I am not really concerned with how private schools choose their class. Public colleges should be transparent, predictable, and objective in the sense that different AOs would grade the same application similarly.
Some states lack that. Hence, their system is broken.
Some of the international kids posting failed to meet their home country’s merit based admission. Nothing wrong with trying for holistic in the US.
Acting on insider information is illegal in only a few narrow fields (e.g. when buying of stocks and bonds), but that doesn’t mean insider information doesn’t occur or isn’t acted upon in many, many other fields. But it’s fine with me if you want to call it something else.
This is the issue that I have. Private schools can make up whatever complicated rubric that they want. Public colleges have an obligation, imo, to be as transparent as possible in their admissions.
I only know one person who admits to having used a private college counselor. A clear case of trying to make a sow’s ear into a silk purse (and apologies to the kid- she’s a nice, kind person). After the angst of HS and the molding of EC’s and summer activities and a LOT of creative writing (observing your mom’s best friend at work in her law firm and getting her coffee isn’t exactly “summer internship as a legal assistant” even though- true- it was in a legal setting and she did “assist”).
You know the ending- kid ended up in a middling private U, which is all fine and good, but NOBODY spends big bucks getting their kid in there (every guidance counselor in the region knows how to get a kid in there- a B average, no felonies, full pay does the trick).
So I’m not all that impressed by the folks with more money than brains who go all out with these private counselors. And I don’t know (based on what I’ve read about them, their own websites and brag sheets) that they actually know anything even close to “insider information”. Being an Adcom at Dartmouth 20 years ago? Being an admissions rep who gave tours to prospective freshman and was “in the room” when applicants were discussed? Yawn.
Does anyone still think that digging latrines in Haiti or launching a 501-C3 to deal with online bullying among cheerleaders is the ticket to Harvard?
Apparently, since those actions continue in abundance.
I think the idea of trying to categorize things as insider vs outsider (all illegal activities aside) is an attempt to suggest a “victimhood” associated with being an outsider.
This is an ironic narrative on a website like College Confidential, where all of us are trying to share information to help virtual strangers to play an imperfect game better. CC is a huge democratizer of the admissions process, and one for which I am grateful.
What sort of insider information is available that we cannot access on this website?
Nope. But there is insider information aka tribal knowledge held by certain socio-economic and cultural groups, including parents who themselves attended highly selective colleges, the private schools attended by their kids and cultural traditions. It’s a 4, 8 and 12 year plan, sometimes starting in nursery school. I am trying to find the article about parents making sure their child attends the “right nursery school.” While it doesn’t guarantee a selective school admission, there is a statistical advantage for those who have the knowledge on how the U.S. educational system and college admission process works, and a correlating disadvantage for those who don’t.
Great NYT article and Harvard articles and the consequences of socio-economic inequalities.
Do you honestly believe that it’s latrine digging that is getting kids in to Harvard? An activity so prevalent and banal that even the kids heading to (horrors) U Mass Lowell are doing it and bragging about it?
I have a sibling in another part of the country where using these counselors is very prevalent. Sibling;s take is that the primary value of the counselor is in resetting the expectations. So the kid who is gunning for U Penn… a high priced, experienced counselor can turn it in to a win when that kid ends up at Franklin and Marshall and NOT Muhlenberg or Penn State Altoona. Or the kid whose “Ride or Die” is Georgetown ends up at Providence or Seton Hall and mom gets to tell her friends “It was his first choice”.
Let’s say 800 applicants are applying for 60 spots as a Math major at Harvard. As an applicant, would you rather have the process be a total mystery, or would you rather have everyone take the exact same test crafted by the Math Department at Harvard. If you get the 348th highest score, I think a rejection would be more palatable than psychologically wrestling with the great unknown. I think a test structure like this would bring about less stress on applicants…and isn’t that a good thing?
Maybe the right answer is a test system like this for STEM majors and holistic admissions for other majors.
Of course not. But the message that those actions are silly hasn’t trickled down to all the applicants yet; hence, some continue to do them. Particularly less sophisticated applicants. That is the sad part-wasting time on an activity they dont enjoy which wont help their application anyway.
“curating” a college list is an expensive way of making someone feel good about their college choices/options. If someone has the money and wants to feel good about themselves (or their kid to maintain self esteem), what is wrong with that?
The surest way to lose a race is to look at how others are doing before you cross the finish line.
It’s not latrine digging anymore. It’s onto something new now (maybe ask the private college counselors what it is nowadays.) 10 years ago it was apparently anti-bullying non-profits that you abandon as soon as you get into Yale, if that young man (the one who charges $150K/yr for private CC) profiled in the above linked article is to be believed.
ETA: My bad, he actually charges only $125K/yr. Sorry
Then only apply to public colleges.
But continue paying for public schools to act arbitrarily?
You should contact those private colleges and submit a suggestion to their deans of admissions to set up such a test system.
It depends on which ones. Many admit almost everyone who applies (same as lower tiered private schools), some have auto admit, some are stats driven — but all the most popular, elite public flagships are holistic. So it’s not different.
Correction:
then only apply to public colleges that have clearly spelled out rules/rubric for admission.
The objection is to funding arbitrary and possibly discriminatory state action
And there is a difference between holistic and “arbitrary”. Unlikely the public schools admissions procedures are “arbitrary”.
If they can not be reliably replicated and justified consistently across AOs, they qualify as arbitrary.
It appears many parents do believe the results at some public schools are arbitrary. At least they have lost trust in the process