<p>Flavian, well-said.</p>
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I’m not sure you mean when you say “I would argue”. Do you have any evidence to back this up? I’ve seen a lot of people say that there’s a range of SAT scores within which specific scores are relatively meaningless, but I suspect that this spin originally comes from admissions officers who just want more applicants. Exposes of elite college admissions tend to paint a different picture"A is for Admission", by Michelle Hernandez, states quite clearly that test-score distinctions beyond the 1450 level are not meaningless.</p>
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<p>Another little point. I understand that this has become the basis for many elite universities’ policies, but in my opinion it is a complete corruption of the ideals of higher education.</p>
<p>For instance, admissions officers defend the admission of athletes with substantially lesser academic credentials to elite schools because those same athletes average far higher incomes after collegeputatively indicating that they possess a talent for success that the college should recognize. The problem is that this difference, when broken down, turns out to be a result of the propensity of male Ivy athletes to enter the very lucrative investment banking field.</p>
<p>Never mind that these athletes often become investment bankers because they have no exceptional field-specific skills, aside from a general sense of “eliteness” conferred upon them by the college.</p>
<p>Books like “A is for Admission” can be useful, but before relying on it as the holy grail, you might want to take a look at the following review, written by the Associate Director of Admissions at Cornell: <a href=“http://www.uvm.edu/~vtconn/v20/anderson.html[/url]”>http://www.uvm.edu/~vtconn/v20/anderson.html</a> </p>
<p>Here’s an excerpt:</p>
<p>Buried beneath a mountain of seemingly invaluable advice, however, is a crucial point which the author seems quite content to obscure: A is for Admission is not actually the insiders guide to the Ivy League that it purports to be. Rather, it is the insiders guide to Dartmouth College. The processes she describes, the statistics she cites, and the lingo she employs is meaningless outside of the borders of Hanover, New Hampshire. Certainly, there are parallels between how decisions are made at Dartmouth and how they are made at other Ivies, but the author makes it the readers responsibility to distinguish one from the other. Occasionally, Hernández inserts caveats reminding the reader that she is writing about a single institution, but the text is so peppered with inclusive “wes” and “Ivy officers” that any Dartmouth specific references are lost.</p>
<p>Such generalization is a significant shortcoming of A is for Admission. Hernández is not at all shy with her assertion: “Many Ivy directors are big sports fans and would take almost any athlete [with minimum qualifications]” (p. 168); “Basically, at all the Ivies, legacies are accepted at twice the rate that everyone else is” (p. 175); “[Admission officers] would never sit down and read all the folders from one high school” (p. 99); “[In reading] applications . . . you try to find a weakness” (p. 170). At best, these are blanket statements, at worst, inaccuracies. Hernández even devotes a full chapter and appendix to what she calls “the secret formula” of the Ivy League, the Academic Index (AI), a common yardstick for measuring the academic performance of Ivy-bound athletes (p. xviii). While an AI is indeed calculated for all recruited athletes, Hernández would have the reader believe that all Ivies afford it the same significance in their overall selection processes as Dartmouth. They do not.</p>
<p>She’s a great self-promoter, however, who has parleyed her book - based on a short stint at Dartmouth - into a lucrative career extracting money from Ivy-obsessed applicants and their families as an “educational consultant.”</p>
<p>If every year Harvard received just 1650 applications from bright, motivated, accomplished students who lived fulfilling high school lives, unconcerned with grades, SATs, and other pressures, then great - there would be no problem. But they don’t. They get 20,000 applications for those 1650 slots in the freshman class. So how are they going to pick? How are they going to reject over 90% of the applicants for their highly coveted slots and yet still keep the competition and pressure low?</p>
<p>As imperfect as today’s Ivy League admissions system may be, I still prefer it to that of days gone by–> admission largely restricted to the mediocre sons of northeastern WASP bluebloods, the wealthy, and graduates of a handful of snotty prep schools. At least with the current system a bright, hardworking kid from Montana or New Mexico has a chance.</p>
<p>Alot of thoughtful responses. I do think some of the responders should look back at the basic info I provided, especially the fact that only a small part of why students do well or not (20%) is predicted even when all “objective” measures are used. While the SAT I may be the worst offender, nothing else is very good either. SAT II for example provides only about 5% more than GPA. GPA provides little more than that much more to SAT II. And so it goes. My guess is that ECs, letters of rec, and interviews are even poorer predictors.</p>
<p>I’d like to see more concern with the implications that 80% of a student’s potential is not reflected in standard measures. It’s about balancing positive and negative consequences of how admissions are done. Right now 20% prediction seems to justify turning students lives upside down.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reference to the article by Fitszimmons et al. The article sounds reasonable, and indicates that in principle they are aware of these problems.</p>
<p>But I am less confident with how much they really follow through on those nice principles under the pressures of the admissions process. Weeding out 90% of 20,000 applications under time pressure can’t be easy or especially thoughful. It is likely that adcom members are looking for short cuts, because they are humans under pressure. Evidence of this is clear: Why do you think the average SAT and GPA of Harvard students have become ever more astronomical if these measures correlate so poorly with real aptitude or achievement?</p>
<p>My hope is that there will be increased concern with actually changing the admissions process. I think this has to come first from admissions committees (led by university policy makers) before students and parents will change their behavior. At present, I’d argue student and parent behavior (with the emphasis on perfection) is rational even if it is unfortunate. And adcom behavor is equally rational, given their mandates, resources, and time pressure.</p>
<p>Imagine if Harvard stated that it actually does respect the limited value of objective measures and addresses these in a systematic way in the admission process. For example, it does not see a difference between a 720 and a 780, that it recognizes that high school GPA only accounts for 15% of the variation in freshman year and even less for other things. </p>
<p>Okay, agreed, this wouldn’t be easy. But it could done, especially by a place like Harvard. Harvard has far more resources to do this than UC (which has far more applicants, all sorts of state mandates, and much less money). </p>
<p>Imagine if Harvard decided, like UC, to study the actual patterns of success of students. Imagine if Harvard then used that information to revise their admission process to encourage Fitzimmons ideals of encouraging reasonable lives of high school students. </p>
<p>Sure it is hard to cut out 90% of the applicants, but there are alot of talented people at Harvard who could work to make this process better at Harvard and beyond.</p>
<p>Whatever Harvard did would be noticed by all, not just the other Ivy League and elite colleges.</p>
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<p>I think you should take another look at claims you cited, and at what forum you began your thread in. The University of California system conducted a study for ITS purposes, relating to the rather different population attracted by UC campuses rather than by Harvard, and concluded that in its student population there was not a lot of prediction of college grades from variance of SAT scores within that population. But the key idea to remember about that study is that the UC population suffers from restriction of range in SAT scores–most UC admittees outscore most Cal State admittees, so UC mostly has admittees who are near the top of the scoring range on the SAT anyway. The other key idea is that college grades may not be the best validation criterion for college entrance tests, unless you can figure out how to compare a UC Riverside communications major to a UC Berkeley physics major. Saying that those two students have the same college grade average (which might very well be possible) doesn’t prove that their likely difference in SAT scores is meaningless, because Berkeley’s physics department still has to find students who are able to do physics at the Berkeley pace and level of rigor, which not all UC students can do. </p>
<p>The biggest point here in this forum is that exactly NONE of the tendentious statements you cite from FairTest are based on statistically valid research CONDUCTED AT HARVARD. The results of the [revealed</a> preferences study](<a href=“http://www.nber.org/papers/W10803]revealed”>http://www.nber.org/papers/W10803) strongly suggest that whatever Harvard is doing by way of making admissions decisions (and I don’t think Harvard does exactly what the UC system does), that is not at all off-putting to strong candidates for admission who have other choices. FairTest may claim (not very credibly to me) that there is an SAT problem, but we haven’t yet seen anyone in this thread “show the work” to demonstrate that the SAT is what Harvard mostly relies on to make admission decisions. You still haven’t established, at all, in this thread that Harvard’s actual practice is to resort mostly to what you call “the standard measures.” Nor have you yet established that any radical reworking of Harvard’s admissions procedures would result in a better Harvard entering class, much less a better society in general. </p>
<p>Interesting thread, and thanks for that. But I’m not too worried about this, as I am pretty sure from [Chuck</a> Hughes’s book](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007141259X/learninfreed]Chuck”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007141259X/learninfreed) and other sources that Harvard takes a much more nuanced approach to admission decisions than you suggest.</p>
<p>ECs allow them to account for the time you spend out of school: for example, there’s definitely a difference between two applicants to the music program if one of them is in, say, four local symphonies and spends all of his/her time there and the other just does school band for four years. And there’s a difference between someone who just takes the school classes and gets straight A’s and someone who does that and does thirty extracurriculars. Which is better suited for a rigorous college? Probably the one that did thirty extracurriculars, because they’ve got better time management or something.
Letters of rec help them eliminate people. For example, if both your teachers and your GC think that you’re self-centered and egotistical, you’re probably going to be turned away in favor of someone with the same stats but is kind and nice and helps others.
Same thing with the interview. My guess is that it’s kind of like the essays.
But that’s just my guess. I’m just a HS senior, so what do I know?</p>
<p>An odd post indeed. Harvard has, for some time, been following something akin to the policies you suggest.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have submitted the post if I felt that Harvard was following what I’ve been suggesting. I have no direct view into the Harvard admission process. But based on what I see of who gets in and who does not, I infer strong evidence that Harvard places much emphasis on traditional standards. Why else do we find such extreme high SAT and GPA averages among Harvard’s successful applicants? This would only make sense if SAT and GPA correlate closely with success. Yet studies have consistently shown relatively weak correlations of 10-20% at best for these and other measures, by themselves or used together. </p>
<p>I think Harvard believes in “higher” principles (who doesn’t?) but I don’t see them doing much to develop them, publicize them, or transparently make use of them.</p>
<p>Byerly writes
Ivyalumni’s “daydream”
An odd post indeed. Harvard has, for some time, been following something akin to the policies you suggest.</p>
<p>You’re not correctly using the data. You’re making the comparison between the people who have already gotten in. The real correlation is apparant if you include the people who didn’t get in. The only thing that the data suggests is that among a select group, SATs and GPA makes no difference ONCE YOU GET TO A CERTAIN POINT. Harvard realize that, so that’s why they grant admission to both 1400s and 1600s. Harvard does not claim that a 1600 is better than a 1400.</p>
<p>Also, it is widely speculated that the Ivy league is less focused on SAT than schools like MIT and CIT.</p>
<p>at the end of the day, college is a supply and demand system. There is too much demand and not enough supply.</p>
<p>In the real world you arbitrarily charge a higher price until supply equals demand (those who cant afford do not demand)</p>
<p>In the college world you raise the SAT bar until supply equals demand (Those with lower SATS cannot demand), of course including ECs, and GPA.</p>
<p>SO the problem with this entire thread is that although EVERYONE is correct, everyone needs to realize how is HARVARD or YALE to differentiate between all the people who demand their product. How do we select, WHATS A BETTER METHOD. There is no better method. </p>
<p>Our society generally values merit so those who can perform the highest, however marginal or useless, have more intellectual funds to bargin a spot at Harvard Yard. </p>
<p>And just like in real life, we offer some subsidize like to farmers, and in college to URMS, Athletes, Poor, and to Legacies, insulating them from SOME competition, (IM NOT ARGUING IF ITS RIGHT OR WRONG, JUST STATING THE REALITY). </p>
<p>And just like in real life bartar systems, one must realize that if you offer me 10 oranges and 2 apples, I might not be as satisfied as if i had gotten 8 oranges and 4 apples, THUS THE IDEA OF ECs come into play as people try to persent their own unique balance of Academic and EC balance.</p>
<p>Competition for postions drives a need to Differentiate between candidates. </p>
<p>HOW ARE WE TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN CANDIDATES? Although the SAT and GPA correlation with college gpa is weak, one MUST realize its all we have to differentiate between people and that although the nominol goal all colleges claim is that high SAT, GPA= high COLLEGE GPA, THE REAL REASON IS BECAUSE HARVARD AND PRINCETON OR UMD OR UGA HAVE NO OTHER MEANS OF DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN PEOPLE. </p>
<p>THERE IS NO OTHER METHOD, PERHAPS THERE IS A WAY WE CAN IMPROVE THIS METHOD BUT WE CANNOT CHANGE IT. This is the supply-demand angle of college admssions.</p>
<p>Damn, Biz. You broke down into economics terms. That’s very sexy ;)</p>
<p>As I have said many times, this is why personal interviews are increasingly important. I imagine they will also become so at the other elites as they ramp up their resources to provide them. (Stanford, for example, has never used interviews.)</p>
<p>Regardless of the “politically correct” criticisms of the SAT, the fact is that the new test is giving “flatter” results than ever. With Harvard having 12,000 1400-scorers, and enough 800-scorers to fill the class twice over, a large majority of the nations 1600-scorers, and 3,000 valedictorians in the pool, it is obvious that relying on scores alone isn’t enough.</p>
<p>Even the “rejects” have high scores.</p>
<p>Further, with grade inflation hitting the high schools far worse than the colleges, many schools refusing to rank their graduates, and the near impossibility of comparing high school and prep school transcripts nationally, the GPA is becoming a poor basis upon which to choose.</p>
<p>The “essays” - sad to say - often appear to have been “heavily edited” by parents and the increasingly ubiqutous and pestilential “educational consultants”.</p>
<p>The letters of recommendation vary enormously in quality, particularly from guidance counselors who don’t know the applicant from a hole in the ground. (1,000 to 1 ratio in California.)</p>
<p>Nope … the only way to cut through all this and see if the applicant “in person” is the same one presented “on paper” is the interview … a very labor-intensive option.</p>
<p>Unfortunately interviews have notoriously poor predictive reliability, as has been shown in numerous studies in organizational psychology. They are subject to many sorts of biases, including for example the halo effect (e.g., attractive people are perceived to be more qualified), the contrast effect (a candidate looks better or worse depending on who was immediately interviewed before), the primacy effect (interviewer tend to remember the first interview they did best), the recency effect (interviewers tend to remember the last person they interviewed best as well as the last part of the interview–by the way recency and primacy effects co-exist), etc. In addition, there is poor inter rater reliability; some interviewers give generally better ratings or worse than others. </p>
<p>Byerly is right in his direction of critical thinking, however. As adcoms face applicants with increasingly uniformly high test scores, grades and letters of recs, their ability to make good decisions is becoming more difficult.</p>
<p>With all due respect (and I recognize you are sincere) most of what you say - particularly about interviews (or at least the Harvard interview process) - is arrant nonsense.</p>
<p>I think at lot of the SAT usage by colleges is primarily a means to justify denying a large chunk of the pool. Given ECs, essays, GPA, an interview and letters of recommendations alone, colleges could not adequately justify denying one candidate over another in most instances. Interviews, letters of recommendation and essays are all very subjective parts of the application process. With the SATs, it’s quite easy for colleges to immediately remove half of their applicants as being “underqualified”. </p>
<p>Additionally, because so many ranking lists use SAT scores of freshmen as a factor in ranking colleges, colleges are under pressure to maintain high scoring freshmen classes. Could you imagine what would happen to Harvard’s rank if they decided one year that SAT scores would not be considered?</p>
<p>The few Harvard interviews I have personally heard about have been impressive indeed in comprehensiveness and professionalism.</p>
<p>Byerly, add this to your list of compressed SAT scores, inflated GPAs, indistinguishable courses, bought essays, and inconsistent recommendation letters: fake ECs!</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>In particular I note the thousands of children of wealth and privilege who have, allegedly, spent hundreds - if not thousands - of carefully-logged hours founding soup kitchens, tutoring cleft-pallette orphans, helping little old ladies cross the street etc etc etc. </p>
<p>These are the new cliche-type “ECs” to which elite aspirants have been cageily steered by their “educational counselors”.</p>