@SadStrong: I agree with @gallentjill that your essays may have harmed you (although NU rejects many class valedictorians & perfect ACT & SAT scorers).
The problem, in my estimation, is that your essays focused on a game that benefits only you in the way of personal pleasure & escapism.
@SadStrong: I will PM you.
I have to agree with @milee30 . It’s also untrue about The Gatekeepers. The hero, Ralph Figueroa, was highly educated (JD Stanford) and incredibly caring despite low pay. He practically wears a cape through the entire book!
I’ve read every book like it I could find, and never – not once – has an AO been portrayed the way Satchel describes.
@SatchelSF , that is completely unrepresentative of the book, and clearly from a source with a political bias against its author, maligning his successful book because they don’t like his other work.
– and they are not the only ones.
Well, @Postmodern - thanks for the description of The Gatekeepers. See my post #18 above.
Also, would it matter to you if I said that my work-study job when I was an 18-year old undergraduate at an Ivy, was in the admissions office of one of its professional schools? Probably not, I’m guessing.
Kids who need little/no financial aid and jump on their waitlist opportunities still have chances. If you’d really chose Case over Michigan, make sure they know that.
That being said, you were crazy to think Michigan was a sure thing. I don’t see a true safety on your list at all.
Right back at you @SatchelSF . #23.
@SatchelSF - I have no direct knowledge of Wesleyan’s admissions department, so can’t comment on the example from the article.
But I would hesitate to generalize one example from a fairly small college as representative of the situation at other colleges, especially strong schools such as the ones listed in this thread.
It isn’t helpful to the OP to do a post mortem of why he hasn’t been accepted, but I believe many of us have a few reasonable theories based on the information posted. And none of them have to do with the AOs being too stupid to properly understand the application. I think it’s helpful to provide some comfort to high school kids who are hurting, but it’s not helpful to feed sour grapes or grandiose delusions.
Ralph Figueroa moved on from Wesleyan to head of college counseling at a private day high school.
When interviewed, Ralph Figueroa stated: “I am not a fan of chat sights (sic), like College Confidential. I think that there is a lot of bad information on there and they just feed on the hysteria.”
@SatchelSF said: “Also, would it matter to you if I said that my work-study job when I was an 18-year old undergraduate at an Ivy, was in the admissions office of one of its professional schools? Probably not, I’m guessing.”
You guess wrong. Not only would it matter to me if you posted your own, direct experiences, I believe that would be quite useful.
However, that is not what you did. You posted misinformation about a highly insightful book on the admissions process from a clearly non-objective source.
I encourage you to tell us about your experiences in that office and how they drew you to your position.
@milee30 while I too believe that is harsh…there does seem to be a clear excitement to enroll URM, International, and low income students greater than at any time I have ever seen.
The trend can’t continue forever can it? Med school stats irk my soul when Asians have to score higher than everyone, but often AA applicants are admitted with MCAT scores and GPAs that no Asians are admitted with. How is this not racism?
If I were Asian I’d be super pissed!
@milee30 - I can definitely agree with that. I just think that it is a useful thing to remember, and not something that occurred to me in just thinking abstractly about these questions, that most successful applicants to places in the very top tier of school are going to be quite a lot brighter than the admissions officers reading their files. It’s something I should have known, of course, given my own brief experience working in an admissions office, but I do think it is useful advice for smart kids reading this: keep it simple. Odds are the person reading is not going to recognize the next Vonnegut in an essay’s wit or hear the echoes of Hemingway in the cadence! It’s the advice I am going to give my own children when it is their time.
@Postmodern: I am not certain, but I believe that Ralph Figueroa earned his JD from UCLA. He has a BA from Stanford–to the best of my knowledge.
I’m beginning to suspect that either students are taking the wrong message from all the application advice they are getting or colleges are subtly changing what they are seeking. Maybe both. For some years now, the message has been that schools are no longer looking for well rounded students but well rounded classes. They would overlook the average excellent student who excelled in a little bit of everything in favor of the kids who could bring something exceptional and unique to the school. I believe this had been called “pointy.”
Now students are going out of their way to show how they are different from everyone else and that they are masters of at least one special field. In this OP’s case, Magic. However, what schools actually seem to be seeking are students who will add to the school community. So an essay about how Magic brings people together, how it engages students to think logically and creatively at the same time and how you brought that to others in your school might have worked. If you have been experimenting with ways to use it as an educational tool to help engage kids who may have difficulty learning in other ways, that might have worked as well. I have absolutely no experience except for helping my own kids and reading these boards so take all I say with a grain of salt. But, if you have a chance to submit additional essays to your waitlist schools, changing the focus might be worth thinking about.
@Postmodern - Well, since you asked… My experience in an Ivy professional school admissions office is somewhat dated at this point (approximately 30 years ago), but probably still relevant. I started the position as an 18-year old junior. My position was largely answering phones, collating applications, maintaining files, and working with the marketing people on outreach. This was well before the sophisticated data systems we have today.
I was often asked the meanings of words on applications, including by the admissions director herself. I was sometimes asked, “what does this mean?” or “does this matter” in reference to a description of prior, undergraduate academic accomplishments, and after 4 months or so on the job I was asked to give a quick look at certain essays and assign a rating on the writer’s grammar (not on content). At the time, of course, I never made the connection between subjectivity in the admissions process and the quality of the people doing the review, but today…
Also, I can confirm that the old yellow file folders were color coded or otherwise sorted by race.
Lots of undergrads work part-time jobs in the admissions office. If it isn’t related to making acceptance decisions, how is that relevant to the discussion at all? Especially 30 years later?
Much has changed in admissions in the last 30 years. So as not to derail this thread - it would be interesting to have another thread to discuss the backgrounds of AOs currently.
Very small sample size, but of the AOs we met these last two years, I can’t remember meeting one that either wasn’t an alum of the school they were working for or were from another top rate school (we met two that had been recruited from Yale to serve at other top 20 schools, for example.) I also can’t remember meeting one that wasn’t articulate and appeared intelligent, but it’s possible they have certain people do the public relations and then others to do back office work.
@doschicos - In light of how much money is available for intelligent graduates these days (there have been enormous and outsized returns to intelligence over the past 30 years), I’d suspect that the quality of admissions officers today is lesser on a relative basis than 30 years ago. It’s just my opinion, YMMV. Of course, people could look up credentials on Linked-In today for admissions officers, if they cared. I really don’t, except to the extent that I will take to heart the admonition to keep it simple.
I suspect admissions officers prefer simple, straightforward prose because it’s preferable to the florid, tortured language and trite philosophizing some students try to pass off as deep thought.
Haven’t we all read nonsensical paragraphs full of $64 words here by students trying to impress?
Admissions officers don’t need you to quote Vonnegut. They know who Vonnegut is, but they don’t want to know what he thinks. They want to find out who the applicant is. They want that applicant to tell their story in a compelling, straightforward way. They don’t need cute. They don’t need clever.
I worked for 5 years as the person who did the administrative side of an Ivy graduate program (a faculty committee made the decision although I did recommend matches, sit in on all the deliberations, and supply candidate information). What did I learn about undergraduate admissions? Exactly nothing.
@SadStrong: Just want to say in the mid-1980’s UM was my safety, and also where I attended, with no other admissions. Other than the weather, which was brutal compared to my east coast home, it ended up being a fabulous choice. I dramatically changed majors sophomore year, and because Michigan is so strong in every area, I was still in an impressive (top 5 in the country) program. Later, my Michigan credentials helped get me into a extremely competitive doctoral program. Furthermore, UM allowed me to take grad courses while still an undergrad, and take engineering courses while a liberal arts major. This freedom gave me the opportunity to interact in small classes with world-class researchers. Many of my classmates were brilliant, and, if for some reason I didn’t find them stimulating, I could always hang out with grad students.
btw: My doctoral program admitted 10 students the year I started. The line up of sending institutions was something like me(Michigan), University of Washington, Harvard, Yale, Swarthmore, Weselyan, Columbia, Haverford, Ivy, Ivy, Ivy. The student from U Washington is currently a professor at a top Ivy. My suggestion is that you use that energy you had for all those additional AP courses at college to apply for accessing opportunities – apply for grants to do research, take time abroad, write an honors thesis. Participate in every class. At Michigan there are a lot of students, so the ones who eagerly engage, inside and outside of the classroom, are the ones who truly benefit from the stellar faculty.