The issue with valuing those (or academic) credentials is what I was hoping to discuss here. Being an uber talented violinist in almost every case apparently means nothing. Unless you’re performing (and not paying to perform) regularly at Carnegie hall / Geffen. This kind of “world class or nothing” mantra is commonplace in AO discussions from highly selective universities, and it is justified by the goal of “diversity”.
But these schools must value something, right? And that something is “diversity” which can mean just about anything. So they value control and discretion without accountability.
The point about Oxford and Cambridge is that to accept this “diversity” argument, you have to accept that schools need to evaluate EC’s, service, jobs, the whole laundry list to create a healthy, vibrant community. Oxford and Cambridge (and nearly every college outside of the US) might disagree that this kind of manufactured “diversity” is necessary to the creation of a vibrant and cohesive school community.
Well yes, that is sort of the point. It is a catch all term for the fantastic skills of any number of applicants, because they seek an incoming class representative of a plethora of talents.
Yes, I feel like we start off with a decent number of kids who are competitive for the most selectives. Then some get blanked, some get into multiple, and maybe a few get into only one (but I would not say this is most common at all).
Then we come up with narratives about why all that happened, and they may even be true sometimes. But that unpredictability in advance is definitely a thing.
And then for us, almost all those kids get into plenty of other very selective softer reach and harder target colleges and majors and such. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with Northeastern, but our kids who were legit competitive for the most selectives typically still do very well overall.
That is not consistent with how I understand things to work. Do you have any evidence to support such a wildly sweeping and categorical claim about a process [“criteria for admission”] that you yourself describe as:
If it’s that secret and obscure, how do you know so much detail about it? And how do you know how it works at, apparently, all selective schools?
I saw the same thing with students I was helping. For example, one of my students this year was not accepted to any HYPSM. But he was admitted to (remembering off the top of my head) Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, JHU, UVA, UNC, Amherst, and some others I can’t remember.
Others were perhaps a notch down with only 1 Ivy but also acceptances to colleges like Vanderbilt, WUSTL, Michigan, UNC, UVA, etc.
The interesting thing about the article is that the two students used to show how awful and unpredictable admission is…both got into/chose highly selective schools (Dartmouth and Wesleyan) and both can afford it.
Did they have a lot of uncertainty along the way? Yes. But should the goal of admission really be that the “highly qualified students” shouldn’t have to endure any uncertainty?
The competitiveness and uncertainty is due to the large population of the US and the small size of the most desired universities in the US.
Of the 3.8 million high school graduates per year in the US, about 2,000 will matriculate to Harvard, or about 0.053%.
For comparison, of the 315,000 high school graduates per year in Canada, about 17,000 will matriculate to University of Toronto, or about 5.4%.
In other words, the size of University of Toronto relative to Canada’s population is something like the size of the top 40-50 USNWR National Universities (using that as a proxy of desirability by high school students) relative to the US population.
And in fact I believe Oxford and Cambridge, in terms of percentage of the UK undergrad system, add up to approximately the most selective 20 or so private US colleges (including a few LACs).
There is in fact some uncertainty about Oxbridge admissions as well, including because you can only apply to one (not both), and the last step is usually an interview with the tutors in a certain course and constituent college. It depends on the course, but generally speaking about 1 in 3 Oxford interviewees get an offer, 1 in 4 Cambridge.
Meanwhile, as we have been discussing, if you are sufficiently competitive US applicant, I am not sure your chances of getting into at least one equivalent US college are actually lower. They could well be higher, in fact.
Like, maybe your odds of specifically getting into any of HYPSM are less than 1 in 3/4–although I don’t know, I feel like for some kids they are actually at least that good. But anyway, I am personally pretty sure for some kids the odds of them getting into at least one of those 20 or so most selective privates is way above 1 in 3/4.
Anyway, point being I think a lot of people do not realize that any one of HYPSM, nor even all of them combined, has no real equivalent in terms of being such a small percentage of a country’s college population, with not even Oxbridge really coming close. And so when they look at the uncertainty of admissions to such a very small slice in the US, versus a much larger slice somewhere else, it is indeed not an apples to apples comparison.
Actually, again I realized in some sense this has already been studied here.
According to this interesting ongoing series:
31% is right around the same percentage of Oxbridge interviewees who actually get admitted, and then presumably these 40 feeder high schools have at least some idea which of their students are more likely to be in that 31%. So that is at least the same, and probably more, predictability for their graduates to those 12 schools as Oxbridge offer–for applicants like that.
So this also helps demonstrate that for this sort of US college population, the “second choice” sorts of colleges (which might actually be first choices for some kids–plenty of our kids would prefer some of those schools to at least some of the Ivies, say) tend to be exactly what you would expect.
OK, so for these kids, college admissions does not in fact seem notably more unpredictable to me than in, say, the UK, Canada, and so on.
Which is not all kids in the US, of course. And that is probably the more interesting discussion, which kids are getting more certainty in highly selective US college admissions, and why.
And of course it is also tying into another long-standing discussion–if “diversity” in highly selective US college admissions is mostly just about sorting out which of these kids ends up exactly where among these colleges, is that really what people have in mind when they think about diversity?
Edit: I realized this chart is linkable, so . . .
Northeastern did appear on the list! In fact there were a total of 5 not-top-40 privates on the top 39 list, Northeastern, Tulane, BU, SMU, and Wake Forest.
I don’t personally think it is a big mystery why. Based on where these sorts of kids have already chosen to go to high school, it makes sense those would be the sorts of colleges they might choose absent an even more aligned option.
Actually very direct and explicit evidence. My best friend spoke to the Admissions director at his top 10 selective college. Not a largely irrelevant local interviewer, someone who helped to manage the admissions office. He got access by virtue of himself being an alum interviewer for over a decade. After the AD stated that varsity sports, regional accomplishments, anything except for national recognition made absolutely no difference for admission, the AD volunteered as a personal example his own daughter’s story. His daughter played a sport at a very high level. So high, that the AD was taking his daughter to regional, multistate tournaments. Realizing that for his daughter, that level of achievement would mean nothing in terms of highly selective college admissions, he encouraged his daughter to stop playing the sport - at least where the family had to travel to tournaments.
So, that’s how harshly and directly the message is being given by the admissions offices themselves. “Wildly sweeping” to you. Facts from the office itself in reality. Many here report by anecdote that more modest achievements do in fact count. If so, why do the Colleges preach otherwise? Either way, there is a problem.
Are you implying that a process where prospective math students are assessed by math faculty about their academic interests or music students are assessed by music faculty as to their training and goals is the same as creating “diversity” by recruiting crew athletes?
Extracurricular activities are explicity and specifically absent from the Oxbridge application criteria, and an interview with the squash coach isn’t the interview we’re talking about. Given the academic profile of recruited athletes in the United States, the vast majority wouldn’t get to the interview round at Oxbridge as a direct result of their sub-par academics.
But we are told that our physics majors won’t have an enlightened undergraduate experience unless they eat lunch with recruited lacrosse players. Math majors need to rub elbows with fencing international champions to be their best. Too bad for all those deprived Oxford, Cambridge and (insert any elite foreign university) students who miss out on those “advantages”.
Enlightening to read the comments also to the NYT article posted. So many parents complaining of the lack of “accountability” by Colleges, even State colleges in the namesake of “diversity”. Exactly what this thread was started to discuss. Transparency. Accountability. How many lawsuits and settlements do these admissions committees have to lose before we question whether “they got this” and it’s all reasonable and fair?
Honestly, if this is soccer, playing on a travel/club team and having matches across a multistate region means nothing. Travel soccer is big business, with a lot of clubs, leagues and levels. Unless one is an impact player on a top-level club, he/she would not make an impact at the college varsity level. And high school varsity soccer is a lower level than a good club team/league.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that all colleges evaluate applications similarly…this one example doesn’t necessarily support a sweeping generalization.
As others have said, travel teams in many sports don’t necessarily equate to playing at a ‘very high level’. Further, any form of leadership on these teams may well have an admissions impact at some schools (greater than having a ‘very high level’ of sports talent.) This may be true even at the school you are talking about.
I and other posters often cite the stat that ‘most colleges accept most applicants.’ In reality it’s very pronounced…there are only about 125-150 four year colleges that have sub 50% acceptance rates (out of 2,700 or so degree granting Title IV four year colleges.) I don’t understand why there is so much focus on this small subset of schools…to all our (meaning society’s) detriment IMO. YMMV of course. Similar to what I said on different thread today, how selective schools build their class wouldn’t make my top 100 issues facing US education, nor would it be something I advocate to change. Again, YMMV.
I support schools building and balancing their classes how they want, within the boundaries of the law. Recruited athletes in affluent sports. Recruited athletes in sports popular with POC. Legacies. URM. FGLI. Geography. Band. Majors. That all seems reasonable to me.
It might to me, as well, except that the most selective schools act as a gateway to an incredible set of connections and opportunities. Saying they can accept whomever they want for whatever reason is reminiscent of private golf or country clubs back in the day, or restaurants and hotels for much of American history (not only in the South) deciding they wouldn’t serve blacks, Jews, Asians, etc., or, for a more direct comparison, Harvard and other schools of its type limiting the percentage of Jewish students for much of the 20th century. Just because they are private institutions (leaving aside state-supported universities) doesn’t mean they can discriminate, which is what the Supreme Court decided Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill were doing.
I didn’t say that. I said within the boundaries of the law.
For some students, typically disadvantaged students. I tend to believe that the opportunities that many of the students at selective schools access is not necessarily due to the school but because of their family connections, affluence, K-12 education, etc. All of that data (Dale & Krueger, Chetty, et al) has been batted around endlessly on CC on many threads.
FWIW, I worked at a company whose sales team was composed of mostly individuals that went to kindergarten together and who grew up within 2 miles of the office. Family and personal connections go a LONG way in my view.
Harvard was found not guilty at trial and this finding was not disputed as part of the appeal to the Supreme Court. The judge acknowledged that there was an appearance of implicit bias in Harvards practices but found that they were in the bounds of the law.
Less than they used to. Now, perhaps more than ever, what matters is what skills and knowledge one possesses. Doesn’t even matter what degree you have, or from where: if you are a great coder, if you know AI, doesn’t even matter if you went to college, just to name one function that’s minting millionaires.
