<p>I agree with 100% with Morsmordre.</p>
<p>blu_g8orade: Yeah, I agree that they wouldn’t know about how she lied and whatnot. But even amidst the lies, she didn’t come off as a better applicant than so many of the people here that got rejected. But no worries. Most of the people who were rejected are seriously amazing and will end up doing great anyways. And again, I can’t say Stanford should know about the lies. They’d really have no way of knowing. </p>
<p>morsmordre: You’d be surprised at how terrible this girl was at covering up the lies. She even had my friend edit her essay… And for her recommendation she got our vice principal to write it and the vice principal told her that she could write whatever she wanted and the vp would send it. How do I know about that? She asked another friend to help her write the recommendation! I know this sounds ridiculous (it really is) but most of the senior class knows about all of this and I agree she should have been more circumspect. But she was not. I honestly have no idea why she didn’t hide it better. A similar case happened two years ago at our school. That student went to Stanford too while very qualified students were rejected. But since you actually go to Stanford you’ll obviously stick up for them. I might as well stop arguing.</p>
<p>lol. I think we’re just all bitter that we saw so much unexpected blood on decision day</p>
<p>Rainforestt,
This is actually a lesson for the real world. Getting aways with things or getting the things your way is an important skill. The Yale student who got kicked out lied everything on this application (including the fake transcripts) and he got kicked out only after he professed to his gay partner who later broke up with him and turned him in. BTW, the guy was actually doing pretty well in Yale before they caught him.</p>
<p>@rainforestt: “out of the three people in my school who were accepted, one definitely deserved it, one semi-deserved it…”</p>
<p>Just curious: How exactly do you (or anyone, for that matter) know who is deserving and who isn’t?</p>
<p>Haha chill out. I definitely don’t know who exactly “deserved” it, but I think we’re all speculating here. And anyways, I (or anyone) may not know who is deserving, but I think a lot of us can see when something is unfair. Sorry if I sounded conceited, that wasn’t my intention.</p>
<p>professor101: I don’t get things my way most of the time, so I know how it is. I’m really not all that shocked by these decisions. But I’m just sad for some people here that didn’t get in.</p>
<p>Olive Tree summed it up very well, some people may have great stats, but are boring people. I don’t want a school where everyone is in the library 24/7. At a school like Stanford, numbers just qualify you, after that it’s about the person you are and how well you fit into the school.</p>
<p>It is very true that most of the top universities in the country are biased against Asians. In fact, if we were to go on merit and extracurriculars alone (no bs trying to preserve a majority of whites in colleges or legacy bullsh_t), Asians would make up almost half of the populations of all the top univerisities in the USA (and when I say Asians, I am also including Indian Asians). If anything, Stanford is not doing enough to make itself more diverse. Affirmative Action hurts Asians and helps blacks, latinos, and whites. I have nothing against helping blacks and latinos/latinas because they have been downtrodden in the country for too long, but trying to preserve a white majority “just because” in Ivy leagues and equivalent colleges is racist and disgusting.</p>
<p>I’m a Stanford freshman currently, and I think that this is a very interesting question. I’m not going to dismiss it as racist and intolerant - its an argument that seems to make sense - why should the randomness of my birth play into college admissions?</p>
<p>So, after being at Stanford for an entire quarter… here are my thoughts:</p>
<p>When you arrive on campus you will experience one of two emotions: why is everyone here so damn brilliant?!</p>
<p>or:</p>
<p>where is the brilliance? Is this really the top of the pops? etc…</p>
<p>I had the latter reaction… but in time you begin to understand something that the admission office understands better than, I feel, many other admission offices: academic success is an indicator of one thing - academic success.</p>
<p>Stanford tries to discover people they feel will be truly successful in doing what they choose to do in life. I worked on a group project with a guy I know certainly did not have great scores… but after working on that project I saw his bits of brilliance in marketing, passion for his work, understanding of PEOPLE, and just his thinking process. I knew a lot of kids in high school who got awesome scores and grades… but few had this savvy way of thinking.</p>
<p>Really, all I can say is: Stanford knows what they are doing. </p>
<p>You will find that the diversity sometimes might get annoying, but generally it is pretty incredible.</p>
<p>To say it straight:
The randomness of your birth plays into EVERY part of your life. Why should it not play into the admission process?</p>
<p>To put it in Muhammad Yunus’ words, who spoke this quarter: people from disadvantaged backgrounds are fully incredible individuals who, like bonsai trees, are simply the same as their larger than life counterparts, but have been given a smaller pot in which to grow.</p>
<p>Stanford takes the people who might have had to grow in small pots, and puts them in Stanford - to expand, and truly become brilliant and succesful.</p>
<p>I mean come on - are your SAT scores and high school grades really an expression your individuality?</p>
<p>Come to Stanford. It really is a fascinating place. I’m not a drone who thinks the place is perfect, believe me - I had a difficult choice in your position, and I came with a critical eye, knowing I could have been at… the TOP ivies - yet I have seen what this place can teach in ten weeks, and I’ve seen what people here are capable of doing. </p>
<p>Trust me - you want to be part of this community.</p>
<p>Congratulations.
I mean it.</p>
<p>I would just like to remind you all of a few things:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>For all the whining about affirmative action, there is still a comparatively small number of African-Americans at Stanford – about 100 per class (some of whom may also be recruited athletes, too). If Stanford decided to abandon affirmative action for African-Americans altogether, the number of other applicants whose decisions would be different would be tiny. Tiny.</p></li>
<li><p>That may be less true of Hispanics, but the community Stanford serves includes many more Hispanics than national population averages, and I think it’s clear that the Hispanic population Stanford accepts is not meaningfully different from its overall average.</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford accepts more Asian students than any other ultra-elite university, also reflecting the demographics of California and Stanford’s westward-facing focus. It’s fair to argue it should accept even more, but really Stanford isn’t the problem here. Also, many people believe that the problem for Asian students isn’t so much that there is discrimination against them, but that so many of them have such similar profiles, interests, ECs, and life plans, that they wind up knocking each other out in greater proportions. Stanford may not want more than 20% pre-meds; if 70% of the Asian applicants lean that way, they’re going to be rejected in disproportionate numbers.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, I think a lot of you are way too cavalier in dismissing how hard it is and how extraordinary it is for some disadvantaged minority candidates to get to a level where they are qualified for admission by Stanford, even if on some overall objective measure (which doesn’t really exist) they are .1 or .2 below some rejected candidates. They struggle with barriers that few white or Asian applicants face (and the white/Asian applicants who do get credit for that, too), and the ones who break those barriers are often truly extraordinary people, in ways that don’t show up on their SATs but that shine out from every other aspect of their applications.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I second JHS’s posting and add this thought. I was in many a midnight argument about AA when I was younger … but eventually came to two realizations. First, the number of spots AAs have in any class at an elite school is a very small number (and under-represents their population in society) … and of those few the number who got a AA bump is some subset. Second, my expeirence (3 degrees from elite schools) has been that it would be impossible to guess who got a AA bump based on the performance of students once they are enrolled. Overall, the students I have attended school with have been amaziing … white, black, latino, asian. Personally I found the diversity of the student population (race, economic background, regions of country, country of origin, etc) to be one of the absolute best parts of my experiences in school … for me the admissions groups certainly seem to know what they are doing. For me personally I’d hate a system where admissions was decided by plugging in numbers and the “highest” scores win and get accepted … it would greatly change the character of many of our great schools. If you believe in number based applications I’d suggest focussing on schools thet rely on numbers and not advocate that schools that believe in wholilstic admissions change … and let those who desire a school that believes in wholistic admissions apply to those schools. Written by a parent whose kids are “hurt” by almost every dimension of wholistic admissions and is TOTALLY in favor it.</p>
<p>
Ya, when people get older, they lose their idealistic edge.</p>
<p>I disagree with Post #1 & agree with Post #30. I know many minority students who have been rejected and accepted at Top 15 National Universities & Top 8 LACs; the selection process is much more discerning & difficult than many might realize. Although I am not a minority, I applaud Stanford University’s willingness to look beyond mere numbers when building a class. Some of the most undesirable students that I know are students at a very elite, and elitist, East coast Ivy; these students, in my opinion, would not be as comfortable at Stanford–thank goodness!</p>
<p>
I would describe it differently … when I was younger I was idealistic and typically viewed issues solely through the lens of my viewpoint … as I got older I have grown in my ability to assess multiple viewpoints on issues and, at least in my case, this has made me much less idealistic about many social issues.</p>
<p>
what you said is probably true for Stanford. I am not sure about other top schools. I have long suspected that Stanford’s heavy AA is just a tool to prevent it from becoming another UC Berkeley or Cal Tech where Asian counts for the largest percentage though I could be wrong.</p>
<p>I am sympathetic to the OP’s comment, even though I may not agree with everything he/she said. Our undergraduate education is probably screwed up by the social and political agendas such as gender balance or affirmative action, etc. After getting burnt badly by several hiring failures, I no longer consider American graduates seriously unless I have a work trial period. Asian graduates are more dedicated, quicker, (probably smarter,) and most importantly, capable of delivering results. As a faculty in a major US research university, I know that university administrators tend to bend themselves towards a variety of social and political agendas. But in the long run, these agendas will indiscriminately hurt those people they intend to promote, regardless their actual ability, because employers are well aware of these programs. Right now, over 50% of the faculty members in my department are foreign-born. My lab is completely filled with foreign graduates. This trend will continue to grow if the administrators keep screwing things up.</p>
<p>JHS said it all- thanks.</p>
<p>Agreed with JHS completely.</p>
<p>I’d argue that Stanford sees socioeconomics as more important than just race. So those who are Asian but from a disadvantaged background will be given boosts, too. And that’s understandable: what a student has accomplished should be evaluated in the context of what the student has been offered. Some students are very accomplished despite being disadvantaged, and that’s a factor in admissions, more so than race. Not all URMs are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds; not all URMs are seen in the same light.</p>
<p>I find it mind-boggling that so many of those on this forum doubt Stanford’s ability to find 170 (~10% of Stanford’s class of 1,700) black students, from all over the world, who are as extraordinary as their white and Asian counterparts. The same for other URMs.</p>
<p>JHS message is perfect. It should be replicated in every discussion on AA, asians are discriminated, etc.</p>
<p>From the OP:</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It already is. It’s just that Stanford (and nearly all other selective schools) uses a wider definition of “merit” than merely your grades and test scores.</p>