I’m always bemused by the idea that high standardized test scores represent “merit.”
The “hidden” multiracial ancestry includes less obvious cases, like unknown Native American ancestry among white and black people, and unknown African ancestry among white people.
I love the idea and wish more elite (top-tier, Ivies, etc) schools in the US had a similar approach. Those ECs really didn’t help my kids too much in their journey through application purgatory. They were good students (one had a 2230 and the other a 2340 on the SAT), and had many interests, but were just well-rounded kids, not special enough to stand out to Brown or Stanford.
The drawback I see is that UK and European universities require applicants to know what they want to study because they are applying for specific fields of study within the university. For this reason, neither of my kids applied to any UK schools, although my daughter says now that if she’d known she was going to major in medieval studies, she would definitely have applied to Oxford or Leeds.
The reason why this could work in the UK is because college admissions there are strictly a numbers game. You don’t have the numbers, then you won’t get in. There are of course a few exceptions. The UK uni’s don’t care about your trumpet skills, unless you plan to study music. They don’t care about your volunteer work in the hospital unless you are going to study medicine. I think this is a good idea, but I can’t see it working here, because as someone earlier said, your ECs will be a dead giveaway, for,the most part. And gender anonymity is NEVER going to,happen at the most selective schools.
If that were true, why would hiding applicant names make any difference?
Sorry, should have said, nearly strictly! Of course they do also have a personal statement to submit too. What has happened though, is if your name is St. John Farquhar-Jones, AND you have the right numbers, you might be, subconsciously of course, somewhat more desirable than Ahmed Farouk who went to Manchester Comprehensive, even if you do have the right numbers. Is that clearer? I lived there for half my life and my family is British, so I have heard quite a lot about this over the years. If St. John and Ahmed both have the right numbers and no names, I think Ahmed will be on much fairer footing.
Off topic, Lindagaf - I’m curious about “St. John”. I’ve only heard that used as a first name once, when I lived in Hong Kong decades ago, and the guy pronounced it “Sin-Gin”. I never knew if it was just his way, or if that was the norm. Is that a common first name, and with that pronunciation?
Not that’s common in the UK but it does exist and is pronounced “Sin-Gin” as you say.
*that. Sorry, spell check attacked me!
@Dadof3 , yes, SinJin, and it’s quite a posh name:-) Some other fun British pronunciations are Cholmondeley, pronounced Chumley, and Farquharson, pronounced Farkuhson. And if you go to Uni of Leicester, it’s pronounced Lester. Those crazy Brits.
I heard that the apparently respectable and quite common Scottish name “Smellie” is not to be treated with derision, but pronounced as “Smiley”.
Hi NVS–
My dd will be applying to both uk and us schools next year— any good tips you can offer?
@KaffeineKitty, there is a lot of good advice in the International Students/United Kingdom forum.
The main thing on the UK side is (as you will have discerned from reading the above) that admissions is very strongly based on standardized tests, that the courses are more prescriptive than the US so you need to read the details carefully (and although it takes some work, the UK websites are super-informative- you can get info right down to what courses she would take each year), and you apply to study a specific subject. Requirements are very specific, and for all but a handful of the top unis, if you meet or slightly exceed the stated requirements it is very likely that you will get an offer. Offers are conditional (based on tests you haven’t taken yet) or unconditional (you just have to confirm your scores with official documents). Rule of thumb for translating needed marks is that an A or A* at A-level -> 5 on AP / 700+ on SATII; B -> 4 (there is variation by uni- check the international pages). Note that the tests often have to be in specific subjects, related to the subject to be studied.h
A growing number of UK universities will let you apply through the Common App, led by St Andrews, which has the most US-centric system (and highest proportion of US students). The Common App equivalent is UCAS, which is easier than the Common App! You write one Personal Statement essay (which is academically focused, and talks about why you are a good candidate for the course, not why you are a great person), get one Rec, and pay one fee for up to 5 course applications.
When you all get to the point of having specific questions come on over to the UK forum. There are a bunch of very knowledgeable posters, who between them are familiar with most of the universities that your D is likely to be considering.
Make college admissions name, gender, and race/ethnicity blind.
Make college admissions consider SES.
Diversity is MUCH more a concern with SES. Herman Cain’s and Barack Obama’s kids have/had huge advantages over many “majority” college applicants.
When I attended an Ivy, it became abundantly clear that SES was far more divisive and difficult to overcome than race/ethnicity. There were frats that just would not pledge anyone poor, period. There were circumstances where students had to stay in dorms over break because they were homeless or not welcome at home. Compared to the limos lining up to move out some of the students…
Gender is a problem though. But honestly, I don’t understand why we have to have more women in STEM. Why should we force people into careers? Efforts to make sure girls who are interested in and talented in STEM should only focus on the K-12 level, not college.
California’s UC system has been doing this for years. There is a reason why about half of the UC students are of Asian decent. Grades and scores. Hard work and discipline.
Of course, being a massive bureaucratic mess, the UC system still has hundreds of highly paid people dealing with ‘diversity’, whatever the current definition is.
Thanks-- feel silly asking this, but how do you find the UK forum on CC?
Also, if you apply to St Andrew’s through the US common app, can you still apply to five units through UCAS?
When people make this argument, they often fail to mention that another reason for such a high population of Asians at the UCs is that California has the largest Asian population of any US state. So of course you would expect there to be more Asians at the colleges here. In contrast, the University of Michigan also doesn’t use AA and 13% of their population is Asian, because Michigan has much less Asians. But people never seem to use Michigan as an example…I wonder why.
Probably largest in numbers, but not in percentage. California is 14.4% Asian, while Hawaii is 37.5% Asian (and 23.0% two or more which includes significant numbers of Asian + other(s)).
However, the relatively recent immigration of Asian people to California has been highly skewed toward highly educated people (think of PhD student and skilled worker immigrants), compared to both their origin countries and non-immigrants in the US. So it is no surprise that their American kids do well academically, growing up in families with highly educated parents.
Kitty-
Go to Forum Home - scroll down under College Admissions and Search and it will say International Students, click on United Kingdom.