It looks like a lottery from the applicant’s and other outsiders’ point of view, because the applicant and other outsiders have no means of observing how the applicant’s essay and recommendations compare to the entire applicant pool and the college’s desired admissions outcomes. This is even though it is much less of a lottery in actuality from the point of view of the admissions office, since those on the inside can see how each applicant’s essay, recommendations, and other aspects compare to the entire applicant pool and the college’s desired admissions outcomes.
What Krueger’s second study found was under a multi variable linear regression, where a student applied had just as much explanatory power as where a student was accepted or where a student attended. You have to read the studies if you want to know what they actually said.
Again just replying to your post…
In terms of understanding admissions outcomes, it might be more useful to talk about a “typical excellent student.” Of course, no one is “typical.” But there are types of students that the admissions staff at “top” schools see in fairly large numbers. Students I’d put in this category are those with 1500+ SAT scores (I’d day 1560+, but imagine there would be an intense response), 4.0 or near unweighted GPA, multiple AP’s with good scores (4 and 5), good SAT II (700+ or 750+), band or orchestra (and reasonably accomplished), sports (often tennis or water sports), some state-level recognition, volunteering and good-quality ECs with sincere involvement.
There are more of these students than one might have imagined in the pre-CC days. In my view, CC has performed an extremely valuable service for students in schools where relatively few students apply to “top” schools, and the outcomes are hard to predict. For one thing, CC outcomes have made it clear that if a student of this sort is rejected from a large number of top schools, or even all of the top schools to which he/she has applied, there is not necessarily anything at all “wrong” with the student. The admissions success of Brock Turner and Owen Labrie should put “paid” to a comment that use to appear on CC about the special insights into adolescent psychology that admissions staffers have.
Some of the unexpected outcomes can be understood, I think, in terms of Quant Mech’s laws:
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Admissions staffers recognize hard things they have done as hard, and tend to underestimate the difficulty of other hard things.
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Admissions staffers overestimate advantages that they did not have. For example, in my experience and observation, a child of dual Ph.D. parents does not have as much advantage as one might think.
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Information that is missing is filled in using stereotypes–great, if the stereotype works to one’s advantage, and not so good otherwise. Here’s an idea: If you have a S/D whose accomplishments might be viewed as the outcome of “tiger parenting,” write a best-selling book that is totally over the top and makes the tiger parenting seem so awful that if the student comes across as normal, that will be viewed as a great success.
At one point on CC, I commented about the difficulty in compiling a compelling set of ECs for someone who had to take care of a younger sibling. I got jumped on, for a “poor them” comment, and there were remarks about the amazing things that could be done by a student in this situation. But my comment was not about “them” at all. It was based on the experiences of a high-school friend, who had responsibility for a younger sibling with a disability, and also had a working mother. Over a period of four years, I came to understand how difficult this was to handle. Also, I had an idea of the timing and demands of ECs at my school, and I can guarantee you that no one could have had substantial ECs in this circumstance. I am not sure whether the guidance counselors even knew about the load this student was carrying outside of school. It was not an era in which one would be likely to comment about it on an application. (These days, I am sure it would be mentioned–there might even be a question on the application that asks for such information.) This student had an exceptionally good sense of humor. All her friends knew that, but I doubt that any of the teachers or guidance counselors did.
Which brings me to another point: The character/word limits on applications allow for misunderstandings, that one would not have, if one actually knew the student.
Also, other elements of the applications are unequal. By this, I do not mean that one doesn’t know how great some essays are and how poor others are. I have in mind that some of the posters on CC have obviously read their teacher’s and GC’s letters, and some schools do not permit this. Some GC’s view their role as advocating for a student, and others view it as “judging” the student. When our local school sends in standardized test scores, they send all of them going back to third grade–which is patently ridiculous, in my view.
The advantage that such a kid has is in the preparation and lack of barriers to earning merit to be competitive in college admission, rather than a preference in college admission. Of course, such advantages are huge compared to those who encounter high barriers against achievement, many of whom are blocked from college before getting to the point of applying.
Of course, the kid still needs to make use of any advantages s/he has. Being born on second or third base does not help if one gets picked off.
@twoinanddone Actually Stanford does have Athlete only classes with titles like ‘Varsity Baseball’ which are only for team members and can be repeated for credit though limited to the number counted for graduation: https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search%3Bjsessionid=BA2BCF2231FEA651132122B55A332C80?filter-catalognumber-ATHLETIC=on&page=0&catalog=&q=ATHLETIC&view=catalog
And of course this kind of thing from a few years ago: http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/03/09/1046687/
If you don’t think this is going on at all major sports universities you’re living in fantasy land. There’s just too much money involved.
Those “Varsity ___” are 1 or 2 credit courses that look like the actual sport (practice and competition), rather than nominally academic fluff courses. Of course, the time commitment is much higher than for a typical 1 or 2 credit course.
But it counts toward their class load for each quarter meaing they take less actual classes then the normal student body. The second link shows that Stanford also has Underwater Basketweaving type classes dominated by athletic enrollment like all major sports universities.
Admission staffers don’t always get the whole picture. My D who I wrote about in an earlier post (average excellent) student suffers from a chronic condition called dysautonomia. It comes with all the joys of obscured vision, chronic stomach issues, exhaustion, head aches, dizziness etc. There is no cure and outside of a high sodium diet not much she can do but cope. This started in grade 4. In her entire life she has gotten 1 B+. Everything else was an A even in the year she missed close to a month of school even while taking the most challenging curriculum that is offered. . As a result her ECs (by some standards impressive) will not likely help with an Ivy admission. She has been advised by many that mentioning the disorder on an application would hurt instead of help. Anyone who can achieve what she has with the limitations she has is almost super human. An admission person will never know the challenges she has faced. There are lots of kids out there with similar challenges, that go unrecognized, unknown.
Stanford is unique among top schools in that its the only true D1 school that offers athletic scholarships, not bond by the ivy rules. As a result it probably has the greatest difference between its best and worst academic performers, certainly no place for “average excellence”.
My daughter did get 1 credit for playing her sport. ONE. Yep, slipped it right in there with chemistry and physics and calc 3. I got a credit many years ago for ice skating, and I’m sure my daughter put in a lot more work for her ‘class’ than I did. You can’t make an entire major at Stanford out of 1 credit classes for playing basketball.
There are plenty of elite D1 schools that aren’t Ivies - Duke, Rice, Cal, Michigan, Notre Dame. Some are going to have easier majors offered, but there are ‘easier’ majors at Harvard too, and Cornell. UNC tried it with African Studies and it was closed down.
Of course there are colleges where students can graduate, athletes included, where they haven’t learned anything. I don’t care. If they want to waste their opportunities, that’s up to them. There are basketball players at Kentucky who are ‘one and done’ and don’t take anything. Up to them. I don’t think it is happening at Stanford.
That very attitude by admins at schools like UCLA in the '80s ended up scandalizing the university into such embarrassment that an incoming president in the early ‘90s felt the need to publicly apologize for his predecessors’ allowing UCLA Div I athletes graduate as functional illiterates because they completely ignored their duties to provide even the most basic academic guidance/standards after admitting them primarily for their athletic talents.
The Stanford football roster shows the declared major for each player. Take a look and then visit the appropriate page to see course requirements. Pretty good actually, including 1 CS major and 2 Symbolic majors. Every university needs some classes that are seen as “basket weaving” I have no problem with that. Everyone needs a little fun.
Looks like maximum of 8 out of 180 credits can be in “Varsity ___” courses.
Non-varsity-sports PE courses are also offered for credit: https://hhp.stanford.edu/pe/courses/
It seems they can take it every quarter though - it just counts 8 toward graduation. A majority of football players are going to be there 5 years due to redshirting and with Summer term they probably can keep their graduation rate close to perfect. Lots of athletes take summer correspondence even at elite schools. Fortunately for them private universities like Duke, Stanford, Notre Dame can hide a lot of the information that would be embarrassing because they aren’t obligated like public schools. Duke use to release information on average SAT and majors for the sports teams many years ago. When an expose was done on the Men’s Basketball team showing that a majority were sociology majors and what the average SAT was they stopped publishing that info.
Graduation typically takes more than 8 quarters (4 academic years = 12 quarters), so they cannot get credited for it every quarter. However, most sports are in season for only 1 or 2 of the usual 3 quarters per academic year.
But it states: ‘Limit 2 credits per quarter with a maximum of 8 activity units may be applied towards graduation.’
A limit of 8 applied to graduation. Does that mean you can take it for credit for multiple terms but only 8 activity units will be counted toward graduation?
When I was in school back in the stone age I had to take 2 PEs worth 1 credit and both counted toward graduation credits. I could take more PEs which counted as 1 credit on my transcript and for my semester total but did not count toward graduation credits.
Yes, but if football is a fall sport, then the Varsity Football course can only be taken in the fall. There are some sports that span two quarters, but even if the players get 24 (2 credits per quarter x 4 years) credits in ‘Basketball’ he can only use 8 of them and still needs 172 credits in other things. Why does it matter that he can earn 24 basketball credits if he can only use 8?
Stanford doesn’t have a 100% graduation rate for football. This year Christian McCaffrey left in his junior year (I assume he’ll go back and graduate, when time permits). Stanford football players seem to do just fine out in the world even if they got the 8 credits for playing football - Corey Booker, John Elway, John Lynch all have pretty good jobs.
My kid was an average excellent student academically: 33 ACT and 3.9 UW GPA with many AP classes. No music or athletics. NMF. However, his admission officer who read his application and essays did tell us he thinks our kid would have gotten into other HYPS schools. I do think he’s good at planning ahead and doing just enough to get by. Must have been that his essays made him stand out for some reason.
But let me say this: I do strongly believe that if the adcom had to meet and interview each applicant, results would be significantly different.
@Veryapparent , I just wanted to say thanks for bringing up the dysautonomia. Your description is great. We deal with it here, too, with multiple kids, and it has been a part of the educational decisions we have made for D18 and is influencing our college search. I would like her to be able to avoid chronic high pressure situations that will lead to frequent lack of sleep, missing meals, forgetting to drink enough, etc., all the things that could trigger an episode bigger than the everyday presyncope stuff.
My D isn’t even average excellent by CC standards so I’ll bow out now.