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<p>My experience says otherwise.</p>
<p>It does seem that the article is aptly titled, though. “Three biggest lies”. But the point is that the “lies” are the ones that are put out by people who have a very shallow & superficial understanding of the college admission process.</p>
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He addresses this to some extent. For example if colleges admitted that SAT/ACT scores were oh so important, and that you need 700/700 even to be considered without a hook, fewer students would even bother applying. The more applicants you have, the more “selective” you get to be. If you accept 700 of 9000 applicants, it’s better than accepting 700 of 5000 applicants.</p>
<p>Likewise, if they told you they aren’t really need blind, then you might be less likely to apply if you know you will need aid.</p>
<p>I think, really, it’s all about the numbers.</p>
<p>And those extra 4000 applicants at $75 each pays $300K worth of salaries in the Admissions department.</p>
<p>Another lie to be well aware of is “merit scholarship”. MANY schools DO NOT even consider a student for merit unless their family qualifies for financial aid and/or scores low enough on the CSS Profile. Thus, if your family is not considered “poor enough”, no matter how talented your kid, s/he will not be awarded merit. This is particularly disheartening to families who come from states with a high cost of living. Your inflated income will make your kid ineligible for merit!!!</p>
<p>So the playing field isn’t level, eh? I was raised understanding that life is not fair, and I’ve raised my kids to understand that life is not fair. Because guess what? Life is not fair … and that doesn’t just apply to college admissions.</p>
<p>Really, the article is hardly a news flash.</p>
<p>Maybe not, but I wish I had at least known to specifically ask colleges whether their merit awards were tied to the parents’ financial scores. As parents of a nationally ranked music student, we would have saved a lot of money that in retrospect was spent/wasted on visiting, auditioning and applying to schools that tied these factors together.</p>
<p>Merit awards may not be explicitly tied to one’s parents’ finances, but – considering that yield for the best students is important – those students with financial need may often get priority, because they may not be able to attend the college otherwise.</p>
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Falcon92, what schools are those? My understanding is merit is based on stats. I know SOME schools also use a need component for certain scholarships but MANY?</p>
<p>I just saw your other post. Music scholarships seem to be different. I know of few auditioned music schools that offer much if any scholarships.</p>
<p>Forbes. A time-tested tradition of under-performance.</p>
<p>Lorem,
While it may be true that some schools tie merit aid to financial status, there are many that don’t. We didn’t even fill out FAFSA and our older son received merit aid offers from half the schools where he applied. It will be interesting to see it the same thing happens this year with our younger son whose numbers/stats/activities would seem to make him a stronger candidate.</p>
<p>Something that I don’t understand:</p>
<p>This article mentions that international students (particularly those applying to top schools) usually have exceptionally high SAT/ACT scores. However, it then goes on to say that their English fluency is often lacking.</p>
<p>If someone does very well on the SAT/ACT, then doesn’t that mean that his/her English fluency (at least reading and writing) is very good?</p>
<p>^The SAT is highly coachable. Intellectually ordinary students who spend hundreds of hours prepping can get high scores. In addition, many international applicants will have very high math scores and lower CR scores.</p>
<p>Also, there are persistent rumors of cheating in the international administration of standardized tests.</p>
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<p>In my experience working with a lot of foreign engineers, many had very good reading fluency, reasonable writing fluency, and modest spoken (& listening) fluency in English. They probably all had very high GRE scores, needed for admission to US graduate schools. </p>
<p>A Chinese friend and colleague who went to the same US engineering grad school that I did (although 10 years later), told me how long and hard she studied for the GRE verbal section. She told me her score, which was slightly higher than mine had been, which surprised me since her written and spoken English is very much inferior to that of a similarly-educated native English speaker.</p>
<p>^ one more point to add to the above.
The Chinese friend I mentioned above said that she barely prepared at all for the math section of the GRE, since she was able to easily get an 800 on it.</p>
<p>Judging by my friends who’ve gotten into top schools and ones who haven’t, it makes absolutely no difference to most very top schools (HYPSM) whether you have a 2100 or 2400.</p>
<p>emilybee - Ivy league athletes (recruits, albeit without athletic scholarships) ACT / SAT scores are tracked, as “on average” each team can’t have an average ACT / SAT score more than one standard deviation below the average ACT / SAT score for that university’s overall admitted class rating for that year.</p>
<p>^^^^
To clarify, maybe add: “All Ivy league athletes taken as a whole.”</p>
<p>Some individual Ivy athletes can (and do) fall outside the AI.</p>
<p>^^^^^Thanks for clarifying. And you’re right, it’s the AI (Academic index) scores that are compared…team average AI versus overall class AI. But 1/3 of the AI score is ACT / SAT score (with supposedly another 1/3 being SAT2 scores and the last 1/3 being class rank out of overall class size).</p>
<p>I think the greatest “lie” is that someone has the exact formula, all you need to do is discover it. And, gosh, if those heartless adcoms would just 'fess up. </p>
<p>Do people forget they are buiding a class for their college? You know, in life, some people think we’re super smart and destined for greatness and should join their team- and some don’t. Why can’t we say the same is true for adcoms? You put yourself out there and not all will find your particulars impressive. That’s the down side to holistic. </p>
<p>A good college search has a heartily realistic component- academically, your personal fit there, and financials. Plus other things. It’s not all about “I like” or “I want.”</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad: Well it’s been a few years so I don’t remember all the particulars, but it seemed like every school my D applied to required the FAFSA and most private schools also required the CSS Profille. It did not matter that my D was applying for merit consideration only, not financial aid. Northwestern and Juilliard were at least upfront enough to state that they consider all of their applicants to have merit, therefore awards would be determined by financial need. Unfortunately for us, however, Rice was not upfront about their policy. My D was accepted by Rice, but we were told that she would not be considered for merit scholarship because my exH never submitted the CSS Profile. Eastman was one of the few schools which offered a true merit scholarship (separate from financial need) but unfortunately even with their top merit award that year, we would have been expected to pay over $32K per year and we just couldn’t justify paying/borrowing that much when she had another offer from a high ranking state school. By the way, you may have noticed that I used the term “true merit”. I don’t consider merit scholarships to be truly merit if they are tied to financial need. Why should the higher ranked student be offered less merit money than a student from a family with a lower income? Merit is supposed to recognize the student’s level of ABILITY, not the level of the parent’s bank account.</p>