<p>Race is not a qualification. You have no control over it, you can’t change it. So it shouldn’t be used a criterion for dance school or art school or tech school. Now that the argument is settled everyone now go do more productive things than posting smokescreen comments on this thread.</p>
<p>Re poetgrl, #1275, I thought Amy Chua explained why her daughters didn’t go to sleepovers! Wasn’t it that she “stumbled across” one once? (On another thread, I suggested that maybe it wasn’t a sleepover that she stumbled across, it was Woodstock.)</p>
<p>Joshuam - You seem to be downright in that status where woe is me because I am Asian status and I am worried about you since you seem to see nothing positive. Are you doing ok? Anyone who thinks Indra Nooyi is window dressing - i would worry about them.</p>
<p>I have never seen anyone complain so much about an Asian oppression and about 90% of my close friends are Asian. We marvel at how many people in US make it big despite being Asian rather than the other way round.</p>
<p>If you read the Georgetown study, 8% of business majors are Asian-American. Engineers who lead companies tend to have founded the companies. There are barriers for everyone in business. It’s hard now for anyone to get a loan; I would presume an Asian-American engineer would have better shot at getting a loan than many. </p>
<p>We once subscribed to Forbes. A good number of the tech entrepreneurs featured in Forbes were Asian.</p>
<p>Probably that they think it the way holistic admissions is done is flawed and/or corrupt, not that they disagree with holistic admissions in general. </p>
<p>Also, that saying it’s holistic is a cover for doing anything you want. That is, one could discriminate against Asians and then say something like, “Well maybe they wrote bad essays.”</p>
<p>They got their training from the grand daddy of all Madoff. There are tons of white wall st folk that went to jail and many others not caught. :D</p>
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<p>So we are on the same page in believing that Asians are discriminated, heh.</p>
<p>Caltech values performance in rigorous classes and expects high test scores, particularly in the math/science area. Also considered highly are recommendations and competition results, and any publications are actually evaluated by experts in the field. In fact, the entire application is evaluated by professors in math or science or Caltech undergrads. It’s a holistic process meant to figure out who has the most promise and drive in math/science area. </p>
<p>The analagous process in humanities would be to require a high standard in rigorous classes and an expected high standard in test scores, with higher standards in the humanities subjects. Competitions and writing samples would be evaluated by professors in those subjects. If a person wrote for a professional newspaper, then journalism or english professors would actually read the article you wrote to see if it is any good. But again, these would be evaluated by professors who are experts in the field or umbrella of fields which you intend to study. </p>
<p>Music and art could be evaluated by audition/portfolio/recommendations/competitions by people in those fields. Obviously, test scores are not relevant. But the point of Caltech admissions is not that they have some weird obsession with test scores. It is done by people at a high level in the field who have some intuition for what various indexes of performance would mean in terms of future performance in that field.</p>
<p>Admittedly, it is easier for Caltech to have admissions done by professors because they do not see the same numbers of applications as their larger and more mainstream peer institutions. However, I do think this is the best process.</p>
<p>In my view, there is a need to encourage people from under-represented minority groups to go to top schools (and to consider majoring in a STEM subject, if their interests lie there) and at the same time, that I think there is a genuine need to be fair to individual Asian-American applicants.</p>
<p>The conclusion that I reach from this: Admissions committees should not comment on frivolous elements of the applications that they find interesting, humorous, or attractive. I don’t think any of the top places should be allocating slots to people just because they wrote funny essays (possible exception for staffing the Harvard Lampoon). It may well be that the “chicken nuggets” essay writer had top-quality academic + EC qualifications, and would have been admitted in any event. But to give the impression that “chicken nuggets” put the applicant over the top is demoralizing, in my opinion.</p>
<p>If people are going to have to “sell” themselves, I would prefer that they are indicating their academic and leadership qualifications (and qualities such as empathy and kindness), rather than just writing something to stand out from the crowd and be memorable (aka “chicken nuggets”). You may see just good “marketing” there. I see peripheral considerations potentially interfering with meeting the simultaneous goals of encouraging those from under-represented groups and being fair to individual applicants from over-represented groups.</p>
<p>I don’t think that a college would wind up with a totally humorless class if they did not give any pluses for humor in the essays.</p>
<p>The logistics are harder to work out for larger universities (although I will note that Caltech is, in fact, a private university.) Also, the audition/portfolio system is used widely for music and art.</p>
<p>Professors are expected to have some administrative duties. Perhaps this could count as a duty (although then you have the matter of who does the displaced administrative duties.) Other pools of people could be lecturers (who I think are generally highly skilled and have the same value system as the profs) and/or emeritus profs who may want to volunteer their time.</p>
<p>QM I think the essays are an “all things being equal” situation, except in the case of seriously stellar writing. Using the language to communicate is actually very important in the humanities, as important as precise calculations are to math.</p>
<p>ETA: Collegealum, I appreciate your trying to formulate a new admissions criteria. But, the humanities and the arts and languages will never be quantifiable in the same way that math will be. I question, too, if we don’t lose at least some of our best creative scientists to this obsession with stats in STEM.</p>
<p>It cuts both ways, and it’s not perfect.</p>
<p>I think the best way to deal with this is to open up admissions to some outside observers and see what they have to say about the process.</p>
<p>A little chat. It’s not the LoRs that distinguish one kid from another. (It should not have to be LoRs.) It has a lot more to do with what hand the kid puts into the app. It’s his package to create and he either does a good job or not. The decisions he makes speak about him. What he chose to do with his time, how he presents it; how he answers the questions and forms the essay, etc. What that says and shows about him. </p>
<p>Many kids leave adcoms guessing; many say goofy things (real head smackers, sorry.) Just not a good position to put yourself in, no matter what your stats. They claim to have known they wanted STEM since kindergarten, but don’t include any math-sci LoR, in some cases, no math-sci activities or side pursuits (esp applies to engineering) that reflect. They want to become doctors to “help people” but show no activities that “help people.” It goes on. All solid stats kids. It’s unfortunate. They have never really pulled something like this together before. They need guidance- not from a pro, but any savvy adult who can take an analytical look.</p>
<p>Any kid, any app, can have these issues. It’s not limited- and, for the most part, being wealthy or Jewish or from a competitive hs doesn’t make them immune. The one difference is the amount of coaching kids at the most exclusive preps get- it’s clear, in many ways. </p>
<p>If you watch the chance-me threads and kids who read each other’s essays, you see, in front of you, the naivete. Kids telling each other to write their personal statement about their liabilities. Kids encouraging each other based on stats only. Kids bragging about the number of self-studied APs. Now put the results of that in front of the adcoms who will review you…</p>
<p>DH was part of admissions- he’s in humanities. It was one of those extras- be one several committees or do this or that.</p>
I doubt Harvard professors would evaluate writing samples much differently from professors at other selective schools, so it would be inefficient and expensive for each school to read 50 pages of writing from each applicant. You could have a centralized service, paid for by applicants, that reads and evaluates students’ papers and makes its ratings available to colleges they apply to.</p>
<p>*If people are going to have to “sell” themselves, I would prefer that they are indicating their academic and leadership qualifications (and qualities such as empathy and kindness), rather than just writing something to stand out from the crowd and be memorable (aka “chicken nuggets”). * </p>
<p>And this is a problem. I agree with you, but the kids think a title in hs is representative of leadership- in many cases, they don’t even describe what they did, as if the title itself proves something. Or they list selling pencils to support sports or the prom dec committee. Kid you not. Their “empathy” is often at a distance, not a direct experience or personal commitment, over time. </p>
<p>This is not to put them down- (everyone I know involved with this starts with an enthusiasm for these seniors. Same positive hopes for each applicant, as they open each new app.) BUT, the kids often need that savvy analytical perspective. This isn’t a little summary for a teacher or to maybe get a hs award or have some lines in the yearbook. It’s your college app.</p>
<p>The issue with writing skills is, imo, that hs focuses on thesis statements and intellectual defenses, taking a stand, throwing in quotes and refs- not what a personal statement is about. </p>
<p>A great essay can speak volumes about a kid- but it’s not all chicken nuggets and not about even a highly unusual topic. The topic can be plebeian- it’s the delivery that matters.</p>