<p>
</p>
<p>Columbia and Barnard also take quite a few students through HEOP (the NYS equivalent to OPUS) they have a HEOP breakfast for prospective students and GCs each fall, through the Columbia’s Double Discovery program and Barnard’s STEP program and through the jpmorgan chase smart start program.</p>
<p>For further perspective on “How Do Top Scorers on Tests Fail to Gain Admissions to Top Schools?”, See the 8/19/2007 New Yorker article. Most notable are the comments on pages 3 and 4, regarding real-life long-term results of admitting only academics vs. admitting those with winning personal qualities. I posted it today on the thread, “Let’s define ‘unqualified’.”</p>
<p>Those with both aspects have clear advantages in admissions to elites and in cross-admissions.</p>
<p>Post #519: Advanced math vs. math competition for highschoolers</p>
<p>I think this depends on the students. Some do well on problem solving on math competitions. Some do well on advanced college math courses.</p>
<p>Conincidentally, I just read article “Failing Our Geniuses” in Time magazine issue August 2007. The article says, “In U.S. schools, the highest achivers are too often challenged the least.” Interestingly, it says Bill Gates “took college math courses and hacked a computer security system at 13”. This dispels some biased notion that a math geek has less leadership talent.</p>
<p>Curm,
Here are the numbers for UMD – Banneker/Key is the full merit ride. If kids get invited to the B/K interviews, they are guaranteed at least a half-ride. It’s a sweet deal!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.provost.umd.edu/campus_review_2007/Documentation/MeritScholarshipYields.pdf[/url]”>http://www.provost.umd.edu/campus_review_2007/Documentation/MeritScholarshipYields.pdf</a></p>
<p>Tokenadult,
I can certainly testify that the number of kids needing post-AP Calc has exploded – and that schools are finally starting to figure it out.</p>
<p>DS’s third grade public school teacher refused to give him 4th grade math as a third grader because he’d run out of math by 10th grade and I’d have to drive him to the local state U and quit my job in the process. (oh horrors!)</p>
<p>He’s now a senior taking his sixth and seventh post-AP Calc classes…in a public high school setting. He takes the bus to the local state U for more fun with his mentor. Life is good. I agree with others who have said that math competitions as a means of getting challenging post-AP math aren’t for everyone, though.</p>
<p>The risk is that in the process of getting more middle schoolers into Algebra, Algebra I curriculum may be getting watered down. DS2 is two grades behind DS1 and was at the vanguard of the middle school algebra push. He has suffered greatly from “Algebra Lite” – esp. when he got to Alg II w/analysis, which assumed one knew real Algebra. </p>
<p>FYI…TJHSST has finally made it a requirement that entering students have taken Alg I.<br>
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081801005.html?hpid=moreheadlines[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081801005.html?hpid=moreheadlines</a></p>
<p>The number of high schoolers seeking college courses has been noticed. A couple of years ago, the Harvard Extension School sent out a questionnaire to high schoolers who had taken courses there prefacing its request for information with the explanation that it sought advice on how to better address the needs of high schoolers who were making up a growing constituency for its courses. </p>
<p>I may have played a very small role in that. At a local reception, I bumped into the prof who had taught S in the MV-Calc and LA classes. I knew that another 10-12 students from S’s high school had also taken those classes and was curious about the total number of high schoolers. The prof had never broken down the enrollments in that way but was intrigued by the idea. The following year, I bumped into him again. He told me that out of 83 students in MV-Calc, there were 53 high schoolers, drawn from schools in the Boston area. In other words, the majority of students in his class were not in college but in high school. Among S’s fellow students, some were seniors and some were juniors. Other students from S’s school have also taken post-AP science classes and some have taken language classes that are not offered in the high school or that are not offered at a particular level (AP or post-AP). </p>
<p>This ties in to the discussion of “top scoring” and the Q factor. At top schools, the Q factor often includes more than SAT+SATII+GPA. Additionally, it ought to take into account programs and awards such as RSI, Intel, Olympiads.</p>
<p>
Okay, just to chime in with token here:
<p>Thanks counting down. They are very generous. OT: Did you notice in 04 they expected 104 from 213 offers and got 80, so the next year they expected 105 from 297 offers and got 129. I bet they were shocked. LOL.</p>
<p><a href=“epiphany:”>quote</a>
There is a huge amount of cheating that is a regular way of life among some students who are most determined to sustain a 4.0 & to get into HYP.
… for highschool students, the surest way to reduce cheating is an immediate F for every occasion. …
I read long ago that cheating is directly related to the amount of pressure students feel from parents to perform “perfectly” (“or else”!). (Not how morally or religiously the student has been raised, or how otherwise honest his personal environment is.)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So the less weight given to grades/GPA/rank in admission, and the more to test scores, the less cheating would occur? In particular, there is less cheating in today’s system by second-semester seniors, whose grades hardly matter in admission, right?</p>
<p>^^ That’s actually not what I asserted, siserune. I was referring to research studies which particularly looked at factors contributing to cheating. The standout factor was pressure exerted by parents. What was not being compared were test scores and GPA’s, or who was and was not pressured to get high <em>test scores</em>.</p>
<p>I don’t know what your “second-semester” comment means. Again, the study did not investigate pressure from sources other than parents (such as college admissions departments).</p>
<p>However, naturally, there can be a Senior Slide after admission, as many on this board have seen or even participated in. Note that many students who do so have offers of admission rescinded, as would be expected in such a competitive market with equally qualified students on waitlists.</p>
<p>You asserted that cheating is rife among students “determined to maintain a 4.0 for HYP” and who experience parental pressure to attain top grades. The study you read seems to indicate that the driving factor is a response to pressures and incentives.</p>
<p>My question was whether the underlying incentive to cheat would basically disappear if the weight given to the 4.0 (and grades generally) in admission also disappeared, and whether that would lower the incidence of cheating.</p>
<p>As an empirical data point, I also asked (since you seem to be a teacher or knowledgeable about the state of cheating today) whether cheating cases are as common for second-semester seniors. If less common, as it must be, that’s consistent with college admissions GPA-sensitivity being a driving force. </p>
<p>btw, there are very few, not “many”, offers of admission rescinded, and I think you know that, i.e. the pressure for high grades is much lower in second semester.</p>
<p>A certain number of kids would still cheat, regardless of pressures placed on them by their parents.</p>
<p>None of the kids admitted to top schools from my class had ever been caught cheating (although one kid who was taken off the wait list at Yale had, at one point, been accused, though he was later found to be innocent).</p>
<p>Why are you asking such hypotheticals? The answer would be maybe, but maybe not. Again, the studies have not been in regard to college admissions, or to comparing variations on the timing of the cheating – pre-college, during undergrad years, or even grad years. The studies that I refer to have been limited to k-12 years, including as early as 5th grade, when college admissions is hardly uppermost in the minds of most students. There were no other variables brought in, specifically, such as breaking those trends further down by (a) those aspiring to college, (b) those not aspiring to college. It simply reflects the immediate home environment. Certainly as a teacher I’ve seen a fair amount of repercussions/threats laid down by parents in blue-collar families who weren’t particuarly ambitious for their children beyond high school.</p>
<p>I don’t know why there would be any reason for colleges to prefer students who give in to temptation to cheat when faced with such temptation over students who do their schoolwork honestly. Maybe that is an important distinction for colleges that receive more applications than they have places in their entering classes.</p>
<p>post 488 </p>
<p>some schools don’t want kids that cheat</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. And do you suppose that there would be more or less cheating on high school coursework if the college admissions system were to put lower weight (maybe zero) on high school grades, GPA, class-rank, and prizes awarded by the high school (val/sal and other designations)? Assume not only a much reduced weight to grades, but that this low weight were clearly understood by the public, as in countries that admit strictly by exams, where it is transparent that the grades hardly matter.</p>
<p>^^
But then people will cheat on the SAT. People will buy copies, develop advanced cheating methods, pretty much what is seen in countries that have test scores as the sole qualification for admission. However, it must be admitted that there would certainly be less cheating; most kids I know cheat with the usual homework assignment, however few would be willing to risk cheating on an important test like the SAT. Do the benefits outweigh the risks?</p>
<p><a href=“marite:”>quote</a> [re: “holistic” use of numerical factors]</p>
<p>…taking post-AP courses while in high school … AP Calc in 9th or 10th grade rather than in 12th grade); …look both beyond Board scores and GPAs AND also to academic context </p>
<p>…great [SAT/ACT] score achieved early, will be more impressive to adcoms than someone with the same score achieved in the senior year.
…high score … followed by challenging courses.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>All those subtleties are perfectly consistent with a numbers-dominated or even a computerized, numbers-only approach. One could give more points for earlier scores, relate the results to norms for particular high schools or geographic regions (as in the wholly numerical National Merit Semifinalist selection), and aggregate multiple metrics in all sorts of ways.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is quite easy to calculate a range of variation, an estimated interval of SAT scores, a projected current SAT, or other measure that would distinguish the one score in 9th grade from a slew of attempts over several years. This is what is done for the LSAT, for instance; studies have shown that averaged LSAT scores are a better predictor than highest LSAT scores, so some law schools consider both those measures in the admission. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, I think “holistic” is used exclusively to denote admission that includes non-academic or intangible criteria. A broad synthesis of whatever numerical or objective factors are used, is something common to both the holistic and non-holistic methods. The disagreements concern whether the holistic approach is fair, desirable or effective in achieving its stated goals.</p>
<p>siserune:</p>
<p>I do not disagree with your interpretation of what a numbers-driven approach can do.</p>
<p>My problem is that those who advocate a numbers-driven approach as opposed to a holistic one do so strictly on the basis of using SAT+GPA. The numbers-driven approach of the bac including testing for every last subject taken, including (big sigh here) PE, and for some subjects, it involved both written and oral components. This is not true of the SAT, even of the SAT+ SATII. Let’s keep in mind that, besides the UCs, only about 60 colleges require SATIIs. To be truly effective, a purely numbers-driven approach would have to be closer to the bac. It would then do better justice to the students who had done well in courses whose subject matter was not covered by the SAT.</p>
<p>My use of the term “holistic” was defined in my post. It was intended to cover only academics, not extra-academic. It was also intended to show that those who advocate SAT+SATII+GPA can shortchange their very own children. As for the early or later SAT or AP scores, this is a secondary issue.</p>
<p>No disagreement, but note that the immediate response to your posting was that a pro-holistic (in the fuzzy intangibles sense) poster hailed it as a “win-win” whereby today’s fuzzy admissions is what really helps the physics olympiad winners, teenage math researchers, and other high-testing types. Actually, those people would be easily detected and placed under an objective system. The athletes and the people who chose the right parents might not fare as well.</p>
<p>I would suggest “numerically holistic” or “objective factors” admission or other such term to describe what you (and I)<br>
are talking about, as distinct from the ordinary usage of holistic.</p>