It’s a tough call. On the one hand, it’s great that schools like BC-Carroll, IU-Kelly, UMass Isenberg and MN-Carlson take a majority of their B school students direct entry. Those students are not faced with another application process in their sophomore year, only to be rejected and have to go to Plan B as a junior (like at Wake Forest and UW-Madison). They also have internship opportunities that ready themselves to be employable upon graduation. Isn’t that one of the goals? On the flip side, some students might not discover they want to major in marketing or accounting until they are sophomores. Some direct major entries like Nursing require students to start their specific course of study as freshmen to graduate in 4 years. That’s why some students choose an LAC or take a GAP year. It’s not a one size fits all approach.
Yes, I’m pretty sure it’s not arbitrary. But as with all holistic admissions, it can appear arbitrary from the outside.
And I don’t agree with the suggestion that public schools should not use holistic admissions.
Nothing wrong with it. I just haven’t seen evidence that the B student whose parents are paying for the high end consultant and who suddenly takes up fencing junior year and created her own non-profit is getting in to Harvard. People can pay for whatever they like. But if these folks are paying for an outsider to reset the bar, that’s different than assuming the consultants have “insider information” which was a point made upthread.
Insider information? That there’s an entire set of colleges who will roll out the red carpet for B students who are full pay?
100%. One of my son’s friends was recruited for football by one of the top 3 schools. He has a 1590 SAT with one sitting. And he is a great kid. I have noticed whenever they disclose some top CIA agent, they generally went to Harvard and were a football player- they are super smart and super athletic (which is what I would look for in a CIA agent). I don’t think anyone is suffering being around them.
My perception was if you had two kids with the same stats and one also plays football- you take the one who can handle more than just locking themselves in their room studying. The extra curriculars show the ability to be brilliant while balancing many things. That is why work experience is important, we want to see students who can balance, who can function in an environment with others (play nice). Team sports demonstrate this. And of course there are the “best in the world” type admits, olympic athletes, musicians which is it’s own kind of genius, whether people value it or not- the schools do (and I am grateful for a richer culture that includes genius from many fields).
How would that change things when every common app school either has their own app or uses Coalition app?
What sort of insider information do you think IECs have? They do not communicate directly with AOs on behalf of clients.
Hear, hear!
Or…parents have an overinflated view of their own kid’s aptitude and accomplishments in comparison to other students.
I teach an honors level high school course and it’s those parents calling and emailing me to complain when their kid gets a B.
Well, if there wasnt grade inflation and a no ranking policy, maybe their perception would be more accurate.
Yes. My son had second thoughts on a school because there was not a direct admit. But that’s different than a student deciding to change majors. If schools only evaluated based on criteria for their selected major when they are still in high school, that’s just short-sighted, especially for a liberal arts college.
In my opinion and experience, grade inflation is often driven by the parents. Or the politics of wanting to publish high graduation rates.
There is no perfect system and it seems people want to quantify something that isn’t quantifiable. Not entirely anyway.
Arbitrary is typically defined as random or capricious. Its unlikely college admissions at most publics are following that process.
That is what many schools do in evaluating high school students for applications to engineering, business, nursing, computer science, or a dozen other impacted majors like psychology. I honestly do not remember outrage about that at least for engineering, tho it has been that way for decades.
That was in reference to another comment suggesting that AO with degrees outside those subject should not be making admissions decisions. The point of that thread was that about a third of college students end up changing majors, so it can be valuable to look beyond skills for that major and more to intellectually curious and well rounded.
This isn’t what Harvard (or pretty much any of these schools want). If it was what they wanted they could easily create a test. The fact that they haven’t is evidence of their priorities.
What is so special about STEM that it needs its own special system? Math isn’t special, it’s a skill that some people have a particular aptitude for. I’m pretty confident speaking on this since I have a degree in Math. People treat super high Math scores with reverence but super high Verbal scores are rarer so maybe we’ve got things backward.
that sounds like the definition of an auto-admit policy.
Yes, they do, but I bet the vast majority of transferred majors are in closely affiliated fields. So skills in broad verbal or quantitative areas would be important ( say, an SAT score might work!).
I would worry more about what happens when (not if, because we know it’ll happen) 125 students all score perfectly on that test, but there are still only 60 spots. What happens then?
They come to cc to post/complain about how unfair the admissions process is?? 
It is easy to make a test in which no one scores perfectly. Oxford does it every year.