eGPA and iEC demystify holistic admissions

Parents Forum
1

I’d like to introduce two concepts, eGPA and iEC, to demystify the holistic admissions process.

eGPA, effective GPA, is GPA weighted by the time involved. Pre-learning the materials, e.g., summer class before taking a course, lowers eGPA; staying up late each night studying lowers eGPA.

iEC, interest-based EC, is EC weighted by the interest of the student. EC done with less interest lowers iEC.

If elite colleges emphasize the use of eGPA and iEC for ranking applicants, HS students would take courses they enjoy and participate ECs they love. As a result, the madness occurring in such communities as Palo Alto, CA and WWP, NJ would ease. We’d have happy and healthy students, relaxed parents, and a country on the hill.

BTW, I care about education in general but with no major concerns about my own kids’ education.

2

How are the adcomms supposed to discern whether an applicant has been staying up every night to study?

Again, how are the adcomms supposed to discern real interest vs feigned interest?

I’m already reading between the lines of your post. You’ve pretty much described the STEREOTYPE of the robotic, high-achieving but “inauthentic” asian-american applicant.

3

LOL, and along with this, a horde of bureaucrats making sure that everyone is following the rules!

4

Some people will cheat by secretly reading books and surreptitiously watching educational Youtube programs.

5

Ok. But that should apply to more than academics. The same should be done for sports, music and art, for example. Those who do extra (extra practice, extra summer or weekend classes, extra clubs) should then have the evaluation of their abilities lowered.
Seriously, I think what some people just don’t realize is that some kids actually enjoy academics in the same way that others enjoys sports, art and music. Do they sometimes get stressed or burned out from over studying? Sure, but I’ve seen the same kind of thing with other kids in their non academic activities. Especially sports, which I personally think causes many, many more problems than academics.

6

I spent a lot of time studying in both HS and college - likely more than I needed to get the grades I did - but I genuinely enjoyed it. I love learning new things, and I was the kind of kid who, if the odd numbered problems were assigned, would do the evens too because it was fun. We didn’t have the internet then obviously but I’m the kind of person that, if assigned to read a chapter about (say) the Civil War, would have googled and read and gone deeper on my own. It’s my genuine interest. I don’t see why that should be penalized in favor of speed.

7

Do you sense that the holistic evaluating colleges are begging for a better metric? Sorry but I must have missed those SOS calls or red flares into the night sky.

8

This idea just seems to make the admissions process more formulaic, not less. The antithesis of the the goal of the holistic admissions process.

9

“elite colleges emphasize the use of eGPA and iEC for ranking applicants, HS students would take courses they enjoy and participate ECs they love. As a result, the madness occurring in such communities as Palo Alto, CA and WWP, NJ would ease. We’d have happy and healthy students, relaxed parents, and a country on the hill.”

The “madness” is because there are idiot parents in these places who demand Ivies or bust. They could easily ratchet down the stress on their kids.

Anyway, the “problem” of the Palo Alto kid who “merely” gets into Tufts or Carnegie Mellon instead of his “rightful” MIT isn’t anything I’d lose sleep over. My compassion goes to the bright hardworking kid who is stuck in a cruddy public school, not the poor dear who had to slum it at Tufts.

10

The problem with Palo Alto is six students in the last year and a bit killing themselves, most by throwing themselves in front of trains. It’s not admission to Tufts instead of MIT.

11

@Cardinal Fang,

It proves that the parents and the peers could do a lot of damages to a youngman or youngwoman especially in there vulnerable teens.

12

@Cardinal Fang

Where are the parents? Why do kids think that if they don’t get in to Harvard, they are a failure?

My cc: shame:
DD2 is currently a high school Senior. Okay, I am coming out of the cc: closet, she is only in (gasp) AB Calc. I know, I know, how does she live with the shame? What do we tell the relatives? On top of that it gets even more shameful. She only got a 31 on her ACT (32 superscore). If that were not humiliating enough, she was scandalously deferred in ED by Tufts, yes the one that is a deep back up for all of the cc: prodigies like it is a community college. The only two schools that have admitted her EA are (I know we are going to be shunned): Purdue, and Case Western Reserve. (Sarcasm). She has also applied to Lehigh, Wisconsin and Illinois.

To me it is a matter of perspective. She is not going to an Ivy. She didn’t even apply. She would not be happy there even if she got in. We think that is fine. To us, she has very good options and will probably have a few more in RD. She should be proud of what she has achieved. She is a good student, a good athlete, she has friends, she has a boyfriend, she likes to help other people, she volunteers as a special olympics coach, and she wants to major in chemical engineering. She may not be right for Harvard, but she is happy and well rounded.

My wife and I are very proud of her. Isn’t that how it should be? What is wrong with parents who teach their kid that if they can’t go to Harvard, they are a failure? I am 100% with @Pizzagirl on this. Each child is different, and if they make an effort and find a path that is right for them, then I am happy and will support them 100%. They can’t worry about competing with the kids around them. What the other kids are doing does not matter. If we had pushed harder, maybe she would have a little better grades, and a little higher ACT, and be going to Cornell, but we don’t think she would be happy.

I see the suicide issue as a failure of the parents and people around these students. What are students being taught about what defines success and failure? How do their parents define success and failure?

The Ivies have about 15,000 places in the freshman class for all 8 schools combined. Maybe there are another 15,000 at peer schools like Stanford, Northwestern, Duke et al. I think there are at least 3 million high school graduates annually, so by my math, the vast majority of those students will not get in. So why do adults set them up for failure?

13

Much2learn, congratulations on your daughter’s two acceptances so far. Both Purdue and Case are terrific schools where she would get a fine education.

14

I am not sure about this. There is something called peer pressure. If your kid happens to hang around with mostly kids with “big” ambitions, s/he would feel the pressure no matter what.

I think my “kid” has been doing more than fine in my book. However, occasionally (not often) he would still feel inadequate among his peers. (But he tends to be a “the glass is half empty” guy, e.g., his GPA at graduation is the highest among his suites of 6 students, but he always thought two of them had been working harder or smarter than him.) He once said that for a high percentage of his circle of “friends”, the only thing in their mind while they are awake is their future career – NOTHING ELSE occupies their mind. When most of your peers are like this, the pressure is there unless you do not interact with any of them at all – but this is unlikely due to the small class size and all take the same set of courses and they are together for a lot of time almost everyday.

My point is that if a student lives and breathes among these people, it is not easy to avoid the “peer pressure”. The pressure is not from “idiot parents”.

Sending your kid to a “good” (but not a fit one) school has some implications.

15

@Cardinal Fang

I know you are a good person, and I appreciate that you feel bad for these devastated kids. Honestly, I feel bad for them too.

A couple things that we do with our kids that I think more parents should do.

  1. We emphasize the importance of making a good effort, and not so much about grades. If they get a C it is okay, as long as they are doing their best. If they don't get into a top 50 school, that is fine too. They can still get a great education.
  2. We also teach them that there is no shame in trying to do something hard and failing. The sun will rise tomorrow anyway. If it is too hard, we will always be there to support them, if we can instead of criticize them for failing.

I think if more parents did those two things, the mental health of students would be a lot better.

16

I think we have done “1” relatively well. We may not have done “2” as well.

The above post #15 reminds me of this: When we sent our son to college, we stayed at a nearby hotel for several days (well…a little bit too many days.) On the day we would leave, DS came to our hotel to eat brunch before we left. After the brunch, I walked him to his dorm because my wife developed a problem on her foot and could not walk well. Right before we said goodbuy, I remember I told him that he is now in a much larger pond now and there are many excellent students just like him here. It is perfectly OK if he does not do as well as when he was at his high school.

I still do not know whether I said the right thing to him at that moment. Would I give him more pressure by saying this to him?

I believe that for both of his previous application cycles, he did not feel much pressure. The main reason is that he truly did not care which school he would get in and attend. He would be happy to go anywhere on both rounds.

Honestly, I am more concerned about this third round. The outcome could be much more unpredictable. People’s factor (i.e., whether they LIKE you or not as a person) plays a larger role this time. In the previous two cycles, he thought he could go anywhere, but for this round, it is no longer his own concern only. (He knows we have no concern as long as he could “secure one”, no matter which one. So, if there is a pressure, it is definitely not from us. We also intentionally keep us out of the loop, trying to be as ignorant about the whole thing as we can. I have gotten off the helicopter a long time ago and I will try hard to keep it in this way. I did not say anything even when he casually mentioned he might want to cancel a couple of interviews (not due to time conflicts) even though it serms he had not been applying to many to begin with. Is he really that confident or what?! I promise to myself that I will keep my mouth shut, and pray (that a couple of his recent publications in his research year will help carry him over this bump.)

17

" (But he tends to be a “the glass is half empty” guy, e.g., his GPA at graduation is the highest among his suites of 6 students, but he always thought two of them had been working harder or smarter than him.) "

Why discuss GPA wth your friends in the first place?

18

@GMTplus7, eGPA and iEC (and eTestScore) don’t discriminate against any group of applicants. They favor those who take classes they enjoy and participate in ECs they love. Their GPA and SAT/ACT scores might not be sky high and their ECs might not be unusual, but eGPA/iEC conversion won’t lower them. BTW, I’m Asian.

No @T26E4. They, not us parents, are responsible for the madness occurring across the country, at least among communities with a lot of professionals. These elite schools need to state unequivocally that they use eGPA and iEC to filter their applicants, and tell HS students that participating in the “arms race” reduces their chance at getting into the elite schools.

I think that “take classes they enjoy and participate in ECs they love” is the only way to make our students competitive and keep our education system the leader and our country the strongest.

19

@eiholi

I ask you again: how is an adcomm supposed to know which students are doing it for enjoyment and which are being goaded by Tiger Parents?

20

@PG, At the graduation ceremony of the residential college, DS was the only one who had received some “Latin Honor” Award, among his 6 suiteates - there appears to be 3 kinds of such “Latin Awards” whose names elude me now. The criterion of such awards are solely based on the graduating GPA. That was how we (as parents) learned about it (by deduction). There is another award that is solely based on the number of As. That could trigger an unhealthy “rat race” of getting the number of As by taking more classes each semester, resulted in “no life outside academics” in college (thus, some would graduate with both MS and BS/BA in 4 years.) One student appears to have been burnt out after 4 years (DS once mentioned that s/he “barely sleep” because s/he took so many classes.) Some students continued to do what they had been doing when they were in high school. The difference is that at high school, they collected as many AP credits (one students collected 13!), but in college, they took as many classes as they could. This is not healthy.