Let's define "unqualified"

Parents Forum
121

<p>Hey, don’t include me in your phoney consensus! Idiots can graduate from Ivy League schools with a little bit of care in course and major selection. Someone who is an idiot isn’t qualified for admission on that basis alone. To be qualified, he would probably have to be extraordinarily able at (a) a helmet sport, (b) high art, or (c) writing checks with lots of commas in them. Only a small portion of the applicant pool is ever qualified on that basis – very, very few Harvard applicants are capable of sacking a quarterback in a D-I game or of writing a check big enough to build a library. But it’s a real qualification. So is extraordinary leadership, or overcoming terrible odds, or slaying a dragon.</p>

<p>I hate this game of trying to expose the emptiness of affirmative action, or athletic recruiting, or whatever, by playing reductio ad absurdam with SAT scores. For a tiny number of kids with unique qualities, SAT scores (or any other indicator of academic aptitude) are largely irrelevant above a very low hurdle. But it’s the unique qualities of those kids, not their SAT scores, that qualify them for elite colleges. If the “vals and sals” people prate about here had to meet those standards, most of them would be in community college.</p>

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<p>Well I do not agree with the broad “able to graduate,” because it does not seem that colleges accept that view. That is, as others have said, it is not as if they will accept no one who will graduate with C (or less) averages; they will accept a few of those IF there are aspects of college life or college funding that such student bring with them that are extremely valuable to the particular mix that the college wants. They could never accept large amounts of such students. There are an insignificant number of these.</p>

<p>But again, let’s examine that aspect of graduation. From WHERE and from WHICH PROGRAM and under which GRADING POLICIES, CORE CURRICULA, DISTRIBUTION REQUIREMENTS, and TYPICAL CLASSROOM PEERS are we talking about? (Don’t know how to do the bold thing; not shouting)</p>

<p>A noncontextual argument is meaningless. At the University of Chicago, there’s a TON of reading. Now, I happen only to be familiar with some of the humanities majors at Chicago. But a person who is not much of a student – does not enjoy studying, spending most of their college time doing that – will not pass these classes. I don’t see how. Yet in that context, the SAT score does not shed a lot of light on what kind of a STUDENT you will be at such an institution. </p>

<p>At Columbia there is a Core that is not for the faint of heart. At Princeton, there are distribution requirements that are strictly enforced regardless of your high school courses, your SAT scores, your GPA, your Val standing, or which board member your Dad might know. Tough. Not a science major? Not a math major? Too bad. You must take some heavy-duty quantitatively oriented science courses with labs. Social science courses, language, morals/ethics, on and on. You cannot “challenge” the courses. That is true even when you’ve been offered Advanced Standing. Further, there is grade deflation, which is not just “tough grading,” but quota-based. Further, you are allowed only one Pass/Fail course per semester – & as with many other institutions, I believe that Pass is a C, not a D. If you apply for & get accepted to the Humanities Sequence as a freshman, these are intense seminars with a ton of reading from primary sources. One more thing: for those who are on Financial Aid, you must usually keep up your grades to continue to qualify.</p>

<p>No need for a litany for every U. Professors who seek work at private elite institutions expect to be teaching mostly to elite students. If the U couldn’t offer that to the profs, they would seek work elsewhere. If an appreciable number of students at that U were closer to the ability of a student at a mid-level public (with mid-level scores), the institution would cease to be “elite” by anybody’s definition except maybe an accountant’s.</p>

<p>A quantifiable bar for “qualification” is suitable when one is looking at quantified & quantifiable results. Thus, runners, swimmers, skaters, gymnasts must meet certain quantifiable-only criteria to make it to the next level. It doesn’t matter that they might be almost-qualified but be great team members, wonderful leaders, have a great sports ethic. It’s not about their contributions to a group, or to qualitative dynamics. The score must be there.</p>

<p>Learning is only in some aspects quantifiable. Most of it is not. Educators, even in higher institutions, care as much about the process as the product, because the product is so dependent on the process. The SAT score does not by itself reveal how the student is engaged in the process, or how high that level of engagement. A well-written recommendation from a precise & articulate teacher, accompanied by a work product sent from the teacher, might be more illuminating. The fact that the same student entered into, & succeeded at, some intense national academic competition or some private research effort, might show motivation, as well as academic independence – all of these are similarly important to process-oriented activity which college is. Seminars, sections, recitations – are focused on process. Nor is it that the score is immaterial; it is an add’l piece of information, useful only in relation to other pieces of information.</p>

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<p>So you exclude Chicago because, despite its non-reliance on quantifiable criteria, it is rigorous, but you want quantifiable criteria for other schools? Beats me why.</p>

<p>Also beats me why you think HYPS are not rigorous. They don’t have the same core sequences as Columbia or Chicago, but why think that their courses are less rigorous? Do you have evidence?</p>

124

<p>I’m coming to this argument late . . . </p>

<p>I want to touch upon something someone said pages ago, that it’s difficult to fail out of a school like Harvard. This statement can mislead some people into believing that <em>any</em> student would find it difficult to fail out. It is only difficult to do for the caliber of students that gets admitted to Harvard.</p>

<p>The average student would be overwhelmed at an elite institution, not just because of the workload but because of the expectations of high quality writing/thinking/analysis. </p>

<p>Which bring me back to the idea of what “unqualified” means to me: a student who lacks ambition, who struggles with writing skills, who cannot read dense text and retain the meaning, who does not have a highly refined sense of logic, and who finds academic work a burden. None of these qualities can be properly measured by SAT scores and grades, although these stats, coupled with the difficulty of the HS courseload, can hint at them. ECs, recommendations, and essays help round out the portrait.</p>

<p>Do universities make mistakes? Of course. But they’ve proven themselves generally competent at identifying the types of people who will excel in their particular learning environment.</p>

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<p>“I want to touch upon something someone said pages ago, that it’s difficult to fail out of a school like Harvard. This statement can mislead some people into believing that <em>any</em> student would find it difficult to fail out. It is only difficult to do for the caliber of students that gets admitted to Harvard.”</p>

<p>I have a hard time believing that your average state school graduate couldn’t graduate from Harvard, especially in something like english. </p>

<p>I’ve taken undergrad science courses at MIT and Harvard, and the level of difficulty in content was much greater and the grading curve was much harsher at MIT. Actually I thought the Harvard courses were pretty good; it’s just that they were not as hard.</p>

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<p>“I have a hard time believing that your average state school graduate couldn’t graduate from Harvard, especially in something like english.”</p>

<p>Oh, no question. We all know how stupid English majors are, particularly those at Harvard. And we all know how eminently more brilliant all science majors are.</p>

<p>Actually the most brilliant all-around student at my D’s school is at one of the HYP schools now. (Gasp!) The student who was about #5 (in stats & in capability) is at MIT.</p>

127

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<p>Average state school graduate? Probably not. But a state school graduate at the top of his/her class? Sure.</p>

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<p>This cracks me up, so I needed to quote it twice. Why do you think English at Harvard is easy? I know lots of engineers and business majors who would sooner die than have to suffer through another English course. Writing, interpretation, and that particular kind of analysis is incredibly hard for many people – even for many of the brightest in the nation.</p>

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<p>^^Whether of not they are stupid is irrelevant. It’s just that humanities classes are not that tough to pass. Generally colleges don’t like to fail people. In science classes they basically don’t have a choice because evaluation is quantitative. You want to tell me that George W. has “high level thinking skills”? He got C’s at Yale before grade inflation made it even easier. He wasn’t an idiot, but he had like a 1200 SAT score and grades to match. Pretty mediocre.</p>

<p>And MIT admissions has changed…They’ve gone for the “passion” BS that the ivies are known for–so that’s not a good example.</p>

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<p>I know a guy who was recruited for rowing at Harvard who had an SAT score in the 1000-1100 range. He seemed to have no problem graduating.</p>

<p>I think 1000-1100 SAT level is about the level of your average state school grad, right?</p>

130

<p>Let us consider Lon Grammer, who was a Calif community college student with a GPA of about 2.0. Anyone who is familiar with the CA CC knows that with grade like that, he could not possibly be qualified for Ivy league. So when he applied to transfer to Yale, he faked his transcript and recommendation letter to look qualified.</p>

<p>So how did this unqualified student perform in Yale? Not too well, his new grade was about the same as same as his CC grade (actually the new grade was very slightly better), so he was not failing either. He could have graduated if he kept it up for a few months more. However he boasted about it to his fellow students who reported to the University. He was expelled, not flunked out.</p>

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<p>And the point of post 130 is to generalize about (not anecdote about) how a dolt can get by at Yale (or HYP?) I think we have other, more prominent examples in history, including recent history.</p>

<p>Yes, let’s do define “unqualified,” but let’s define it with respect to those who have even a clue about what it takes to be admitted to a top U, how those applications are evaluated, the direct experience of the U in making such evaluations, and the comprehensive knowledge of the students & highshools & programs figured into the applicant pool, as well as the history of previous similar students with those specific, tangible profiles.</p>

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<p>Um, I was admitted to many ivies and my high school sends enough people to them to be able to observe trends…</p>

<p>The one guy I know who graduated from Princeton in '98 said that the average GPA in chem was like 3.1/4.0 (if it was a 4.0 scale,) which is pretty bad grade <em>deflation</em>. However, he also said there was rampant grade inflation in the humanities class he took.</p>

<p>So Princeton may have the next Hemingway sitting next to your daughter in lit class, but the fact is that your average grad of a state school almost certainly would still pass.</p>

133

<p>If we are looking for a somewhat reliable quantitative measure of academic qualification, one may want to make a comparative analysis with other developed countries. Virtually all European countries use some form of Baccalaurate examination to sort out the well qualified university applicants: the A levels (UK,…) , the Abitur (Germany, Finland…), The Matura (Switzerland, Poland…) , the French Baccalaureate… Most of these countries also recognize the IB exam as an alternative to their own national exams. Most of these exams have some elements in common: exams based on standardized curriculum, grading of results along some simple scale. Some like the German Abitur mix the exam score with the grade in the class into a composite while other countries like France assign different weights to different subjects based on intended course of study. </p>

<p>In the US, while the IB exam has gained popularity, the AP exams are probably the closest analogy. Independent studies have shown them to better predictors of college GPA and graduation rates than SAT scores or high school GPA. Most colleges will grant credit against equivalent introductory courses for those who passed the AP exams even though it may take a score of 4 or a 5 at a top college. So, even though AP exam results are not used for admission purposes by most colleges, they are certainly used by the academic departments to assess whether the students are adequately prepared to take certain courses and even to graduate early by receiving acceleration credits. </p>

<p>It would fairly easy to turn the AP exam into an overall quantitative measure of academic qualification. While there is currently no minimum number of AP exams a student needs to take, the average number of AP exams taken among admitted students at top colleges is currently at about 5 and increasing. A compound score based on a minimum of 5 subjects with some distribution requirements such at least one each in english, math, science, social studies and foreign languages, would probably be a reasonable metric similar to the IB total score. I would not be surprised if a high compound score correlated more strongly with success at top colleges than SAT scores.</p>

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<p>cellardweller: I would not mind a system such as you describe, having a bac myself. But the k-12 system would have to be drastically overhauled in order to give students access to a sufficient number of APs to be considered for admission. This is not just for the top schools (where does the boundary between top and non-top schools be drawn?).</p>

<p>I’ve always thought that the university system in the US is better than most systems in the world–that includes the greater flexibility of students to change their majors once admitted; but it’s the k-12 system that is weaker ( I have a particular beef with the American middle school curriculum). This is not something that universities can control.</p>

<p>I know profs who’ve taught at both top private research universities and public universities. They do say that the top students at the publics are every bit as good as the top students at the private universities. But the drop off in quality is faster at levels below the top. </p>

<p>But then, the claim that is being discussed is that top schools “choose among qualified” students and that up to 80% of applicants are deemed qualified. Since only about 10% of these qualified applicants can be admitted, the rest must go somewhere else, including public universities. So, logically, there are quite a few students at public universities that are as good as students at private universities (we’re not even considering those who did not bothering applying and thus swelling the pool of qualified applicants). No surprise there.</p>

<p>bomgeedad: What does the example of a fraud tell us about the ability of a student to graduate? You can graduate with a GPA of less than 2.00 since it’s a C and D (1.00) is still passing. But no college will deliberately admit someone who is likely to have a GPA of 1.00.</p>

<p>Collegealum: Is it useful to trot out examples from a different era–GWB and his contemporaries–to discuss today’s admission practices? GWB was admitted to Yale in 1964. 43 years ago. The US put a man on the moon, Nixon went to China, the Berlin Wall has come down, the USSR disintegrated, the Cold War ended…</p>

<p>You’d have to take the exact same courses to make such a distinction between those at MIT and Harvard. As for English being easy, I’m pretty sure that math and science whizzes would not say so, any more than English majors would find math or science majors easy.</p>

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<h2>bomgeedad: What does the example of a fraud tell us about the ability of a student to graduate? You can graduate with a GPA of less than 2.00 since it’s a C and D (1.00) is still passing. But no college will deliberately admit someone who is likely to have a GPA of 1.00.</h2>

<p>The reason why he is bringing it up is because colleges use being able to graduate as their definition of “qualified.” And then others use the word “qualified” to justify things like legacy admission: for example, the legacies were “qualified” too so what’s the difference.</p>

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<p>^^
The example of a fraud shows that a student who we can all agree is not qualified can still “handle” Ivy League work and possibly graduate. So “able to graduate” is not a good criteria for qualified.</p>

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<h2>“Is it useful to trot out examples from a different era–GWB and his contemporaries–to discuss today’s admission practices? GWB was admitted to Yale in 1964. 43 years ago. The US put a man on the moon, Nixon went to China, the Berlin Wall has come down, the USSR disintegrated, the Cold War ended…”</h2>

<p>my other two examples from the late 90’s/early 2000’s…</p>

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<p>The SAT is a joke compared to the Baccalaurate examination. That is why we should not admit a student based on SAT score. On the other hand, this raise a question, if some students think they are really so good, why is their SAT score so low. Of course in some cases there are valid reasons, but they need to justify it.</p>

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<p>“if some students think they are really so good, why is their SAT score so low.”</p>

<p>This is such a broad & unsupported statement --and again, taken out of context – that of itself it is of little value. “Some students” (broad generality) might “think they are really so good” because everything else in their package is exceptionally high – higher than the so-called high-scorers looking in a flattering mirror everyday & then posting on CC. Anyway, the students themselves are not in a position to judge whether they are or are not Elite material (“think they are really so good”), so their opinion of themselves has little value. The elite admissions offices would be in that position. And still many of you fail to see the point that when the demand for available seats greatly exceeds supply, the scale is not an absolute but a relative one. The term “qualified” is outdated in such a context. More qualified, more able, more desirable, more impressive, more potential THAN THE CURRENT POOL THIS ADMISSIONS CYCLE – these are the operative principles. They are only measurable in relation to the unknown academic profiles apparent in real time, not with regard to an absolute, unchanging standard. It’s a “now” competition. </p>

<p>And I can also tell that some of you do not have much experience with regular athletic & performing arts competitions, where it doesn’t matter if you even broke the history records the last time you competed. Guaranteed, some Unknown is competing against you, this round, making your previous accomplishment fade embarrassingly into the background – including your previous “perfect score.”</p>

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<p>Marite:</p>

<p>I am not sure that access to AP classes is such a problem even for the less economically privileged. After all, the Newsweek ranking of high schools seems to show a rapidly growing trend of high schools across the country offering AP courses. </p>

<p>I agree with you that middle school preparation in the US may be lacking compared to most other developed countries. It is staggering that even in the more affluent states such as Connecticut, only about 20% of students get a passing grade of 3 on ANY AP exam. In some States, the percentage was as low as 5%. Considering that many of the less prepared applicants don’t even bother to take the AP exam even if they took the class, probably less than 5 to 10% of the total graduating high school student population is qualified (using the AP metric) in ANY subject. That is scary!</p>