<p>There is an interesting thread starting at post 57 or 58 in </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=298080&page=2[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=298080&page=2</a></p>
<p>I’d love to hear other opinions of these practices</p>
<p>I just read the same post and thought about starting a discussion. Post is below, written by Admissions officer.
I don’t see it as anti-competitive at all. Dean Joe-Bob at Choate knows that Billy is already accepted EA at BigNameU and that Fred, from same school, is a tiny bit below him in stats but loves the LAC. How is the GC telling admissions that Billy is not going to go to LAC, but Fred is hot to go hurting competition. It’s Billy’s application to a school he doesn’t intend to go to that is the problem.
the difference between having a GC who can do all this work for you, vs my child’s GC who has ummm maybe 400 students? hmmm.</p>
<p>------post---------------------------------------------------------
i see where you are coming from. also remember that students who attend schools like choate and hotchkiss have an advantage in admissions in that their counselors usually are very verbal with admissions officers…they talk to us a lot (some times too much, actually). while many of us think that it is, in a way, an indulgence, it still happens. if your counselor happens to know that you, say, will be admitted to dartmouth, they will tell, say, tufts, when they have their “counselor call” with the tufts officer who reads the school to get you out of your school group/pool to help another student get in. tufts knows it’s going to loose kids to brown and georgetown and others…if they here from your counselor you’re getting in to one of those schools and that you are a better fit for that school or prefer it, they won’t waste the spot on you. </p>
<p>in a way, many private schools have created this self-perpetuating viscious circle that really makes it look like the college or university is making weird decisions…the truth of the matter is that the schools are just helping the universities and colleges identify students who are tight fits for them. they will be very honest with us and let us know whether or not you are a good fit for our institution. </p>
<p>are these conversations necessarily fair in the grand scheme of things? i don’t really think so…but that’s what $30k/year for high school will get you.</p>
<p>Think of this as a business. Certain prep school possess a large quantity of the raw materials high selective colleges need to fill their entering classes. As a result, certain schools and colleges form relationships. The admissions departments need to have good relations with these prep schools or the GCs there might begin to hint to kids that they would be better off going to some other college. There’s power both ways.</p>
<p>The GCs are playing the game of getting as many of their kids as possible into highly selective schools. This is the privilege of wealth. Unethical? I don’t think so. I just think it’s reality.</p>
<p>It’s simple. </p>
<p>If Billy hasn’t yet formally decided if he prefers BigNameU or the LAC, and he’s under no obligation to do so before being offerred admission, then the GC’s action unfairly removes the decision from Billy and gives an unfair competitive advantage to Fred through back door inside information. EA does not require a comittment by the student like ED does. Why shouldn’t Fred stand on his own merits, and why shouldn’t Billy be able to carefully weigh his options, visit and spend some quality time talking to students at both places after he’s been accepted, and then decide. It appears to me that Billy’s earned the right of first refusal to the LAC fair and square, and Fred hasn’t. </p>
<p>My problem is by the GC deciding to favor Fred, it hurts Billy. Why is this so hard to see.</p>
<p>vin21:</p>
<p>It hurts more than Billy. It hurts kids from other high schools who might have gotten in if Fred had been rejected because of Billy. </p>
<p>But it is what it is.</p>
<p>Tarhut, do you admit that this practice serves to reduce competition?</p>
<p>vin21:</p>
<p>I’d say it serves to get more kids from expensive prep schools into elite universities than would get in if these practices didn’t exist. </p>
<p>Does that answer your question?</p>
<p>Actually, I believe in this scenario that the GC KNOWS it isn’t going to hurt Billy or he wouldn’t cut Billy out of the equation. The GC knows already that Billy is going to get into Billy’s preferred school because he’s discussed it with Billy and the admission connection at the other school before calling this school on Fred’s behalf. </p>
<p>And it is what it is. The kids who go to those schools are privileged. However, assuming that a school will take x no. of kids from any given feeder prep school, accepting the kids who will attend helps those kids, the prep school and the college. These cases are like development, URM, athletes, etc. It is part of the real world. </p>
<p>At my kids’ public high school, the GCs practically beg families to not have students apply to schools that they can get in but would not attend - One kid’s safety is another’s dream school. I do think this is an ethical issue, but not everyone does. Some people think it’s a game.</p>
<p>One hopes that admission counselors can read fairly through the material they receive and make the best decisions that they can understanding that it’s not a level playing field.</p>
<p>babar:</p>
<p>I agree with you. In most cases, the kids are going to completely understand what’s going on. Fred is praying that Billy will get into Dartmouth so that he can get into Tufts.</p>
<p>Barbar: Your changing the scenario to a benign one. If Billy is in the loop, and is ok with the GC’s actions, then of course there is no conflict of interest. </p>
<p>But what if Billy really isn’t sure and wants to decide in April, but got into a great EA school like MIT? Is it ok for the GC to take the decision out of the hands of Billy in favor of Fred? Sure it would improve the stats of the school, but at Billy’s expense. Billy may later go visit MIT and decide that he hates the pressured learning environment and would love the LAC. Hence the conflict of interest. </p>
<p>If its not a conflict of interest, then the whole thing should be transparent, and the prep schools should feature this practice in their brochures. I’ll bet Billy’s priveleged parents are thrilled that this is what their money bought. </p>
<p>Tarhut: I don’t think the GC owes anything to kids at other schools. My problem is GC’s using their power to screw the kids whose private information they have.</p>
<p>I think that all GCs who have the time-- including at public schools – do similar things, and that actually is advantageous to students who apply because it means that more students are likely to get good opportunities.</p>
<p>How is this advantagous to Billy?</p>
<p>vin2l:</p>
<p>Actually, my experience with GCs would suggest that everyone is aware of how the game is played. In a typical scenario, Billy comes into the GCs office and says he really wants to get into Dartmouth, followed by Cornell, Tufts, and one of the SUNYs. The GC says, “OK, let’s apply to all of those. The SUNY looks like a decent safety school. I have a good relationship with Dartmouth, so if I find out you’re getting in before the decisions are sent out, I’ll contact the other schools where you applied and tell them you’re not coming. That will give a better shot to others from the school.”</p>
<p>Fred comes in. His stats aren’t as good as Billy’s. He wants to go to Tufts, followed by Syracuse, Rutgers, and St. Bonaventure. The GC says, “St. B’s is a good safety school, but Tufts is a stretch. In fact, Billy is applying to Tufts, as are some others from here. If Billy doesn’t get into Dartmouth, he’ll probably knock you out of conention at Tufts, since they won’t take but so many from this school. If Billy gets into Dartmouth, I’ll tell Tufts and that will increase your chances. If Tufts tells me they’ll take you, I’ll let your other schools know, which will help out some other kids from here.”</p>
<p>This is by far the most likely scenario, in my experience. GCs as expensive private schools don’t take away options from paying customers. The paying customers are usually on board with all of this.</p>
<p>vin2l:</p>
<p>It’s advantageous to Billy because, if Billy is to get into Dartmouth, it’s quite possible that Susie will get in instead, unless she’s accepted to Princeton, which is where she really wants to go. In the end, the top student in the school doesn’t get that advantage, but she probably doesn’t care. She’s going to get into her first choice school, anyway. Think of it as a cooperative of parents and students manipulating things to maximize everyone’s outcome without any real disadvantage to anyone.</p>
<p>Billy would be at a disadvantage only if he really wanted to go to Tufts instead of Dartmouth. But if that were the case, the GC would not have played things that way.</p>
<p>vin2l - you’ve totally miscontrued this whole thing…“Anti Competitive AdCom Practices?” It is not the colleges that usually initiate these conversations, its the college counselors that do it…</p>
<p>I read a fun novel by Andrew Trees called Academy X. The author was a teacher at a NYC prep school. In the novel, it is clear that students who are important to the prep school for financial reasons get preferential college placement assistance - or at least the administration tries to pull weight to make this happen. It’s fiction, but…</p>
<p>AdOfficer’s point that the counselors initiative these calls is important. I am sure that admissions folks who get these calls understand that there may be a political element - it may even be candidly shared since that financial advantage would be passed on (development case). Again, it’s part of the process and one has to have some faith in the admissions officers who will make the decisions with a global view. If you have serious concerns based on experience, then that college isn’t for you…because the student body is going to reflect decisions that are made by those people.</p>
<p>No disrespect intended, AdOfficer, but I don’t think I’ve misconstrued anything. </p>
<p>1) Another poster said that BU solicits this inside information all the time.
2) Even if you don’t <em>solicit</em> the inside information, if you <em>use</em> it to the university’s advantage at the expense of Billy, without his consent, to deprive him of an admission he would have otherwise earned so as not to “waste a spot”, you are as bad as the GC who screwed him over. </p>
<p>Maybe Billy would go to Tufts over Dartmouth if his girlfriend gets into a school in Boston also. Why shouldn’t he have until April to decide? Why is it ethical to deprive him of that decision? It is definitely anti-competitive to do so. </p>
<p>Theoretically speaking, if I was sitting in the stall of the bathroom between first and second period and I heard the answer to a question about a test I’m about to take from two kids talking at the urinal who took it first period. Would your school’s honor code allow me to use that information to my advantage without disclosing that I innocently received the information? I don’t think so. </p>
<p>My mom went to a LAC with an honor code with all the finals self-scheduled.
One woman asked another woman how her final went and she answered “fine”. Someone who overheard brought her up on an honor code violation.</p>
<p>BTW AdOfficer, I know you said that YOU don’t practice this, and I appreciate that. I do think its an interesting discussion.</p>
<p>I am not sure why anyone thinks that a kid has an ethical obligation to withdraw apps or indicate acquiesence to a GC’s talkling to one of his or her other schools and advising of an EA decision, that could impact on that second school’s decison.</p>
<p>With selection decsions now really undecipherable, many kids go through alot of calculation as to where they apply and when. For instance, many kids do not apply EA to certain schools that might be #1 choices due to that school’s EA policy and a disadvantage of doing so unless the kid is a “clear admit” (if there is sucvh a thing, at the same tiome as he or she applies EA to lesser desired schools because their EA policy does not act the same way. This would be a process that seeks to enhance acceptances at all of the schools that the kid is applying to. No GC should assume (w/o specific instructions from a kid) that an EA school is more favored than a RD school.</p>
<p>The whole process (particularly where a kid does no ED apps) is designed to allow for a maximum of choices and flexibility. A kid should NOT be penalized for getting into an EA school based on erroneous assumptions.</p>
<p>Also, kids change their minds. They are encouraged to file apps at a range of schools due to the nature of the process and should be entitled to the full range of options that they have designed.</p>
<p>Just because a kid gets into a Tufts or similar EA does not mean that he or she should not have the opportunity to get accepted (and perhaps select to go to) a BC or Holy Cross or similar. There is no ethical dilemma here for the kid. He owes nothing to anyone else in the process. Each kid’s apps (and plan of attack in the admissions process) should stand on its own and play out however it plays out. While a studnet could voluntarily decide to withdraw apps, he or she should not in any way be “required” or expected to do so. Most applicants will do so in their own volition if they ahve actually decided that one school is no longer in the picture. </p>
<p>In short, a GC should not assume anything about a kid’s process that the kid has not actually made known.</p>
<p>vin:</p>
<p>Once again, I think you’re misconstruing the most probable explanation for this situation. It seems HIGHLY unlikely to me that any GC who wanted to keep her job would screw Billy or any other kid over. A GC who does this is just playing the game very, very well, and most likely with the explicit or implied consent of Billy and his parents.</p>