'It's a crap shoot': Father of girl who wrote scathing letter to Ivy League colleges

Applying to College
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I was about to post the exact words that calmom posted above. I would add that having read results threads here on CC for several years bears this out, when you look at where students are cross-admitted. There are a few surprises, but more often applicants who are admitted to one highly selective school are also admitted to others. In essence, that’s running multiple simulations. It’s very unusual for somebody to be admitted to a high reach, and then be rejected by match schools, which would happen more often if the process were more random.</p>

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<p>"It’s very unusual for somebody to be admitted to a high reach, and then be rejected by match schools, which would happen more often if the process were more random. "</p>

<p>What would be a match school for someone who has a good chance of being admitted in a high reach school? Do the high reach schools become match schools for one who is admitted to them?</p>

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<p>There’s no “official” definition of reach and match, but I think a good working definition is that a reach is one where most applicants with stats like yours are rejected, a match is one where most are accepted, and a safety is one where all (or almost all) are accepted. Thus, except for a tiny percentage of applicants, Harvard is a reach for everyone.</p>

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<p>This is a story about job hunting but I think it applies to the college search.</p>

<p>My husband would say he got his first job in a highly sought after management consulting firm because he spoke Swedish, a language that wasn’t asked for by the firm and that he never used in 5 years on the job.</p>

<p>He had applied for a job rarely offered to anyone without an Ivy League education, which he didn’t have. His interview went well, but he knew his chances were slim. As he was leaving the interview he overheard a consultant struggling to communicate with a client in Swedish on the phone. Hubby stepped in and offered to translate and was taken up on the offer. When he was offered the job over many other well qualified candidates he was told they were impressed by his handling of the situation.</p>

<p>Someone who saw the process as random, like the college application process, would say that this story is evidence of randomness, because of the fact that he just happened to be in the office when the Swedish conversation took place. </p>

<p>I, however, would point out that while that certainly was a random element, the vast majority of what earned him the position was not random- his strong analytical skills, stellar undergraduate academic record, people skills in the interview and his ability to confidently and professionally handle himself when the situation called for him to act as a member of a consulting team. He would not have been in a position to demonstrate his skills had all those other elements not been in place. Even the fact that, unlike his sister, he had maintained his Swedish skills by purposefully reading books in Swedish, allowed the situation for him to help out to present itself.</p>

<p>Had that conversation taken place in Chinese I’m confident he would have found a place at another high-powered firm. Perhaps it would have been his deep knowledge of his country of origin (not Sweden) or his interest in world economic policy that would have earned him a place. Or maybe he would have ended up at this firm anyway; the department in which he ended up was the one which covered the area on which he had written his senior thesis, so perhaps the Swedish conversation was just the icing on the cake.</p>

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<p>great story sue. Which once again serves to prove the point about the Opaque process. Except in the case of colleges no one knows about the magic requirement that’ll get you in. And furthermore after you DO get in, you don’t know what GOT you in! Good luck.</p>

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<p>I have also noticed that people are usually rejected from most of the top schools they apply to or are accepted to most of them. This implies there is something else going on besides it “just being random”.</p>

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<p>“Call it crapshoot all you want. If you want to describe the poor odds, so be it. But if you want to claim it random, that is simply dead wrong on every count. And, if you do not really believe me, take a look at the high predictability of the admissions and enrollment.”</p>

<p>But in my observation most people get rejected on some top schools and admitted at others. Even in the result threads in many of the CC forums. One might take this as different schools looking for students of particular niches, but then, the more selective an institution, the more admission results vary among the same set of applicants applying to the same colleges with very similar mission and demographics. </p>

<p>I think the weak correlation in how one applicant fare at one school versus another is perfectly attributable to the “randomness” in admission of the kind that QM described, where admission ends up dependent on the order the apps are read, the personality, personal preference, and mood of the adcom member who reads them, and what other apps happen to be considered at the same time, all of which are pure chance events. </p>

<p>We might always debate on the degree to which this randomness plays a role, but refuting that it exists is silly.</p>

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<p>*“Why do you have such a disdainful attitude toward high school kids? They don’t need to set out their life’s experiences – they can write an essay about 5 minutes of their lives.”</p>

<p>“Having been here for more than a decade, and read plenty of applications “packages” I can, without much hesitation, that the overwhelming number of applicants is poorly advised and has failed to put his or her best foot forward. “*</p>

<p>Were some of these posts supposed to be defending the current system? This strikes me as even worse than crap shoot!</p>

<p>It all suggests that admission to certain schools have become more like a game of crafting the best resumes and stories to sell instead of one that focuses on how students do in high school, as students. Accomplishment to be evaluated should be those which speak plainly for themselves, not the extra embellishments that come by knowing the right story to frame, just the right words to put in an essay. </p>

<p>If you’re familiar with Harry Bauld, you must know that it is a particular style of writing that he advocates, a very personal and self focused type of narrative. Kids have different personalities, skill assets, some more verbally gifted than others and some less skilled at boldly showcasing themselves, so to speak. </p>

<p>Even among talented young writers, there’s a difference in the style that one might be most comfortable with – God forbid a science kid writes his essay like a formal academic paper like he’s taught in school, unless he has a savvy parent like calmom looking over his shoulders, or attends a good high school with knowledgeable guidance department. </p>

<p>I’m not disdainful towards high school kids. I am saying, however, that it should be the job of the adcom, and the goal of the system, to devise the process that spots talent regardless of whether a student was able to put his or her best foot forward because of poor advising. There should never be so much emphasis on the strength of the packaging.</p>

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<p>“Do they ever! You would not believe some of the terrible resumes and cover letters that cross my desk – even though all of my career counseling clients are practicing attorneys and graduates of top law schools. Job-seeking requires a skill set very different from the skill set required for the job. You have to get it right, or you’re dead in the water."</p>

<p>Good point! If even practicing attorneys and graduates of top law schools have trouble with this, why would we expect a junior in high school to be better? How is it that we would expect students with or without job experience to be masters when even parents are befuddled by the process?</p>

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<p>“When my daughter was a high school junior, she looked for a summer job. All she got was a lot of experience in job-hunting – she submitted more than 40 job apps, no go.”</p>

<p>We can go through multiple tries to get a job. There’s only ever one try to apply to college. </p>

<p>I don’t think it’s well known to kids today from average households that they should “spend $30 or$40 or something” on “books by experts on this stuff” to read. I noticed that calmom bought the books for her kids. Would they know to do this on their own without calmom, or would they have plainly listed their scores and things on the application, failing to put their best foot forward, so to speak, like “the overwhelming number of applicants”?</p>

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<p>Sigh!</p>

<p>Why would there be a great correlation between various schools and one applicant? Ever notice the growing trend of one applicant trying his or luck at the top 10 ranked schools, or all at Ivies? Why would there be a strong correlation between Stanford, Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth? </p>

<p>As far as predictability goes, my comment was not about the schools exhibit similar patterns, but how, year after year, they tend to build a class with similar racial distributions, similar score tests, and class ranks. </p>

<p>We really are going in circles. Some seem determined to establish that admissions are a mere games of chance. Hence the analogies to crapshoot and randomness. Others see it differently, with admissions committees accepting students that fit a number of criteria and ending up with a class that has NOTHING to do with a random process. They admit the students they want, reject the ones they did not want, and they do not rely on tossing dice to make their selection. </p>

<p>It is all about creating matches. It is absolutely normal and expected that not every school is a good match for one particular candidate. And that is just the opposite of …random.</p>

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Actually, my daughter was admitted to reach schools and waitlisted at two supposed match schools – but I think that was more a matter of targeting (along with my other comments).</p>

<p>On paper, while they were significantly more selective, the reach schools were a better fit. One of the match schools that waitlisted her was Boston University – but this recent thread on CC - <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1507588-inside-admissions-process-event-bu-last-night.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1507588-inside-admissions-process-event-bu-last-night.html&lt;/a&gt; – gives me a lot of insight as to why. Let’s just say that it’s hard to imagine any student writing a weaker “why this college” response than the one my daughter wrote for BU. </p>

<p>So I guess that comes back to how you define reach/match/safety. If you are looking at published stats as to their selectivity, you will make one set of assumptions; if you dig deeper into exploring how well your kid’s interests, accomplishments and academic profile mesh with what the college is likely looking for in its applicants – then you might get a different picture.</p>

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No. After the acceptance packet arrives, it generally becomes a safety. Sometimes after the financial aid offer arrives, it is also a “financial safety.”</p>

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<p>Not if there is zero money being offered in the package.</p>

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<p>What planet do you live on? Students can apply to many colleges, and there is no age limit. Many students take gap years, either planned, or because they don’t like the choices they have after the first round or realize that they can’t afford those options.</p>

<p>The college application process is much easier – and way more transparent – than a job search. (Heck, 90% of employers don’t even bother to write or call back to tell candidates that they’ve been rejected, much less give any clue as to what factors they considered in hiring).</p>

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<p>That’s why I said “Sometimes”.</p>

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<p>I admit that my daughter is older. Back in my daughter’s day, there used to be large prominent buildings at or near major shopping malls called “Borders” or “Barnes and Noble” where you could hang out and see whole shelves of these “books” prominently displayed. One could actually stand in the aisles and leaf through dozens of books, reading only the parts you were interested in, and then put the book back on the shelf without having to buy it. </p>

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<p>I figured out how to buy books when I was 6, but I did need my mommy to give me the money. In the year 2000 I ordered a bunch of college books from Amazon for my son, but by mistake they sent us a color Gameboy instead. I called up Amazon and we worked it out: we cancelled the book order and kept the Gameboy. The kids were delighted. </p>

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<p>I don’t know whether you are being facetious or what – but a 17 year old who can’t figure out their way around their school library doesn’t belong in the Ivy League. I can assure you, most kids who end up at Ivy League schools have a history of being rather voracious readers, who don’t need their mommy to lead them to books – or at least they did up until the recent past. If there is an upcoming generation that thinks “reading” is something you do on Twitter … then I shudder at what the poor profs at elite colleges will have to deal with. </p>

<p>(From talking to my daughter these days, I shudder to imagine what her Amazon credit card bill looks like. But yes, I do admit, back in the days when she was tromping around looking for a job in vain, I did finance the college book buying)</p>

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<p>Like Calmom my son targeted his applications toward schools he knew would be a good match and to whom he would be an attractive candidate. He did a lot of research to determine which these schools were. For instance, looking at statistics alone he could have predicted a fat envelope from one of the schools he was considering, but when he went on Naviance it became clear that school didn’t “get” kids from his school. The acceptance rate from his HS was considerably lower than the rate for kids with the same stats at its peer schools. It came off his list. Other schools clearly valued kids from his school and admitted them at a higher rate than would have been predicted by their GPAs and SATs. Those stayed on.</p>

<p>This kid had some considerable weaknesses and strengths in his application. He targeted schools where the weaknesses wouldn’t hurt him and the strengths would help. For instance, knowing how little his performance on standardized testing reflected his ability and transcript he didn’t even <em>take</em> the SAT or ACT. He had one DOA tell him, after they discussed one of his areas of strength, “You’re exactly the kind of kid we’re looking for” and tell him in as many words that if what he had told him in the interview checked out he’d be admitted. This was a match school on paper. </p>

<p>In the end he was admitted ED to his reach school.</p>

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<p>And also like Calmom I find the idea that 17 and 18 year olds don’t know how to do some basic research on the internet or in a book store rather preposterous.</p>

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<p>Well, the “book store” is fast becoming a thing of the past. Though they still seem to have them in airports. ;)</p>