Post 3375 correctly but perhaps unknowingly touches on what in my experience is the entire current problem with college admissions in the nation overall: NOT “lack of transparency” about the process; NOT Affirmative Action; NOT a so-called devaluation of academic merit, but sheer self-entitlement b**. This self-entitlement says two things:
- "I," non-member of the committee and non-employee of the institution, deserve (sometimes demand) to know the so-called "secrets" (not very secret, in my experience, opinion, and knowledge) of why random students A through Z were admitted when my faves were not (S, D, best friend's child, admired Val of the high school, etc.)
- There is a contagious disease out there, at epidemic levels in certain competitive regions especially, that believes that Rumor = Fact. Co-morbid with that disease is the assumption that because a particular parent "knows" (claims to know) various GPA's of various students at a high school, the full academic profile of that student is also known.
Here is the actual Fact:
Not a single person “knows” the GPA’s of some or all of the students at that high school unless he or she has access to every transcript about which he/she is making claims and has viewed every one of those. Parents (of other students) often lie. Students even more often lie. Students also exaggerate, misunderstand, distort, or repeat a rumor of a rumor. In many high schools I am personally well acquainted with, it is an actual “activity” to deliberately mislead the competition in one of three ways:
a. Feign modesty (under-report one’s GPA). ** This is much more common than most parents realize; parents are continually fooled by this.**
b. Exaggerate (over-report one’s GPA) for intimidation purposes
c. This is for those with exceptional self-control…Maintain silence.
Even IF any parent not an employee of the school had full access to all transcripts, would he or she also have access to every single letter of recommendation? Extremely doubtful, since most of these are now sent electronically via Common App, and the parent in question would have to then additionally access every password to every Common App of every student at that high school. Further, increasingly some elite colleges are permitting a third recommendation, which sometimes comes from outside of the school.
@lookingforward has said this for so long that I admire her patience in continuing to have to repeat it: Unless you have within your eyesight the complete file of every student being considered, your “information” is essentially worthless. The colleges and universities being discussed on this thread are not auto-admit institutions, and thus there is no “absolute standard” which “qualifies” an applicant for admission. For these, for all the elites, and for a growing number of colleges, admission is comparative. That means – for anyone who considers himself or herself a math genius – the entire set must be compared. Within that set, even with equal/near-equal merit, will be a variety of majors the college needs to fill, a variety of **campus activities/b, and a variety of regions the college wants to include. With regard to the latter, how will anyone claim with a straight face that he or she has access to files of complete strangers in other States of the Union, never mind the world? Even USC is a national university.
I haven’t even touched on the value that certain essays can have in certain close contests (work as a tie-breaker, for example, because one essay illuminates or confirms the student’s profile better than another does). But that is also one of the about-dozen components adding up to Profile, and the “sum” is greater than the mere calculation of the parts. That is what is meant by the term “holistic.” I understand why linear thinkers have more of a problem with this than we “global” types do, but that is not a problem for the colleges to fix. It is a problem of understanding and acceptance. In other words, Merit =/= Numbers. Merit is much more comprehensive and is itself holistic, being an overall, qualitative assessment originating from both quantity and quality. Continuing…
Merit includes conquest of challenge. The challenge component could actually be called “numbers”-based, since it is itself a quotient, dependent on dividend and divisor. Example: in D2’s senior class, 18 applied to UCLA. Six of them, including my D, got in. Among the 12 not admitted were some with higher SAT scores than D. What did she have in greater quantity? Having overcome three major, major challenges in her life. (Not necessary to go into detail here.) In addition, she had many compensating achievements with quantitative markers – high-level awards and leadership – among those other achievements. Her GPA was 3.8 – darned good for someone with three diagnosed LD’s who refused all accommodations. Her other two challenges were far more severe than that, by the way.