Poor Nerd Vs Rich, Famous Person

College Confidential Community
1

<p>This is made up and very fake.</p>

<p>You’re an admissions officer at MIT or Havard or Yale or whatever.</p>

<p>Candidate #1:
Family Income: $15,000
Family Assets: $3,000
Contributions to School Applying To: $0
Legacies: No
Financial Aid: Yes</p>

<p>GPA: 98/100 (unweighted)
Class Rank: #1
SAT: 2400
SAT II: 800 Math 1, 800 Biology, 800 French, 800 Literature
ACT: 36</p>

<p>EC’s
National Honors Society
AIME
USAMO
USAMTS
Intel ISEF (1st Place)
Siemens Competition
JSHS</p>

<p>Candidate #2:
Family Income (including themself): $3,500,000
Family Assets (including themself): $30,000,000
Contributions to School Applying To: $4,000,000
Legacies: Both Parents
Financial Aid: Uh duh, no.</p>

<p>GPA: 87/100 (unweighted)
Class Rank: 99/200
SAT: 1900/2400
SAT II: 680 Spanish, 700 US History
ACT: 29</p>

<p>EC’s
Record contract with major record company
(sold 50,000 records in a week)</p>

<p>Concert Tour
(sold 200,000 Tickets at 10 venues)</p>

<p>Five Music Videos
(Three As Featured Artist, Two As Solo)</p>

<p>Featured singer for large symphony at Carnegie Hall</p>

<p>Songwrote for major artists that hit #1 on Billboard charts
(Total of 18 songs)</p>

<p>Acting in Hollywood movies since 4th Grade
4th Grade-7th Grade: Shortly filmed parts/characters
8th Grade-present: Main character or supporting character</p>

<p>Puslished a book about acting and my life since 4th Grade
(total sales: 500,000 copies)</p>

<p>Won a total of 50 presitigious international awards.</p>

<p>Who would you accept and why?</p>

2

<p>Taking for granted that the rich, famous person is also really good looking and the poor nerd is a an ugly, scrawny little dweeb, I’ll take the rich, famous person. Sorry, poor little nerd.</p>

3

<p>^^ LOL</p>

<p>Famous person. </p>

<p>They had everything going on and still managed to get okay scores. Plus they can actually pay for the school.</p>

4

<p>Both of them. I reject CCers, not Intel winners and public figures.</p>

5

<p>Both = Best of both worlds
Why Rich / Famous - Brings alot of attention to school (as well as a lot of money), and with more attention more people will apply resulting in a lower acceptance rate and more prestige due to the higher selectivity (CCers will drool over the acceptance rate)
Why poor kid- Kid would go on to win nobel prize in every category and then be so grateful for the education that we provided him that he will come back to the school to teach. This will result in more applicants (as who wouldn’t want to be taught by this great man), a higher selectivity, and more prestige.</p>

6

<p>No I have to disagree with accepting candidate #2. If I were an admission officer at MIT I would most gladly accept the poor kid regardless of his/her family income because MIT has a sustainable private endowment. Second MIT would benefit from candidate #1 because of this person’s experience with working in science/ comp sci-related projects and competitions. It demonstrates an avid passion for technological advancement that can be developed with MIT’s renown academic curriculum. That is to say, the poor kid has a lot going for him/her because the outstanding accomplishments were achieved humbly.</p>

<p>Addressing the singer, I do not understand the reasoning behind buying into HYPSMC besides getting a degree in theater/performance or humanities and continuing making more money selling record albums. This person does not have to work for the rest of his/her life and is successful w/o a bachelors from Ivy league. </p>

<p>If this were simply an issue of money, candidate #2 would win out. But given additional information to your scenario, I would argue favorably for the poor bloke. ;)</p>

7

<p>Both, since even if it’s a top school there’s a good chance that one or both of them will turn you down to go to another school.</p>

<p>Even at Harvard, with it’s 77% yield rate, there’s only a 59% chance that both will accept offers of admission. And it goes down from there.</p>

<p>If I had to only accept one I’d say the poor nerd. With all that money you’d think they could afford a tutor to bring those scores up.</p>

<p>ECs should be nothing more than a tiebreaker for students with similar scores.</p>

8

<p>Reject some kid with a 2300 and take them both. Kid #2 will bring you money and fame, allowing you to increase financial aid or expand enrollment, which is good for all of the 1’s out there.</p>

9

<p>I agree with the others that this is a false choice. However, if you had to choose . . .</p>

<p>If you run your college like a business–take candidate 2.</p>

<p>If you run your college like the academic institution it is–take candidate 1.</p>