I am pro SAT all the way. So I don’t “prefer” anything. I’m not an adcom and don’t work in admissions, so what I “prefer” has no bearing on anything. I’m simply stating that SAT’s are a single data point. And when used in conjunction with OTHER datapoints, yields helpful information. And sometimes there are more datapoints and sometimes fewer.
I’ve worked for companies which use SAT’s as pre-interview screens. Not by themselves (again, there are 12-15 other pieces of data which are used) but I’d be lying if I said they weren’t important. Yes, I’ve been called an elitist, out of touch, racist, etc. Both on CC and IRL.
To claim that the SAT’s are irrelevant is an overstatement. But you need to use them in context.
One company used them VERY successfully in weeding out the “only in at elite U because my parents have dough” crowd, and influential legacies. Also helped in eliminating nepotism hires. You have the profile? Great, you get an interview. Bomb the interview? So sorry. But you don’t have the profile? Nice objective way to tell Mr. or Mrs. “Very important” that your kid or nephew or your private bankers sister doesn’t meet the bar. Role requires strong quant skills and your kid got a 500 math SAT? That’s an easy no.
I also saw how SAT’s help kids from “never heard of it” colleges. Strong SAT scores can do a lot- in context of course- in boosting the chances of a kid from a non-elite college getting interviewed.
So I’m pro SAT. The tests have their issues for sure. Every standardized something is not going to work in every single situation. But I’m pointing out that few college Adcom’s are going to make a decision about a prospective math major with ZERO data. Even in the absence of an SAT score.
You are focusing on one word from the entire post. Do I think someone with an Engineering degree would likely be able to do a better job evaluating Engineering applicants than someone with a Humanities degree, yes. I am sorry if this offends you.
The good news is, I’d like to take both out of the loop. I would prefer a school has math & physics tests to evaluate its Engineering applicants. That is it. No human evaluation of any kind.
There are many talented, hard-working middle and high school students (some with uninformed parents) who don’t advocate for themselves to learn at a more rigorous level, and schools who do not elevate them without student or parent self-advocacy. They get straight A’s in regular track and their non-college educated parents are proud, as they should be. All is fabulous, until they meet with their assigned college counselor to apply to college, and are told they are not competitive for certain colleges and scholarships because they lack academic rigor. College counseling needs to begin in 8th grade! Performance potential needs to be identified by the schools before high school. Honors and Advanced curriculum and the best teachers should be available to all students, not just the students with parents who demand it and those who can afford private tutors. And parents and students should be coached early that EVERYONE has the potential to attend selective colleges, that it can impact future graduate school placement, internship/career opportunities and eventual earning potential and social mobility for themselves and the next generation. If college counseling begins in fall of 9th grade, by spring of junior year, students and parents should be well-informed on what colleges would be best fits for them based on their learning style, career goals, etc.
I think that is simplistic. I took high school accounting at a private college prep school for two years. I liked it and was good at it. I would have aced a pre-college admissions test for accounting. I decided to major in business.
In college, I did not enjoy the other math and finance classes that went with that major. I suffered through them and ended up changing majors.
The idea that 17 and 18-year-olds should know exactly what they want to do for the rest of their lives and have the skills to get there is kind of crazy. I have read that as many as a third of college students end up changing majors.
I think colleges look for some basic skills (or even higher-level skills) but they also look for students who are intellectually curious and well-rounded. They want students who can pivot if their intended major does not work out the way they thought it would.
The CC community has had this conversation many times across many threads.
Nobody “average” is getting into any of the schools that are the underlying targets of this discussion (T30 and T20 LACs for the most part). With the exception of a small number of athletic admits (relative to both the school population and even more so the applicant pool) everybody attending is more than qualified to be there including LDC admits.
You wish for a different system, but that system has never existed for most elite US schools and these schools have absolutely zero interest in changing their system to accommodate what some feel are deficiencies but they see as strengths.
Read their mission statements, they generally discuss creating leaders and benefitting society.
Look at their curriculums, they put off declaring majors for a couple of years to inspire education and exploration (both with and without core requirements), the opposite of admitting to a ‘course’. Many of these schools are over 200 years old. They do not want to be Oxford, they have never wanted to be Oxford. They follow their mission.
The 1550+ SAT, 4.5+ GPA athletes’ at MIT, JHU, UChicago, and the top NESCACs bring levels of discipline and motivation that is uncommon but needed to excel both academically and athletically while not being able to devote complete focus to either. They are among the rarest of beings and the same goes for the musicians and thespians. To imply that they aren’t part of a cohort of similarly smart, motivated kids who inspire is misguided. Many of these kids are likely smarter than the typical student and their motivation and discipline is pretty obvious as well.
There is a part of me that agrees with you. Still, for majoring in certain things (like engineering, computer science, business) at certain schools right now, some kids do have to make consequential decisions at the age of 17/18.
Still, because many kids change majors, does that mean we shouldn’t try to make a more fair & meritocratic system? Maybe it does. I don’t know.
Both schools have explicitly said they don’t want to do this…why are so many trying to get schools to follow different protocols than the schools themselves want or need?
I’m not convinced the system is as unfair as people want to believe. There are more qualified students than spots. The more competitive schools also have high student retention rates and job placement/starting salary rates. What people think is broken is when they see a “deserving” kid not get in so they assume a bunch of “undeserving” kids got in.
My kid is deserving, yours is not. That’s an easy answer.
It gets more complicated when I need to parse what your undeserving kid has that mine does not- FG, childhood in a homeless shelter… all of these are “totally irrelevant” if it means your kid gets admitted and mine gets rejected.
Agreed. I don’t take issue with what students are actually doing now, given the current situation - I’m saying that a move by Common App to reduce the app limit would constitute one fell swoop for everyone that would greatly improve the situation. The first year would involve a lot of uncertainty of course, but I think that’s justifiable for the medium-term and long-term improvement.
I think everyone needs to tell the international students who post (and post, and post, and post) that they are wasting their time trying to go to the US for college because our process is broken and theirs is perfect. Why would anyone want to leave (fill in the blank) for the US?
There was a Mom at my kids’ school who was LIVID that her son did not get into his first-choice school. She questioned whether the money spent at a private high school was worth it if they could not guarantee results. He was a smart kid, but not the only smart kid in the class. There was definitely some resentment toward the kids who did get in.
I understand the emotional reaction, but parents need to keep their expectations in check and realize they have NO IDEA what the other kids’ profiles look like.
I’m not convinced that it is “unfair” (except for UC admissions where I do have issues). I really dislike the system; it is broken in many ways and ripe for reform but I still am not convinced that it is “unfair”.
People tend to ignore the numbers involved and it is the numbers that drive the angst. When you have 60,000 applicants for 2,000 spots (Harvard) the denominator is the driving issue for admission. The vast majority of applicants are getting denied because of the denominator, not because of their credentials. You could eliminate all preferences and the chances for the typical applicant would not change significantly. The driving factor is still the 60,000 applications for 2,000 spots.
Grade inflation and TO make things even more opaque but with 60,000 applications I am sure that the 2,000 lucky admits are more than qualified. As were probably 45,000 who didn’t make it.
I used Harvard in this example but the same holds for all of the highly rejective schools.
And you know there are colleges here who only allow music majors to perform in their ensembles and take lessons with the applied teacher. Ask me how I know.
At the same time, there are plenty of colleges who welcome students from any major in their ensembles.
I saw several people pointing out on this thread that the admissions process is different internationally. I didn’t see anyone say it was better, much less, perfect.
Or maybe I missed a post in this fast moving thread.
There are many talented, hard-working middle and high school students (some with uninformed parents) who don’t advocate for themselves to learn at a more rigorous level, and schools who do not elevate them without student or parent self-advocacy. They get straight A’s in regular track and their non-college educated parents are proud, as they should be. All is fabulous, until they meet with their assigned college counselor to apply to college, and are told they are not competitive for certain colleges and scholarships because they lack academic rigor. College counseling needs to begin in 8th grade! Performance potential needs to be identified by the schools before high school. Honors and Advanced curriculum and the best teachers should be available to all students, not just the students with parents who demand it and those who can afford private tutors. And parents and students should be coached early that EVERYONE has the potential to attend selective colleges, that it can impact future graduate school placement, internship/career opportunities and eventual earning potential and social mobility for themselves and the next generation. If college counseling begins in fall of 9th grade, by spring of junior year, students and parents should be well-informed on what colleges would be best fits for them based on their learning style, career goals, etc.