<p>Please note that my post #816 in which I indicated which student I would take followed (rather than preceding) apprenticeprof’s #815 with the statement about admitting lower-scoring students out of altruism.</p>
<p>I hope that my remark was not taken to be exclusively altruistic. Personally I am an altruist, to be sure, but my reasons for suggesting that the student should be admitted were not preponderantly altruistic.</p>
<p>I remarked on the issue of charities solely because of apprenticeprof’s second case, where he/she wanted an opinion about 3 students, including one who had started a significant charitable organization.</p>
<p>Sometimes, founding something is a comparatively easy way for a student to demonstrate leadership–and quickly pick up a “President” title. I have to admit that I view some–not all–student “founders” with some skepticism.</p>
<p>There are many worse ways of demonstrating leadership, of course.</p>
<p>A silly, but true example from QMP’s high school: The district’s funding was running short, and to save money, the school board decided to eliminate from the budget the funds for teachers to run extra-curricular organizations (though not sports). Community volunteers were not permitted to run the organizations, for reasons I do not completely understand. I don’t believe that the teachers were permitted to volunteer to run the organizations (for which they had previously been paid). However, parents or community groups could contribute funds to pay the teacher-advisers of the organization, in order for it to continue.</p>
<p>One of the GC’s announced at a meeting that parents might want to sponsor an organization in which their son/daughter was involved. For example, he said, suppose that your son/daughter is slated to be the President of the [Intentionally not Specified here] Club this coming year. You might want to sponsor the Club so that he/she will “have some leadership.”</p>
<p>Well, none of that fits with my understanding of what leadership is.</p>
<p>Quant, again, the problem is with vision and throughput. you get a kid who starts some reasonable-sounding charity - and does zip elsewhere, nothing for his local community that requires more than some small social effort, nothing that isn’t pleasant and fun. It all has to add up. </p>
<p>Habitat is good- usually because the group is well organized and everyone is expected to play a role. We get kids who repeatedly are involved. Many of the “fundraiser” things are clearly done at arm’s length-- kid throws a party, doesn’t deign to go downtown and roll up his sleeves. Doesn’t do anything, but wants credit for the “event” or series of them. We used to get a lot of kids who spoke of the pencils for pennies campaign, then sending money to a 3rd world country- and never dirtied their hands at home. Yes, it’s good to raise even a few bucks- but…</p>
<p>Church groups are good. Lots of hard work and eye-opening. Lots of good done in new Orleans, Appalachia, on reservations, etc. As long as it’s not based on proselytizing (which some kids make it clear it was.)</p>
<p>And, yes, Bel, there is some formula to holistic. Stats may indicate something or other, but what a kid does beyond can be quite inspiring. They can and they should. Why not?</p>
<p>Back a while, I had the impression that lookingforward was raising a polite, but querulous eyebrow at my mention of the Bill of Rights. I don’t apologize for that. I thought it was important to explain why it seems undesirable to me if more than 50% of Ph.D. students in STEM fields at a US universities were from foreign countries (even though there were sufficient student numbers overall). It’s one person’s opinion. It’s based on my observations over time. Other people may think differently, based on different observations and values. </p>
<p>You can joke with me about “special snowflakes,” “geeks,” and people who can’t see beyond the concrete block walls of their labs. That’s okay, no offense taken. Please do not joke with me about the Bill of Rights, though.</p>
<p>I do agree with lookingforward that this is not the place or type of forum for a full discussion of it.</p>
<p>Sorry, have to go. Back much later.</p>
<p>Quant - relax 
I actually agree with your analysis of the students in my hypothetical - I don’t think the student who had started the charity should automatically get in over the Science Olympiad kid but, like you, I can see plenty of scenarios where the school reasonably selects that student if it turns out that starting the charity showed real leadership and not just resume padding and the Science Olympiad performance wasn’t off-the-charts good for the student’s peer group. </p>
<p>I also deliberately made the third student so obviously impressive to see how far californiaa and Beliavsky’s resistance to holistic admissions went. </p>
<p>I think the two of us are more or less on the same page, except for a difference on the extent to which we think what we want to happen (some superstar students getting in almost automatically on the basis of academic talent alone) is already happening.</p>
<p>QM, no, I understood and that was the point of my subsequent comment. I really understood.</p>
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<p>Do you think these activities should affect whether a physics professor gets tenure? I think college admissions, like graduate school admissions and tenure decisions, should be primarily about intellectual promise. Charity is praiseworthy, but it need not affect academic placement, and in most countries it does not.</p>
<p>"Do you think these activities should affect whether a physics professor gets tenure? "</p>
<p>In all the tenure/promotion committees I have served on, “fit” (personality, institutional needs, etc) has always been a minor factor in the discussions and final recommendations. In a way, it is holistic evaluation, isn’t it?</p>
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<p>It’s partly about resources – and I’ll note that my affluent but small town does not offer as many AP’s as some affluent larger towns. But don’t you think most administrators judge how many students at their school are prepared for an AP class before they offer one? The College Board has an AP Potential tool that predicts the likelihood of success on an AP exam based on PSAT scores. Controlling for school size, it makes sense for a school with higher PSAT or SAT scores to offer more AP courses.</p>
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<p>Never stopped many poorly performing high schools that cannot break a 500 SAT average to offer more than 30 APs courses. </p>
<p>The “selling” tool of the AP has never been built on the students, but on a different blinding carrot, namely the advancement and financial benefits of teachers. The lure of segregating students is powerful, and as an added bonus, it seems to satisfy plenty of parents who see it as the opportunity to create a quasi-private school within a public school without the expense. The programs also offer the opportunity to the most tenured teachers to concentrate on teaching the “easy to teach” pupils and let the harder ones in the hand of the junior and least experienced teachers. </p>
<p>How well students fare on the exams has never been important, especially when the cost of the programs are subsidized or absorbed in the budgets.</p>
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<p>The valedictorian – the predicted GPA and graduation rate is higher, and he or she is the most likely to make an important scientific discovery in the future. But all three should go to good schools.</p>
<p>Professional and college sports teams don’t ask who is “deserving” but look for the players who will win them the most games. Americans can be hard-headed when it comes to important things like sports.</p>
<p>Only if you believe the CB’s tests are the be all and end all. CB is selling something. Use our AP Potential Tool to justify adding our AP courses. No? And read our report on what AP predicts in college and then you’ll see you had darned better have APs. </p>
<p>I’m just not sure everyone out there should be moving mountains on CB’s say-so.</p>
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<p>Most students from South Dakota probably wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of attendance at Michigan. For most such students, the realistic safeties if they did not get into an elite school with good financial aid would be the South Dakota publics (e.g. South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and South Dakota State for the student aiming for MIT), schools in WUE or Minnesota (reduced tuition for regional OOS students), large merit scholarships schools (the usual suspects like Alabama), or perhaps schools with lower list prices. Now, University of Minnesota is certainly a good school, but remember that the financially realistic choices for those in poor rural areas may be more limited that you seem to be assuming.</p>
<p>Again, urban kid vs. magnet-school kid.</p>
<p>Why everyone suggested me to put my D. in a magnet?! Why?!</p>
<p>Right here, right in this thread, everyone, almost uniformly, would prefer a kid from low-performaning school, if he has reasonable SAT and is “above the crowd”.</p>
<p>Should I transfer my D. to inner-city school? Socially, she doesn’t have problem in either school. She was in inner-city elementary (in was fine), she was in middle school in suburbia, now she is in a magnet (also great).</p>
<p>She can take AP exams independently (inner city school is very flexible about it, I asked). </p>
<p>From all posts that I read, Adcom would be far more impressed to see 2000 SAT+ few AP from inner-city, than by 2300 SAT + lots AP from magnet.</p>
<p>Any, any reason to go to a magnet and slave yourself, working hard for 4 years? (let’s put education aside, lets discuss admission only).</p>
<p>" the financially realistic choices for those in poor rural areas may be more limited that you seem to be assuming"</p>
<p>I believe, UC tuition is waived for any kid, whose parents make less than $60,000 (or $80,000, not sure) combined. Stanford-Harvard are the same.</p>
<p>For rural kid from a poor family, education is free, as far as I understand.</p>
<p>No, nope. We already discussed this, here. Also that you run a perception risk when taking AP exams without the classes. Also that it’s not simply about how she performs in some urban school, but how she maximized her opportunities- which are not limited to what the hs offers.</p>
<p>I shouldn’t add this, but will. From the perspective of a set of CC parents, you may be standing in her way. You have misconceptions and misinfo- and are not fully absorbing various messages in the running conversation. She’s what? A rising 9th grader? All we know about her is that per your assessment, she is very bright, doesn’t look Hispanic. You have got to both get to know her potential as she bridges into hs and put in some of the valid effort to look into what colleges do, what they state in web pages, what additional views can be found via google (or following ucbalumnus’s wealth of links, for UC,) talking to better sources than “other moms.” </p>
<p>Otherwise, you risk mis-steering her. The pursuit of a great school is do-able. But with savvy and the right sorts of info. Proceed intelligently. And, do-able and “guaranteed” are entirely different.</p>
<p><a href=“let’s%20put%20education%20aside,%20lets%20discuss%20admission%20only”>QUOTE=californiaaa</a>
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<p>The whole point of gaining admission to some college is to continue one’s education. Going to the low performing gang infested school and doing well might show promise to admissions committees, but also entails the risk of insufficient preparation to do well in college. It also entails the risk of other things that could derail the student from the path to college.</p>
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<p>UC has relatively generous financial aid for in-state students. However, out-of-state students, like the hypothetical one from South Dakota, would see an $23,000 per year out-of-state additional tuition that is not covered by financial aid.</p>
<p>However, even the most generous financial aid schools typically expect a student contribution of $4,000 to $10,000 per year (work earnings and/or student loans). Check the net price calculators rather than relying on unreliable hearsay as you appear to be doing.</p>