Not just Chinese (for that matter, Korean or whatever), the key point is “if they had been born in the US, would have gone to earn a Nobel Prize.” The question is what makes this so? The culture based on conformity vs. non-conformity, rote memorization based education vs. creativity encouraged education, test-centered meritocracy vs. holistic – and more have played a huge role, I’m sure. China of the earlier, malnourished century and today’s economic super power status have hardly made any difference in Nobel Prize production or the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. They’re genius in copying faux iPhones, though.
Purple- I have observed that folks in real life (not the crowd here on CC) spend more time researching their options for a big screen tv which will be obsolete in two years than they do the college their kids end up in.
Does that mean that the system is opaque, or that for the majority of people, whether their kid ends up at SUNY Binghamton or Albany, or maybe throws in an application to Fordham as well because “we like the values of a Catholic school” it’s just not that interesting to them?
Honestly- you can’t make people care about what they don’t care about. I know really talented kids who end up at directional state U’s because their parents skipped out on college night, refused to make an appointment with the college counselor, and then told the kid that if it was a choice between selling the beach cottage or going to a private U they’d pick the beach cottage every time. I’ve posted before about the Val in my HS who took the bus to college from her parents house to a local ho-hum college because the parents were nervous about sending a girl two hours away to the 7 Sister’s college that gave her a free ride. Guidance Counselors were apoplectic but what are you going to do? They believed that a young girl lived at home until she got married. Period. How the D managed to slip in an application to an “out of town” college is a miracle!
And guess what- the kids turn out just fine (such is the vitality of our educational system).
I don’t think it’s all that opaque. Some kids get screwed because of parental indifference, or an unwillingness to learn, or a closed mind (“you can go anywhere in Pennsylvania” which ignores the reality that there are likely 30 colleges that are closer AND cheaper). Then divorce and screwy finances. Etc.
But what exactly is opaque about it- that a kid might not get into Stanford (with a single digit admit rate)? Is it opaque that a 5% admit rate means that 95% of applicants- virtually all of whom are qualified on paper- are going to get rejected? That’s not opaque. That’s just arithmetic.
I think the demonstrated interest/yield protection in the EA pools of the schools in the 25-50 range caught people who thought they had researched things by surprise (as noted upthread, take a look at some of the CC pages of those schools. Some of those have changed pretty quickly and the level of importance of demonstrated interest given in CDS is often less than it seems to have been this EA cycle for some of those places. Another one is highly impacted majors. It can be very hard to find admissions stats broken down my specific major for places that accept that way.
My point is a lot of the angst isn’t my kid didn’t get into Stanford, it is how do I manage the EA/ED1/ED2 yield management, everyone wants CS world. For what it is worth, in our area, Midwest not badly off, predicting HYPSM admissions is way easier than predicting USNWR 25-50.
It is also the case that even USNWR top 100 is a slice at the top of the overall pool of high schoolers. But within that slice, I think it is al little unfair to focus on HYPSM angst.
I object to the categorical classification of “kids are so entitled these days” or implications that they’re soft because of all the participantion awards. All the kids I know work their rear-ends off and between school, sports and homework only get about 6 hours of sleep a night. Weekends are filled with ECs and community service projects. Summers are filled with work, internships, volunteering. These kids have almost no downtime/time to themselves. These kids ARE performing and achieving. They are getting 5s on the APs and perfect or near perfect scores on the SATs or ACTs.
But many of these kids aren’t getting into the “top” schools. And I can understand their disappointment because they’ve worked so very hard for this. Here’s what I think needs to change. One is the realization that all that work was an achievement in and of itself. No one can take the knowledge learned or task accomplished away, and those things have tremendous value in and of themselves. The other thing that needs to change is that people need to realize that “top” schools aren’t just HPYMS anymore. They include Berkeley, Duke, Rice, Northwestern, Hopkins, etc. probably the top 20-25 that keep appearing on all the rankings (USN&WR, Forbes, etc).
^^^^Amen.
@blossom What makes it opaque is partly the sheer range of options, but also that it is a two-sided game where both sides (students and colleges) are trying to optimize the result for their own ends.
So colleges want to get the highest ranking (hence yield protection, ED etc) and still make sure they meet budget (hence merit aid, strategic discounting, etc) while getting a class mix that meets other (less than explicit) social objectives.
In other countries colleges simply aren’t playing those games (except in a few cases like MBAs). They just want smart kids, they don’t game the rankings and fees are generally fixed.
It’s always hard to identify the best strategy for one player in a two-sided game. If you don’t even realize it’s a two-sided game then you are completely screwed.
@TiggerDad: 5 ethnic Han Chinese Nobel Laureates so far in the 21th century, and Nobels are a lagging indicator, usually rewarded for work done 2-4 decades before.
And keep in mind that mainland China only rejoined the rest of the world (in an impoverished state) in 1978, with the college-aged generation before that year essentially lost due to the Cultural Revolution.
@melvin123:
“The other thing that needs to change is that people need to realize that “top” schools aren’t just HPYMS anymore. They include Berkeley, Duke, Rice, Northwestern, Hopkins, etc. probably the top 20-25 that keep appearing on all the rankings (USN&WR, Forbes, etc).”
Well, do note that the top 30 or so American privates (granted, I am including LACs) take in, as a percentage of the population of the US, as much as all 2 of Oxbridge does the UK. Also note that the Ivies/equivalents, even outside HYPSM, are pretty much lottery schools in the RD round.
Granted, if you include the top publics like UMich, Cal, UVa, UCLA, UVa, UNC, W&M, UW-Madison as well as big privates like NYU and USC (and, heck, honors colleges) among the “top schools”, the number of slots increases dramatically.
I guess what you are saying is that schools that have few spaces are difficult to get into? And that the criteria for selection are not uniform thus it’s not fair somehow? Anyway, I agree that kids now work harder than my generation ever did and very few are entitled in any way.
I think not uniform and with a random element which can make it hard to take. I personally don’t like using “unfair” in this context. I think @Twoin18 nailed it in post 105.
Not uniform almost by definition has a random element. Look I think that college admissions in the US heavily favor educated people like me who know what “the deal” is and are able to pay tutors and all the rest. That is unfair and ultimately is corrosive to society. Having said that though, information about colleges, the admissions process, and financial aid has never been more widely available. To me post #105 is simply a description of a situation. Yes, ED etc are, to me abhorrent, they are to benefit these schools to no good end. So? Are the schools trying to benefit themselves in this situation? The shocking answer is “yes”.
My view is that even though the info is more available, the process is more convoluted now than when I did all this decades ago.
@wchatar2: “Benefit themselves” may mean different things.
In the UK, for instance, faculty are in charge of admissions, so “benefitting themselves” doesn’t mean building a class to have a certain makeup or to make sure that various sports programs are strong but to get themselves the best potential scholars possible in their field.
BTW, there is one American elite that follows that admissions philosophy, but they are tiny and specialized (Caltech).
And strange as it may seem to Americans, in many countries, unis don’t work to benefit themselves in admissions. In fact, they don’t have much choice; they just get the highest testing kids who want them.
Well for better or worse US universities have determined that there is a social component to their institutions. We have looked into British schools for our kids and honestly found the curriculum limiting. It serves a different purpose as has been noted in this thread.All I can say is that people don’t seem to be running away from US universities because they are perceived as bastions of caprice and whim.
I recommend it a lot, but if you want to understand Ivy admissions, you could do worse than start by reading this article by Malcolm Gladwell, which explains what most people just don’t get: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in
Re: British uni curricula being limiting:
For most courses (majors), yes, though UCL Art&Science, KCL & Warwick Liberal Arts, and Durham Natural Science allows you to study multiple subjects (including more than just sciences at Durham) and not have to decide right off the bat.
Let’s not forget that many kids are being “advised” by their parents who probably don’t realize how much the college landscape has changed since they attended. Parents with HYPS degrees (shock!) may have realized it’s harder, just not how much so. (I am married to such a person who crafted a totally inappropriate list for our kid based on out of date info. And getting reality into the picture took real work!)
Seriously! Ill-informed and entitled are not the same.
"But I’d say the US holistic selection system at top schools can be perceived as closer to “which kid will be the most successful in life”. "
Actually, ime, it starts with who’ll be most successful in this college community, not post grad. And community sucess means more than just grades, to a tippy top. It runs a gamut.
One reason, I believe, that folks feel it’s opaque is that they’re looking in the wrong places for the info. Even seasoned adults tell kids to parse the CDS, that golly, if X is “very important” and Y is only “considered,” there’s some fomula to be gleaned. Like, hey, grades weigh more than ECs. (Not to mention, so many threads that take off on discussions to some nth degree about interpreting other admissions related numbers.) In holistic for a TT, every bit matters, there is almost no bye for missing one element. The competition is that tough.
Or this persistent misunderstanding of what demonstrated interest is, among tippy tops. Or just how much a college with tens of thousands of apps is really paralyzed by the simplistic idea of “yield protection.” Meanwhile, too many kids can’t show their match- even top performers- and reasonably answer a Why Us.
Throw in the mis-assumptions about what “standing out” is. Or “passion.” Or “leadership.”
That’s part of what I mean about knowing the race.
Right @turtle17 we were surprised. We carved off a big chunk of top schools as unrealistic and shot for second and third tier. We used 3 counselors who said the list was attainable. However a counselor told me that the deferrals in our region are astronomical and they don’t know what’s happening. Kids are getting deferred from schools with 50% admit rates. We haven’t yet heard from a safety with rolling admit that has a 70% admit rate. Let the kids mourn the rejections and let’s hope someone smarter than us can fix this.
We’ll have the Ivy (and ilk) lust as long as prestige is valued over fit.
That is not to say that some of the Ivies don’t fit some kids well, but i’ll bet plenty of match-range schools and safeties do too.
The first step is realizing that the quality of education is outstanding at literally hundreds of US schools – one does not have to attend a top-25 LAC or U to benefit from a fine education.
Realizing that, I think, probably makes it easier for kids to pursue schools based more on fit than on rank and to like some of the match and safety schools that fit them. And if they apply to schools they really like and that fit their interests (and are affordable…), then the chances of a happy outcome increase greatly.
Imagine through the ages all the kids who applied only to top-20 schools and were admitted to none; all the kids who only were admitted to schools they didn’t really care for or which didn’t offer, say, the major they wanted most; all those who were only admitted to schools they couldn’t afford. Sad.
Applying based on fit and affordability can greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the chances of any of those fates befalling youngsters.
Applying to reaches is fine, if those reaches fit the applicant well. The great variety of schools we have – different sizes, academic and social offerings and vibes, locations, architecture, housing types, weather, surrounding environments, prices and modes of affordability – is a blessing, and it means that most kids can identify reach, match and safety schools that will likely give them a great experience and education.
To any applicant reading this: identify what you wish to study; how much you can afford (run NPC!) and what your family is willing to spend; what kind of social and academic attributes you think are important (and your preferences…); and what kind of campus, location and weather you prefer (if they are important). Then do a lot of reading about a lot of schools and identify those that fit you and which you can afford. And just make sure one of those is a safety – beyond that, feel free to pick all the reaches and matches your heart desires, subject to your particular limits on time and money.