<p>…but they STILL may not be preferred by adcoms to other applicants who may present a more well-rounded set of credentials. Can you live with that?</p>
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As usual, your POV requires translation. “One person one vote” is a holistic system. Forgetting China for a moment, in admissions and US elections the people elgible to vote (registered voters or adcom members) evaluate candidates holistically (or by whatever criteria they wish) and make their selection. It seems to me the “Manzi method” is the numbers drvien method. Which I assume you prefer.</p>
<p>Maybe that’s what you’re saying, but it is unclear to me. As usual. I’m not interested in debating. I honestly don’t know what your point is. You don’t like “one person one viote”? Is that it?</p>
<p>Funny how you often report your friends caving under the weight of your colossal intellect and pinpoint logic. For some reason you don’t seem to have similar luck shutting down debate around here.</p>
<p>I didn’t say that the kid with the 2400 was a bump on the log. I think I was misread to create a straw dog.</p>
<p>I said there were students who excelled in both measures.
But apparently there are not enough 2400 scorers to craft the kind of the class these schools want.</p>
<p>As for the person who said, “I’m all for …” It doesn’t matter what we’re for. The reality is that schools <em>do</em> have a measure of intellectual vitality that is assigned a measure, and it is not always the 2400 kid who receives highest marks in that area.</p>
<p>And for the conflation of SAT scores and brilliance, I think that’s a very flawed idea.</p>
<p>SAT’s reward whites, men, and some conformity in thinking. </p>
<p>I am not complaining about them, just stating facts. </p>
<p>I am not complaining about SAT’s.
My kid (I blush to say this) was accepted at Brown (rejected at Dartmouth) with only 690 on the Math SAT, 750 on W and 760 on CR.</p>
<p>He was also accepted at U of Chicago, Williams and a variety of other schools.</p>
<p>He composes very interesting classical music, plays violin well, reads Latin and Greek and has fascinating ideas. He is now an Art History graduate student doing very well.</p>
<p>At the small get-together with the Classics Department when he graduated, the Chair of the Department told me he was their most interesting student who made the most interesting connections and jump started most conversations. </p>
<p>These are not strengths that can be quantified so he has no bright, shiny test score to point to.</p>
<p>I also doubt he had the highest grades in Classics. He really struggled with Greek.</p>
<p>However, he had very strong recommendations.</p>
<p>He also had great job recommendations because he has something close to a photographic memory which helped enormously in his library job and his job at the Clark Museum.</p>
<p>As for that very embarrassing (LOL) 690, he did very well in physics and astronomy at Williams which both involved a lot of math.</p>
<p>I understand why Williams chose him over some 2400 scorers. I am sure there are others who would blow him out of the water.</p>
<p>I don’t know this should be upsetting to anyone. He made his classmates’ classes more exciting and his professors’ teaching days easier. I know this because they told me this.</p>
<p>He didn’t apply to HYP, and if he was rejected from them because of this math score, that would be okay with me too.</p>
<p>There are many wonderful places to get an education.</p>
<p>I am sure there were athletes at Williams with scores lower than his.</p>
<p>He did get a 34 on the ACT which is not a 36, obviously, but a nice score.</p>
<p>But what does it matter? Both Richard Feynman and James Watson has measured IQ’s of under 130. Watson was discouraged from pursing science. Both earned Noble prizes with very significant discoveries.</p>
<p>Feynman stated that he could never earn an A in English. In fact, he thought it a stupid discipline.</p>
<p>In my world, that doesn’t diminish his brilliance, nor does it give a black eye to English. Just a bad fit of thinker and subject.</p>
<p>
I don’t think that’s true. My son showed intellectual prowess in his accomplishments as a mostly self-taught computer geek. My younger son showed it through a creative optional essay of an alternative history of the United States. Some students do it through Intel projects. I have a friend whose daughter create a History Research type program for herself since she wasn’t interested in Science Research. </p>
<p>I can’t speak for other schools but Harvard is on record for saying they pick a couple of hundred students who they consider the intellectual light bulbs of their cohort, but the other bodies are chosen for other reasons, leaders in art, politics, sports etc.</p>
<p>Well, then, the problem from Beliavsky’s standpoint is that they don’t pick enough based on strictly intellectual capital (as measured by SATs). Clearly, Harvard should change what they do to fit his set of criteria, as what they’re currently doing doesn’t work for them, at all. Why, I hear no one even wants to go there anymore.</p>
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<p>Yes, I’ve encountered this jejune thinking on College Confidential and in real life. But this thinking wasn’t evident in mythom’s post #1130, from which you quoted, LoremIpsum. I am perfectly willing to accept that many people who achieve a score of 2400 on the SAT are brilliant, possessing superior raw intelligence coupled with the intellectual vitality that mythmom describes, and much more. Maybe most of them do. But what mythmom is saying, I believe, is that intellectual vitality is not the sole province of high SAT scorers. Further, she suggests that a classroom is enriched by the presence of people who bring different gifts to the table, “because not all aspects of thinking and/or creativity are quantifiable.” Her post does not reduce to, “People who score 2400 on the SAT are good at bubbling in.” </p>
<p>BTW: Google tells me that in 2008, 1.5 million people took the SAT. Of those 1.5 million, around 300 got a perfect score. By my calculations, that rounds to about 2 hundredths of one percent (check my math, please!). All this sturm und drang over such a teeny, tiny minority! The number who get above 2300 is substantially more, but still somewhat less than the top half of one percent. I think xiggi’s post #1126 puts into perspective the absurdity of worrying about how these people do in the admissions race. There is every reason to think they are going to do fine. Whether the chips fall just as they’d like them to fall is another matter.</p>
<p>One would think from reading some of these posts that the ONLY measure schools have of a student’s academic ability is his/her SAT score. No grades, no teacher recommendations, no EC’s that might give them a clue at all. Where are these schools for which the only application requirement is to submit your name and a SAT score? </p>
<p>Trust me, by the time these uber-kids have reached their senior year of high school, they’ve caught the attention of their peers and teachers.</p>
<p>Well, as everything else in our lifes. If you want something, work for it. You might not get it, but you know you did your best. </p>
<p>Once it is over, let it go. Angry does not help anything. None of our kids went to an IVY school. So be it.</p>
<p>But it’s a crisis when a 2400 student doesn’t get into Harvard, absweetmarie - and then the 2300 kid down the street – or worse yet, the 2200 kid next town over – does! What will the family do? What an embarrassment. Because people who are soooooo very talented are just hamstrung when put into the lesser environment of (gasp) a “lower” school. They can’t possibly accomplish anything, much less have a happy, productive and successful life. </p>
<p>I submit that if you can’t “achieve” unless you’re in the rarefied atmosphere of only a handful of schools (HYPSM or bust), then you’re not really much of an achiever in the first place.</p>
<p>
Hmmm, seems if ones children only attended “lesser” schools like Stanford or U Chicago, they should get over their shame.</p>
<p>
Harvard has been embarrassed by a recent cheating scandal involving 125 students, including several athletes. Giving weight to nonacademic criteria has both costs and benefits.</p>
<p>[Cheating</a> Scandal Dulls Pride in Athletics at Harvard
By BILL PENNINGTON
New York Times
September 18, 2012](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/sports/ncaabasketball/harvard-cheating-scandal-revives-debate-over-athletics.html]Cheating”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/sports/ncaabasketball/harvard-cheating-scandal-revives-debate-over-athletics.html)
Six months ago, the Harvard mens basketball team was a source of uncommon athletic pride on campus.
[…]
But last week, days after published reports implicated the co-captains of the basketball team in a widespread academic cheating scandal that may involve dozens of varsity athletes, the mood at Harvard had shifted.</p>
<p>I can see even very academically capable students, raised in a cut throat environment that fosters academic competition, having perfectionist tendencies, and wanting to ensure that they achieve the most important goal of getting an A, cheating to ensure they get the desired grade. </p>
<p>I don’t blame this problem one bit on ‘non academic’ factors involved in college admissions.</p>
<p>Stuyvesant HS in NY had a cheating scandal on the regents exam. It’s considered a top high school, and the regents exam not particularly difficult.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/nyregion/70-students-at-stuyvesant-to-retake-exams-after-cheating-case.html?pagewanted=all[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/nyregion/70-students-at-stuyvesant-to-retake-exams-after-cheating-case.html?pagewanted=all</a></p>
<p>And yet, here is one explanation that goes against the idea that we need to focus on test scores more:</p>
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<p>Ivies are for the most part liberal arts schools and they probably have about 50-60% non STEM seats. Why would they care or need all 2400 or 36 scorers?</p>
<p>Calling it intellectual vitality is confusing some. I think what’s meant is “the qualities that go with intellectual vitality.” </p>
<p>Also, apply some critical thinking to the “cheating scandal” at H. Read a little deeper. Headlines and summary paragraphs from media sources are not always as clear as we think.</p>
<p>My D1 is a prof’s dream, a quick learner (outside math-sci, in which she has no interest and, for now, no talent.) She’s analytical, engaged, a great researcher and writer- and has that lovely quality of being able to draw together info she picked up in different contexts, classes, or experiences. Her academic goals were clearly defined in mid high school. She has always, since K, been internally driven, but highly interactive.</p>
<p>But her SATs stunk! She’s at a top-20 LAC. Both sides won, when they accepted her. Remember, an admit isn’t a reward for how BMOC you were in hs. It’s adcoms’ belief in your potential at their school. What does 2400 (or 2300 or 2200) truly tell? That the kid got high scores. Or that he tried and tried again. Some presume it tells them this is a fabulous catch. Remember, they read the whole app.</p>
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<p>To be clear, my position of not having to worry about the 2400 SATers or having any need to push that elusive yardstick even further to separate the incredibly smart from the really incredibly smart, does NOT intimate in any way that high scorers are bumps on a log. </p>
<p>In my short life, I have had the opportunity to befriend more than my share of “uber-scorers” including more than a few 2400/4800 SAT and/or 36 ACT. They were all brilliant in more ways than bubbling ovals. Neither did their accomplishments elevate to a spot in the Olympus! They were simply kids who did well in facing academic challenges.</p>
<p>Most would also be the firsts to share that those scores were hardly worthy of the obsession many have adopted.</p>
<p>PS Since he left a long string of posts here, a good example of the above can be searched here on CC. Just look up the contributions of Silverturtle, one of the kids who scored a 36/2400 in Illinois.</p>
<p>We’ve “taught” kids that perfect scores are the goal through our obsessive standardized testing. The scores are somewhat meaningless as a stand alone as many are pointing out. Is it a good thing that this generation of kids wish to achieve high standardized test scores and great GPAs? I think so…it’s quite a different environment from when I was in high school. My youngest has impressed me with his ability to work hard and play hard. I think when I was in high school it was an either or proposition. There are colleges that will accept you with high scores and high GPA and then there are colleges that also look for intellectual vitality and an interest or passion. As a parent I know there is something for everyone. The only reason to be angry would be if you were a kid who was consumed with a desire to get high standardized test scores and GPAs above all else…but had a dream school that wants more. Sadder yet would be a kid who determines his worth in his/her test scores and GPA. Celebrate it if it comes (high GPA and test scores) but don’t measure your kiddo and don’t let your kiddo measure himself or herself on those sole two criteria.</p>
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<p><em>THEY</em> don’t. But that is maddening to a few posters here who measure their or their kids’ intelligence solely according to the quantifiable assessment offered by the SAT. And to some of these people, success in STEM fields is all that matters.</p>
<p>And that’s OK, but how sad it would be if you could only paint in two colors. I always feel alittle sad for people that can’t envision all the possibilities. It’s OK to have your belief or your position, but to not be able to even see other possibilities is hard for me to imagine. That is what made college so interesting for me, to be surrounded with different people with different backgrounds, views, capabilities, ideas…I think it came from having a somewhat introverted engineer father and a gregarious artist mother…the dichotomy was always good brain food for both the left and the ride side of the brain.</p>
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<p>Right, a couple of hundred out of roughly 2000 that they admit. That’s what I meant by saying it’s difficult to move the needle.</p>
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<p>While I understand the spirit of that statement --at least I think I do-- I believe that the term “intellectual light bulb” is a rather poorly chosen one. Especially if it intimates that the rest of the cohort is neither intellectual nor a … light bulb in an academic setting. With such a highly selective process, it is a given that none of the admitted students are slackers, but leaders in a number of fields ranging from art to athletics to verbal talent, plus a long list of other “ingredients.” With the stratospheric graduation rates, it is also given that very few of them encounter issues in doing the work and graduating. There are also a great number of students who can handle the academic demands while maintaing excellence in the “other field.” We all know the debate about the well-rounded versus the angular. It so happens that some possess a number of strong angles!</p>
<p>All schools make statements about a number of “must have” students who have exhibited incredible displays of talent, but I find it mildly offensive to suggest the remaining students are somehow second choices admitted for “other reasons” when such reasons are decidedly purported to be non … intellectual.</p>