<p>It’s clear that they range from mid-20’s (graduate from class of 2004) through several decades older (graduate from class of 1980.) One of the officers is a graduate of the class of 98 who mentions in her bio that she herself did not even starting thinking about college until she was 25–I assume she was a McBride Scholar (Bryn Mawr’s program for nontraditional age students.) Since her photo obscures her face behind her computer, it’s impossible to tell how old she is, but if she didn’t start thinking about college until age 25 and graduated in the class of 98, she’s obviously had quite a bit of life experience.</p>
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<p>The reality is that many of the older admissions officers have family responsibilities that make such travel tough, while young officers are more “foot-loose and fancy-free” and able to go jaunting around the country to do these traveling dog-and-pony shows.</p>
<p>I must say that I was never very impressed with any of the traveling dog-and-pony shows I attended (and some of the ones I attended did have older staff running them, though I agree they were in the minority), but I have been quite impressed with the admissions weblogs I’ve read, particularly the MIT ones. And older does not always equal better. </p>
<p>Some colleges even have current students as admissions readers. When balanced with the judgment of more experienced readers, I think there’s a place for them as well. In particular, cc poster Ben Golub strikes me as someone to have likely been a thoughtful and perspicacious admissions reader during his stint as a Caltech undergrad.</p>
<p>This isn’t rocket science, it isn’t brain surgery, it’s a very human and fallible and highly decentralized process.</p>
<p>I suppose that I have been spoiled by living in one of the more populous cities of one of the more populous areas of the country. There should be some trade off for having to put up with the traffic and the smog!</p>
<p>I’d disagree with you that this is necisarrily a bad thing, though. Obviously, the Yale rep was poorly chosen. But, going into the beginning of my senior year, Brown and Wesleyan were my top choices, Brown just winning. At the info session at my school, Brown sent a more seasoned officer. The session was clear, well presented…and didn’t give me any REAL incite into the school, since I knew the basic info from having visited. </p>
<p>Wesleyan, OTOH, sent someone who had just graduated the year before. She was smart, articulate, able to talk honestly about life at Wes, and was, well, COOL. I loved her, and she mad Wes sound great. She was absolutely my favorite person I had met during all my school visits and info sessions…and that INCLUDED all the undergrads I had met at an overnight at Brown. I thought “wow, if this is the kind of person Wes sends to represent them, maybe I want to go there most.” Then I visited overnight and met a bunch of other undergrads who were also really awesome, and the deal was sealed. </p>
<p>She also gave a regional meeting for parents and students, and did a good job there too–my parents were very impresed.</p>
<p>So, my point is, I think having young reps who can really talk about what going to school at their school is like can be a really good thing, as long as they are chosen carefully (which clearly did not happen properly at Yale). </p>
<p>(Interestingly, at the one college fair I went to, the Wes rep WAS older, and the only person there who I felt was rude).</p>
<p>If I were running a college and I had tens of thousands of qualified kids applying for a small thousand openings I sure as heck wouldn’t send a highly compensated seasoned admissions rep out across the country “drumming up” more applicants. “Drumming up” more applicants would not be a high priority. Secondly, if I were a college president, it’s a perfectly made entry level job for a recent grad. They get the experience of traveling and can return some market experience, they get experieince speaking one on one and in large groups, and they are responsible for something they are eminently familiar with - the college experience.</p>
<p>My son is a member of the class of '09 and thus won’t be told whether he’s accepted or rejected for another year. Because of that, I know many of you will tell me to keep my opinions to myself. But for what it’s worth, I think parents whose kids have been rejected from the schools they thought they’d get into need to stop and take a deep breath. LIFE IS DISAPPOINTING. The sorts of kids whose numbers and resumes indicated they’d likely get in to HYPS and the like may have been fortunate enough to have avoided many disappointments thus far, but we as adults KNOW from experience that eventually everyone’s “life isn’t fair” number comes up. I can only imagine how painful it is to see one’s child suffering over being rejected by one or more schools, and I am quite certain it will happen to me in another year. And no, it isn’t fair that the process can’t offer the desired spot to every single child who is completely qualified to go to his or her dream school. But it is what it is. What parents can offer their children that the children aren’t old enough to have developed on their own is perspective. And perhaps it will be easier for parents to do that if they take a second to recognize just how they got that perspective: by suffering terrible disappointments and seeing that life goes on, happy times come again, and that life is about far more than achievements.</p>
<p>Please take my comments in the spirit in which they were given: not to say that parents are wrong to be angry with the system, but rather to encourage disappointed families to see the potential for your children in even the most bruising of events.</p>
<p>Epiphany, I agree with you that students need to diversify their lists. I would start by suggesting that most of those setting their sights on Ivy and such start seriously considering some of the other so-called “Top 20” that offer very lucrative merit scholarships.</p>
<p>I didn’t really mean to sound like I was “condemning” any particular institutions. I do feel it is extremely unfortunate that the successful application too often rests on understanding a system that is very, very foreign to the vast majority of high school seniors and their parents. I apologize for the dismissive tone of my remark to you: I think you understand the system very well and any student lucky enough to get your help is quite fortunate. It is a big country though, and unless you can be cloned many times over, a lot of very talented, even brilliant, students will be denied admission simply because they didn’t know how to play the game. </p>
<p>lilcath, I’m not angry because of personal experience. My son’s results were very good. This isn’t a personal complaint from me.</p>
<p>AND speaking of Ben Golub, where is that guy? I wouldn’t complain about Ben on any admission committee, but then again, Ben and I agreed on some important points regarding which qualifications mattered and which were PR type fluff.</p>
<p>Good luck to all of you who will be experiencing the college search in the future. And take my advice and go for merit scholarships if your kid is really at or near the top.</p>
<p>I do understand whereof you speak (regarding lack of common knowledge), but that’s especially why I believe that a diverse list is essential, and I certainly agree with you about “top 20”(& more) alternatives, particularly those distributing merit scholarships. I do not share in the disapproval some others have of merit scholarships. They reward hard work from any income level, & they are one (inadequate) way to ‘level the playing field.’</p>
<p>My son had a diverse list - he was not chasing the Ivies. We did a TON of research and he had a very realistic array of schools based on every little piece of information we could find including and beyond SATs and GPAs. If we want to change kids’ points of view about applying to colleges, we have to start well before junior year. Kids from the 08 class have not been oblivious to the media attention to the constantly changing and growing requirements to get into A college one desires to attend, even some state universities. </p>
<p>In addition to colleges being a little more accountable to their customers (students and parents, ARE some of their customers), they can ensure that their admissions officers have some training that enables them have perspective on different life circumstances. Everyone who grows up poor is not at a disadvantage and everyone who grows up with two working parents is not advantaged, for example. Teenage boys do not act or make choices like teenage girls, a simple difference but does the 22 year old female admissions officer really “get” that? These are the kinds of things I am thinking about when I say that 22 is just too young to be making decisions based on “circumstances” and not based on GPA, SATs, ECs, etc. </p>
<p>Also, not all parents are created equal. To say that a student must have a parent involved and researching details about schools that are not in their brochures or viewbooks presumes that everyone has a parent who can do this, who believes he/she should do this and has the time to do this. If parents and students need to do this level of research to have an equal chance of admission then schools need to be more transparent.</p>
<p>I want to follow up here. I work with many new immigrant families and many truly disadvantaged families. Some of the children I work with are taking care of their parents, essentially. These kids will be lucky to fill out a college application with their guidance counselor at a big, underfunded, urban public school. When I hear sophisticated parents say that other parents have to take responsibility and do their research I just shake my head - everyone doesn’t have a capable or able parent, or one who is reading CC!</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t think the fact that admin officers are young is that unbearable. What mid 30-40 yr olds are going to be lining up for admissions positions. Selective school’s acceptances are going to get lower but keep in mind that as schools age they become more prestigious and gain greater connections regardless. The job of top admissions officers is to select students who are most likely to attend and have a strong sense of drive in what they want to pursue, I don’t believe it is as radical as selecting a perfect class that is intensely economically and socially diverse. Many people who attend schools like the Ivy’s presents a background that seems fitting and unique.</p>
<p>For Example:
My school is not VERY competitive and sends about 1-3 kids to an Ivy school (for example) each year, granted we have a class size of about 850 per graduating year, but nevertheless. </p>
<p>Student A last year 2007: male
Outstanding student who was extremely into math and science, was not in top 5 students (still top 1%), walked into honors physics and quickly got a 100% yet still decided to take an extra-credit opportunity to build a current generator connected to a light bulb, participated and destroyed math competitions, performed well on standardized tests, put ample time in for essays and is currently at Princeton. </p>
<p>Student B 2006: male
The best tennis player to come out of our school easily in the last 20 years, Highest GPA one could possibly attain (5.0/4.0w), which included dropping 2 years of lunches and taking AP classes, only kid to skip Pre-calc & trig class which is normally required to go into higher AP math, valedictorian, 5 on every AP test, 34 ACT, was not accepted to one Ivy. He went to Notre Dame undecided, transferred to UPenn where he is now content with the level of prestige the school has (where Notre Dame was “crushing” for him) and recently decided on pursuing a Chem major with strong intent to switch as he is unsure and must select a major. last minute essays.</p>
<p>Student C 2005:
Same as above but not as intense with dropping lunches, etc, more artsy kid- minus sports for interest in foreign cultures through clubs etc, 36 ACT, spent months writing essays and rewriting (one about how women shouldn’t shave their legs or something) BAM Harvard</p>
<p>which 2 seem the most qualified for these select (<10%) admissions?</p>
<p>^^
Perhaps it isn’t fair that some parents are involved, but to turn the tables a bit towards the ORM, white females that got decimated in admissions at our ethnically/racially mixed middle class neighborhood high school this year. Way above and beyond ANYTHING our school district has ever seen before, if this what it is, why should an instate kid be denied to ALL of their match safeties, have to fork over OOS no FA because the kid was given bad advice by the GC and the parent thought the GC was making the right choices.
Yeah my d best friend solidly good student got in NOWHERE in state that she applied to, so, if this girls parents took charge perhaps she would have better options. perhaps the kids you work with probably faired much better, schools trip over an underprivelaged kid. </p>
<p>If the cards are stacked against your kid, you have no choice.</p>
<p>You are right about that. I toy with the idea that full professors should be given reprieves from teaching duties for a year, on a rotating basis, in return for serving on admissions committees. The major problem is that getting them to work together might resemble trying to herd cats.</p>
<p>But I really am only half kidding. A lot of professors have raised/are raising high school kids, so they are knowledgeable about hs course options, ec’s, other activities, and they know what they want to see in their classrooms and laboratories.</p>
<p>Many are not going to care a lot about winning sports teams.</p>
This may be true at many but not all colleges. Ted O’Neill at Chicago was quoted as saying that he has no idea what the class looks like until the admit process is over. They look at individual fit into what Chicago is, rather than put any effort into building a class.</p>
<p>Oddly, our public inner city HS, where S1 attended & S2 attends, has a good track record of placing in top schools. For example, of the 8 who applied to Harvard, 5 were accepted. The other Ivy’s and equivalents acceptance rates are about the same. About 190 out of 400 kids get into very good colleges, 90% of students attend college. Few of the kids have national EC’s or have won major awards, etc. There does not seem to be much pressure or angst. I sometimes wonder if this why this, in many respects unexceptional, school does so well in college placement.</p>
<p>CBK - I hear you. I am sure my son (who applied to overly male solicited engineering) is also at a disadvantage for being a white suburban male in an over-represented Northeast region. Yes, girls were highly disadvantaged this year and that is really unfair at state schools. This is why I call for some reform or realignment (self-discovery) in admissions. There are so many reasons. At what point do state schools and even U.S. schools ensure that their citizens have appropriate access to their instituations? There are clearly well-qualified U.S. students being turned away from the engineering schools in favor of international students, at a very high percentage at some schools. I understand the need and desire for international admissions but are they out of line with current demographics? I surely don’t know but to me there are enough concerns about the admissions process, in light of demographics and even economics, that reform and/or self-review might be helpful.</p>
<p>I think you are spot on with your comment. When do we “make sure that our US schools are ensuring that their citizens have appropriate access to their institutions.” After all, these schools are free of taxation as non for profits. </p>
<p>Furthermore, it seems like the markers for determining a class at any particular school are dramatically changing. Do the schools really understand how their incoming class will vary from previous years? Let’s face it, anyone can read the criteria for making it into a particular school and use it as a blueprint. BUT, do you want to let your child’s unique educational opportunity be decided by a moving target? To tailor a child’s educational choices to follow a blueprint (such as acceptance into HYPS), only to find at acceptance time that it was no longer valid, because everyone has been following it, is a sad statement on education in general.</p>
<h1>If I were running a college and I had tens of thousands of qualified kids applying for a small thousand openings I sure as heck wouldn’t send a highly compensated seasoned admissions rep out across the country “drumming up” more applicants. “Drumming up” more applicants would not be a high priority. Secondly, if I were a college president, it’s a perfectly made entry level job for a recent grad. They get the experience of traveling and can return some market experience, they get experieince speaking one on one and in large groups, and they are responsible for something they are eminently familiar with - the college experience.</h1>
<p>Rallying the potential apps is a way to make $$ and to advertise a brand. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took one look at your folder/skipped all the info and then just tossed it out in less then 60seconds. Those ~70$ dollars are used to send you a 45cent reject letter (someplaces don’t even do that b/c of email). The rest of the money they pocket! </p>
<p>This is what i assume they do… most likely wrong but I doubt it’s far from the truth. </p>
<p>Mid-career professional collegiate administrators at top schools are not going to be going around the country drumming up cash at $70 a pop. It’s simply not worth it for them, not worth their time or effort. That’s not that much money, it’s not a major revenue driver for the university. And you can advertise a brand in much better ways. The value-add of having a gray-haired veteran doing the roadshows as opposed to a 22-year-old newly-minted grad is not very high. Sorry, I just don’t think your statement has the ring of truth.</p>
<p>Better to send the recent grad on the roadshow and have the Director-level staff doing higher-end tasks, such as:
crafting new statements, initiatives or content for distribution
speaking with other administrators at the school, or development-class alums
teaching the younger officers the ropes
brand-building activities like TV appearances, newspaper articles, etc
business process improvement</p>
<p>and so on. there are so many things that an experienced professional can do that add a lot more value. let the 22-year-olds book 40,000 miles a year on their car.</p>
<p>Incredibly sad replies to the author Jager-Hyman in the comment section below the article “Don’t Take It Personally”:</p>
<p>Comment 1: “. . . Maybe that was the case ten or even twenty years ago. Back then, the difference between the student who got accepted and the student who was rejected was probably 100-300 points on the SATs, 0.2-0.5 points in GPA and maybe a few extracurriculars . Now students like me get the sense that decisions are made based on how much the school likes the applicant. If you get a rejection, that’s basically the equivalent of telling someone “We don’t like you.” And that’s tough for any teenager to hear, especially after years in high school when we’ve faced similar problems with fitting in or not.”</p>
<p>Comment 2: “You might say so, but I DO take it personally. I had high SAT scores, a good GPA (with tons of AP and honors classes). And that’s not even the beginning. I did the majority of the work in a graduate level research project involving prostate cancer. I also published a case study project my sophomore year. I loved all of these activities and I knew if I did my part on the SATs and in class, my participation in all of this would ensure my admission into a top school. Unfortunately it did not work the way I wanted it to ? a rejection from five Ivy League schools yesterday. It’s pretty tough, I don’t know what I did wrong. Now I have doubts in my true academic potential because five schools believed I wasn’t good enough to be a part of their rich history.”</p>
<p>I think these students have a point. I get that the schools are “building a class” and perhaps, for example, had room in their ideal class for one female Asian violin playing physics major. But whatever made them choose between more than one girl with very similar stats and backgrounds is completely subjective, really more of how much they “liked” one candidate over the other. When some of these kids ended up getting 8 rejections to schools they were very qualified to attend, it stinks, it hurts and there is a “personal” element to it.</p>
<p>Maybe we need to stop telling our kids “Work hard. Get that 4.0. Take as many AP classes as you can. With those stellar scores you can go to whatever college you want.” For some top notch, star students with perfect credentials it just doesn’t work out that way!</p>
<p>‘Maybe we need to stop telling our kids “Work hard. Get that 4.0. Take as many AP classes as you can. With those stellar scores you can go to whatever college you want.”’</p>
<p>It’s been awhile since this has been true, actually – long before the echo boomers became seniors in high school, it wasn’t true. So I don’t know who “we” would be; I certainly didn’t tell my children that.</p>
<p>Let’s put it another way: “working hard,” + maximum AP allowable courses, + “stellar scores” do not a student make (necessarily). At least, colleges do not see it that way, based on their experience. The scholar is defined by more than that, but may include that, maybe not – in individual cases. The true scholar, broadly & deeply speaking, still has an advantage at every illustrious institution, here & overseas, versus the non-scholar. But there are lots of markers for scholar, as well as for achiever, as well as for leader (all 3 different things). And neither scores nor titles are necessarily the strongest indicators for any of those elements.</p>
<p>idad, I think Ted O’Neill of U of Chicago was being a bit disingenuous. Did you read the rest of my quote from Dan Weiss?</p>
<p>“He went on to state that his previous employer, Johns Hopkins, could have assembled a class that consisted of all brilliant, talented, qualified kids, all of whom wanted to major in Bio or Pre-Med - but that wouldn’t have made for a good college experience for any of them.”</p>
<p>I highly doubt that Univ of Chicago doesn’t at least check that they have a rough balance between their different majors/areas of study.</p>