Holistic Admissions at Berkeley

Parents Forum
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<p>"Which of three given students you would choose for your lab right now is not terribly relevant to the discussion, since the university isn’t just worrying about your lab. "</p>

<p>Exactly my point. AOs do not care about my lab and other Ph.D. programs. Next, Ph.D. students are imported from China, en mass. </p>

<p>I agree that H should be able to select their students. Ballet departments as well. STEM majors have to have a bigger say in the selection of potential students.</p>

<p>Again, my perfect student, is someone, who has an exposure to college classes during his HS years. It could be even MOOC, or any other online class. It’s OK if he got B or C in organic chemistry, for example, if he wants to study chemistry. That’s my dream student.</p>

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<p>All schools that you LOOKED AT is the operative word here. You only looked at “desirable” schools that a person with a choice would choose. You weren’t looking at the rural high school in South Dakota or the high school in the 'hood.</p>

<p>Let me give you some perspective. In 2011, only 54% of public high schools in the US offered AP classes in the 4 core subject areas. Does that help you understand a bit better why colleges don’t want to say to prospective students, if you don’t have AP classes at your school, don’t bother? </p>

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<p>1) Should it? Should a 2400 SAT be an auto-admit everywhere? Why?
2) SAT (and GPA) most certainly guarantee admittance into plenty of universities. They just aren’t the tippy-top ones. </p>

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<p>Yes. One thing that selective colleges look for is not to admit too many of “one type.” So it behooves you to try to figure out some way to stand out. Now, that doesn’t mean go juggling cats just so you can say you juggle cats. But it does mean careful thought about who you are and how you want to talk about who you are. It’s Positioning 101. It requires creativity and insight. That’s hard for some people, so they dismiss it and go back to “well, it should be all based on SAT’s.” </p>

<p>.[Percentage</a> of Public High Schools Offering AP® or IB Courses in the Four Core Subject Areas | Collegeboard Completion Agenda](<a href=“College Board Foundation | Home”>College Board Foundation | Home)</p>

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<p>It’s kind of a shame that there’s a worldview that your interests have to be fully baked midway through high school. Colleges have a whole range of majors that high schoolers don’t even get exposed to – how many high schoolers take art history, or philosophy, or history classes beyond general American or overviews? That’s a feature, not a bug. </p>

<p>But you raise an interesting point - online classes do start to change the case. But you said it’s ok if the person got the B or C if he really wants to study chemistry. That tells me that you’re NOT just looking for proof-of-academics, but you want some level of passion as well (and you’re willing to overlook a little bit to get it). Seems pretty holistic to me.</p>

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<p>Follow this line of thinking through. You’re a professor in a lab and the administration doesn’t care about your lab because … ? What could you do to change that?</p>

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<p>xiggi , you are right.</p>

<p>I don’t understand the admission process. If it be merit based, it would be easy. My D would get her grades, take AP exams, SAT. Easy. Instead, it looks like a maze. </p>

<p>I seriously consider Canada or UK for my D. The admission is merit based, all rules are crystal clear. </p>

<p>Sorry, I really don’t trust Adcoms. My D. applied to Ivey’s summer program, and was put on the waiting list. OK, fine. She said that she would go to a different summer school and asked to withdraw her name from consideration (to leave space to other kids). Same hour, she was admitted to this simmer school (with a rush E-mail), and even promoted to a more advanced class. What is it, used car dealership?</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, </p>

<p>Any student in US can take AP exam. In any subject (I think 30 subjects are offered). You don’t have to take AP class in school to take AP exam.</p>

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<p>Would you prefer a system in which it was all rack-and-stack SAT scores? Do you think they “have it right” in China and India where your entire future turns on your performance on a test? </p>

<p>Your example above is why I think you are getting bad advice in real life. </p>

<h1>1, you seem to be overly impressed with Ivies, without realizing that they are merely 8 of the top schools in this country, not THE top 8 that are head and shoulders above everyone else.</h1>

<h1>2, these summer programs are merely money-makers for these schools. You are reading far too much into being on waiting lists and being rush-admitted. Look, I sent my kids to a similar elite university summer program but I had no delusions that their acceptance was a judgment on their academic merit. It wasn’t “adcoms” making the decision on who should get into these programs.</h1>

<p>But, it’s a free country, which is why you moved here, and if you / your D prefer the systems of Canada or the UK, then more power to you.</p>

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<p>"One thing that selective colleges look for is not to admit too many of “one type.” </p>

<p>That scares me, honestly. Exactly this. </p>

<p>You can’t call me racist. Our church is in the hood, my kids have lots of playmates from the hood. In fact, I won’t mind if my D. will go to a hood school. On the other hand, her magnet school is heavily Asian, and it is also great. </p>

<p>I am scared, when AOs are trying to artificially generate diversity or whatever else.</p>

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<p>"But you raise an interesting point - online classes do start to change the case. But you said it’s ok if the person got the B or C if he really wants to study chemistry. That tells me that you’re NOT just looking for proof-of-academics, but you want some level of passion as well (and you’re willing to overlook a little bit to get it). Seems pretty holistic to me. "</p>

<p>I would prefer a B or C student in advanced organic chemistry, to an A+ in Science. There is nothing holistic in this approach. Above all, I would prefer a student, who is ready to join a lab, in any capacity. </p>

<p>Kids are almost 18, when they finish HS. Students should have passion for their major. Again, a student can’t fall in love with his major, unless he tries it. I understand, when a student switches major, but I can’t understand the forever undecided ones. :)</p>

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<p>Do you think they “have it right” in China and India where your entire future turns on your performance on a test? </p>

<p>At least, it is an objective and consistent system.</p>

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<p>Fine, you do not need to trust individual adcoms. But you can and should trust the system. If you prepare a sound application package and send it to a well-defined set of schools, chances are that success will follow at one of those schools, or at several. If one adcoms misses a great candidate, chances are that another one will see the potential. </p>

<p>Strange as it sounds, the system really works on the basis of merit. Michael Young, who coined the term meritocracy would shudder at the current interpretation in terms of education. It is about merit, but the definition of merit remains in the eye of the beholder, as it is more than mere academic achievement without context. It is more than building a resume through a paint-by-the-number process. </p>

<p>Fwiw, I am not sure why someone in California might be so leery of the current admission system. If there is one state in our union that rewards the “paint-by-the-numbers” process, it is in the land of the fruits and the nuts, and especially at the UC. So, why should you look at the UK or Canada if your children are expected to earn high scores and high GPAs. </p>

<p>Again, if that is how one defines … merit!</p>

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<p>Stats also guarantee some terrific scholarships, up to and including full rides. No, not tippy top schools, but some darn fine ones: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If my own D is not admitted to or cannot afford her first choices, I am very glad that there are these stats-based programs available, because it IS comforting to predict with near 100% certainty that something good will be available.</p>

<p>I get the discomfort with the uncertainty of all this. I guess I am just not as hung up on the Ivy-or-bust thinking (though one of them will very likely be one of her “reach” schools thanks in large part to her experience at a summer program she attended there) and I have a strong feeling that she will bloom wherever she is planted.</p>

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<p>Perhaps I didn’t communicate clearly, my bad. I didn’t say (or mean) “too many of one type” in the sense of “too many Asians, too many WASPs, too many Jews,” etc. </p>

<p>I meant too many of one type in the sense of too many student-body-presidents-interested-in-politics, too many lab rats who play only the violin, etc. Too many students who exhibit exactly the same accomplishments, who painted-by-numbers the same exact way. </p>

<p>It’s a pretty strongly held cultural norm in America that diversity is a good thing in and of itself. It’s one of our cultural strengths and it’s a reason why a lot of people in lands where they are persecuted or lands in which they can’t exercise a lot of self-direction over the course of their lives come here.</p>

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<p>I get the discomfort with the uncertainty, too. I was on pins and needles when my kids were applying! But I think the difference was, I wasn’t under the spell of some mistaken regional or cultural assumption that the only places worth going to were HYPSM, or the Ivies, or the top 20, or whatever, and that if they didn’t get in those places, they were settling for second-best and would be forever hampered. You seem to think that way. I’m guessing you come from a place where the Ivies and a few other schools were revered, and you aren’t fully familiar with the myriad opportunities at many fine schools.</p>

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<p>californiaaa, what exactly are you scared of? Are you afraid your daughter won’t get into any college at all? Don’t you have faith in her ability to find her way? If so, you shouldn’t worry. If she does well at whatever high school she attends, she will have options as long as she is a good, motivated student. Don’t take what you read on this site as gospel.</p>

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<p>In the second half of #689, I think I explained why I don’t fault my colleagues at MIT for not heading off to admissions to suggest improvements in the policy, even if they think that changes would be beneficial.</p>

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<p>PG, as is already apparent, we disagree about the viewpoint that you have expressed in #715. </p>

<p>In my personal experience, there have been a small number of students (2, actually, in the last 35 years) who are so unusual on the national level that their odds of admission really are not anywhere close to the raw odds. (Not counting QMP of course.)</p>

<p>There is 1 Nobel Prize in Physics per year. It can be split up to 3 ways. The raw odds of winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in a given year are at most 3/(total number of physicists, worldwide). Yet there are people who can have a legitimate expectation of winning the Nobel Prize in Physics, and they often win it. Two examples that were basically in the bag: the fractional quantum Hall effect and Bose-Einstein condensates. There are others. Sheldon Glashow was a bit over the top about expecting the call from Stockholm (in his autobiography), but Stockholm called. Perhaps it was a year or two after he started to expect it, but still.</p>

<p>If you want to argue that no one should expect to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, really I am not even on board with that. So I am a great deal less on board with the idea that no one “deserves” to be among the 2000+ students (mostly American) accepted to Harvard in a given year.</p>

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<p>I think you have me confused with someone else, though I am as impressed as many parents when someone has heard of, and thinks highly of, the college my kid is attending :D</p>

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<p>Sorry, OHMom! I meant to address the second part of the comment elsewhere, not to you. My mistake.</p>

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<p>*Again, my perfect student, is someone, who has an exposure to college classes during his HS years. It could be even MOOC, or any other online class. It’s OK if he got B or C in organic chemistry, for example, if he wants to study chemistry. That’s my dream student. *
But you previously said, as long as it wasn’t an athlete who is interested in political causes. </p>

<p>Despite the trend of this thread, this wasn’t exclusively about physics and it really isn’t about promoting future physics PhD students. Adcoms play an entirely different role in grad school admissions. </p>

<p>What strikes me is how many people know so little about admissions and yet can make such extreme pronouncements about how it operates, what’s unfair and to be feared. Does not make sense to me. If this is all about, “I’m worrying that-” then say that, rather than indict. Feel free to ask.</p>

<p>Above all, I would prefer a student, who is ready to join a lab, in any capacity. That’s what YOU want, because you work in a lab. If enough of your colleagues agree, someone marches down to admissions and says, let’s update you on what we feel works best, today. </p>

<p>It’s also a mistake to think AP tests are the point, that the classes are not a significant part of the learning. The learning and classroom interaction matter.</p>

<p>Calif, you have a lot of misconceptions. You need to ask, not tell.</p>

<p>You daughter’s chances will be improved if you gather info, not simply dismiss. And, it’s not really up to you to decide you want to send her to Canada or the UK. She should get a vote.</p>