That’s why I am not advocating it 
So I guess what I would have liked is a process where a kid who is interested in a “math conservatory” is not judged on his tuba-playing skills. 
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The kids I referenced upthread-- UIUC, Wisconsin, Stonybrook particularly-- were nobody’s idea of a “well rounded/Renaissance kid”. Math, math math with a little gaming thrown in just to be sociable.
I think it’s a myth that the “conservatory level” of ANYTHING- math, Classics, linguistics-- needs to have a rap sheet of EC’s, leadership activities, NHS, chairperson of the prom committee. And certainly not tuba playing although the music/math ability seems to be linked for many high level kids in both domains.
How many “conservatory level” math kids do you think are getting rejected from these flagships every year?
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Is that a huge issue though? Do you see super high achieving students being passed over for mediocre students who play the tuba? (Or some equivalent)
I have a cousin whose kid definitely got a leg up on admission because he played an instrument that not a lot of people played. But the selective schools who were courting him had music programs. Even highly selective schools have athletics and marching bands. I imagine the students who go there, for the most part, like having teams to cheer for and the school spirit that comes with that whole package.
The kid was maybe slightly below the benchmark stats for the schools, but he wasn’t a slacker. I’m not all that focused on super selective schools, but I have a hard time imagining tuba players being the driving force behind why some kids don’t get admitted…or why some kids feel some anxiety about their chances.
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Agree with you. And I’ll posit that you couldn’t fill Carnegie Hall if you took ALL the gifted musicians who had “taken the place” of an academic superstar over the last 20 years. It’s probably a handful each year, spread out over 15-20 colleges.
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I would posit that the real number is effectively zero. Gifted athletes, musicians, thespians, etc. do not replace ‘academic superstars’ if by ‘superstar’ you are talking about someone who is measurably above the norm at the school in question.
Rather, they get the nod over similar applicants with ECs that aren’t as much of an institutional priority as those brought by the musician, thespian, athlete.
Admissions are holistic which points to a non-admitted ‘academic superstar’ likely being deficient in another part of the evaluation process. They weren’t beaten out, they ‘fell short’ as do the vast majority of kids applying to these schools every year.
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As I think I mentioned upthread, we had an MIT/Caltech cross-admit waitlisted at Rice (among other places), and another MIT admit deferred at Georgia Tech.
Now, perhaps all these schools correctly assumed that these kids were destined for MIT, and were just yield-protecting (though many on CC insist yield protection is not a thing).
But it’s not like MIT is offering these types of kids any guarantees either (though I do think their admissions are better than most at identifying and recruiting them, which makes the school so attractive). Aren’t they supposed to be “a reach for everyone”?
So I honestly do not know how anyone can not “feel some anxiety” in this intentionally opaque system with no right of due process or appeal.
Now, granted, no one is entitled to go through life with no anxiety.
And what is CC if not a form of collective talk therapy
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I watched a youtube video of a panel of Ivy admission officers talking to Scarsdale, NY high school parents several years ago (wish I could find it again)…in that video, the Harvard AO was pretty explicit that out of the 2000 or so admits each year - only about 200 were considered ‘academic superstars’ by Harvard. The rest fell in the ‘average excellent’ that so many students fall into.
The Harvard AO was also pretty explicit about whether a student should think of themselves as an ‘academic superstar’. He basically said, if you aren’t already on our radar via national recognition, already doing college work with known professors in the area of research you’d be ‘known for’, etc - you probably aren’t a superstar.
ETA: Forgot to mention…APs and SAT scores were also explicitly given as examples as not showing “superstar academics”. National recognition needed to be more elite than those measures.
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I guess that’s what I am grappling with. I don’t think anyone should feel entitled to any admission, never mind entitled to feel like it’s a sure thing. I guess most students should have admission to a state university, but not necessarily the one they deem the most prestigious. There aren’t enough spots.
You are looking at it from the lens of super-selective schools. Even at schools with a <40% admit rates, there is a sense of outrage among parents who are absolutely convinced some lesser kid got picked over their more worthy child. It’s all so off-putting.
Don’t get me wrong, I had the anxiety too. I wanted my kids to get what they had worked hard for. We felt they curated lists that matched their accomplishments and abilities. There were schools we knew that even though they were right there in the upper part of the schools data set, it was not a sure thing. Many, many kids would also be in that range.
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Here’s a question that I know many here will find objectionable but I will ask anyway.
“WHY?”
Whose interests does it serve that the system is so opaque and so unpredictable that no one can know they will get admitted anywhere?
Why do we have such a system?
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Correct. These kids like your family member’s kids would have to be “otherwise qualified” for admission, meaning the applicant is qualified for admission, and the instrument would be an additional hook.
The best kids at my school: most everyone knows who they are and they typically don’t have the highest grades or test scores typically, but pretty high. Because they socialize and have lots of real ECs and personality. Humans. Not bots.
No one wants to go to school with bots. Except bots.
People really want to make admissions quantitative? Lmao.
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I think if highly selective schools said we are looking for x,y,z…there would still be way more applicants than spots. I think, especially private, universities have the right to build the class that suits I stituional needs and priorities. Also, if they are completely transparent, and they will still have to turn down many applicants, it could open them up to criticism, accusations, and maybe lawsuits.
Maybe the T20 could institute a draft where they pick from the applicants 
that would eliminate one rock star kid getting 10+ acceptances and an equally impressive kid getting one or none out of sheer bad luck. ( I know there are many problems with that scenario!)
Also, I doubt these kids aren’t getting in anywhere unless they are only applying to super-reach schools.
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There is a lot to be said for transparent and predictable. It isn’t perfect, but I will take the Texas public system over the alternatives for public schools. We know what is needed and how to get it.
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Seriously? Your kids had the stats they had and you were worried they wouldn’t get in ANYWHERE?
Even in my “neither Michigan nor Virginia” state- nothing on that level- we knew our kids would be admitted to the state flagship and to the next tier down of the non-flagship state U’s. Every single one of them. None of them were all that strong in the kids desired fields, but assuming they put in an application early (September, not January 31st) we knew they’d get in to all of them if they wanted. One state over- every single State U, again, as long as they followed the directions and didn’t wait. Two states over (where the kids DID apply, the flagship would have been a skootch more expensive than our own state)- again, pretty close to auto admit if you follow the directions and don’t have a felony conviction.
Would they have been auto-admits for every single major? No. But unlike virtually every parent on CC who is terrified by “secondary admissions” or whatever, I had no doubt that if a kid got into Arts and Sciences but wanted CS, by the end of freshman year they’d have figured out what they needed to do. Hate to say it- but all the parents posting here that the kid MIGHT not have the 3.6 GPA required to get where the kid wants to go- heck, your kid is probably telling you that they REALLY do NOT want to get there; their social life is more important. (which is fine btw but a completely different issues).
Exactly which public U’s are you talking about where an exceptional academic kid doesn’t know where s/he can get in?
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I am obviously not asking for 100% admission.
But they also wouldn’t have to have a 5% admissions rate if their system was more transparent.
But now we are getting somewhere. Schools do not want transparency because they don’t want to have their process scrutinized. Granted.
But why do parents not want transparency?
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I was responding to this sentiment:
“I don’t think anyone should feel entitled to any admission”
(I did want to add the usual caveats, but it would detract from the flow:)
Because then the parents can blame an opaque admission process for random results rather than their kid’s qualifications, or lack thereof
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The way I read it, they were “worried” their kids wouldn’t get in everywhere.
And a deferral from GT means there is a final decision later. Was it an admission, waitlist or denial?
I have no real dog in this fight, so it’s more philosophical. I do believe that a school has the right to have priorities beyond test scores and gpa. Until the admissions officers see the applicant pool, they can’t say how they will fill those priorities. Maybe they want to expand their foreign language program that year. A kid who has shown an aptitude and interest might check a box that an equally impressive kid does not. Or maybe one kid checks two boxes of what the school feels they need.
Also, I have witnessed this kind of thing on the K-12 level. Why did THAT kid get picked for NHS, or cheer captain, or whatever over my kid. what was the exact criteria? Tell me so now I can argue the criteria or how you applied the criteria.
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Admission to a high quality affordable state flagship is more consequential than the high school examples you cite. One might argue that consequential government actions should always try to be transparent.
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