<p>Another thread that is currently active claims that Harvard passes over valedictorians from top schools for no discernible reason. I think jumping to conclusions from anecdotes is not the way to reverse-engineer the selective college admission process, although anecdotes may provide counterexamples to other conclusions someone hastily jumped to.</p>
<p>S1’s city public HS class had 44 Vals. If one wasn’t a Val, one wasn’t in the top 10% of the class. Of the 4 (out of 8 who applied) kids accepted by H, two were not Vals nor in the top 10%, nor were any of the four URMs, legacies, national prize winners, or athletes (9/16 at Stanford, similar breakdown; 190 out or 405 at top 50 schools, 90% + attended college). None with perfect SAT scores. Last year the number H accepted was 5/8, so it wasn’t a fluke. I don’t think anyone really knows what governs admission. There may be certain variables that can predict one won’t be accepted, but at some point it is just up to the admissions folks’ feelings at the moment, which are difficult to quantify. The good news is the kids aren’t stressed about college, S2 now attends; they know they will go someplace they will like.</p>
<p>We only have one val. HYP (but never ever Stanford) accept them pretty regularly. And why shouldn’t they? Along with stellar grades they usually have pretty stellar activities as well. The year Mathson applied they accepted #1 and #8 and waitlisted #4.</p>
<p>I think this thread ought to be revived in the interest of next year’s top scoring applicants.</p>
<p>Many people support the idea of trying to compensate for a “playing field” that’s nowhere near level. I’m among them. The overwhelming majority of admissions committees assess each applicant in the context of the academic opportunities available to the applicant. As a separate issue, most American universities are not selecting on academic strength, per se–they are looking at multiple factors. In assessing academic strength, though, most are (I believe) trying to gauge an applicant’s potential, as well as achievements to date. But I’m not sure that anyone knows quite how to do that fairly.</p>
<p>Fair consideration of URMs takes a great deal of thought and work. I support affirmative action. I’d like to side-step that issue entirely for the time being, however, to focus on an extremely narrow issue of leveling: comparing scores on tests of mathematics (standardized tests and various mathematics competitions), achieved by Caucasian or Asian students. I doubt that the CC group will achieve any consensus, even with this narrow focus: </p>
<p>a) Many applicants have taken the SAT as middle-school students. Suppose a university is admitting students who are likely to major in science or engineering. Some of those universities will reject some students whose 7th-grade SAT math scores are actually higher than the 11th-grade scores of some of the students they admit (as science or engineering majors). How large a gap do you think is reasonable? I’d guess that currently it’s about 100 points.</p>
<p>b) How much consideration should be given to USAMTS, AIME, USAMO, MOP (red, blue, black), and IMO? The Mathematical Association of America has begun offering workshops for teachers in an attempt to broaden successful AIME participation. Some of their members have concluded that bright, mathematically-inclined students can generally qualify for AIME “on their own,” but that doing well enough on the AIME to qualify for the USAMO is highly correlated with having a good teacher. . . . and hence the workshops.</p>
<p>Still, I think that qualifying for USAMO is a sign of exceptional ability. Even if a good teacher is usually necessary in order for a student to qualify, it’s clearly not sufficient. So, how much weight should qualification be given? </p>
<p>I should mention that the web site of “The Art of Problem Solving,” their online courses, Alcumus (spelling?) mathjams, etc. are all superb, and are helping to broaden participation in mathematics competitions. So this might become a moot point eventually–but I don’t think that’s happened yet. </p>
<p>As a related issue: How knowledgeable do you think that admissions personnel should be about the level of achievement that USAMO qualification represents? Ideally, I think that MIT–to be specific–should have at least one student member of the admissions office who was a USAMO qualifier. (Perhaps they do already.) I also think that a few of the MIT admissions staff should look over the AIME questions each year, to put their applicants’ accomplishments into perspective.</p>
<p>Of all the school applications I’ve read over the years, MIT is one of the few that asks about AIME and USAMO. Other schools may not be as clued in, but MIT isn’t one of them when it comes to the accomplishments of these kids.</p>
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<p>I think this is a generally correct statement. In some local cases I know, the good teacher appears to be a parent with Ph.D. qualifications in a quantitative discipline. </p>
<p>About your comment on admission committees, I know specifically that Harvard, MIT, and Stanford invite members of the mathematics faculty to look at applications submitted by would-be math majors. I rather imagine that the same thing happens at Princeton and perhaps a few other peer universities.</p>
<p>ellemenope & tokenadult: My take on MIT admissions–could be wrong, admittedly–is that they currently undervalue USAMO qualification by students from schools where there have been qualifiers previously. A number of the USAMO qualifiers may not actually be prospective math majors; and what catches the eye of the math faculty is probably a different level of accomplishment altogether.</p>
<p>Regarding top math/science (and especially math) undergraduate programs: Is there competition for available spots from international students? I rarely see this mentioned and perhaps it is not worth considering.</p>
<p>When a school regularly has USAMO qualifiers, it is usually has more to do with who is going to the school rather than any specific training they got there. I don’t know if this sort of training has math team training has improved in the 10 years since I went to high school, but I don’t remember anything in class or math team practice helping me on the AIME. And I went to a place with multiple USAMO qualifiers. Pretty much those guys would just show up to take the test. Of course, “The Art of Problem Solving” and other resources didn’t exist back then so maybe specialized training is more effective. </p>
<p>Sometimes magnet schools have more of a laissez faire attitude about winning scholastic competitions than regular public high schools. Typically, the attitude was, “you’re smart, if you want to win, then study for it.” Not very pro-active.</p>
<p>collegealum314: I haven’t seen any of the analysis in connection with the AIME-teaching workshop at the MAA meeting–just the announcement of the workshop itself. So it’s possible that an incorrect conclusion was being drawn from the existence of clusters of USAMO qualifiers. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I think that the types of questions set in the “regular” math classes differ quite a lot from school to school. This would tend to provide an edge for students in a magnet school, without any directed preparation for competitions (Even within a school, the quality of the questions depends on the mathematical strength of the individual teachers–e.g., locally, I think the 6th-grade honors math teacher is actually a stronger mathematician than the sole Calc BC teacher). </p>
<p>But overall, your comments are consistent with my observations: It’s not clear to most people to what extent students’ accomplishments reflect the environment at their school vs. the individual talents (and work!) of the students. I’d guess that people who did not attend a magnet school may–on average–overestimate the benefit of the environment. And the observation that there is a laissez faire attitude toward competitions, at a magnet school, would just reinforce my belief that MIT doesn’t give enough credit to USAMO qualifiers from schools where there are multiple qualifiers. (Our local school is not in this category.)</p>
<p>alh: I think that international students have the hardest time of anyone, in gaining admission to top U.S. schools as undergrads. If the American “top scorers” were being displaced by even higher-performing international students, I could see a clear rationale for that. I don’t think that’s what’s happening, though. (Also, I’d like to keep the discussion limited to adequately represented groups of citizens or green-card holders.)</p>
<p>Do you ever wonder whether admissions representatives check out student posts on CC? </p>
<p>For example, I’m thinking that an easily identifiable “Rambo” might not be the most desirable candidate for Swarthmore. Perhaps Caltech might pass on “Ionescu.” Nothing wrong with the name! It suggests the student’s literary awareness . . . and yet someone with a focus on the “solitude and insignificance of human existence,” to quote the Wikipedia entry, might not seem like “yer typical scientist.” In contrast, “fizix” is a great name for a Caltech applicant! (<em>nods to fizix2</em>)</p>
<p>Quant My student has never been on this site. Hopefully a college would be wise enough to recognize a parents voice & be open minded enough to “listen in” on the concerns we all share, I believe it would be very insightful. Personally I have learned a lot from you all. Thanks!</p>
<p>Sorry, SichenYong–Northstarmom (and Elvis) have left the building long ago…</p>
<p>Also, SichenYong, I fear that you are the one making an idiotic comment because you don’t seem to have any perspective of the fact that all subject tests are self-selecting to the extent that percentile is meaningless.</p>
<p>Her comment makes sense… an admissions policy more focused on standardized test scores than subjective measures is more likely to admit a freshman class with all 800s on Math II.</p>
<p>This is quite an old thread, but one worth resurrecting.
Tokenadult is not active here anymore, but there are many new parents with different perspectives. And things have changed since that thread was started.
Panta rei.
Please share your thoughts on the subject.</p>
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<p>You know what’s really idiotic? Coming onto a forum at the end of June in 2011 and posting an insulting response to a post made in August 2007. Do you understand that the students who were entering college back have now graduated?</p>
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<p>lol what is this I don’t even</p>
<p>calmom, thanks for calling a poster out for terming a post “idiotic.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I have to disagree with your opinion in post #996. It seems to me that this is an excellent time to revisit the discussion from 2007, since we (collectively) now know what has happened during the undergraduate years, and where the “top scorers” of 2007 are headed next.</p>