<p>My kids would not have gotten into half the schools that accepted them without holistic admissions.</p>
<p>Withering comments about 2-ply toilet paper might be clever, but they aren’t addressing the legitimate question Bel just raised (much as I disagree with his larger premise). We’re all spending our free time on a site about college admissions. I’m pretty sure the “why do you care?” ship has sailed. </p>
<p>So, how have the SATs been “discredited?” They’ve been put in context, yes, and hopefully people realize that scores don’t exist in a vacuum. But in a very rough way, they still tell you something, especially if you compare the score of one student to the score of another from a similar background.</p>
<p>When an admissions committee is selecting a class of incoming freshmen or transfers, the bottom line is always going to be “can the student do the work?” Their collective goal beyond making an interesting class is making sure those kids have the ability to graduate within a reasonable amount of time. </p>
<p>Those students on the lower end of the 3.0 side if the unweighted grading scale are not going to be as admission worthy for a Cal reader as a 4.0. That said, those students with subpar 500 CR, 500 Math and 500 writing are going to have a much less likely shot of being admitted to Cal. The academic rigor of the school is high. </p>
<p>Can a 3.2 kid with a 1500 combined SAT get into Cal? I do not know any that have. </p>
<p>The question is, and always be, will that student survive at Cal? </p>
<p>Things have changed much in the last 5 or 6 years for UC admissions. Students with weighted high 3.75 or more could get in. Now I see kids with 4.5 gpas get turned down.</p>
<p>Fit and thrive. Be empowered. Make some contribution beyond the classrooms and labs. It comes through in the app- or not. If it didn’t matter to the U, all they would ask for is your name and contact and a copy of the transcript and scores. It does matter to the competitive U’s. Regardless of whether everyone agrees.</p>
<p>I’m still searching for some apt analogy. So far, I can compare this to buying a car. No matter what, you could so all the research, look at stats, the sorts of testing, and recommendations- and still get a lemon. Or one that doesn’t quite meet all the conditions you subject it to.</p>
<p>Re #339 by sally305: As I understood it, applicant #4 was admitted. He just didn’t get the top ranking. I see no problem with that.</p>
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<p>Myth#1 - The SAT tests intelligence. Princeton Review claims it does not.</p>
<p>Since the SAT fails, I think it’s quite logical to turn attention to other areas of selection. Holistic areas if you will. Way too many students/people are getting hung up about having a 150 point higher SAT score. 50 points across three sections is meaningless.</p>
<p>Needed you here, QM. Did you see the physics comments?</p>
<p>To be consistent, I guess I’d have to say PR isn’t authoritative. But there are plenty of critiques of the SAT to be found. It only tests what it tests, from the perspective that has been adopted.</p>
<p>soso - The SAT does not test intelligence in the sense that other IQ tests do. It tests college academic readiness as stated by the College Board.</p>
<p>You cannot say the SAT fails though. If it fails why the UC require it? UCB requires more SAT tests than other lower UCs.</p>
<p>I don’t align myself with the opinions of californiaa (and haven’t read all of the posts at this point). Nevertheless, californiaaa has made a few observations that are valid, in my opinion. Except where indicated, my opinion is just based on 40-ish years of observations and not on real data–so take it for what it’s worth.</p>
<p>1) For a talented, science-focused student, it does seem to be easier to gain admission to the HYPSM group of universities (+ others that belong in this category, depending on the field of study) as a graduate student than as an undergrad. </p>
<p>2) American universities, even near the very top, have fairly large numbers of international students in the graduate programs in STEM fields. It is good for US universities to have international representation among the grad students. </p>
<p>3) There are some fields where a very large fraction of the Ph.D.s go to foreign students. I don’t have the data immediately at hand, but this comment is based on statistical data.</p>
<p>4) However, I do not think it is desirable for universities if a majority of the students in a STEM field come from other countries. I think this is often hard on the undergraduates, due to differences in educational experiences in STEM fields abroad vs. in the US. For example, I had a grad student who needed to take some E&M courses. We weren’t sure where she should start. So I pulled out a few texts. When she looked at the textbook for the senior-level E&M course, she covered her mouth to hide a smile, and then said, “Oh, I think this is very easy, because I learned this in high school.” So suppose that you are an American physics major who is struggling a bit with some aspect of E&M in the senior-level course, and you go to your TA for help . . . I have a faculty colleague originally from the EU who was reported to say, “American students are stupid,” with regard to our grad students–this was hearsay, so perhaps he didn’t say exactly that. This person is unlikely to be a generous mentor to Americans who start out a little behind, however.</p>
<p>5) Having a majority of foreign graduate students is more likely to happen as you go down the list of universities ranked–by individual field–in recent NRC rankings. (A recent NRC multi-factor analysis of ratings of the universities shows that having large numbers of foreign students is anti-correlated with rankings in many fields.)</p>
<p>6) I think it is desirable to have large numbers of American students in STEM graduate programs. I would like to have people in STEM fields who truly cherish the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights (and other rights, which are not disparaged, though not enumerated). Beyond that, I would like to have people in STEM fields who genuinely <em>expect</em> those rights. You are more likely to find the former (cherishing) than the latter (expecting) among the foreign students. This is not because I think STEM is so all-fired important (to reply ahead of time to a likely comment by Pizzagirl). Rather, it is because the range of employment of STEM Ph.D.'s involves many opportunities to protect or not protect those rights (to build them into the systems, or not).</p>
<p>Now, I think it is equally important for people in many other areas than STEM to cherish and expect those rights. However, I am aware of a high representation of foreign grad students in STEM fields, and not in law schools, business schools, history or literature grad programs, social work programs, elementary education . . . If the representation of foreign students in any of those areas exceeds 30%, I will happily add them to the fields where I think that increasing the proportion of Americans is important.</p>
<p>I didn’t say the SAT tested intelligence (although intelligence helps). If your haven’t learned algebra or geometry past a certain point, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, there are going to be a lot of questions you can’t even attempt to answer. If you grew up with parents with a minimal English background or marginal literacy, you probably aren’t going to have the vocabulary to do really well on the verbal section.</p>
<p>But education matters. I have no problem with admitting the somewhat lower scoring student from a disadvantaged background. You don’t see a lot of non-hooked white kids getting into elite schools with a 1300 M+CR, but someone with a 1300 has good enough skills to do just fine almost anywhere. In fact, the 1300 might well have been a 1400 with the tutoring that an upper middle class kid is far likelier to have gotten. In any case, at that level, the deficiencies in education relative to higher scoring applicants aren’t so severe that they can’t be made up for with a combination of effort and better education - the former of which the student has already shown, and the latter of which the university can provide.</p>
<p>On the other hand, past a certain point, it doesn’t matter that what is holding you back is education rather than intelligence. A university simply can’t compensate for years of educational neglect. I’m sure there are plenty of naturally bright, illiterate people out there, but that doesn’t mean they belong in college. Fortunately, the situation in the cases we are talking about isn’t as severe - but there are a lot of colleges out there, and I don’t see why, when we’re talking about scores this low, it has to be Berkeley, or why that is better for either the students in question or for Berkeley.</p>
<p>I don’t know whether the undergrad admissions practices of the “top tier” American universities contribute to a reduction of the number of American citizens and permanent residents in STEM graduate programs. It might be interesting to design a study of this issue. I doubt that it is a major contributor, however.</p>
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<p>I had believed californiaa was wrong about that, but after just a brief google search discovered she is correct, for Science graduate programs. I was particularly interested in admit rates for MD/PhD programs since I had been under the mistaken impression these programs were more highly competitive than they seem to be.</p>
<p>With regard to the question, “If the profs are dissatisfied with the quality of the undergrads, why don’t they do something about it?”</p>
<p>I think there are multiple reasons for this. First, the profs are not necessarily informed about the admissions office practices, nor about the qualifications of applicants who are rejected on non-academic grounds. A number of my colleagues at “top flight” schools first gained the kind of information that is common on CC when their own children applied for undergrad admission.</p>
<p>Second, although people who are top-flight in research often do take a kindly interest in undergrads, I believe that the quality of the undergrads is not really that important to them. Most of the top flight schools have undergrads who are plenty good enough, even if there is an occasional super-star I would like to see treated better, by admissions personnel. STEM faculty essentially live and die by the quality of their own personal work, that of their post-docs, that of their graduate students, and in some fields, that of their technicians, or other support staff–or the university administrators who make the decisions about new buildings and shared (major) equipment. The quality of the undergrads is essentially incidental to them, in terms of their research. This doesn’t mean that they will teach poorly, or be unwilling to spend time advising undergrads, or working with them in the lab–just that for the faculty, this is all service that very rarely if ever advances their work. </p>
<p>When it comes to the grad students in STEM fields, the foreign students tend to be just as effective–if not more so–as American grad students. The larger picture, where our cherished freedoms come in, is unlikely to be a top consideration in populating a research group.</p>
<p>One of my senior colleagues advised me to “pick my fights” back when I was an Assistant Professor. In my opinion, he was right about this. One can’t “fix” everything in the university that one might like to improve.</p>
<p>I’d put the MD/Ph.D. programs in a separate category from other STEM programs, because I believe that the proportion of American students is is much higher than in programs that lead exclusively to the Ph.D.</p>
<p>Right. I just mention it because californiaa used it as an example of easier admissions than undergraduate and I am acknowledging my ignorance in telling her I doubted her post on the subject.</p>
<p>I’m really going to do my best to just read and not participate in this thread.</p>
<p>ETA: However, from this point on I will be reading with great interest. :)</p>
<p>Wondering if the easier bit about grad programs is because now they are dealing with somewhat of a proven commodity, in theory- meaning, not a hs kid who may or may not have even taken/completed AP physics at the time of application, may not have tested him/herself with regard to the challenges, mindset and team aspects.</p>
<p>AP, one of the markers we look for, in some kids from educationally not-privileged backgrounds, is the ability to seek help. And to move forward with the benefit of that help. It can suggest he/she will continue to draw on resources, as needed. Many of these kids are also out there offering help, in various ways. And there is often a pattern of stretching and testing themselves. There is no one spot in the CA/supp for this, but it can often be discerned. And is often mentioned in LoRs, in some way. We get some very bright kids who have the seeming stats, but didn’t push/test- and are clearly better suited for someplace where they can be a big fish in a less competitive pond.</p>
<p>You may have a valid point about the “proven commodity” at the time of application to grad programs, lookingforward.’</p>
<p>On the “good news” side, I suppose the advice boils down to: If you are interested in a STEM field and you are really promising, do well wherever you wind up going, and you will find grad admissions more straightforward.</p>
<p>In a long career, I have seen a few very bright students (maybe one every 5 or 6 years, on average) who didn’t complete their undergrad degrees with the kind of record that would help them gain admission to very strong graduate programs. But for the most part, the students who looked really strong coming in (to a non-elite program) looked strong when they graduated and went on to top-flight grad programs.</p>
<p>I suppose another factor could be that the number of students in the entering grad cohort at some of the top places is larger than the number of undergrads majoring in the field, in any given year.</p>
<p>With regard to the sizes of the grad vs. undergrad programs, math may differ from science/engineering fields where having a lot of “hands” in the lab is beneficial. This may mean that math differs in the relative ease of undergrad vs. grad admissions.</p>
<p>well, I’m still pretty sure it is more difficult to get into at least some non-science graduate programs than into the same university for undergraduate studies. Sometimes I know this for a fact. For the last few days, I’ve been frankly rather amazed at the admit rates for science graduate programs.</p>
<p>off topic though, and I’m sitting on my fingers now.</p>
<p>Yes, outside of STEM, I have the impression that things are different with regard to graduate admissions.</p>