<p>I do think there is randomness to this process once you get past those with preferred access and get to the (enormous) pool of qualified unhooked kids. I believe I’ve read in one of these threads that adcoms read files and advocate for favored applicants, battling with other adcoms and their own favored applicants and that ultimately it’s a matter of who wins out. I saw this with my own kid. Her essay just happened to hit the right reader and her stats were within range of that school. I don’t delude myself that she was a “special snowflake” any more than any other snowflake out there and I continue to think that her qualifications, while impressive, were nothing more than a ticket to participate in a lottery.</p>
<p>Of course it’s a crapshoot - at least as among the large pool of competing “qualified” candidates - and suggesting otherwise is silly. Adcom members have biases and foibles like everyone else. If one had a bad argument with their spouse at breakfast, yours best not be the first application they see in the morning. If they’re running late for the Stones 50 and Counting concert that evening, you don’t want to be the application on the bottom of the pile they must finish before leaving. If an applicant’s school was small and didn’t offer a lot of AP courses, the reviewer may arbitrarily penalize you for that. If you’re the oldest of several children and have working parents, the fact that you had to babysit siblings while your peers ran around doing pad-the-resume ECs will hurt your chances. And if you’re in the middle class you’re especially at a marketing disadvantage – you can’t pitch the emotional appeal of poverty, and you can’t afford fatuous stunts like the hypothetical semester spent digging water wells in Botswana. Ask any experienced professional and they will tell you that your choice of college means less than your performance once you arrive and, particularly, after you graduate. As one of the wealthiest, most successful trial lawyers in American history (with rather humble academic credentials) once said, “I never had a jury ask me where I went to law school”.</p>
<p>So, was it a “crapshoot” for the girl who wrote the article? Honestly, admission to the most selective schools was an extreme long shot for her, given her credentials (and in fairness, if you read her article all the way to the end, I think she realizes this). She got into at least one very selective school–Michigan–but her chances of getting into Harvard were extremely slim when you compare her to those who typically get in. I think students need to have a realistic understanding of their chances, because that’s important in building a good list (which it sounds like she probably did, since Michigan was on it).</p>
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Juries never ask trial lawyers anything.</p>
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<p>I agree completely. The randomness can be overcome by selecting a laddered group of colleges to apply to, with a wide range of acceptance rates. Each application is but a single hand of poker and the real goal is to win overall, not necessarily to win any specific hand. Ego should not get in the way of rational planning and decision-making.</p>
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If you do this, and get into even one of the schools, you can say, “My strategy worked.”</p>
<p><<juries never="" ask="" trial="" lawyers="" anything="">></juries></p>
<p>LOL I don’t know about your personal experience, but in 28 years I can recall only one trial in which jurors did NOT ask me questions afterward (and a few times during). I have found that jurors often show more interest in the lawyers, especially if they are skilled and dynamic, than in the case itself. Instill in your children the need to perfect their talents, wherever they may lie, as more important than the need to attend a Brass Ring college.</p>
<p>I just think the quote that juries never ask what law school you went to is silly. Why would they ask that? I assumed he meant during the trial, when typically jurors aren’t allowed to ask the lawyers questions–and they certainly wouldn’t ask personal questions. And I can tell you that what law school you went to has a big impact on your first job out of law school–although less later, of course.</p>
<p>I do think there are two levels of apps to the top schools. There is a random level and then there is a crapshoot level. </p>
<p>The random level is where you have the best of the stats, best of ECs, best of LORs stating you are once in a generation student and still don’t get in.</p>
<p>Crapshoot level is I know my application does not measure up to at least 10 others in my own school who are applying to this school but let me throw in an application anyway and see if I get lucky. I got one or two things on my app might get me noticed. They might even consider me a fit.</p>
<p>Well, sure it was a crapshoot for Suzy. Her odds may have been less than someone with higher SAT scores but honestly, I haven’t read her file and I don’t really know where she stacks up or how she stacks up. As I said earlier, if you’d had the 2400 4.5 gpa Asian girl with her varied ECs and national recognition denied at these schools (per nosering’s example a number of pages back), then many of would be saying that those stats are a dime a dozen, that her application probably looked indistinguishable from many others, and she too had no right to expect a certain result. And that’s true. It’s also very much my point. The unhooked applicant can’t predict where she will be accepted and where she won’t. There’s just too much randomness to the process to call it anything but a crapshoot or lottery or whatever you want.</p>
<p>Of course it’s a sound idea to research a wide variety of schools and consider their attributes and their fit very carefully. It does not mean that you will be accepted at the schools you expect, regardless of their acceptance rate and history. Both my older kids had very surprising results and I’m told by my youngest’s guidance office that this is more and more the case. You do your best, hope for the best, remain humble in the face of your good fortune and find any way you can to laugh at the bad.</p>
<p>I guess I’m a word stickler, but I don’t think there’s any randomness in the process at all. Nobody is rolling dice or drawing straws to decide who to take. There is subjectivity in the process, because human beings are evaluating squishy things like essays. But random and unpredictable are not the same thing.</p>
<p>See, I think it’s quite random. The fact that your application is assigned to a particular reader for example and that that person does not like the subject of your essay, not the tone, not the writing, not the quality, the subject—random. The fact that one adcom has more clout in the system and is going to press “her” candidate forward in lieu of yours–random. The fact that the region is told that they are going to allow fewer candidates in this year–random. </p>
<p>Is it unpredictable too? You bet. I’m not really sure whether it matters to me whether it’s unpredictable or random or both. The point is that it’s an uncertain and risky venture, i.e. a crapshoot. Every so often a kid who has applied carefully ends up without choices. It’s not likely and not often but it does happen. That’s pretty scary.</p>
<p>see i think she thought she had a hook…family ties and page job…thus the “shock” and making fun of people who wear head scarves and are gay…it did not surpise me the least her family had political ties</p>
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<p>I could not agree more with Hunt.</p>
<p>So what happens, they rank everyone one to 30,000 if there is no randomness?</p>
<p>I enjoyed her op-ed in the WSJ, took it as satire, did not find her comments like the one about Elizabeth Warren’s 1/32 cherokee heritage either racist or offensive, and think the colleges have left themselves open to such satire with their “holistic” admissions processes that can mean anything, at any time, to any admissions officer. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, she is not a victim either and has strong options, including acceptances at Michigan, Indiana, Penn State, and Wisconsin.</p>
<p>Joining Team Hunt/xiggi.</p>
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When you and your spouse decide what restaurant to eat in, is it random? It could be if you flipped a coin or something, but more likely you consider various factors, including hard ones (too expensive) and soft (don’t feel like Chinese tonight). Some of the restaurants might have “hooks” (you have a coupon, your brother owns it). Your decision is subjective, and unpredictable, perhaps even to you–but it isn’t random.</p>
<p>I had same exact stats and a lot better ECs and I didn’t even bother to play crap shoot with elitist schools. I guess that was a quite a narcissistic blow. </p>
<p>Do I sound brutal… Just being satarical , ha ha</p>
<p>Bad analogy for me Hunt. We have problems deciding so it could be three or four different takeouts.</p>
<p>I don’t see the randomness of it. On the flip side, its not like they write a letter saying what you should’ve done to not be rejected.</p>
<p>I understand its hard to pour out one’s soul and be rejected. It’s hard to be perfect and wonderful in your hometown and something less to a college where you feel you belong.</p>
<p>Entitlement to me means thinking someone who shouldn’t get accepted took your place.</p>