<p>Sorry Pattyl, if think that you head is in the sand on this matter. That is, you’ve chosen to ignore particular factors. You seem to believe that all decisions and outcomes are made with no bias or favor or no determental impacts that are inherently undemocratic and unjust.</p>
<p>A question for Juxtaposn, and others.</p>
<p>If Mr Jack had been an all conference football player football player instead of a Rhodes scholarship nominee would you still think it wrong for Amherst to have admitted him with a SAT score 200 points lower that the median for his Amherst class?</p>
<p>Tommy, the issue of athletic admits has been beaten to death here. What’s nice about Mr. Jack’s story is that we’ve now got some new data point (or as Mini would say, anecdote) from which to prove our own spurious conspiracy theories. If he were a garden variety runningback, we’d have to go back to the “scholar-athlete” debate which we all got tired of back in February!
:)</p>
<p>“I think we can all agree that, in an academic “free market,” all students, regardless of race, creed, color, or means, should be afforded equal opportunities for acceptance into their college of choice, based on their previous achievements.”</p>
<p>I assume that, since last time I checked I was still a human being, I am part of the “all” to whom you refer. PLEASE do not even think about speaking for me on this subject!!! </p>
<p>First of all, as other posters have pointed out, private colleges are — and should be — free to make their own rules regarding admissions. If they want to accept someone who (gasp!) didn’t even take SATs or ACTs, they are free to do so. If they want to accept someone with an ACT of 14, they are free to do so. If they want to accept someone with a GED, they are free to do so. YOU don’t get to decide who these schools “should” accept. They don’t tell you their “magic admissions formula,” so you have no basis on which to judge whether or not their adherence to their own formula is or is not “fair” to you or anyone else.</p>
<p>I am envisioning the perfect world juxtaposn would like to see: All colleges must come up with a set of admissions criteria that is set in stone. Everything must be spelled out so that the whole world can see EXACTLY what it takes to get accepted. Everyone who wants to go to a particular college and whose stats fit perfectly into the set of admissions criteria for that particular school will be guaranteed acceptance. Anyone with exenuating circumstances is out of luck. Schools will have to log in each application as it becomes complete, because they will only be able to accept students on a first-come-first-served basis — since everyone who meets the criteria is automatically accepted. Of course, enrollment management would be a nightmare, unless students were forced to be legally bound to attendance if they apply (since, after all, they would already know that they are accepted). Or possibly, schools would be legally bound to take in EVERY student who wants to attend & has stats that fit the magic formula for that school. We wouldn’t want to infringe on someone’s equal opportunity for acceptance, after all. Who cares about the burden it puts on the college … because this is, after all, about being “fair” to the student.</p>
<p>Get real. No one is guaranteed anything in college admissions, especially not where private colleges (particularly selective schools) are concerned. The colleges certainly don’t owe anyone apologies for this. No one is “entitled” to admissions, regardless of how wonderful they think they are.</p>
<p>Blossom is right the athletic preference issue has been debated to death here. But you, Tommy, are right to ask the question. There is an incredible amount of hypocrisy on the issue of preferences. While your asking, ask them where they stand on the legacy preference issue.</p>
<p>kelsmom. Look at your bad self. 
Way to go. LOL. </p>
<p>Great post. Somebody kicked your transmission into another gear, huh? It happens. And of course, I agree with you and that makes it even better.</p>
<p>As someone said earlier: “The real problem is not that poor black people don’t go to Amherst; it’s that they don’t get to finish college at all.”</p>
<p>Amherst could throw a few bucks this way, but I doubt that will happen (and I doubt it would get a spread in the NYT on the remote possibility that it does):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_catholic_schools.html[/url]”>http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_catholic_schools.html</a></p>
<p>The discussion about Mr. Jack is not about whether legacy, athletic or any preferences are OK. It is about honesty in the admissions process. If a private college wants to give 200 preference points to kids raised on farms in Fresno, that is fine. Just be honest about it. Don’t spew the garbage that the farm kid’s low SAT score would have been high had that kid been raised in Beverly Hills. Harvard, which this year considered an applicant’s zip code so as to give preference to low income applicants, should just announce that it is giving preference to those from poor areas with family income of less than X. With honesty comes meaningful choice. Let the applicants decide if they want to apply to a school that prefers the “life experience” of a farm kid or one who comes from a poorer zip code over a record of real time academic achievement. But, don’t hide what you prefer or attempt to rationalize what you do by contorting low SAT’s into fictional high ones. That’s the bone I am picking. I would not apply to Amherst knowing that I would be competing against someone’s “virtual record” for the few spots available. Amherst’s slight-of-hand rational indicates to me that there is some discomfort with what’s being done, and a fear that a drop in applications would result if the true admission criteria were disclosed.</p>
<p>It’s hard to imagine anyone who has been more public and honest about having the enrollment of low-income students as an admissions priority than Amherst and Tony Marx. They are sure doing a bad job of hiding this if that’s what they’re up to. Just one example from a high circulation mag:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973087.htm[/url]”>Businessweek - Bloomberg;
<p>And as an aside, the admissions dean wasn’t saying that any low-income kid gets a 200-pt. SAT bump at Amherst. His quote began, "Tony Jack with his pure intelligence . . . " </p>
<p>It seems pretty hard to misread this. What he meant is “this particular kid’s intelligence isn’t reflected in his SAT scores, and (for those of you who don’t understand about unequal access to educational opportunity) here are a couple metaphorical illustrations–Greenwich, 1500pt score, New Yorker, test prep–to make it concrete.”</p>
<p>For all of those potential applicants who didn’t read that Businessweek issue, I can only hope that Amherst is as honest in its promotional literature and yearly high school campus visits. That would mean its representatives are candid about the test scores and academic performance threshold for low income students vs. those students who do not qualify for that preference and clear about the number of spots reserved for those preference students. I mean candor to all; not just to the low income population that is the focus of intense outreach efforts. The same should be revealed about athletic, legacy and development admit preferences.That would be refreshing indeed and a model for all schools to follow. That way, all of those slacker 1500 SAT kids in Greenwich who simply bought a good score will know what the true odds are of gaining admission to a place like Amherst. Many might just choose to take a pass.</p>
<p>If Harvard is really considering zip codes, then there might be a stampede to buy up ghetto properties and use them as mailing addresses. It could be a great business: Gathering college mail from the crumbling tenements for a fee & FedExing them to the wealthy suburbs.</p>
<p>^^Ah well, but the trick of living in one zip code and attending school in a more affluent one has been tried–in more ways than one, as parents of a student at Boston Latin did when they got hauled to court for pretending to be Boston residents.
I doubt that parents from Westchester, NY would care to send their kids to an inner city school just to receive recruiting mail from Harvard, hmm??</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>but patty, if you’ll research it you’ll find that they’ll be taking that same pass at Harvard and Yale and Princeton and Stanford and Wesleyan and Williams and Swarthmore, and… well, almost all of the superselectives.</p>
<p>And I am in total agreement . If that type of holistic “leg up for downtrodden” review turns the kid off (or turns his stomach) , then he absolutely should not apply to those schools and I’ll vehemently defend his right not to do so against all comers. Bring’em on. ;)</p>
<p>Patty, any kid from Greenwich or Belmont or Winnetka or Great Neck who thinks that 1500 SAT’s, good grades, and being tennis champ down at the club last summer will guarantee a spot at Amherst is truly too stupid and naive to even think about applying.</p>
<p>I find it amusing that the children of privilege get all hot and bothered about the one or two or 10 or 50 kids who get admitted to an elite U each year. Gosh, it’s so unfair. I mean, I’m like the only kid who didn’t get a new car for graduation-- those disadvantaged kids should try driving the old beat up volvo to school-- now that’s disadvantaged!</p>
<p>You would have to be hiding under a rock not to know that Adcom’s review your application “in context”. So-- if your school regularly produces 5 Intel semi-finalists a year, and you didn’t take any AP sciences but are applying to Cal Tech-- that’s a problem. Has nothing to do with anyone else getting an unfair advantage-- if you go to a school with a strong science program, and you profess an interest in science, you gotta take the classes that are offered, right? A kid whose school doesn’t have a strong science program is going to have to go far out of his/her way to demonstrate the interest that you could have shown just by walking down the hall to an AP chem class.</p>
<p>Doesn’t penalize you-- it penalizes the kid without access to the same resources as you. Got it? AP Chem is a metaphor…The adcom’s are crystal clear that your app is evaluated in context-- a kid attending a school with limited resources isn’t expected to have access to the same things as a kid at Horace Greeley. A kid who works mopping floors at DQ every afternoon to help pay the rent isn’t going to have time for the lacrosse team. I don’t think the Adcom’s could be more clear. However, given that the elite schools are dominated by the upper middle class, I don’t think you need to lose sleep over the handful of kids who “squeak by” every year via the adcom’s social engineering. It is truly a handful,(Mini-- or maybe it’s less than a handful?) and the transparency of the process has been well-documented in every major newspaper or article written about college applications in the last 5 years.</p>
<p>Hmmm…I hope Mr. Parker looks beyond zip code.</p>
<p>Greenwich has a higher poverty rate and more subsidized housing than Darien, Westport, Weston and New Canaan. Although the town is 85% Caucasian, minorities make up 35% of the Greenwich High School student body, due to the fact that the wealthiest residents overwhelmingly attend private secondary schools.</p>
<p>Is he looking for all diamonds in the rough, or diamonds in the rough from certain geographic locations/high schools?</p>
<p>Patty. I think you will find schools like Amherst are pretty up front about their interest in having a diverse student body. </p>
<p>When a kid who grew up in Beverly Hills sets across the table from a kid who grew up in Fresno and they talk their life experiences they both benefit. Both will be better prepared to go out into the diverse world and make something of themselves. </p>
<p>Don’t buy the right wing “evil of diversity” argument and don’t try to make the issue something it isn’t.</p>
<p>Blossom </p>
<p>I wish I still had my old beat up Volvo…</p>
<p>I’ve never heard the “evil of diversity” argument, tommybill. Care to share it?</p>
<p>StickerShock</p>
<p>Should I start with the right wing’s impeach Earl Warren campaign, which came about as a result of his leadership on overturning segregated schools in the Brown v Topeka School Board decision?</p>
<p>Funny you should mention the Volvo, blossom. My son drives an early '90’s Volvo which he paid for out of his Walmart earnings. He loves that car!! “Economic diversity” doesn’t always translate into values. As I said early on, it’s not all that simple. But if it helps you sleep better at night to believe so: so be it.</p>
<p>tommybill: It’s all about those elite LAC kids benefiting from “diversity?” Excuse me, if I become ill.</p>