No, but I’d posit that a number of students who would do extremely well in the Asia lottery admissions (I am sure you know which ones) would not be able to translate that local knowledge into a sufficient mastery in … English without a ghostwriter. Do you want simplistic examples? A number of students who are preparing for the IIT exam visit this site to learn about the SAT. They usually use terms such as “giving the SAT” as opposed to taking it. The College Board gives the test. Draw your own conclusions. Read a few essays submitted by Asians or Koreans and you might start understand the rest of the argument about narrow preparation.
As far as narrow basis for evaluation, here is what I meant: http://www.fiitjee.com/Downloads/iit081.pdf
Could not be narrower than that as it includes only technical subjects. It is not an easy test – far from it-- but it rewards a particular type of learning and achievements.
Fwiw, you should refrain to rely on terms such as “all.” Students who excel in standardized tests have learned that an answer that includes all or never is rarely the correct one.
“Just because these 8-Ivy kids impress you doesn’t mean they have to impress everyone else. Some of us measure achievement by different standards.”
Some of us have the grace to say to a kid “oh, you got accepted to (insert Ivy/elite school); congratulations!” and don’t demand that such kid “prove themselves” or need to demonstrate other credentials before we will be “impressed.” Your attitude is terribly ungracious. Life needn’t be a competition like that. It’s rather sad, really, that you have to “be impressed” rather than just be happy for other people.
@xiggi, well, English isn't the native language of most of the world.
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I wouldn’t expect you to be able to translate well what you know in to Hungarian (or even French) either.<<<
Purple, aren’t we talking about applications at schools that teach in English? I am not sure why Hungarian or the University of Budapest offer any relevance here.
As far as French goes, I am afraid your assumption happens to be quite flawed, mon ami. I invite you to continue this discussion in FRENCH via PM as foreign languages are a no-no on CC. Cette invitation restera ouverte jusqu’à ce que les modérateurs décident de l’éliminer pour la raison décrite dans la phrase précédente.
If anyone follows Xiggi for any time on the boards they will realize he is not a native English speaker. He would never fail the “giving the SAT” test but there are indicators in his posts.
If anyone follows Xiggi for any time on the boards they will realize he is not a native English speaker. He would never fail the “giving the SAT” test but there are indicators in his posts.
@xiggi By “No” I guess you are admitting that the theory of merit based admission producing only inarticulate and uncultured nerds simply doesn’t hold water, as we can see from the examples in the UK and rest of Europe, unless you’re saying Tony Blair and David Cameron are not as articulate or cultured as Richard Sherman.
I have no idea what you mean by Asia lottery admissions, I’m afraid you lost me on that one. Certainly English proficiency has to be a major factor in admission to US universities, especially for non-STEM majors. But that’s not what holistic admission is about. International students make up only 10% of Ivy League admits. As it’s implemented holistic admission is mostly used to weed out unhooked middle class White and Asian-American applicants to make room for one of the favored demographics, i.e. a social engineering scheme.
The test that you linked to looks like part of an entrance exam to Indian universities, focusing on Chemistry, Math and Physics. I’m sure that is not the entire exam, I’m sure they also test other subjects such as English, history etc. If you just look at our SAT II and AP tests, they are all pretty narrowly focused too. Not sure what your point is. I asked you what you think the purpose of college is and I didn’t get an answer from you.
I also think too much time and energy are wasted on meaningless ECs when many of these kids could’ve used the time to focus on studying, especially on time/energy consuming subjects such as math and science. 55% of our college grads are either unemployed or underemployed while those inarticulate, uncultured kids from Eastern Europe and Asia who excel in math and science in high school are eating our lunch, excelling in STEM subjects in our state colleges and taking many of the high paying IT jobs after graduation, while our well-rounded, articulate, cultured, athletic grads are making minimum wage folding t-shirts, pouring lattes and answering phones.
As far as the Ivy League training “leaders”, after the last 2 disastrous presidencies, I’ll have to say thanks but no thanks to these Ivy trained “leaders”. As far as I’m concerned Bush and Obama are Exhibit A and B of the failure of holistic admissions.
Well, then, if you dislike the Ivy League so much, what do you care if their admissions policies aren’t what you’d personally prefer? Lots of colleges in this country have by-the-numbers admission. Send your kids there. Problem solved.
Whenever I hear that pure academic ability–and especially math and science ability–represent “merit,” I always think of Dr. Doom and other evil geniuses.
But the real definition of merit is: what my kid has, as opposed to what some other kid has.
You cannot multiply admission rates because the admissions decisions are not random, however much they might sometimes seem so. If they each had a 10% admission rate, it’s not (0.1)^8 chance of a particular applicant getting into all of them. They are not unrelated events.
Put it this way: the applications are not randomly drawn from a hat. They are carefully and extensively scrutinized. If you get in to more than one school, it’s probably because, after getting past the academic basics of having high grades and test scores, the rest of your application contained compelling and distinctive information about what makes you uniquely exceptional. Each school (ivy) that accepts you does so for pretty much the same reason, they read your application and it strikes them that they’d much rather have you than most of their applicants.
Imagine 10 applicants represented by cars: 4 old (but running) Corollas, 3 recent model year Accords, a new Miata, a new Mustang, a new Outback, and a 1966 Ferrarri in pristine condition. Now imagine 8 Ivy schools represented by car buyers; they are told they can make offers on 2 of the cars, and there is no real difference in price. Every single one will make an offer on the Ferrarri, and probably an offer on one of the Miata, Mustang, or Outback because they know that everyone else will make an offer on the Ferrarri and they can’t all get it.
The kid who gets the admission offer to all 8 Ivies is the Ferrarri. (Or at least, his application is.) Everyone wants him, for the same reasons. There is nothing random about it.
