Shelby Steele on Ivy League Admissions

Parents Forum
981

<p>“these applicants may have spent all their time studying for the SAT rather than living their lives or being real human beings.”</p>

<p>“Was he doing these individual competitions all the time or did he have a life that included at least a few friends?”
Sadly such questions are likely asked by someone who’s incapable of reaching such a high level of stats, though at least one of them is smart enough to alter her resume. I suspect that most high achieving students are 2-3 standard deviations above the questioners on some sort of intelligence scale, and they have more free time also."</p>

<p>You’ve got to be kidding. These are other applicants to these schools who are writing these things. They are high stat kids too. Unless you’re only defining 2400 as high stats.</p>

982

<p>“these applicants may have spent all their time studying for the SAT rather than living their lives or being real human beings.”</p>

<p>Most really high stats students study very little if at all for the SAT. They find it rather easy. Speaking from the experience of my DS and some of his friends. </p>

<p>Also, most of them do have friends, a sense of humor, do community service and have part time jobs in high school.</p>

983

<p>CanadaMom - I agree. My kid has ridiculous scores but has not spent much time at all on any of the tests. We literally had to force the kid to take some of the subject tests. I tell the kid not to give false ideas to our relatives kids about not preparing at all and doing well. Their parents get annoyed since their kids are still not doing that well in practice tests and don’t want to work on it because my kid told them so.</p>

984

<p>9/11. Decided not to spend any time today reviewing old “Decisions” threads. Not ducking epiphany’s question. Beyond my post #975 (and erratum #978), I will return to that question on a different day.</p>

985

<p>I dedicate my 600th post to the 9/11 victims. That tragic day can not and should not take away American freedom and innocence whose preservation ought to be a top goal for any American on CC.</p>

986

<p>I know that this thread has covered a lot of ground since this was posted, but I have been puzzled by it for the last couple of days:</p>

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<p>I know the person who posted this already received some feedback on how they should feel about this and I certainly don’t want to add to the grief. But I am surprised that there wasn’t more commentary on this particular statement. Is this sort of the consensus? Because honestly if I had to do it all over again, I think I would prefer to attend Pomona over the Ivy I attended, if I could get in to either. And I think Pomona is as or more selective than probably all of the non-HYP Ivy League schools, isn’t it?</p>

<p>I am assuming that the student who applied to Pomona wasn’t interested in all or just any Ivy. I mean not to slight any school, but if he was accepted at Pomona wouldn’t he have had a good chance at say, Cornell or Penn? I just can’t conceive of all the Ivies being preferable over Pomona to the same individual.</p>

987

<p>I checked in on this thread when a friend pm’ed me that my poor ol’ goat girl was being discussed. I didn’t see anything worth correcting in any of the posts or any reason to elaborate on the story told. It was “good enough correct” although my favorite cc description of my kid is still “Ellie Mae Jabbar”. lol </p>

<p>The thread has headed in a predictable direction down a well-trampled road, hasn’t it? Highest standardized stats vs holistic with a side dish of bias against Asian-American applicants? Ms. Jones? Mr. Li and his complaints? The road can certainly be entertaining, negotiating the curves for the first few times, watching a couple of folks wreck along the way, but after a while… you could ride this road blind-folded. ;)</p>

988

<p>Post 987 +1</p>

<p>Who has the horse that we are going to beat to death?</p>

989

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<p>Cute screen name. :slight_smile: And probably your name is Jane, although many times screen names don’t match identities. :wink: So I’ll call you Jane.</p>

<p>I’m glad you edited to add this last sentence, and particularly the phrase “to the same individual,” because earlier in the post the starting point (as is so often the case on CC), was the college, not the individual. And to answer the implication of the first question, Of course. However, you might agree that desire and desirability are 2 different things: </p>

<p>(1) One directionality is the desire & desirability by the college or U toward the student.
(2) The (sometimes competing) directionality is the (emotional) desire by the student for the college.
(3) The third directionality is the desirability<a href=“or%20the%20optimum%20match”>/u</a> of a particular college for a particular student’s social, intellectual, and practical needs.</p>

<p>Very often (2) and (3) do match up, and Hallelujah when they do, and in those cases the student has done his her admissions homework. A+ for her/him. But often these two elements do not match up, and the “desire” of (2) is based not on (3) but on an abstract notion of “desire” and “desirability,” driven by popular notions of “good” and “excellent.”</p>

<p>In an absolute sense, an Ivy school is not “better” than another particular school. It can be, in a relative sense and in a very general sense. But students, their majors, their future job prospects, their ability to thrive on a particular campus, are not generalities.</p>

<p>So now addressing my point (1) above: Yes, the Pomona student was most likely, given that student’s acceptance, within the same range as accepted students to Cornell & Penn, but fewer students apply to Pomona than apply to Cornell & Penn. Therefore, the difficulty in standing out for Cornell & Penn, vs. for Pomona.</p>

990

<p>Curmudgeon - what is your input on why Ellie May Jabbar got into Yale at the undergrad level?</p>

991

<p>OK, I cant believe I’m returning to this thread, but I am because you are talking about my post and my son. Truthfully I can’t believe this post hasnt died yet, but I guess I’m just plain naive and inexperienced. Plenty of folks here on this thread with thousands and thousands of CC posts to their names, and hundreds probably on this one alone, so they are certainly quite conversant on the topics shown. </p>

<p>However, i am the only person here who is an expert in my child and his thoughts.</p>

<p>Pomona was his 5th choice. He wasn’t interested in ALL the Ivies. He wasnt any in any possible Ivy over Pomona. He didn’t like Harvard, Penn, Columbia. (We visited them all.) His choices were – in order–Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Brown and Pomona. He also applied to as safety schools (and was accepted) to UT Plan II, Duke, UNC, Boston U, Davidson. Received scholarship offers from a couple of these.</p>

<p>In subsequent posts, I clarified that my intent was to say that several of the Ivies were preferable for HIM over Pomona. Not all Ivies per se, and he wasnt hell bound for ANY Ivy over Pomona. But certain ones–yes and definitely. Certain ones. And that I didn’t think Ivies were right for everyone. But several were his preference. Candidly, given the choice between Harvard or Pomona, he probably would have chosen Pomona~! But that’s just conjecture, as he didn’t even apply to Harvard. Which is telling in and of itself. He just plain didn’t like Harvard. Wasn’t crazy about Columbia. We never looked at several others either.</p>

<p>I’m sure someone will be along to post outrage at something I’ve shared here which is simply factual and clarifying erroneous assumptions, or will chime in and tell me how wrong it all is…or how it doesn’t make sense, etc. Or we were stupid, etc. The fierceness some have attacked and participated in this particular thread is perplexing to me.</p>

<p>I’d really rather not have to come back and defend my son’s choices–or his aspirations–or his disappointments. I never asked for opinions. And I sure wouldn’t talk about your kids either or their choices or how you brought them up or your relationship boundaries with your friends. But all of that happened to me when I simply shared our story.</p>

<p>Sound defensive? Good. I’m being honest and transparent with my feelings. This thread brought it out in me. And yes–its an emotional day. We should all just play nice with each other.</p>

<p>Go in peace.</p>

992

<p>^ this makes total sense to me. And I was sincere in saying I did not want to add to the grief. I tried to follow this thread closely and went back and reread posts but I did miss the part about narrowing down the Ivy schools.</p>

993

<p>ProudMom, I can understand that your son was initially very disappointed if Pomona was his 5th choice. I imagine he’s been at school for awhile now and hope it’s going well for him.How’s he liking Pomona?</p>

994

<p>Regarding post 991:</p>

<p>My response was strictly to CJaneRead’s post, and nothing more. Her post discussed theoreticals and principles, not particulars and persons. I responded accordingly. I don’t know who all those supposed other posters are/were who “attacked” you or your S or your “boudaries” or whatever, but do not include me in anyone who deserves to be the object of your ire. </p>

<p>The thread has morphed from time to time to discuss dynamics of admission – the subject I was addressing. If you posted earlier on the thread about the specifics of your son’s admission, I did not read that, nor did I address that in my post. I answered some broad questions posed by a different poster.</p>

995

<p>I did miss the part of ProudMom’s son ruling out several Ivy League schools, but I posed the question in a theoretical sense, since I thought the thread had moved beyond that particular situation.</p>

996

<p>@sevmom. Thanks for asking and being concerned. That’s very kind of you. He’s been there 3 weeks now. I spoke with him earlier today, and he is still happy at Pomona. And hey–Pomona frequently ranks high in the “happiest student” lists. With that sunny & balmy weather and beautiful campus, its probably hard to be in the dumps!He’s taking up his 4th language (Korean), really likes that professor in particular, and despite not really knowing anyone there when he arrived, says he is making friends and that he “isnt lonely”.</p>

<p>I’m likely a tad emotional today (the obvious, plus I’m missing him today too), so I didn’t mean to go off on too much of a rant above~! My apologies if I came across strident. I’ve never been one for long long posts filled with scads of extemporaneous details–and likely could have shared my original storyhere better contextually to avoid it taking some of the rabbit trails my participation led to earlier on. Guess I’ll hop away again… ;-)</p>

997

<p>No need to hop away,ProudMom. I’m glad he’s happy there. It’s an emotional day for everyone , so no need to apologize. Also,your son is in his first year as well and it really can be hard emotionally to see them go off to college. It’s an adjustment for him and for you. Glad things seem to be going well!</p>

998

<p>

The obvious answer is that they saw something they liked. That year. Maybe not the year before or the year after. For further answer, hellifiknow. If you are asking me to speculate based on what little data I actually had at the time (D’s conversation with the adcom after acceptance and my conversation with her alumni interviewer after the acceptance), I’d say: </p>

<p>Like most acceptees from public high schools:
she had the big numbers (GPA, rank, standardized tests).
She had “best in my career” type rec’s from teachers and GC.</p>

<p>Unlike some:

  1. She went beyond her high school’s curriculum to seek out academic challenge.
  2. She had big volunteer ec’s showing some initiative and creativity (see a problem, fix a problem). and wrote about them .
  3. She had a “team building” from absolutely nothing, state championship-winning athletic career as a 4 year varsity player. (Playing the center or “5” position against girl’s 4-5 inches taller a and 50 lbs heavier. Very impressive to the alumni interviewer who followed her through the playoffs and kept updating Yale on her team’s progress. :wink: She was not, nor would she have ever been, a recruited player but her “Play till your feet bleed. All glory for the team.” attitude in the face of much more athletic opponents made her interviewer an advocate/even more of an advocate. )
  4. She was a multi-year section leader in an award winning precision marching band and in a pretty good school orchestra.
  5. She went to state in Solo and Ensemble playing, of all things, the tuba.<br>
  6. She won some math competitions on what we call the District level (8 school iirc) and finished as the highest ranking female at a couple of regional competitions.
  7. She came from an environment Yale wanted represented (that year). A ranch-raised kid who could “ride, shoot, and mend a fence”. And yeah. Goats (among many other things. ;))
  8. Other similar stuff but nothing that would have stood out, just “added to” the package. </p>

<p>So, I’d say she had some incredible advocates, had the big numbers, wrote a great app, and for a BWRK, she had some pretty nice exclamation points. </p>

<p>But I’ll stick with …hellifiknow. :wink: Maybe it was a mistake.</p>

999

<p>After re-reading my answer to Texaspg, I guess I need to flesh out the numbers Yale had to review before somebody asks- 4.0 UW, 4.8 W, #1/145, 35 ACT.</p>

<p>Now. Feel free to pick her app apart and put it all on the goats. It’s a better story that way. Oh, and y’all might want to check the RD acceptance rate in 2006. It was pretty dang low that year, too. 7.? %</p>

1000

<p>^so do you think good tuba players get a boost lol? I also went to State S&E for tuba and got 96/100 on proficiency II :D</p>