<p>I hope not to offend with this post …truly…so accept my apologies in advance if I inadvertently put anyone off.
My son is a freshman at an IvyLeague school. He tells me that some minorities have points added to their SAT scores …the scores are just made higher. He added that the students on campus of all backgrounds discuss it openly and that many of the minority students (whose scores were quite high without the add-on) are very, very eager for their friends to know that they got in on their own merits.<br>
I guess I’m living in a different world because I told him it had to be a scandalous non-truth. Can anyone confirm this as true or false? If it is true, why would this practice be permitted and why would anyone want it? As a white parent, it is hard to understand - we gave up ALL vacations of any kind for over a decade, had no medical insurance for a year, drive a run down ancient car … so that SAT tutoring and extra outside tutoring could be afforded when we were helping our son do his best through high school (and our other kids). I am trying to wrap my mind around this and put it in perspective, but, I confess, I am struggling. I am hoping one of you can confirm that it is urban legend …</p>
<p>“Extra points” is probably just speculation, given that what goes on behind closed doors at the admissions offices of Ivy League schools is opaque and mysterious to outsiders.</p>
<p>Numerous non-academic factors are considered at each school – see its common data set or its entry on [url=<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com]CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application<a href=“yes,%20ethnicity%20is%20often%20considered,%20among%20other%20things”>/url</a>. But how academic and non-academic factors are considered is not something that they are likely to describe in detail (unlike at public universities), since it is in their interest for that to be ambiguity to people on the outside.</p>
<p>If he is white, has he heard claims on the other side of the conversation – i.e. that “Asian applicants are penalized so that enough white students like him can be admitted”?</p>
<p>I smell a ■■■■■.</p>
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<p>[How</a> Diversity Punishes Asians, Poor Whites and Lots of Others](<a href=“http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/07/how_diversity_punishes_asians.html]How”>http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/07/how_diversity_punishes_asians.html)</p>
<p>I don’t know if schools implement these selection policies by actually adding points to a student’s test scores, but that is the effect.</p>
<p>Yes, he said that Asian students have points deducted, which seemed doubly outrageous. I am relieved to know that what the kids are chattering about on campus might indeed be urban legend …</p>
<p>Thank you for the link to the punishing angle of some demographics. It is shocking but very instructive.</p>
<p>I wonder if kids ever check the box for an ethnicity, knowing that anyone would be hard pressed to prove otherwise. What counts for Hispanic, for example? If your father is 25% Puerto Rican (in other words a kids great-great grandmother was from PR) does it count? What a slippery slope it is …</p>
<p>When we went through the admissions process for my son we had no idea if he’d get in or not. We knew it was dang hard based on all we had read and that the Ivy Leagues have an enormous pool of talent from which to choose, but we knew nothing at all about trading in demographics. </p>
<p>Thanks for the comments…</p>
<p>The OP is definitely a ■■■■■ or someone misrepresenting themselves as having a son in an Ivy League school. In my kids’ experience, matriculated students no longer compare or discuss SAT scores and the Ivys are diverse enough that minorities don’t have to fret about justifying their admission to their classmates.</p>
<p>Sorry, guys. I don’t know what a ‘■■■■■’ is. </p>
<p>My son is a freshman at UPenn. And, you are mistaken. True - the students no longer compete with each other - they have all been given the prize of admission, so there is no need. However, they do discuss this stuff …ad nauseum. </p>
<p>Why the hostility and suspicion here? I guess I’ll go back to reading and searching through the threads for info and will avoid speaking up. </p>
<p>There is actually a very good discussion about the effect that self-reporting has on all of this in one of the other forums. Apparently, more and more students are not reporting their ethnic roots at all, which is minimizing the impact of the potential maneuverings. It is an interesting and timely topic but clearly not here …</p>
<p>Is your son having self-doubt about whether he truly earned his Penn admission, since he may believe that, in the absence of purported racial preferences, some more qualified Asian applicant may have gotten his spot in Penn?</p>
<p>I am 100% certain that there are more qualified Asian applicants who should have had his spot at Penn. Most of his Asian friends had perfect SAT scores, first sitting.<br>
No, the Thanksgiving break conversation actually started with a report on mid-terms, predictions about finals and a quick review of where his “hall mates” are. A few of his new friends are failing. Some need to transfer out of the program they are in. During his detailed delivery, he revealed what he had learned directly from his friends about the SAT score add-on and deducts. I really did not believe it, hence my post.
My son has found the transition from highschool to Penn easy and he loves it there. He loves everything about it and is glad that he worked as hard as he did through high school. I have 3 more kids to get into college and am still learning about the admissions process.<br>
The CC forums are haltingly informative …</p>
<p>^^^
If you look over the “results” threads in the Penn or other top schools’ subforums, you will see that, above a certain threshold, the numbers don’t predict results. If you want to break it down to “points”, the elites give extra points to diversity: not only ethnic, but also geographic, extra curricular accomplishments, interests and talents. And how many “points” are added to a star athlete or legacy’s SATs?</p>
<p>The transition to being on their own and in a more academically demanding environment can be jarring to incoming freshman who are used to getting top grades in high school. Your son will find out that the great majority of Penn students who failed their first midterms will get it together by the end of the term. Yes, some may have to change concentrations (switching out of “pre-med” is quite common), but the numbers show they will be sitting with him at graduation.</p>
<p>Well, considering entire states (FL) are changing their educational standards to adjust for ethnicity, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was done either by the SAT or if various admissions offices did that as well. I know that the inner city schools in our state do not have the same benchmarks as the suburban schools, as reported in several articles in various newspapers and discussed at length by the superintendent of those schools because they just lowered those standards again.</p>
<p>*There is actually a very good discussion about the effect that self-reporting has on all of this in one of the other forums. Apparently, more and more students are not reporting their ethnic roots at all, which is minimizing the impact of the potential maneuverings. *</p>
<p>I doubt that leaving background blank affects anything, unless students leave their name blank as well.</p>
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<p>Florida public universities do not consider ethnicity in admissions.</p>
<p>Fl public schools (k-12) are adopting graduated standards for what is considered making adequate yearly progress based on your ethnicity. Students of Asian descent will be held to higher standards than white students, black students will be held to lower standards then both of the above. The subject was discussed here at length a few months ago.</p>