Turning the Tide- Rethinking College Admissions- a new report endorsed by many top Universities

Parents Forum
261

The point is not whether the Adcoms could figure out who was in the top 10 if they needed to for the 70+% of admits at YP that do not submit rank. The point is how little most colleges care about whatever unique weighted ranking system a particular HS is using and whether applicants cross a top 10 threshold under that HS’s arbitrary system. The more important criteria is the transcript where selective, holistic colleges often use their own system to evaluate course rigor, which courses had lower grades (if any), etc. As mentioned in my earlier post, in the NACAC college admissions survey of 1000+ colleges, the colleges Adcoms as a whole said class rank was less important for admission decisions than grades, test scores, LORs, essays, demonstrated interest, etc.

One can also list many anecdotal examples supporting this besides the valedictorian of your HS. For example, a couple years ago, I analyzed the Stanford decisions thread on this forum. Class rank actually had a noteworthy negative correlation with admissions decisions. That is valedictorian posters on this forum were notably more likely to be rejected. And posters who ranked lower were notably more likely to be accepted (nearly all posters who listed rank were academically qualified applicants in top 5%).

Be careful not to confuse grades and course rigor with rank. There should obviously be a correlation between the two. The more interesting question is what happens to a student who looks great on the transcript with excellent course rigor and grades, but is much less impressive on rank, perhaps due to not gaming the system by loading up weighted courses over passions — such as someone who is passionate about music taking “light” APs over band/orchestra to maximize rank. If rank isn’t critical, then this student should have as good a chance (if not better) than the student who instead chooses to load up on “light” APs.

262

Finally, apt descriptions for my DC! I have 1 Chloe/Eaven and 1 that is showing Zoe tendencies while we are trying to figure out if really a Doe or not. I fear that Zoe will take over before Doe can in the current environment.

My Chloe has no interest in the Ivies. Does not want to be surrounded by all those Zoes. He has many Doe friends so he can see the difference. Part of the reason there are not more Chloes at the Ivies, is self-selection.

263

Our daughter is a Doe as are the vast majority of those in her friend group at Harvard.
The Harvard admissions office doesn’t get it wrong to often, meaning they can sort through fairly easily what is contrived and what is real.
Our daughters experience working in the admissions office full time this past summer and part time presently has been very eye opening.
The number of reads an applicant gets, the committee based discussion and how well they know each applicant is border line creepy. They know exactly who they are admitting.
The saddest aspect of this is that there are so many amazing kids and relatively so few spots.

264

They THINK they know by the creepy number of reads, but of course they do not. You cannot know someone “on paper”. If this is the best system we have bc of the volume, so be it, but let’s not kid ourselves about “knowing” these kids. You can spot a super contrived Zoe, and maybe a superstar Doe. But most of these kids are somwhere in between. They don’t “know” them anymore than I do, and I hate how they confidently say they do:(

265

Of course @HRSMom is right that admission staffs don’t “know” our children. On the other hand, I suspect @GreatKid 's great kid is also right, that the Harvard admission staff knows each applicant to an amazing degree. Or rather, they know each application.

Applications are not the same thing as a person, but they are remarkably detailed and full of information. The “stats” that people obsess about here are the least of it. Recommendations and various personal statements come in a broad spectrum of possibilities, as do non-academic activities, and the background of an applicant and the applicant’s school add shadings to the whole thing.

Once in the college process, I participated in an exercise in which groups of parents read four or five applications (absent the names and other identifying information, including school, so they weren’t really complete) and ranked them. Although the parents would have disagreed about all sorts of theoretical issues to the extent we all do here on CC, there was near unanimity from every group of parents on the ranking of the applications. There were real differences among them (which did not extend to the stats). Does that mean that some of the kids were truly better than the others? Who knows? The kids themselves were not there; the applications were. Some of the applications were truly better than the others.

266

^Exactly. I do think they can get a good feel for a kid from a rec, if the teacher is a skilled recommmender. We did a Tufts seminar like you descrine @JHS , and the biggest factors swaying were impressions from the recs and essays.

Sometimes it can be very accurate, and I’ve no doubt they can spot a curated app…I wonder if various coaching services have an easily descernable “feel”? But I wish there was a better way to get to know the kids.

267

No methodology is perfect but I don’t know what else they could possibly do to be more thorough and complete. Perhaps HRSMom would like all applicants to submit to a polygraph exam?

268

So, they think students are stretched too thin, therefore, they want to see more volunteer hours? And volunteering itself is not enough, you have to pretend to be thrilled to be there? Is that right? lol

I am not sure what the Adcom’s are actually planning to do differently. Is that clear to anyone?

269

You also need to commit for a year if possible. I can see the checklists being written now. Disappointment to follow.

Also- there needs to be an adult involved who is willing and able to write you a LOR. Choose carefully.

270

If I ran the world, one thing I’d look for is the extent to which this kid believes his future will be limited if he doesn’t get into that one specific school. If I sensed the kid believed there would be a material difference in his life if he only got into #25 and not into #9, I’d broom him.

271

I think what they’re trying to say is they “know” what they’re looking for for Harvard-including the intangibles and read between the lines stuff. Do they know your kid’s deepest thoughts and secrets? No, of course not. Do they know if the kid will do well at Harvard based on the creepily thorough reading and investigating?

Probably, yeah. I’d think they’d be good at that.

272

Gee, PG, I would not have guessed your opinion in #267 from your other 34,987 posts on CC. :slight_smile: (Hope you don’t mind the kidding.)

Speaking for myself, I am busy converting my consulting business focused on Sincere Pumpkin Patches into a consulting business focused on Sincere Charitable Activities.

Admittedly, much good might be done by high-school volunteers. curmudgeon’s D springs to mind, as an example of someone who combined hospital volunteering with her knowledge of Spanish to very good effect.

Personally, though, since I have some idea how deep one has to go to reach the frontiers of knowledge, and since I believe that substantial, lasting impact can be made by scientific discoveries, I would like to see future scientists making an academic commitment during their high school years. If they can combine that with meaningful charitable work, that is great! But there are many life-routes to having a charitable impact, whereas science courses tend to be cumulative in content, with one building on another; and a shaky foundation makes later work very difficult.

273

And I think it’s not a race to cram in as much advanced-whatever in high school. And I say that as someone who outgrew my high school’s offerings in a given area and requested / created independent high level study in that area. But I didn’t cram it in. I swear,the way science gets approached on here, it’s like the equivalent of wanting to read the entire Internet in high school.

274

In aggregate, I would agree that might be little difference between a generic #9 or #25 ranked school for the generic student. However, there may be locations, programs or opportunities at specific schools whatever the ranking that strongly appeal to the interest of individual students.

There is also the issue of merit aid. The student who gets into the #25 school but not the #9 school is much less likely to get merit aid at the #25 school than the student who qualifies for both.

275

No kidding. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. I am not sensing that this is a general problem on CC (there are always one or two exceptions), and I am beginning to wonder if the poster who repeatedly advances this screed is really trying to convince herself.

And I endorse this concept:

I certainly do not equate these thoughts to the equivalent of wanting to read the entire internet in high school.

276

Of course the admissions offices at Princeton and Brown where our daughter was rejected have no idea what they are doing! Had Harvard rejected our daughter they would have no idea what they are doing also.(tongue in cheek)
Our daughter applied to 8 top 20 colleges. She was accepted at 3, Harvard, Cornell and Middlebury, rejected at 2, Princeton and Brown, and wait listed at 3, Williams, Bowdoin and Georgetown.
Same student/person largely the same application submissions, with the exception of Georgetown and supplemental applications and optional essays. Why the inconsistency among schools? Was it her submission? Did she not fit with the class these schools were trying to construct? Who knows?
This is a peculiar to me and perhaps peculiar to all of us phenomenon. Shouldn’t it be consistent and predictable? It’s not. Most of the non EA admits in our daughters class were rejected somewhere, and with some of these kids it so defy’s explanation! Perfect SAT’s or ACT’s, perfect subject test scores, ridiculously impressive EC’s, kids who are so sweet and kind you expect to see blue birds on their shoulders and bunnies at their feet.
The two points that I am looking to make here is that number one ,the process defies complete explanation and secondly the process is very thoughtful and thorough within the context of a school crafting a class in the manner that they wish to.

277

Convince myself of what, fenwaypark?

278

@GreatKid Having watched DD apply to several top schools, I was quite struck by how varied her apps actually turned out depending on the supplement portion. Yes, the common app was the same but that was one essay plus mostly just data.

She would look at some supplemental prompts and say “Oooh, this will be fun,” while other would bring out a “what on earth am I going to say about this?” The former (usually more open ended) brought out her best creative juices, the latter (usually more specific) ended up boring and pedestrian. Really quite distinct products in the end.

Same kid, different apps.

279

Data: I think you are supporting my point. If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that selective colleges create their own ‘rank’ and then use it. Well, doh. In other words, a rigorous curriculum matters…

280

Not only merit aid, but also the possibility #9 may offer full-ride FA packages for low-income students admitted whereas the same student may be forced to take out much more onerous loans at #25.

Incidentally, this focus on merit aid shows how concerns voiced by many parents on CC tend to skew upper/upper-middle class as much has been written which shows merit aid tends to overwhelmingly benefit the upper/upper-middle class as opposed to lower-middle class/low income students.

There’s also the factor the student concerned might be a recent immigrant who doesn’t fully know the US higher ed landscape and has to navigate it by him/herself* because of parental language and cultural barriers with little assistance from overwhelmed public school GC/teachers whose attention are overwhelmingly focused on marginal and even violent students in the school.

Seems like the poster who’d reject a student who is concerned about the diff between #9 and #25 doesn’t care about or is oblivious to how many recent immigrants students/families cannot adjust nearly as quickly to knowing the US system as she may think. Especially if they are lower SES to begin with and the parents left without finishing middle school or even elementary school back in their nations of origin.

And such immigrants may not fully accept advice from multi-generational Americans because such parents(especially upper/upper-middle class White) may have had a history within the immigrant community of lying/misleading older members of the community in order to ensure less competition for their own kids or those of “their own kind” to elite colleges.

Not an unreasonable assumption as I’ve seen this behavior practiced by some multi-generational White American parents at my HS and heard about such parents trying to pull the same on other recent immigrant families…including those of extended family in leafy suburban areas with academically topflight school districts within the state**.

  • Most HS classmates I knew including those who were admitted to the elite colleges including HYPSMCC navigated college admissions themselves with very little/no parental help due to those issues.

** Over this past Christmas dinner, a few older cousins who attended a suburban NJ school district which is a peer of WWP without the over-the-top busywork/craziness recounted how while growing up in that town in the '70s and '80s they had to deal with the snobbery and racism from many neighbors, classmates, and townsfolk because they were one of a few non-White families and one of the poorest in the town at the time.

The parents did their best, but ended up having to get meaningful college advice from extended family members who were much more familiar with the higher-ed landscape because most of the parents and even some HS admins*** at the time were of the mind that seats at respectable/elite colleges “don’t belong” to immigrants/non-White minorities…especially if their SES isn’t upper/upper-middle class like themselves.

While the climate has improved by the ‘00s and early ‘10s for the younger cousins, they had to put up with some of the same stereotyping BS about Asian-American “grinders”/“elite prestigehounds****” and yes…understood they needed to ignore “advice” from several multi-generational classmates’ parents who tried their best to steer them away from applying to respectable/elite universities and towards focusing mainly on directionals and yes…even community colleges. Thankfully, the admins were much more supportive and confirmed the younger cousins’ own suspicions that those parents may not have their best interests at heart…especially considering they were graduating near the top of their high school classes. All of them are now attending Ivies.

*** The admins at the time were trying their best to steer a cousin with stats which made him a viable contender for respectable/elite colleges toward a directional state college which tended to be the default for students whose academic performance placed them near the bottom of his HS’s graduating class.

Thanks to his and academic extended family members’ advice to ignore that BS advice, he ended up applying to and gaining admissions to a top 25 university on a full-ride FA/scholarship package. Graduated their with honors and ended up rising quickly into a senior research leader position for a major pharmaceutical research company.

**** Ironic considering most of the students in the top 10-20% of the graduating class…including multi-generational White students had comparable/worse elite/Ivy or bust mentality than the top third/quarter of my Stuyvesant graduating class,