What is with these APUSH teachers? I have a high stats junior who was like no way. At least they will be well prepared….
I do not envy the Texas system but on the other hand you have phenomenal instate schools. I hear similar things about NC. Really brutal. Does your high school have them tracking into areas of interest like medical or engineering and require internships? My friend is in Austin and they have them track into areas of interest.
My daughter is at UT Austin. I believe they are down to Top 6% or 7% classrank is an auto admit to Texas, however they are not guaranteed their choice of major. So many students who hit top6% are declined out of their top 1-2-3 choices, get into something they don’t want and are aware that transfer colleges, especially into Engineering or business, is virtually impossible so they don’t go to Texas.
NC here - I think the intensity of AP is region and school specific. APUSH and IBHOA can be pretty work intensive at our magnet HS (Raleigh). And AP/IB and Honors are heavily pushed for all teh magnet students - When my daughter finishes next year she will have complete 13 year long AP/IB courses and 15 year long Honors course - doing the math on that, only 4 of her 32 year long classes will NOT have been weighted courses. Her brother finished with 10 and 12 and older sister with 12 and 12 respectfully and they were not outliers.
As far as the college app to our state flagships (UNC and NC State) - yes it can be ‘brutal’ for admissions. In the Greater UNC system with those two plus fifteen others, it’s far easier to get into the fifteen others than UNC or NCSU. Though NC State doesn’t receive the same rankings or adulation at UNC-Chapel Hill, just getting into the school isn’t a cake walk, even for high performing students its not a guarantee, and especially into engineering - it’s no joke.
And there is apparently a strong drive to try to be representative for the entire state - so very high performing students in Wake County (Raleigh), Mecklenberg County (Charlotte) and Orange (Chapel Hill) who are in the top quartile of those admitted are often shut out by top performers in the upper decile in their county, where they would otherwise be admitted coming out of the more rural counties.
That’s the case for all public flagships/Selective state universities - their primary goal is to serve the whole state, ie., all the counties/school districts in the State, by choosing whoever rose to the top of their respective schools.
Then there are regional universities which apply the same principle but only to their region and generally a tier down from the whole state selection (except at some honors colleges).
And I get that, however it’s still apparent that the preparedness of the students coming from highly competitive population dense magnet type schools is a different level than those who were simply high GPA or top class rank in their rural schools with much less competition and fewer APs/IBS etc. It’s not the ‘kids fault’ because they did what they did with what they had available, but the outcomes indicate they just aren’t as prepared for the college culture shock.
And, I can certainly make the argument that while it increases the ‘accessibility’ to the flagship education to the whole state (even if those who benefit from the whole state approach in admissions then don’t struggle and or fail out), I question the effect of telling high performing students from these ‘oversubscribed’ magnet clusters - who end up in the 10-20% or 20+% classrank at their schools butwould be Top, 1-5% in the rural program - that this is the best strategy to tell them that rather than having ‘earned their spot’ at UNC or NCSU, instead they should have to go to one of the regional state schools or Wake Tech / Community College for a year or two to prove they belong at UNC -or- they routine leave the state to go to school elsewhere.
It’s hard for me to see the logical argument of sending your Intellectual capital which isn’t top 1-2% (Those are already going to Ivies and programs top ranked in their field) or top 3-5% (going to UNC) but leaving the Top 3-5% that are declined at UNC and the 5-20% who don’t get in are now going out of state, many of whom won’t return - so that we represent the ‘whole state’.
I would think, at some point, understanding (1) what happens to many of these kids who come in with high GPA / Class rank but are from non-competitive school backgrounds when they start at Carolina (or NC State Engineering) with students who have been AP classed out the wazoo and in high competition since Junior High School - while (2) also losing out on high intellectual capital that now goes out of state for their education -would lead us to the question of, is this really in the best interest of those kids -and- of the state as a whole? Or would everyone be better served by having the ‘prepared kids’ admitted to the FlagShip, and the not- quite as prepared kids admitted into the regional state schools, so they can ramp up their educational stamina and performance such that it shows they are prepared to enter UNC or NC State as transfer students (or they don’t perform at a high level at the regional school, and so they stay in the program thats bets suited to their individual capability/capacity). I know not everybody will see it that way or agree - but I think it’s another valid point of view.
That’s why UT Austin invests tens of millions of dollars in supports for the auto admit students who are relatively less prepared for college. That is part of UT’s mission…servicing the taxpayers of the state and enhancing the social mobility of its disadvantaged students. It is notably NOT UT Austin’s mission to enroll only the best and brightest when looking at the state as a whole.
I understand thats what’s done. I would prefer to see the real ‘outcomes’ from this decision process - What happens with student performance in those less prepared for college when put into the more competitive atmosphere (what is gained from the investment at this stage), what happens to those students who were more prepared for the more competitive environment but were declined in favor of this approach and where did those students end up… did they maximize their potential, where did they go, did they come back to their hometowns or even back to Texas (ie, what was lost) - so that the cost benefit is looked at whole-istically.
My observation, and it’s not solely just my own but I won’t directly speak for others, is that it’s darn near impossible and quite cost inefficient to try to address this at the college level and more pointedly at the levels of programs here. My opinion is this is something which has to be addressed pre college, pre high school and likely pre J. HS, way back in elementary school, and in the absence of that, this situation is pretty much what I suggested the regional campuses of the State Flagships and the Community Colleges are in the position of handling. Those kids spend a year (or two) at the Regional Campus (Such as UNC Greensboro or Wilmington or Pembroke etc etc) to go thru the Gen Ed requirements as they would at UNC-Chapel Hill - and provided they achieve the standards necessary they can apply for (or be guaranteed) transfer into the Flagships main campus.
Instead, students who have already proven they can achieve competitiveness in AP Calc AB, AP Stats, AP USH, AP GEO, AP World History etc, with GPAs in the 3.8+ and WGPA 4.5+, with Standardized test scores in the Top five percent are told they have not earned (or been granted) a slot at the State Flagship but must consider going to the Regional Schools to once again prove themselves capable and can then try to transfer into the State Flagship Main Campus (which is still not a given with a 3.75+ first year) in favor of students which statistically as a group will not perform at the same levels and drop out at higher rates than average student body or are declined to continue course progression or take longer to complete their state subsidized curriculum. I think it’s backwards from several aspects - however, I understand not everyone shares my point of view. I can cite multiple anecdotal examples where students who were brought into these competitive state flagships from non-competitive backgrounds (including on several on scholarship) who were placed in the entry (or even what we might consider remedial courses) with academic assistance provided to try to help them catch up, and yet they remained overwhelmed. If they are then ‘failed out’ completely, or then 'passed on ’ into more advanced course progression but will struggle even more due to their inability to master the fundamentals of the base course - we’ve now done a disservice to three parties (1) The student who had proven to be competitive but was declined in favor of this approach (2) The student who benefited in this approach in terms of being admitted but un-prepared for what they walk into and has now achieved a 2.3 in their first year of remedial courses and is then passed on into more advanced course progression for which they are obviously over-matched and (3) the state and taxpayer which is funding this approach while sending a chunk of best and brightest out of state because they were told they didn’t qualify for the Flagship in their own state…but can go to another states Flagship OOS (and in some cases, receive financial incentives making it affordable) never to return.
And, I acknowledge this is a tangent from the original subject even though it pertains to the general concept of slotting students for ADA, DA Review, and SA progression. So I’ll refrain from beating this ‘dead horse’ any further in this thread.
There’s been quite a bit of research, including wrt UT, and upper middle class students don’t suffer - they do very well at the colleges they choose to attend ; the greatest positive impact is upon FGLI students, who after a semester or two adjusting, succeed -which makes sense because in college as in life, what matters most is a combination of intelligence, hard work, resilience, and drive, which they’d shown by being among the top students at their school, often despite strenuous circumstances.
In college, work ethic trumps being +2 advanced in math provided the necessary transition support are provided.
Wrt Kelley, it seems fairly easy for them to decide “3.7 UW, 4.0W” for direct admit. 
Right? It seems so simple. And I would expect it would bring down/better balance Kelley’s M:F ratio, assuming more males are in the lower GPA areas (which data support in the US aggregate.) Kelley class of 2025 was 68% male, Class of 2026 67% male, from that link I posted above. https://kelley.iu.edu/recruiters-companies/undergrad/statistics/class-profiles.html
My rising senior recently toured Harvard. Our tour guide was a young man from rural NC. He was so refreshing and honest. He was a sophomore and told us he still had not decided if Harvard was the right place for him. He was prepared to go to UNC and when he got into Harvard, he felt he couldn’t turn it down. He said he had never been on a plane until he visited. He said he did not feel like he fit in at all and really struggled but that it was getting better. He was a math major and also interested in math my daughter asked him what level of math he took in high school (she was nervous about her level). He said he only took precalc. My daughter was in multivariable. He said “oh I’m a sophomore at Harvard and you are a junior in high school and we are in the same math class.” Is Harvard admitting the absolute best and brightest or are they admitting the kids with the most potential? Perhaps a bit of both. And how do we measure “the best?” There’s a lot to unpack here. I really appreciated his candidness. Again I think it goes back to the mission of that particular school and some schools are tasked with prioritizing the students in their state. The best thing you can do is educate yourself on the landscape in your state. There are also huge disparities in cost and merit across states. Here in MA, we are not known to prioritize our instate students the same way and merit is nonexistent. I hear similar things about Penn State. One of the reasons you see MA kids go OOS so much. My senior will be going to Wisconsin Madison for the same price as UMass instate.
If that is true, it would seem logical that those same students should then be able to ‘succeed’ with resources provided at the Regional level campus as well - and if they excel, could then be guaranteed admission to Flagship as transfer students - and in this manner we haven’t denied those who’ve proven their capability already in HS, while still providing a path of success to the others.
It also doesn’t align that perfectly with my anecdotal experience at UIUC and UNC, nor immediate family experiences at Michigan, Northwestern, Duke, Virginia, Texas or Purdue. Granted only 6 of those 8 are Flagship Public State schools.
I think that depends on who’s doing the defining - A student which put in all the same level of effort with higher achievement levels, and jumped through all the hoops in order to qualify for the school they’ve been targeting for 4-6 years but has just been decline and told to go elsewhere, and that students parents, who must consider sending them to the ‘regional’ campus which has far less opportunities on campus -or- send them OOS to a relatively similarly achieving program but paying OOS at 20-40k per year more… may take issue with that assessment that they were not ‘harmed’. But instead are told, you’re not disadvantaged by this, and even if you are, the ‘greater good’ for someone else is more important that the good for you.
For some reason it won’t let me quote the other comment on “3.7 UW, 4.0W” - The Unweighted addition would require more work in computing - and then standardizing how you would -weight the weighted- courses because the school reported WGPA is an amalgam of all courses (Weight and Unweighted). So if you set a WGPA as reported by the HS, then you would still be favoring those kids who took multiple AP/IB or Honors and achieved both As and Bs. A student who took only one or two APs (or as available) with the rest as unweighted grades and got an A would have a lower WGPA - I’d think you’d need a UWGPA Step ladder, with qualifying associated 'Corrected" WGPA based only on the weighted courses, and perhaps some type of multiply to address the student who took 10 AP courses versus the one who took 1 in terms of rigor. I doubt Kelley wants to invest the resources to do that - or perhaps they have looked at it from outcomes data in the past and determined if they made that change/invested the time and effort to do that across all the applicants - that it made very little outcomes difference in who was admitted.
As an aside, Thirty five years+ ago, most US Veterinary Schools required the VCAT, which outside of VM was a little know test. There were concerns that this requirement may dampen the number of applicants to Veterinary School who were also candidates for other medical / health / sciences programs - where those students were already taking the MCAT and GRE (Plus Subsections) which represented a much larger potential pool of applicants to veterinary school - as I was prepared to take them as my ‘back’ up plan as a senior if i was not admitted to vet school after my junior year. So for few years, while we were required and assessed for admissions on the basis of the VCAT, all applicants were required to take the GRE (but never the MCAT 
) which was not used for admissions but was later used to assess the GRE as a predictive for Veterinary School graduates outcomes. After a few years of this, they determined that the GRE was predictive ‘enough’ of Veterinary School outcomes that the access to the increased pool of potential candidates willing to apply Veterinary School (and were qualified to be legitimate candidates) who otherwise would only be taking the MCAT and GRE or the GRE only but wouldn’t sign up for the VCAT. Veterinary Schools began dropping this as a requirement in favor of the GRE and some take the MCAT but the VCAT didn’t survive for very long after that. Long way for me to say, I’d be surprised if Kelley hasn’t taken at least a modelling look approach at what your suggesting and determined it would be a lot more work for little impact or less impact than the implied cost of changing to that.
I also think Kelley is a really huge program and the top say 10-20% are likely really killing it across the board and placing well so they can afford to use this model and still have a decent outcome. They have 2,800 per class and 1,700 finance majors. We hear a lot about wall street placement etc but if we broke down the percentages - I don’t know how impressive that really is. It’s like these expensive travel youth club teams. Is the C team really just there to fund the A team? Between the size and competitiveness we felt it wasn’t the right fit. But there were many impressive aspects of the program. If you take 1,700 kids that meet the cut off for test score and gpa - you are going to have some winners. But I would want to know about transfer rates and internships and job placement across the board. I encountered a number of unhappy parents over on fb and it was a bit of a shock. But again, depends on who you talk to, what you are looking for, are you paying OOS tuition and is Kelley the best place you got in?
At the thousands and thousands of rural HS in the US, the college bound students take Algebra1 in 9th, Geometry in 10th, and Algebra2 in 11th grade; if the school is relatively well-funded there may be a small honors section but it depends on the HS size (if the school has 125 students it’s unlikely but it may happen if the school has 200+). Then, along these good students, those who plan to go to a local college may take Elementary statistics or Financial Math. Only 8-12 academicky students may take precalculus in 12th grade. Students who aren’t college bound may take Algebra1, Geometry, Algebra2A, Algebra2 B. Since this student is a math major, he’s likely super interested in math and “thinks math” even though he wasn’t provided with any incentive or enrichment, so the math teacher may well have written he was the most extraordinary student she’d met in 20 years and from precalculus figured calculus ideas that she’d only seen in college, came up with really advanced questions she didn’t have answers for and yet he tried to solve them, etc. (This is based on real experience btw, not fiction). Hence, Harvard - which will be so much cheaper than UNC and will have so much more support of all kinds - and it’s win-win too, since this student will bring others his life experience&viewpoints, some of which would be in the “don’t know you don’t know” for kids who, for instance, attended competitive public schools or New England boarding schools.
True - however, if the argument is over doing simple number cut off for admissions versus doing a holistic review of 27,000 applicants - doing the latter requires substantially more admissions resources to pursue, and that’s not a guarantee of improving your class distribution of grade, club access, internships. Those problems still exists with very large schools, with a cohort of very competitive students pursuing them.
So I think the concern over the access to clubs and activities and towards internships and job placement is a valid one - just not directly related to the ADA/DA Review of the SA admit requirements.
Generally most B-schools (both undergradaute and MBA programs) as well as Law Schools have fairly robust career services offices and often publish their placement data of graduates. One must question if employment rate at 6+ months post graduation is actually in their field (of Finance) or if they are counting the barista who works the cash register as a Finance and Accounting position.
Totally agree.
I have wondered about this as well. The one thing that really jumped out to me as part of the decision process was the uniformly positive feedback I received from a variety of folks we know involved in large corporate recruiting. One of my son’s classmates parents is a rather senior HR person at Goldman Sachs, and her daughter decided on IU Kelley. The mom went on and on about the number of Kelley kids that join GS every year in varying positions.
Ditto for Morgan Stanley in their wealth and asset management groups. The offices in Houston and Dallas have been adding Kelley grads consistently.
Deloitte Consulting hires in droves from the place per a neighbor who is a regional managing partner. The Big 4 accounting firms all staff up through its nationally ranked accounting department.
It is not a scientific process obviously, but I was expecting some bland or even negative feedback but it seemed employers hit the place up en masse. I surprised even by the Big 3 Consulting (Bain, BCG, McKinsey) hiring.
Does that mean there is some long tail of kids who don’t sport amazing resumes and are working as local bank tellers? Maybe, but I assume that is a natural outcome for nearly anyone whether it is a UVA, UNC, or other grad.
It’s hard to argue with the concept of best predictor of future performance is past history - so T25 and T10 schools of the past tend to stay T10 and T25 schools going forward. Plus the alumni network for internships and recruitment pipeline is ‘larger’ from larger and long established schools - and thats probably due in no small part to self-interest and confirmation bias. Wharton Grads in hiring positions are more likely to hire Wharton grads - because they believe Wharton is the best program for what they want, and it re-affirms their own programs degree worth within that company or that industry…
Im a UNC MBA from early 2000s - if I had a ‘knock’ for Carolina at that time, it would be that because the school is relatively that much smaller than alot of other T10 UG Business and T25 MBA programs, it’s alumni network for internships and job placement was also smaller with less breadth. We still had plenty of repeat visits for Top Consulting and Accounting Firms (as the MAC program at Carolina is considered top tier) and from Finance (corporate) and some from Investment banking- we had Alumni contacts but they were in the 50-100s in IB as opposed to in the 1000s.
As they have expanded their MBA offerings, we’ve seen a larger influence of the MBA network from KFBS in the past 20 years. My hope is as they expand the Undergraduate enrollment over the next 4-5 years that at some point in 10-20, this network will also be much larger.
The other ‘knock’ I suppose is that UNC KFBS was eager to be ‘all in’ on the Entrepreneurship and IT phase in 2000 - as such, they seemed to really devote much more school resources and perhaps weighted their admissions process to this end and while maybe not safeguarding their Finance and more traditional business fields as well. I think, and its just my opinion, that the Quant Heavy Industries may have noted this. However, it also appears that UNC KFBS has re-evaluated that approach and they seem to have come to a point of re-affirming the importance of strong Quantitative Skills as a basis for General Management and all things not-soft and fluffy.
This was a long running indictment of the McCombs school as well. Where places like University of Chicago or MIT have very clearly delineated curriculum level philosophies, McCombs didn’t really know what it was. It was always re-fashioning itself to be a leader in some bubbly industry. In the last 90s it declared itself a leading entrepreneurial school, trying to cash in on the Austin tech scene during the dot.com craze. That melted down so the school pivoted to trying to be a leading supplier of hedge fund talent. All the local funds crashed and burned through the credit crisis so McCombs had to ditch that approach as well.
And I am guessing that the quant trend is probably at some bubbly peak given how many MBA programs tried to shift that way while not having the resources to really build competencies while places like MIT Sloan sit adjacent to the leading science and research resources.
Seems like an endless tail chasing exercise and schools are better off just building out world class research faculty that give their departments long-dated intellectual heft.
Kelley publishes lots of data on outcomes.
https://kelley.iu.edu/recruiters-companies/undergrad/statistics/salary-statistics/index.html
You can click through at the bottom of the page to find out more under each specific major.
Just dropped back in after a few days away. I remember a time when people knew the difference between right and wrong, honored commitments, and lived by the belief that their word meant everything.
It’s disheartening to see how far some will twist themselves to defend what IU has done—under the banner of being a “top business school.” Raising standards is one thing. Blind-siding committed students after decisions have been made in good faith is something else entirely.
I’ve spent my career in high finance. I know what I look for in a university—both for my student and for future employees. And this? This isn’t it.
The reality is the world is changing fast. Many of the skills these students will graduate with in four years are already being automated. I struggle even now with sending my child down a path I can see becoming obsolete. The students who will thrive aren’t the ones clinging to legacy rankings—they’re the ones who can adapt, evolve, pivot, and who demonstrate trust, integrity, and innovation.
That’s what I value. And I can’t say I see those values in how IU has handled this. I plan to have my student submit transfer applications this fall. Some principles are too important to be overshadowed by a U.S. News ranking that was largely cemented 15 years ago.
This school had an opportunity to handle an unexpected situation with creativity and character. Instead, it chose control subterfuge and exclusion. Again—this just doesn’t align with our family values. Wishing the best to others who are on this path and facing these difficult decisions.
I agree that what IU did was unethical. And I hear your frustration for your student. But please, I encourage you to let your adult child decide what path to choose with regard to potentially transferring. Good luck.