Agreed but how would anyone here ever know for any or each particular case and for each and every particular student applying to each and every particular school whether a gpa of 4.0, SAT of 1600 or 200 more volunteer hours or a novel interest in Chaucer will make the difference? Or any difference?
As that fact that you accurately identify as key is unknowable, and varies from case to case and school to school and likely even from AO to AO, the next best case would be to respect the values of the student and her family.
Where the overstepping occurs is when we fabricate qualities and project them onto students based on shreds of information or from questions that can be as innocuous as whether some independent study would be a good idea. Do we really know any student here well enough to make this judgment for them - dogmatically?
Legacies compose the overwhelming majority of LDC applicants. Comparing White LDC to White non-ALDC, the numbers were as follows. Legacy applicants appear to have much higher average personal ratings than unhooked applicants. However, legacy admits appear to average lower personal ratings than unhooked admits.
Admin Reader Personal Rating
LDC â 41% of applicants receive 2+ personal
Non-ALDC â 21% of applicants receive 2+ personal
LDC â 70% of admits receive 2+ personal
Non-ALDC â 84% of admits receive 2+ personal
Alumni Interviewer Personal Rating
LDC â 68% of applicants receive 2+ personal (8% did not interview)
Non-ALDC â 50% of applicants receive 2+ personal (21% did not interview)
LDC â 82% of admits receive 2+ personal (4% did not interview)
Non-ALDC â 91% of admits receive 2+ personal (2% did not interview)
Students who are legacies would seemingly be far more likely to be able to talk the talk or walk the walk as they say. Children of alumni will have personal knowledge of the school which can help connect to alumni or mention in why us essays etc.
Itâs also the most squishy metric so an applicant who is unremarkable in all other manner but who the school wants to admit can assign a value to this metric in a way they can not for any of the other current categories.
If faculty is reviewing a studentâs work, it is not likely because the student took some advanced course or âacceleratedâ but rather because the student is doing research and/or participating in science competitions etc. There are students every year who spend lots of money taking summer classes at universities and do not get in to any of the name brand schools even though they were taking âadvancedâ courses over the summer. Very few faculty will be writing a review for a student who is simply taking their class unless that student somehow really stands out in some meaningful way which is not likely for high school students to do in a class with university students.
This would make total sense if a student could understand advanced data science, bioengineering, molecular biology, genetics or any of the other myriad research projects that they are âleadingâ as high school students based on AP classes. If AP classes provide so much knowledge that a junior in high scholl can understand, conceive and complete this kind of project, there are a lot of PhDâs out there who totally wasted a lot of years.
As to summer classes, how many times are we going to make this kind of argument? âI saw a guy eating a large banana split, and he was skinny, therefore not everyone who eats banana splits gains weight so banana splits are not fattening!â Of course not everyone who takes advanced classes is admitted everywhere. Those classes must not matter! Every volunteer who helps hundreds of underprivileged kids is also not admitted nor is Every ice cream scooper or Every waitress or Every Eagle Scout. Nor is Every veteran. In fact, the vast majority of people in all of these groups are rejected from most highly selective schools. So, I guess from all of the logic here, all of these activities must be completely meaningless from the standpoint of admission right?
I am somewhat jaded on some of the research that students are doing and there has already been some scandals which have shown pay for research etc. However, there are students who do remarkable things and some programs are considered prestigious ie. the fully paid research opportunities at some top schools. Students in these programs do not need more classwork than AP level material. Itâs nowhere near the same level of knowledge expected as that of a PhD.
Please do not put words in my mouth. The point I was making is that often parents seem to make the mistake that taking advanced academics is a boost but it doesnât seem to be nearly as impressive as parents think since there are so many kids who take these courses and many do not get into top schools. Does it give a leg up? Maybe but I am not sure. I expect the programs which are free that I mentioned before and which are extremely hard to get into are looked upon very favorably while these advanced summer courses basically identify parents who can pay for their kids to attend summer classes and may be doing so to try to get a leg up on those who can not afford it. Basically, I can see admission officers discount these courses so they have no impact or even look at them negatively but I do not know. It could differ at different schools or even with different AOâs.
Here would be my suggestion regarding these courses or in fact all the activities you list which may surprise you since you seem to have pegged me as someone who discounts all academic pursuits. if a student wants to take such a class - if the student is interested in doing the class to learn the material or to explore academic interests they havenât been exposed to before and is not simply taking the class in the likely false belief that it boosts their chances for a brand name school, then they should do so.
However, if the student is only taking the class or scooping ice cream or working as a waitress for a summer job or adding volunteer hours or doing an Eagle Scout project just to boost their admission chances to some brand name college, then theyâd be better off doing something that they want to do. There is no guarantee for any brand name college but beyond that why would anyone waste their time to incrementally improve their chances when that time could be spent in a pursuit they enjoy which will hopefully also enrich them?
I donât think we often âknowâ the answers to this type of question. In fact, even active AOs for colleges have said things like they canât really answer questions like that because they would need to see the whole application file. Of course there are sometimes simple questionsâwhat does this college/program require in terms of X, what is the deadline for Y, and so on. But once you are getting into the weeds of holistic review and asking whether time and energy spent on X or Y would help more for college Z . . . âknowingâ the answers to questions like that is implausible.
But what we can do is share the information that we do have, and offer opinions and suggestions based on the information available to us, understanding those are never going to be more than informed opinions and suggestions.
And if we do not feel like we have enough information to offer an informed opinion or suggestion as to a particular question, we can get or ask for more information, or simply refrain from offering entirely.
That is certainly what I do. There are many cases here where I do not not offer anything because I donât think I have anything plausibly useful to offer. There are other cases where I might have something to offer, but first I need more information. Sometimes I know where I can get potentially useful information. Sometimes I ask the person with the question to supply more information. Often I do both.
And once again, in my experience that is how at least most of the posters here behave. Indeed, over time you sort of get to know who has more experience in certain areas, or is adept at finding certain sorts of information, and so on. And you will see other posters here calling in those posters to help out with a particular case.
In the end, I am personally quite impressed with what this forum can do collectively. No one individual could ever hope to duplicate all that on their own. But between all the different people here with different backgrounds, different interests, indeed different valuesâmost people who come here with questions will get a lot of good information and insights between all the posters who respond.
And sometimes in the context of defending legacy policies, colleges have argued this has real value for them. As I would summarize the argument, incoming students being informed consumers is valuable to them because those consumers donât just purchase their product and then walk away. They are going to be around for four years, and both the student and the college can benefit if the student has a well-informed idea of how they are planning to thrive at that college. Legacies may not be the only applicants who are good bets in this sense, and not all legacies, but at least the reasonably well-qualified ones might typically be among the better bets.
Of course this is not the only justification that has been offered for legacy policies. So it is unlikely this alone explains many if any legacy policies in their entirety. But it is a plausible contributing factor.
However, this means that legacy applicants are more likely to be advantaged in terms of level of interest at that college and writing sensible essays specific to that college, as well as more generic advantages that they have (with at least one college educated parent and usually higher SES than the overall applicant pool), so they can be expected to have advantages in admission even without an explicit legacy preference.
Incoming students being informed consumers isnât quite how I would explain the information that legacies have - rather these students have insider information. At the name brand schools, students are expected to explain why they are applying to these colleges and they do so from the kind of information that everyone has access to while legacies have information they could only glean from those in the know. Based on Data10âs information, Harvard at least seems to favor those with this type of insider information. People who are the least likely to rub shoulders with alumni of these schools would be at the biggest disadvantage.
I think you mentioned above that these schools want an inclusive environment but putting a finger on the scale for children of the former good old boys network seems to leave many feeling excluded if they manage to get accepted because of the high number of legacies who often have quite a bit in common with one another which can leave others out of such circles.
This is exactly the kind of remote mind reading that is the road, especially for academic pursuits, to the judgment zone. People work for a living and also derive personal satisfaction. Every volunteer in every nonprofit and every nonprofit admin knows that the work serves both community and the volunteersâ personal needs or desires. Itâs really very difficult to think of a single academic course that doesnât make a student more knowledgeable, broad and likely better prepared for a âliberal artsâ education. Even targeting a nearly perfect score on the SAT can bring the student a sense of accomplishment and heightened confidence in standardized testing environments.
The false virtue test is that every sport, job, course, activity or goal has to start life as a pure passion project. Students here have to be blind to any possible effect on college admissions. Isnât there a fundamental irony to requiring this of students who log into CollegeConfidential?
No one is forcing anyone here to interpret âwill self-studying calculus ab as a sophomore help for college admissionsâ as âthe ONlY reason Iâd want to learn calculus is a misguided belief that advancement will blow the doors off at MITâ. In fact, most students posing these questions express interest in majoring in exactly the fields they are asking about taking more advanced courses in. And if they want a âbrand nameâ college for any or no particularly defensible reason, who is anyone here to judge? Iâm no fan of Taylor Swift and there is definitely more complex and refined music out there, but teenagers can âShake it offâ without my judgments.
You should read the ISEF finalist papers and work. No AP bio class gets anyone to the point of even remotely conceiving of many of these projects. Thatâs what the PhD is for. Assuming authenticity (which people with much better visibility than we online commentators like judges of the competition do assume) to understand mitochondrial DNA epigenetics even at a very basic level takes an enormous amount of self study of background molecular biology. But everyone here seems ok with ISEF assumedly because itâs a âbrand nameâ. On the other hand, take organic chemistry DE and brace yourself for the âi hope you realize this wonât help you one whit for your college application chances sonnyâ. These false constructs belie the underlying bias against academics.
I donât think there are many on CC who would say that about a DE course. Some might point out that if the student takes the class and has designs on med school that the class will be included in sGPA on med school apps, which is fair and something many high school students might not know. DE courses (with Aâs) can definitely help in highly selective college admissions.
An n of 1, but any self study AP tests are ignored in the admission process where I read apps.
So, a student with no accessible Community College in a rural area who wants to study college chem, self-studies the AP material on Khan and gets a 5 on the AP gets no credit and a student in a town close to a Community College who takes (in all likelihood a less rigorous Chem class without the lab) and gets an A is âdefinitely helpedâ? Sounds like underprivileged kids without access to transportation, kids with parents too busy to drive them to the CC, kids who live in rural areas and a lot of kids Colleges seem so desperate to reach are really getting some unfair treatment under that policy! Also the problem with across-the-board policies. And for all of the people who stress about carefree hours, it would seem that the rigid evening class schedule of DE classes would be more disruptive as to almost any EC or social activity than self-study which could be done in times of solitude. I suppose that means that your highly selective U is less concerned about such issues.
And it would probably also be nice to emphasize that the DE classes that taking those AP classes enables matriculation to would âdefinitely helpâ even in your system be an advantage.
âRelative excellenceâ is a trait that will serve students well outside the âhighly selective colleges.â These kids will be fine. They should focus more on their mental health, and schools that will support them in that regard.
AFAIK most DE courses are during typical high school hours.
AP course content and DE course content can vary significantly in terms of rigor. Some schools offer AP courses where itâs uncommon a student scores above a 2 on the AP test. Some have rigorous AP courses that may be more rigorous than DE courses at the local CC. DE courses arenât only offered by a CC, they can also be offered by many 4-year colleges including the successful, high volume online colleges like Western Governors, ASU, etc.
In your AP self-study example, the rural and/or low income student likely has actual course access (so no âself-studyâ necessary) either thru a stateâs free/low cost virtual school and/or free/low cost access via any of the many online high school course providers, many of which offer actual, rigorous AP courses.
So are you saying a certificate of completion from edx or coursera or a scan of the Khan academy course page is acceptable to render a course not âself-studyâ?
Many high schools have rules prohibiting attendance of college classes during normal school hours. Does your highly selective college distinguish students who took college classes during high school where there was an established DE program and the course appears on the HS transcript and those students whose schools donât have an established DE program who took the same courses?
It is very refreshing to hear someone aligning themselves with admission not express that taking any course outside of HS doesnât render a student a presumptive boring academic drone.
Many colleges will also allow high schoolers to take college level courses as DE, assuming the student is qualifiedâŠstudents are not just limited to CC for DE courses.
Iâm not aware of this, do you have source for this? For example, I have never seen that written on a HSâs school profile, which I would think would show something like that.
We generally would not distinguish between DE courses thru the HS (not all HSs put even these courses on the transcript) or DE course taken outside the HS.
Iâll remind users that College Confidential is not a debate society. If you find yourself making that same points over and over with the same user, particularly when off-topic, please agree to disagree and move on. This includes, but is not limited to, defining DE and value of AP vs DE.
And no, Iâm not allowing users to disregard this notice so that they can get in the last word.
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