Oh, yeah… that’s reasonable. I get emails from admissions with grammatical errors too but that’s typically when replying to a query; so basically, a personal message.
The admissions officer at Columbia U said that they do not mind 1-2 spelling/grammatical errors on your essay.
From their point of view, it looks like student X had Y months to complete his supplement essay, and therefore should be rid of spelling mistakes. They are not assuming that you did this essay in an hour on October 31st, and therefore should be rid of most grammatical errors. I definitely see where you are coming from though. I think that they are expecting us to put way more effort into the supplement essay than they do into the automated email that was probably written in 5-10 mins tops.
I hate how legacy plays a big role in top schools, even though people say it doesn’t. I know someone who was an ORM, had a 3.7ish unweighted, an SAT score of 2180, and good ECs, (but not super unique or special), who had double legacy at Cornell. This person was able to get waitlisted at Cornell, despite the fact that plenty of kids with straight A’s and perfect test scores get rejected from Cornell (and most Ivies). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think those stats are awful in any way, but it’s pretty obvious that having double legacy helped this person more than it should have.
Also, coming from someone who lives in California, I hate how the UCs literally do not care about their tax-paying residents. I look on the admissions results threads, and I see so many OOS kids with low stats get in. In the area I live however, I know a lot of people with much better stats than them, who did not get into any good UCs at all. Being an in-state resident literally has zero value (if you live in California). Also, all the top 6 UCs (except for UCSB), had an in-state percent of less than 75. UCLA was at a 58, while the others were in the 60s. That is totally unacceptable. I think we should keep it at 75% In-State, and 25% OOS/International.
9th graders are expected by top colleges to be superstars all the way through high school.
What annoys me is that I wasn’t born in a state with an amazing state school that gives huge preference to its in-state applicants (e.g. VA, NC).
@QuiteAverage90 The UCs do give in-state students preference. A few cases in which that didn’t happen does not disprove that. And why are out-of-state students so bad? They are full pay so they are only helping you.
@dsi411 I don’t have a problem with OOS kids applying and getting in. What I have a problem with is when OOS kids with lower stats get in. It is honestly harder for in-state kids to get in than it is for OOS students to get in, because the UCs want more money (due to budget cuts). Statistics show that the in-state acceptance rate has been decreasing over the last few years, while the OOS acceptance rate has been increasing.
Again, I just want the standard for both in-state and OOS to remain the same; nothing should change just because of where one lives.
Remember who cut the UC system’s funding and forced those schools to accept more OOS full-pay students?
Californians’ own elected representatives did that. The electoral backlash has yet to be seen.
Students are heavily influenced to become ivy-league bound at a young age and become artificial resume padders. I also hate when I see parents and other kids becoming intimidated by the sucess of others and getting overly deflated. There are a lot of people and not many pspots at good schools; I get it, but I just really hate the artificial and superficiality that goes into it all.
@QuiteAverage90 - I’d like to know the sources you are citing that show less-qualified applicants getting into the UCs from out-of-state. I know that UCB, and possibly UCLA, had slightly higher acceptance rates for out-of-state students, but those out-of-state students had higher average stats than CA residents. There is a higher minimum GPA for eligibility, in the first place. No out-of-state students can take advantage of “local context” admissions policies, or other boosts, either. The weighting system used for calculating the UC GPA favors California public schools in its definition of “Honors” classes. If you are comparing apples to oranges, or simply going by individual, anecdotal cases, that is not an overall UC policy. Apart from recruited varsity athletes, out-of-state students qualify for little or no financial aid at UCs, and so there is less competition; the UCs are a marvelous resource for CA residents, and a lot more in-state students apply (thereby reducing the acceptance rate at the top ones).
@Hamlin (the irony there, or perhaps the saving grace (I can’t quite decided), is that the typo school was also Columbia. They sent an email to their whole mailing list addressed to the list’s first student. Methinks that wasn’t so much a typo in the email as in their mass-mailing algorithm … )
@woogzmama Since the acceptance rate for OOS/International is higher (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CDwQFjAEahUKEwiQ24ryyPDIAhUQxWMKHRcHDAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ucop.edu%2Fnews%2Ffactsheets%2F2014%2Ffall-2014-admissions-table2.pdf&usg=AFQjCNH-CZGXHp6QViTXT6dxz1WSmKJ8QQ&cad=rja), I assumed that the requirements for them would be more lax.
I’m trying to locate the official statistics I saw two years ago, when my son was applying, but out-of-state and international students had higher stats than CA residents, despite their higher acceptance rates at UCB and UCLA. The yield is also higher for CA residents, given the greater affordability. Many out-of-state students decide that the price-tag is too high.
What makes me angry about the admissions process? Having to explain my life’s accomplishments in 150 characters each.
@gearsstudio I agree with you that those short takes are non-sensical. A full page, 500 word personal statement – sure, I get it. Bring 'em on. Those one sentence replies? Simply confirmation bias bull crap. The reader is gonna like you or not and the short answer will simply confirm it. For the pain and suffering it causes the applicants, I’d like to bin the lot of them.
I also agree that the superficial, resume-padding aspect of the college admissions process is annoying. At my school, people don’t even try to hide their shallowness when it comes to activities. It’s become perfectly acceptable to say, “Yeah, I’m just doing it since it looks good to colleges.” I’ve only done the things that I’m actually interested in, that I have a passion for, and ironically I have a better resume, and certainly a more concentrated one, than a lot of my peers, so hopefully I’ll have the last laugh.
I have a senior applying to colleges at the moment. He attends a private school. I watch from the side all the drama that goes on with the college application. There is this girl who calls herself director of an organization which help kids with disabilities, and hardly turn up. Her parents are running the show. The class awards goes to trustee’s kids and the deserving kid might get it on the senior year, which is too late for the application. Parents and kids of rich people know how to get all sorts off opportunities to fill their application.
@T26E4: Post #495: Those one sentence replies? Simply confirmation bias bull crap. The reader is gonna like you or not and the short answer will simply confirm it.
Very interesting. Ties back to something I remember reading earlier in this season about nicknames the admissions officers assign to the kids, and to the cues which reveal patterns and norms along socioeconomic lines.
@QuiteAverage90 Those stats - far from disqualifications - are likely within, or in excess of, the school’s medians. You never know; perhaps they wrote a stellar essay and demonstrated a degree of thoughtfulness that admissions decided would be a good addition to their community. The legacy issue is certainly a valid problem country-wide, but I don’t believe someone with SATs of over 2100 should ever be frowned upon, or thought of as a sub-standard applicant. They were waitlisted, not immediately accepted. I don’t really see what the outrage in that particular example is.
1.) When people say, money doesn’t matter or it wouldn’t if I was smart. I can’t even APPLY to schools without sending at least 50$(Baylor not withstanding).
2.) When people say my 1980 SAT score is low because I didn’t try hard enough. My first SAT math score was a 570, I got that up to a 700. You don’t even know what I gave up to study.
3.) That schools care so much about ECs. Sorry I couldn’t be the President of the Math Elite or win a gold medal for a Robotics Team, I was busy studying for my IB/AP classes and working so I could afford to take the SAT and apply to your universities. If I actually did have an hour to myself, I wanted to spend it doing something I actually cared about, not something that looked good to colleges.
4.) That IB/AP classes cost money. 770$ for the full diploma, and that’s a discounted rate my school gives.
5.) That I had no guidance whatsoever from my “guidance counselor” who gave me a “i dunno” when I asked questions.
6.) When people think being a first generation student is an unfair advantage. My parents couldn’t help me with anything. They had no idea. They didn’t even understand why I needed them to fill out FASFA.
7.) “Yeah but your full ride isn’t like a real full ride. Not like I would get.” Whatever protects your ego, mate. Have fun with the student debt.
8.) “Your grades don’t mean the same as mine. I don’t study. If you were smart, you wouldn’t need to study.” In the same conversation, “You’re not smart because you’re lazy, if you worked harder, you’d have better grades.” We both have “A’s”, you idiot.
9.) “They only accepted you because they needed more girls.” Isn’t Psychology a female dominated major anyway? How would my gender matter?
Sorry for complaining so much, venting really helps.