This is an article from The Harvard Crimson based upon their reporting and research in part on previously confidential documents released through discovery in the SFA case. Points in this article touch upon topics that could be helpful to students. It is happily and certainly the case that many successful applicants to Harvard and other highly selective schools do not “fit the mold” and are chosen precisely because of that. That’s an important part of Harvard’s mission and diversity. Still, I would not think those cases would cause us to ignore the underlying framework.
There does seem to be an effort to distinguish academically even among excellent students in terms of academics and test scores. The article describes that on Harvard’s internal 1-6 scoring system, an academic “1” needs “near-perfect scores and grades”. The article then describes that a “2” student typically scores in the “mid 700’s or higher on the SAT”. An academic 4 typically boasts “low-to mid 600 through low-700 scores”.
The article is a good one, and certainly it describes other attributes of an academic “1”. I wouldn’t believe that many are receiving “1”'s SOLELY on the basis of a 1590 on the SAT, but reading many posts on CC, a student might certainly get the impression that there is no distinction made between high scores and “nearly perfect” scores. And that could change their approach to test preparation or their decision to re-take the exam.
For EC’s, a “1” denotes possible national-level achievement or professional experience" and a “2” can be earned for being class president, newspaper editor or concertmaster. For EC’s I’d imagine these categories are even more subject to interpretation, but mentioning these examples can give students some meritorious goals.
For letters of recommendation / school support, there is mention of specific phrases that are important and correlate tightly with scores of 1 vs. 2 or below. In the process of selecting letter writers, here again, this would suggest that it is important for students to assess what a teacher would say about them - and using what terms.
This writing is hopefully helpful to students for a couple of reasons:
There is a lot of discussion on this website about how schools see the majority of their applicants as eminently admissible and that soft assessments of “character” - like not being a “boring, academic drone” are the main distinguishing factor. Harvard’s multifaceted approach - assigning numbers to multiple categories certainly including personality scores (a perennial problem category for Harvard) - but also scores from 1-6 in other categories like academics, EC’s and athletics suggests that Relative Excellence in academics and other objective testing - like very high vs. outstanding scores on the SAT are acknowledged.
Seeing this process in action may both encourage students to strive for the kinds of achievements that Harvard seems explicitly to recognize and it also may set some solid goalposts for stressed-out students, so they have at least a modicum of empowerment, not only a shifting sands of “I hope some AO at some school resonates with me as a person” as commentators repeat to students visiting this site Harvard’s 3% overall admission rate. Given the criteria above, how can we accurately say that every strong, unhooked student has same 3% chance?
The article also does shed light on some of the recommendations given here as to GPA, re-taking the SAT and the benefit of really hunkering down on your studies. Empirically, a glance at the “chance me” section proves that students who focus on exceptional academics including acceleration, DE and self-study very often also have great EC’s and experience as well.
This article is one suggestion that Relative Excellence in academics as well as other areas does in fact matter, and as it is known that Yale also uses a formula that condenses academics, scores, EC’s and other evaluations into a numerical formula, would it be surprising that many highly selective colleges have similar systems?
But there are many colleges. The pressure put on kids is unnecessary.
We don’t see the average kids here - but kids starting non profits (or at least saying they do), self studying APs, allegedly doing research with college profs, getting 1500 SATs and thinking it’s awful, etc.
Some ‘have’ the it factor for Harvard - most don’t - and it’s driving them nuts. You know how many successful people in this world - didn’t go Ivy ? More than that did.
Every school has a methodology - some simply hit this score, others relative to your hs or all applicants etc.
Sure it’s nice to know every school’s formula but guess what - 95%+ are still going to be unhappy.
We need kids to understand - their best shot at long term success is not their school attended (which may give a short term leg up) but themselves.
Philosophically, who could disagree. I’m wondering what students come to the “CollegeConfidental” website for advice about how college is random and ultimately unimportant.
To those students who come here for some additional insight (though the article shared is public information), I’m not sure should be hearing that striving for excellence, even near-perfection is a negative or irrelevant.
We don’t know these kids. All we know is that they want to go to the best college for them. I’m not here to intuit that they are an inadmissible geek because they wanted to self-study Physics C or tell them that it’s a fool’s errand to try to increase their SAT score from 1520 to 1600. Figuring out their character and personhood is for their families and friends. I try to stick to my lane.
Some of the worst stresses are caused by situations where a person feels powerless with no control and lacking of information. I’d comfort that student by saying that 1580 sounds “nearly perfect” and that those varsity captain positions are going to filter in some generally definable way into the EC score. Better than saying “your chances are 3% - good luck” in my mind. That kid may indeed not get into Penn, but isn’t it an appropriate feeling to give that student that their hard work and accomplishments meant something - that they had a better shot than someone who didn’t put forth that energy and effort - than telling them to go jump back into the 3% pool?
And then they’re crushed when they don’t get in with their near perfect scores anyway. I kind of get what you’re saying, but I don’t think knowing Harvard has a myriad ways to score students necessarily reduces their stress, it probably just increases their stress at least for some students as they try to get 1s in as many categories as they can. And in the process sacrifice what should be at least some measure of carefree fun teenage years that they’ll never have again. Your opinion may differ.
I don’t think that people say that. Most people say that they are reach schools or low probability schools. Let’s say that a student with a 1580 on the SAT vs. a 1520 on the SAT gets a 1 vs. a 2. One, plenty of people with 2s are accepted, so it shouldn’t be discouraging to the 1520. Secondly, the odds for the 1580 person might be better than the 1520 person, but their odds are still extremely low.
Maybe one candidate is particularly impressive above and beyond the regular very strong applicant, so they have a higher chance of acceptance. Maybe it’s 2, 3, 4, or even 5 times likelier than for the regular very strong student. Guess what, their odds of admission just went from 3% to maybe 15%. Still a low probability result with how we generally categorize admissions (i.e. less than 20% is low probability).
When do people say that striving for excellence is a negative?
The mental health crisis amongst many teenagers is scary, and there have been many instances of self-harm related to pressure around college. I think that as human beings we have an obligation not to make that worse and, if possible, to make the situation better.
Instead of comforting a student and saying, hey, your odds might be 15% instead of 3%, I think it’s better to make sure the student has a number of options that they’re excited about and that have a higher likelihood of acceptance.
For some kids who come here it seems like we are the suicide hotline - you can hear the stress.
For some it’s the parents.
There’s a thread about a Penn State student in CS, doing well - parent has him applying to schools he got rejected to as a transfer. Son is off to a great start, may even have interviews for an after first year internship.
Why - seems like the parent is ashamed the student is only at Penn State.
Right or wrong, sometimes you have to get out of your lane - if one chooses to of course.
And btw and not just at top schools, we see suicides. Why ? Bcuz kids can never meet expectations……at least as one of the reasons.
Exactly. This kind of information empowers students. We shouldn’t reduce the college admissions process into a situation where the company is downsizing and you simply don’t know if you will be cut. No power. No information. Nothing to do but wait for the axe to drop. That is a terrible kind of stress.
That excellent varsity athlete and 1580 SAT kid might indeed not get in. But acknowledging that those efforts mean something can help. And according to the article, they in fact do mean something. College waitlists have long served this purpose. Recognition without admission. That has value.
I’m sure you don’t mean to speak for all students. Not all students would feel empowered by this information, some would feel more stress. Even worse, some would focus on trying to figure out how to get a 1 academic rating (or 1 in other rating areas) when they don’t really understand what factors lead to getting a 1.
The Harvard SFFA data are outdated at this point, and none of us even know if they are using these same ratings and values in the current admission process. For example, one big difference between now and then…there are far more straight A HS grads now than during the time period of the lawsuit data, and the majority of those students who apply to Harvard with straight A’s aren’t getting in.
Exactly my point. Why is trying to excel a “worse”? How is trying to figure out how to refine your study skills, prepare more meticulously for a test, rise among the ranks in orchestra or set a new personal best a “worse”? It seems so often it is here.
Mental health and suicide are real and tragic issues. Both have risen proportionally with
“holistic” admissions practices that emphasizes the message that the schools are in control and the flood of exceptional students can do little to distinguish themselves. Graph the teen mental health crisis and the number of colleges students have to apply to, and stress seems very related with uncertainty.
In fact, the mental health crisis among teens correlates well with almost every recent trend - including screen time as reported by psychologists this week in the NYT. It probably correlates very strongly with the rise in popularity of Taylor Swift. One thing it seems to inversely correlate with is transparency in what college will likely send you an acceptance.
You miss my point. I’m not saying trying to excel is bad (nor did I comment on study skills, test prep, doing better in an EC), I would never say that. What I’m saying is trying to strive for some rating that one doesn’t understand what factors go into it, or even if that’s how Harvard still does admissions eval/ratings across all these categories, could be problematic.
There have been numerous follow-up articles after SFA that talk about how things have changed. According to these articles there has been specific guidance as to the treatment of race and essays. Nothing to suggest the overall system has been abandoned as I think you are suggesting.
You don’t have to wait for any axe to drop. Getting downsized at your company is far less stressful if you have 5 other job offers lined up. The same is true for admissions. Rejection from Harvard may still sting as rejection always does, but it will sting far less if you have 5 other colleges eager to have you join them. That is why everyone here always stresses the importance of targets and safeties. Harvard (or other T20) is great and students should shoot their shot if that’s somewhere they’d like to be and striving for excellence in the process is great, but you need a soft place to land if it doesn’t work out, and sometimes it just doesn’t, even for the best students. We see it here every year.
I don’t see anyone even remotely advocating for students to have no safety schools nor alternative schools nor to expect admission to one college or any.
I think students coming to CC know bad luck is a thing. They know that there are no guarantees as to admission. They might not know the details contained in the article, and those might help them set goals. “One can not hit a target if one does not know what it is” -Robbins
No, I think we are just disagreeing about what might exacerbate and what might alleviate stress in students. It’s obviously a complicated question and can be very unique among individuals - what stresses out one student might reassure another. On average, however, I personally think that emphasizing the great opportunities that exist outside of the T20 is more helpful to stressed out students than emphasizing the high bar they must clear for their right to buy a T20 lottery ticket, which is how I personally still view it, even in light of this article. But again, opinions may vary on this, and what stresses out one student might reassure another.
How is this an either-or? We can’t inform students that T20-40 schools are wonderful places and at the same time inform students that excellence is meaningful for their reach schools? Won’t exceptional academics or EC’s or letters help for any school?
I read this (pre-COVID era) article and I am not sure if it provides any new information beyond the generally good advice given out on this forum. In short, everything matters in admission, particularly so with highly selective institutions.
My observation with the “Chance Me” posters is that they are generally excellent candidates who come here for some kind of reassurance. They want to hear that they have a 65% chance in getting in to Harvard, which nobody would every say. The candid advice provided on the forum is like a splash of cold water to help them understand the current admissions landscape.