<p>But we don’t know whether the “gaming” is what got the students in, do we? The student whose family is suing Shaw did not get help from Shaw but got into Columbia. We may surmise that it’s the promise of oil money donation that got him in, but that’s something that no amount of gaming can overcome. And it’s gaming on the part of the school, not the student, a gamble that the student’s family will make a large donation.</p>
<p>I don’t see the admission system being any less meritocratic than in the old days when students from a certain kind of background got in automatically and others could only dream. The reason there are so many college counselors is not because the system is less meritocratic but less predictable. It is no longer assumed that Johnny Smith IV, descendent of Mayflower, an umpteenth legacy at Exeter and Harvard will be an automatic at Harvard, and Joe Schmo, first generation immigrant won’t have a look in. See the thread where we collectively advise a first-generation, low-income NYC student who is hoping to attend Princeton or Dartmouth. He has a much better chance now than he would have at the time when Rosovsky became Dean of Harvard FAS.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that for a while, places like Harvard relied heavily on entrance examinations. The push for “diversity,” lookinging at the “whole applicant,” etc. started after places like Harvard started getting swamped by Jews.</p>
<p>You would not. And that is partly why adcoms do not put that much emphasis on test scores and GPAs, but look at them as part of a whole package.</p>
<p>Let me make clear that I do not consider taking a test prep class “gaming.” I do not think it is unethical, even though it may (emphasis on “may”) give an advantage to some students over those who cannot afford to take the prep class or have not been advised on the availability of free resources for prepping (such as Xiggi’s tips, known on CC as “the Xiggi method.”) It’s a very different thing from misrepresenting oneself.</p>
<p>Gaming is misrepresenting oneself, doing something unethical. I do not consider taking test prep classes unethical. They might be a waste of money and time, but they’re not cheating; they are not the same as taking easy classes for easy As, having someone else write your essay, or pretending to have done ECs which you did not do. </p>
<p>There are, of course, different degrees and types of prepping. I had a neighbor who started using flash cards at her child when the child was 3 months old. That was foolish and futile, but not unethical. I, however, would not think very highly of someone who swaggered into a SAT test without having the foggiest notion of what the SAT test was like, just as I would not think highly of a general who went into battle without a plan.</p>
<p>For me, “gaming” includes doing exctracurricular activites that you wouldn’t otherwise do because you believe they will help you gain entrance to college.</p>
<p>I can see your point, but at the same time, getting into college is a huge incentive to do things that are worthwhile. As long as the students actually do the work instead of going through the motions, I don’t have any quarrel with it.</p>
<p>I have reservations about traveling far to do good along the lines of “change the world in 3 weeks” but some posters have stressed the educational value of foreign travel and the fact that the experience may have a great influence at a later time on young people’s willingness to be involved in service to others.
That is something for adcoms to evaluate. I’m sure they are capable of deciding how much weight to put on foreign travel.</p>
<p>It depends what the students are doing. If colleges look favorably on volunteer work, then yeah, it’s no big deal if high school seniors do volunteer work. What’s more troubling is if people forego activities and choose others, not because of their personal taste, but to avoid looking stereotypical. For example, an Asian student who really enjoys playing violin.</p>
<p>Sticking to the porcine theme, admission consultants with the integrity of Shaw/Hsueh do seem to apply cosniderable coats of lipsticks onto the snouts of their clients. </p>
<p>And, in this area, if “gaming is misrepresenting oneself, doing something unethical” that is exactly what Shaw does, and did for the Miss Teen New Jersey. Using the stratagem of moving from a well-to-do community to a blue worker helped build a need-basis file; the fact that the student moved from being in the top 20% of her class to being a valedictorian did not change the student. It changed the entire world of peers to whom she is compared in a holistic process. Because Shaw’s suggestions were exploitative of the “tradition” to support an underdog in highly selective admissions, its tactics are unethical. Not illegal but definitely unethical. </p>
<p>In the case of the kazak, Shaw might have pushed the envelope to the next level of greed and deceit.</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about this strategy. After all, the student is simply fighting against the college’s own racisim. And she’s not even lying in any way.</p>
<p>As for the student, it’s not clear that she was fighting racism. She was changing the comparison pool so that she could go from being top 20% to being val. There are plenty of schools she could have gone to with a different ethnic profile which would have served her purpose.</p>
<p>Are you telling me she wrote an essay about how she moved to a lower quality school to boost her chances of success at a prestigious school? </p>
<p>Fwiw, it was NOT accidental that her parents signed her up with someone such as Shaw. Results at all costs must have been the motto of the family as well as the consultants. </p>
<p>I think that your comment “fighting the racism of colleges” speaks volumes about where you stand on that issue. I guess it’s the same racism that allows a certain subset of our population to be widely over-represented. Or should we look farther in the direction of “strategies” and different definitions of the word ethical?</p>
<p>Don’t you think admissions would have questioned why this kid from a blue-collar community did not apply for need-based aid? I realize that admissions are supposedly need-blind, but does admissions really not know whether applicants have requested financial aid? I don’t imagine MIT and Yale enjoy being duped in this way, or being perceived as “dupe-able”.</p>
<p>How did she fight racism? She was at a school with a large Asian population and was in the top 20%. She moved to another school where she was the only Asian and became val. How was she discriminated against?<br>
Was she admitted because she was the only Asian in her school or because she was val? If the latter, how was the college racist?</p>
<p>It looks to me that the racism here is on the part of Shaw (himself Asian) and the girl’s family.</p>