This is a good point. However, I also remember when one of the admissions officers from the top 20 university then took a job as an admissions officer at a private high school. Needless to say that person making a phone call to his former employer would probably make a difference.
1 Like
This was one of the results of the recent studies done by Chetty et al. When they implemented a bunch of controls for test scores and demographics, it ended up that out of their four secondary school categories (relatively disadvantaged publics, advantaged publics, religious privates, and non-religious privates), non-religious privates had the highest controlled Ivy-Plus placement rates, and actually advantaged publics had the worst, lower than both disadvantaged publics and religious privates, but again this is AFTER controls (not before).
When they dug in further, they found that applicants from advantaged publics on a controlled basis were getting at least the same (actually a bit better) academic ratings as the applicants from non-religious privates. But then the applicants from non-religious privates were getting high non-academic ratings at much higher rates, and that did a very good job explaining the admissions results.
And then that difference in the rate of high non-academic ratings was in turn at least in part explainable by more extraordinarily good counselor and teacher recommendations.
Long story short, a system which is able to produce very strong counselor/teacher support for a school’s top students can help them get admitted at far higher rates to Ivy-Plus sorts of colleges than their academic ratings and demographics alone can explain. And this is in fact one of the main reasons why controlled placement rates in such colleges are higher at non-religious privates as opposed to advantaged publics.
I personally think it is quite reasonable to ask whether any of this is really “fair”. But fair or not, it appears to be effective at increasing highly selective holistic review placement rates.
3 Likes
Certainly it seems like the days where the relationships were so close at certain feeder schools that the official at the secondary school could basically pick which graduating student would go where for college with a high degree of accuracy seem to be largely gone.
But I think what the studies and such have been showing is that what I like to call “feederish” practices still work. Feederish practices don’t work that predictably on an individual level. But statistically, they end up with notably higher controlled placement rates, even controlling for academic ratings, at any given “tier” of highly-selective college.
1 Like
agree there are exceptions, but wondering what the norm has become? my son’s counselor claims that colleges (except for a couple) are not willing to share admit results prior to the student being notified. unrelated, but that seems different from private school counselors speaking in detail about each applicant… the way it may have been at one time, way back when.
are we witnessing an evolution? i understand there will always be relationships and connections.
1 Like