Agreed. It’s common that AOs go thru training re: how to read apps for their school, taking into consideration each of the various factors that they evaluate. These factors may be different/weighted differently for different schools and/or evaluated differently by different schools.
Many schools will have rubrics that guide AOs when evaluating each factor. These rubrics help drive consistency in the app reading process.
Some schools also do team reads, which is another way to have a discussion real-time about each application, with back and forth helping to refine the process.
Many schools also have AOs participate in other types of training like anti-bias/bias awareness training.
I absolutely would not prefer that. College is not trade school. And students who are STEM majors are not robots, measured only by their ability to create the perfect widget, or code, or rocket. If it makes sense to look at non-STEM applicants through a holistic lens, it also makes sense to look at STEM majors through one.
Not every engineering major is going to be a low/mid-level engineer in a huge conglomerate, where their non-engineering skills are irrelevant. Many of them will go further - they may start as an engineer but climb the ranks and become VP of strategy, or start a company, or get their PhD in physics and teach at a (gasp) LAC where students are getting bachelor of arts degrees. The things that make someone a good test taker (even a test designed to measure skill in a specific narrow area) are often not the things that make someone a good leader, boss, change-maker, entrepreneur, inventor, creative genius.
Of course, the kids that go into a particular area of study need to have a certain level of aptitude and ability in that area. But to suggest that the best answer is to just take the 60 highest scorers is complete folly. In fact, I would be willing to bet that the “best” overall applicants - i.e. those most likely to take advantage of all a school has to offer, to make real connections and develop a meaningful network, to find ways to expand their education outside the bounds of their narrow field, etc. likely do not come from the top 60 test takers. I would predict that the top 50 students on an “engineering exam” would quite likely still be mid-level engineers when they retire - and the CEOs that graduated with engineering degrees at the same time as them (with a broader set of “holistic” qualities) would probably rank somewhere in the middle-range of the same test.
So yes, I would much prefer a college admit an applicant who can perform well enough on the “STEM” test, but who also is a poet, or a cellist, or a student group leader, than one who performed better on the test but didn’t have breadth.
Colleges, especially elite ones, are not intended to create tradespeople - they are intended to create thinkers and good global citizens.
Thank you for articulating so well what was gnawing at me. My S23 is studying computer science but also taking classes in ethics and humanities. He took plenty of math, science, engineering classes in high school, but he also took four years of Latin and an English elective on modern literature and media. I believe that strengthened his application.
As a teacher, I see many bright students who work for the A, but don’t necessarily have passion or inquisitiveness. There are qualities beyond what can be measured by tests or GPA’s.
Ok, I’ll concede it-- 17 and 18 year olds who would score the highest on an “engineering test” are definitely not our future leaders; they are destined to be at best “mid-level engineers.” Certainly their high scores indicate they lack leadership potential or the social skills you need to network. They are tradespeople.
And yet…I have a certain affection for these stiff, mechanical, unimaginative losers. I propose our country create one (even just one!) university where it is rack 'em-stack 'em stats based. All these super losers can go there after being (rightly) rejected from the elite colleges where they don’t have what it takes to rub elbows with The Quality.
It’s funny, for a site that is dedicated to college admissions there are a surprising number of comments that subtly denigrate outstanding academic achievement. If your kid has an outstanding gpa and a great test score they must be locked in their room hitting the books at all hours of the day and night. Or, worse yet, they are intellectually void grade grubbers with zero outside interests. Yikes. How about a little nuance.
I feel like there are a bunch of sore losers on this thread. People who feel that their bright kid who would test above 99% of applicants (on whatever test we are discussing) and YET! Were not admitted to an ivy (or equivalent).
@UTmeritseeker has touched on other qualities. But no one – I think – has said that things like CREATIVITY are needed, even for STEM students. Emotional intelligence will take someone farther than pure smarts. And people: Harvard, and the rest do not want pure smarts!! They explicitly say they want leaders. People who will have an impact on the world. David Hogg, e.g.
So stop crying about the lack of meritocracy! If what you want is a rack and stack school, where the only thing that counts is stats – go to university in any number of countries, where admission is determined by high stakes, one and done tests.
There are kids who have the whole package. High test scores, intellectual curiosity, take super tough classes and excel because of intrinsic motivation. My S21 was friends with a girl who was the first in 25 years to get into Harvard from their school.
The point is more that test scores alone are not necessarily the best indicator of college success. People seem to want a very quantitative admissions process.
But isn’t this also what makes it more competitive? It’s a circular argument/issue.
It would be interesting if there was a “ranked choice” application process. It would be pretty easy to implement if people knew what FA and merit package they could receive before they ranked. It would, however, disadvantage families that couldn’t visit schools before making their choices.
And why UMASS Amherst, which waitlists many 3.8+ applicants, ended up ultimately accepting over 30% of the applicants on the waitlist last year according to the CDS.
That’s the beauty of my proposed school! It will in no way try to change the Ivy League’s noble mission of producing future leaders for IB and Consulting. All the sore losers (and social losers) who don’t have what it takes to be a Harvard Man, can go to this Rack’em-Stack’em school and bother CC nevermore.
But really, how cruel of you to suggest that these students should have to get out of the United States for their education. Granted, they don’t have much real potential, but they are still Americans. And our country needs more tradesmen, not fewer!
But what we would we do without an unending supply of latter day Gordon Geckkos? So far as I can tell, the penultimate achievement these days is to find yourself at Citadel (or similar) spending 100 hours a week trying to optimize the financial markets. I’m not sure when that became “leadership”.
Those typically aren’t the STEM majors. Finance bros are a whole other demographic typically.
Also it seems you are intentionally missing the overall point to my post in your sarcastic reactions. The point is: if, as suggested, schools ONLY look at test scores for STEM students and are not permitted to look at the whole student, the overall quality of the pool would be negatively impacted.
And this is supposed to come through in a 5 minute read of a student’s application? I see tons of students on CC in sports, in music, in chess and all sorts of things. Passion and inquisitiveness about classes is something you can see as a teacher of your student’s personally but I don’t know if even an essay crafted under pressure is a good measure of that.
Which no one sees so how can anyone say the LOR didn’t say all those things about the student.
I get that there aren’t enough spots but I also think it’s presumptuous of anyone to assume the denied student was any less qualified or deserving of a spot. That same student coming from a different school or class or entering a different major might be given a scholarship and a spot.
You are mistaken about STEM majors not going into finance. IB and Consulting recruit STEM majors especially hard. You should ask CC members such as @Chekov about the pipeline.
As for my proposed "Rack-'Em-Stack-'Em stats based school, you are probably correct; the overall quality of the pool will be negatively impacted by relying on objective measures such as tests and grades. Logic mandates that when one thing goes up, another must go down, so sadly these students must pay for their objective accomplishments by stunting in other areas. What I am proposing is that my school can be a nurturing home for these damaged students.
