affluent and/or highly-STEM-educated populace. </p>

<p>If, on the other hand, it was as widely distributed / accessible as the SAT, that might be a different story.</p>

<p>Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, we were debating whether MIT should admit all 800M scorers. One could argue pros and cons - but one <em>couldn’t</em> argue that the SAT is something that only fancy-schmancy people in selected fancy-schmancy suburbs have easy access to. You CAN argue that for USAMO. Good grief – Philips Exeter is all over it. The knowledge base that such tests even exist is niche at this point. And so weighing performance on it is great - but making it an auto-admit says that we privilege students for the mere fact of attending schools that are lucky enough to have a math teacher even aware of this.</p>

2254

<p>Sure,bogibogi, I get it. I actually was going to add that the exact schools were not important to reveal. Just, in light of this discussion, would hope they ended up at good schools.</p>

2255

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Sure. I’m still saying that’s not true everywhere. At our school, with a few exceptions, the valedictorians tend to have the best scores. And by best I mean perfect or at least near perfect scores in many cases. So every place is different. </p>

<p>BTW, is your hs a magnet or elite private school? You have remarkable acceptance rates, and I believe you stated in another thread that you basically live in a middle class area. THere are probably parents around here who would pay big $$$ for that zip code.</p>

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You are an iconoclast! This may be the first time I’ve ever read this statement on here.</p>

2256

<p>stick around bovertine! Last year a kid almost had a nervous breakdown because he had to go to… Cornell. ;)</p>

2257

<p>^^</p>

<p>Why take the time to write a long post and cover it in a blanket of silliness with three smilies and a ridiculous statement. </p>

<p>I understand humor and satire, but why mix an apparently serious reply and a nutty comment as in 2252?</p>

2258

<p>of course at 7% admit rate, Stanford is lesser school than most with higher admit rate. I am guessing Harvard comes below stanford in those rankings?</p>

2259

<p>bogibogi,</p>

<p>It could be a regional thing. I’ll ask my son if any of his friends who were USAMO did not get into MIT.</p>

<p>It is interesting to note that his friends always teased him that he was from “the wrong side of the tracks”, and in fact, I would guess no one in my neighborhood has ever heard of MIT. Most certainly, the two high schools closest to us don’t sponsor math competitions.</p>

<p>As far as coachability of the USAMO, it’s probably more like exposure to the topics, since most of the topics are not taught in high school. Topics like number theory, probability, and many more atypical math topics are on these exams. If you get the AoPS books, take their classes, attend a math circle, or work with a private tutor who has experience in math competitions, you’ll get exposure to these topics.</p>

<p>The founder of AoPS started it for just such students-students who needed a challenge that the typical math curriculum doesn’t give. He wanted to give an alternative to the typical sequence of doing calculus in high school. </p>

<p>Though my son went farther in “college” math (homeschooler doing the community college thing) than many of his friends at the math circle, they were better, faster problem solvers because that’s where they invested their time. He’s doing well at catching up, though.</p>

<p>My son never did study most of these topics (number theory, probabilty) but will be taking some upper division classes in these topics next semester. So, I have no doubt there are plenty of graduates of MIT who could not make USAMO. You have to go seeking out the study of such topics.</p>

<p>I would also argue against the point that other olympiad competitions aren’t as difficult. My experience with the Physics Olympiad suggests it’s in the same league and if you look at the kids who make it on the team, you’ll see that many/most of them also did high level math competitions, too. </p>

<p>I would almost argue that a Physics Olympiadian should be an auto-admit because it’s a heck of a lot harder to get on the team of 20 than it is to make it on USAMO. My son took a lot of college physics classes during high school, but never really studied one on one for the physics olympiad. He has a friend who made it on the team and he worked one on one with someone. Topics in physics are so broad, it’s hard to know how to study.</p>

<p>Not sure what that has to do with auto-admits or not, but I thought it might be interesting info (or not).</p>

2260

<p>

If “auto-admit” means that a USAMO or a science olympiad qualifier who has test scores and grades at or above the median and recommendations and essays that do not contain warning flags, even if they are not superlative, I support auto-admit. I think a top-notch athlete in a desired sport with similar qualifications would usually be admitted to an Ivy league school.</p>