Holistic Admissions at Berkeley

<p>"Fwiw, it might be good to remember what the number of AP is for the … successful Stanford applicant. The (very low) number at the school that has now become the most selective in the nation might be quite surprising in a world of 10 to 15 APers! "</p>

<p>BTW, the student who famously/infamously took 18 AP exams in one year (2012) was actually accepted by Stanford. </p>

<p>I guess occasionally one can have the cake and eat it too.</p>

<p>So dietz, just how desirable do you think the “top” schools would be if they continued to favor privileged white men? Where would they all find prospective spouses? What would they do for fun? Or put another way, what guy today would want to go to such a school?</p>

<p>(Maybe I should ask the students at Wabash College, which is one of a handful of all-male institutions left anymore.)</p>

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<p>And so was the applicant who famously wrote that tortilla essay and was accepted by GSB. After plenty of copycats, the GSB people decided to put them out their misery by sharing the applicant had received the positive nod DESPITE the poor choice in essay. </p>

<p>No real surprise that one might have been accepted despite showing poor judgment in terms of AP sittings. The reality remains that the average AP is well below … four.</p>

<p>PS I could easily come up with a statistical analysis that shows that the overwhelming majority of students who take more than 5 APs are rejected at Stanford (or Harvard if it matters.) With rejections about 18 to 19 for every 1 acceptance, there is a good chance that the law of averages works in my favor. :)</p>

<p>So after the tortilla essay was publicized by the student, then GSB came forward and said they didn’t like the essay but took the student in spite of the essay.</p>

<p>Sounds like PR to me.</p>

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<p>If the student did well on the 18 AP exams, why was it “poor judgement”? Maybe he just wanted to test his limits and enjoyed the challenge. I personally don’t understand people who run marathons but would not accuse them of poor judgement.</p>

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<p>That would not be unique to Stanford. <a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/number_of_exams_per_student_2012.pdf[/url]”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/number_of_exams_per_student_2012.pdf&lt;/a&gt; says that, for 2012, 92% of AP test takers took 3 or fewer AP tests. Counting tests taken over the four year period from 2009-2012, 78% of AP test takers took 3 or fewer tests. Fewer than 0.1% took 10 or more in 2012, and 0.5% took 10 or more over 2009-2012.</p>

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<p>That is not the way the story unfolded. You seem to have missed the part of the poor essay spawning many copycats. Stanford finally showed mercy and shared the essay was not the reason why the applicant was admitted. </p>

<p>Spend some time on a forum dedicated to elite business school admission --hint, one such site is owned by the company that hosts this one-- and you will see why the story grew overnight legs.</p>

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<p>That is a superbly poor analogy. The marathon is one exercise that is measured by one’s ability and dedication to run 26 miles. College applications are not about hoarding an asinine bunch of AP classes. If you happen to think that such collection is either normal or a recommended course of action, I am not sure what to tell you. </p>

<p>Perhaps it might be helpful to understand that it would require more than 4 AP for each year of HS starting with the freshman year, or six for the sophomore through senior year.</p>

<p>PS I realize that it is possible to self-study and present the AP exam without being in an AP class.</p>

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Stanford admissions has made statements that they do not consider more APs neccesarly better or even healthy, but they do request that students challenge themselves with available classes at their HS. The Parchment data fits with this statement. Specific admit rates by number of APs for Stanford using Parchment data are below. I’ve only included upper the upper stat group with a >2000 SAT and top 7% class rank (GPA filtering doesn’t work for me). In this limited sample size of a unique group (Parchment users aren’t any more typical apps than CC posters are), the rate of acceptance seems to almost flatline once you reach ~4 APs.</p>

<p>0-1 APs : 12%
2-3 APs : 9%
4-5 APs : 17%
6-7 APs : 16%
8-9 APs : 18%
10-11 APs : 18%</p>

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<p>There was one person within the data who claims to have done 30s APs. He was rejected at both Stanford and Harvard.</p>

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<p>Probably not too surprising… more than 4 or 5 APs probably means loading up on a lot of “AP lite” courses/tests. But, at a typical high school where AP courses are the most rigorous options available, fewer than 4 or 5 may indicate a student not taking the most challenging schedule available.</p>

<p>What % of hs in the country offer ANY AP classes? There’s a perennial blindness on CC to rural high schools and inner city high schools.</p>

<p>But to reach a huge number, it’s self studying- which I personally am not impressed by unless it’s specifically related to a potential major and a class not offered at the high school or via DE. Unlike the chat on chance-me threads, after the core APs, we do look for relevance. One chancer recently told a kid it only takes a couple of weeks to earn a 5 in AP psych. Faulty attitude. Just sayin’.</p>

<p>There are APs in rural and inner city schools- sometimes limited to one or two. Can’t speak for how widespread.</p>

<p>sally

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<p>Well, then it would become a self regulating system…</p>

<p>Those white guys would not longer find it attractive, therefore creating a less competitive system for other applicants. (who ironically seem to find the system those white men created to be such an elite and attractive one. odd huh?). Someone else asked (Sally?) what if the 'elite’s promised to take only those with 2400 SAT with 4.5 GPA scores…supposedly again this would result in sooo many no longer wanting to attend. Again, self regulating system which would be great! But, the ‘elite’ status would be watered down because if you do not fulfill the stated and transparently provided guides for the applicant pool - then why apply? Heck, who knows, some kids might actually take what is of interest in HS, participate in their own childhoods and not worry about the perfectly crafted essay (okay, okay…I know the highly qualified would not need to do that anyway because…well…they are highly qualified and driven and are able to fit 25 hours of work into a day, be captain of the sports team and feed small hungry animals while still sleeping the recommended 9 hrs.)</p>

<p>So in answer to your question…those that did not find the ‘new’ system to their liking would go elsewhere. Those that knew right off the bat they don’t qualify could expend all the life force on more soul feeding instead of soul draining activities. But the ‘elite’ schools would risk losing that standing due to a decrease in applicants. But…and here is a big question…would the quality of the teaching, the amount of donor funding and the perceived value drop. If so, again a good thing because those wonderful person and $$ resources would go elsewhere…maybe where the ‘elite’ are not.</p>

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<p>For whatever reason, even low performing (rural and urban/suburban) high schools in California tend to offer AP courses (in typical subject areas like English, math, history, and Spanish, although not so much the large collection of “AP lite” courses that have proliferated recently). However, publicly available data is sparse on how many students take them, and how well they do in the course and corresponding AP test.</p>

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<p>Are these number of AP classes taken, number of AP exams taken, or number of AP exams with scores exceeding some threshold?</p>

<p>As of 2011, 54.2 percent of public high schools across the nation offer AP or IB courses in the four core subject areas (English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. </p>

<p><a href=“College Board Foundation | Home”>College Board Foundation | Home;

<p>Thanks for the information, bclintonk, PG, and others. I didn’t realize that IBM had so many employees. I guess that Big Blue is really . . . Big.</p>

<p>I am not sure that IBM is representative of Fortune 50 companies, though. I looked up a Fortune 50 company familiar to me, and found that it has slightly over 50,000 employees counting part-timers–so it’s about one-tenth the size of IBM. I am not sure about the split in terms of employees with and without college degrees, nor about the full-time/part-time split for it. If they are hiring 1,000+ college grads in a single year, I think I would know more people receiving offers from them.</p>

<p>I have made hiring decisions, but I have typically hired one or two faculty members in any given year, for my department. (The largest number of offers in a given year has been 4 or 5.) This is a large, public research university. I wouldn’t expect this type of hiring to run anything like college admissions, and indeed it does not.</p>

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<p>Since my children are high-SES I’m actually trying to reduce their social mobility :slight_smile: .</p>