@Rivet2000 and apparently those that got their desired outcomes don’t care about those that didn’t
and think the system is just fine.
Constructive criticism doesn’t mean sour grapes.
People who are supporting holistic admission I am going to ask a simple question. How many thinks Berkley is a not an elite institution as they generally have much less holistic admission policy yet they are the best public university. Many kids will give arm and legs to get into Berkley. They take GPA and SAT scores more into consideration and thus are admitting more ORMs. No one seems to be complaining as why they are taking so many ORMs. No law suits so far even though California is most liberal state in the Union. Liberal Politicians have not opposed it.
Berkley is better school but we can not afford it as we are out of state. Just my 2 cents.
I’d bet most who proclaim the system corrupt have no idea what the top holistics “look for.” Have you dug in, read up on the college, looked into their self image, directions and more? Or you want someone to tell you, write out a formula so you get the most from the least effort?
Meanwhile, the top holistics want kids who can think and how they do, act on that, have impact (much more than a club title or hs award) and more.
But nooo, you think it’s unfair.
Holistic does not necessarily mean super selective (e.g. UCM and UCR).
Academic credentials are typically most important at any selective college. But it is only at the super selective ones that have so many applicants near the maximum possible (at least versus what was available to them) in academic credentials that other, more subjectively graded factors become relatively more important to distinguish between those with top end academic credentials.
Making most out of your surroundings and opportunities you are given – plus good character and work ethic – will get you far in life, not the school you go to. Sure, my kid is going to Stanford but even if he had gone to University of South Carolina Honors College on nice merit money, that’s nothing to cry about but a chance to save money and use it for something else. For me, it’s more like “Heck, it must be a sign from someone above telling us that my kid should go to Stanford because he got in.” Had he not gotten in I would have taken that “as a sign from someone above that he shouldn’t go to Stanford and instead go to University of South Carolina Honors College”. With any decision, there is bad and good points, so personally that’s the way I view this college application/admission process.
Just remember that the fact that you got in does not mean you were a worse student but that your application made a less impact on the adcom. Also, the fact you got in does not mean you were a better student than those who did not get in but that your application managed to make a more impact. Unless you won some very, very prestigious award, your getting in had more to do with your application having more appeal for some reason. I knew this going in and I convinced my kid that this was the case, and that if he wanted to get in, he better make his application very appealing to the adcom, just as he worked hard on the last project in his journalism class so he could work as a staff at the high school student newspaper. Funny thing is the very stuff he learned at the student newspaper is what helped him make his college application more appealing. In this vein, the adcoms rarely get impressed by your perfect GPAs and test scores – they see this all the time. But they get impressed by the applications which capture their attention in some way.
Unfair is a low income, motivated, college ready student who is unable to attend ANY decent college because none of them are affordable. Unfair is the fact that public universities can’t meet full need. The fact that some high stats kids might need to attend a slightly less prestigious university doesn’t come close to scratching the surface of being “unfair.”
Berkeley clearly states they use holistic.
The fact they need to reject 70,000 applicants- and then can cherry pick among those who did pass holistic muster- does not mean they’re rack and stack. You knew the app is key, right? It’s your chance to self-present.
An older article on insiderhighered talks about research into 75 colleges using holistic (LACs, top privates) and because of the anonymity, got some revealing answers:
“This approach – most common among liberal arts colleges and some of the most competitive private universities – results in a focus on non-academic qualities of applicants, and tends to favor those who are members of minority groups underrepresented on campus and those who can afford to pay all costs of attending.”
"Rubin found that all of these colleges that publicly describe their admissions systems in similar ways, stressing holistic review, actually aren’t all the same after all. “Contrary to public opinion, selective institutions are highly systematic with regard to their admissions processes and practices within individual institutions,” she writes. "
Now the part I think relevant for this discussion:
"A minority of elite colleges and universities (21 percent) starts off on measures of “institutional fit.” These colleges do the initial cut based on student essays, recommendations and specific questions of whether particular students will thrive at and contribute to the college in various ways. …Rubin said she believed that these colleges also valued academic merit, but that the vast majority of applicants had an appropriate level of academic merit, so that could be weighed later, while other parts of “creating a class” needed to dominate at the point of first cut.
“When an applicant has an exceptional talent (e.g. music, athletics) or is part of a severely underrepresented group at the institution, the applicant may not compete for admission against the larger applicant pool. Instead, he/she may compete only among those with the same talent or within the same group. In these circumstances, sets of applications are considered separately based on a university’s institutional needs. As a result, disparities may arise between the levels of academic merit of certain subgroups of students.”
Recall that an earlier form of holistic was used in the mid 20th century to limit the number of Jewish students at the ivies, at at time when hard quotas were legal and discrimination tolerated.
Smh.
And this isnt the mid 20th c.
Give us a link.
It’s exactly that. Kids are applying to schools based on emotion without thinking it through. It’s based on the myth that prestige and brand name is what matters. What ends up happening is very predictable. They either get a long list of rejections or get accepted into a bunch of colleges they can’t afford. The one thing that they seem to miss is how much the school is going to cost. An out of state school could be a statistical match, but the cost of tuition would be a financial reach.
What parents need to do is get more involved in the college research. This is good for many reasons. It brings kids back down to earth. It also gives clear boundaries of how much parents can afford. Most importantly, it empowers kids psychologically by teaching them that THEY are choosing the school, not the other way around. Also, if they get accepted into a school that’s not affordable, parents should not be afraid to say no.
@infinityprep1234 My view may be in minority here in CA but let me give you my reaction to the question you raised. Berkeley is considered generally to be a top public college in CA but I heard many bad things about the school so I did not want to send my kid if I had a better choice. There are at least several schools I probably would have picked over Berkeley: Stanford, Pomona, UCLA and University of South College Honors College with merit (therefore a lot cheaper than Berkeley). I actually consider Stanford, Pomona and University of South Carolina Honors College more of an “elite” college than Berkeley for the following respective reasons:
- Stanford is one of the top private college in US.
- Pomona is one of the top liberal school in US
- University of South Carolina Honors College is one of the top Honors College in US.
- UCLA is just as good education wise but has a better atmosphere and sports imo.
I was in the process of slowly persuading my kid to attend University of South Carolina or UCLA over Berkeley when he got into Stanford. My kid did not like a small campus feel of Pomona so he didn’t want to apply there.
@lookingforward it seems unfair if you have looked in two opposing models and compared like Public Ivy Berkley and other Ivies. Berkley seems to be doing all right.
Oh wait. It’s Rubin, the doctoral candidate. In education. Not experienced. We had a big rambunctious thread on her work.
@lastone03 Colleges have their process and we as parents need to have ours. S applied to 10 schools ranging from reach to safety. He would have been delighted (and I’m sure successful) at any on his list. Was he accepted at all? No. Do we blame the process for not getting acceptances to some interesting colleges? No.
@websensation see my PM as I can not discuss someone else kid who has hard time as he is poor and achievements out of roof, but hard time getting in as he is ORM.
@lookingforward “Berkeley clearly states they use holistic.
The fact they need to reject 70,000 applicants- and then can cherry pick among those who did pass holistic muster- does not mean they’re rack and stack. You knew the app is key, right? It’s your chance to self-present.”
In the fall a regional UC admission rep (UCSB) told D’s class that “the essay” was 50% of the decision to admit, waitlist, or deny. While I do not think the %'s is that high, the point was that they get many high stat kids who look the same, making the essay (each applicant’s personal story or what I like to call “brand”) very important.
btw - thank you for spelling “Berkeley” correctly, drives me crazy when someone is arguing a point about this college but doesn’t even take the time to spell the name correctly. Off my soap box…
Right. Families need to take control of the process and stop leaving their kids’ destiny in anyone else’s hands. This does not mean abandoning the idea of a prestigious school if that is important to the student. But it does mean focusing most of the search on the schools that will be likely to actually want the kid. That puts the power back into the student’s hands. It allows him to choose between offers and have control of his life.
Parents need to make sure sure their kids love their list and not just the two at the top. There are many colleges that can help any given student succeed.
The one thing greatly lacking in this discussion is that this holistic discussion is not exclusive to the top tier. This is an issue at top 50 schools and top 100 schools. Not every single thread has to be about the top 20 schools.
As for doing homework on the process, yes I’ve done it. And more importantly, my children did it.
@Rivet2000 no doubt. That doesn’t mean the process can’t be imrpoved. Make it more transparent.