<p>You mean being a boy will help come admissions time? Well hallelujah:). OK, S, go back to March Madness and sure, go ahead and neglect to study for the Chem test....</p>
<p>Alu:</p>
<p>I'll bet you being a guy won't help him at MIT or Caltech or CMU..., esp. not if he flunks the Chem test. :(</p>
<p>I remember the college counselor at my son's private school advising him/us a couple of years ago that being a boy was a real plus in the admissions process at Middlebury.</p>
<p>Middlebury Class of 2009 (from Common Data Set):</p>
<pre><code> Applicants Admits %
</code></pre>
<p>Male 2270 580 25.6%</p>
<p>Female 2984 661 22.2%</p>
<p>Someone in the know told me being a 'regular' ie slacker-by-CC-standards-boy does help, but not as much as you'd think before you read this story.</p>
<p>That's because wounded birds with high stats like the one in the story get preference.</p>
<p>That's because elite schools are playing a tight numbers game with USNews stats--and possibly because of previous experience with slacker boys. ;)</p>
<p>I am surprised Middlebury's ratio is that good-- it shows they have a committment to maintain that ratio.</p>
<p>Here's another thought: a 50/50 ratio is a status symbol among elite colleges. If you can maintain elite admission standards AND keep a 50/50 ratio, you are King of The Game. MIT, H, Yale and even USC get there honestly--but how many schools like Middlebury are squeaking past with sub-par/high stat candidates?</p>
<p>Aren't we glad we're not adcom?</p>
<p>Marite - Luckily for my sanity S so far doesn't flunk things, he just tests the waters with A- and B+ grades....But of course, if I didn't step in, who knows where the water testing would take us. And of course, knowing S, I can imagine that despite the charms of MIT and Caltech and CMU, he'd prefer Middlebury and the more girls. Sigh. I should have had a third kid. Then at least I would have had ONE where I'd seen the gender before....</p>
<p>I am also asking this question, made in post #61:</p>
<p>"What I'd like to know is why a single C was the kiss of death to the female applicants but an F in one class and less than stellar performance in humanities classes on the part of the math guy didn't seem to bother the adcoms at all."</p>
<p>This ties into my original comment, which some of you took me to task for, that I felt the absense of discussing extracurriculars was disturbing. </p>
<p>I see students on these boards frequently wondering how one B or C is going to affect their admissions chances. Yes I know that when 8 of 10 kids are rejected, and many of those 8 can handle the work, the committee looks for any little reason for a denial. Many of these schools describe their admissions process as holistic, where they look at the whole student. I didn't get that sense from this story (which, of course, was only two hours in the life of an admissions committee). If a student is a stellar writer, with strong extracurriculars and leadership qualities, yet has one C in a math course -- it bothers me that the admissions door gets closed. Yet, a strong math/science student can be admitted with a poor English grade.</p>
<p>The phrasing is so vague it's hard to make out. What is "less than stellar?" In lots of people's book, it would be anything below an A-. Nor do we know which course he flunked and when (freshman year? underwater basket weaving?) But a C in precalc? For Midd? When selective colleges rightly or wrongly push students to take AP-Calc (and expect they will do better than C in it) ?</p>
<p>I still don't agree that extra-curriculars should trump academic performance. Still, there were in fact two sets of extra-curriculars that impressed the adcom: the internship and the math competitions. They both allowed the applicants to demonstrate passion and excellence. Midd seems to have gone for the lopsided applicants in both cases, at the expense of the BWRK.</p>
<p>Marite, I'm inferring that this boy did not excel across the board from the comments of the reporter who characterized him as earning "straight A's in his school's most challenging math and science classes." You can bet that if he'd earned straight A's in AP US History, AP French Literature, and AP English Composition, that'd be highlighted in this story. And he flunked a class! I don't care whether it was freshman year, health, or underwater basket weaving, he earned an F. That's pretty significant. I wouldn't close the door on him but I'd give the kid with a lone C the courtesy of further consideration too. </p>
<p>As sly_vt said, "If a student is a stellar writer, with strong extracurriculars and leadership qualities, yet has one C in a math course -- it bothers me that the admissions door gets closed. Yet, a strong math/science student can be admitted with a poor English grade." EXACTLY. It's silly and it's unduly harsh and it misses the point. </p>
<p>Suppose the Middlebury adcom is considering for admission a kid who wants to study English and this kid has won poetry awards, run his school's literary magazine for four years, earned A's in the school's most challenging humanities courses, 800 on the SAT critical reading (not many are managing this) as well as 700's on the math and writing section sof the SAT, but has also gotten a lone C in precalculus. Is it really so obvious or automatic that this kid should be rejected? The kid is clearly not going to be a math major any more than the math genius applicant is going to major in English. I realize that I embellished the kid who had the C in precalculus but I wanted to make my point very stark.</p>
<p>Again, I suspect that this has more to do with the way the reporter characterized the admissions meeting than the way in which the committee actually discussed these kids. Still, it bothers me that the suggestion is out there.</p>
<p>Marite, you disappoint me on this thread. I know a young lady that got a C in AP Calculus. Then she got a 5 on the AP test. Then she almost aced the ACT math portion. Then she took a graduate class in stats as a freshman and the professor pulled her aside and said he wants to write her recommendation for grad school.</p>
<p>Then she decides, no, she wants to major in math.</p>
<p>Some slacker. That C really meant something, didn't it?</p>
<p>What a bunch of crap on this thread. This thread brings out the worst aspects in CC.</p>
<p>Shoshi - My D, as well as friends both at her h.s. and elsewhere, applied to and were accepted at Midd. Some chose to attend; some did not. Your hypothetical actually pretty accurately describes 1 of these kids who was accepted: writing awards; editor of school literary mag; 800 on verbal (wasn't called critical reading for class of 09); but less than stellar math grades and SAT scores, i.e., a lopsided (humanities) kid (and a female no less!). Extrapolating from 1 or 2 examples cited by this reporter is a mistake imho.</p>
<p>In defense of marite, I do think CC participants sometimes interpret postings too personally. I believe marite may have felt the initial comments were directed at ALL less-than-butterfly math nerds.</p>
<p>However, I agree that her preference for perfect As--and Alums' too--is shocking to mere mortals. When presented with a C, I don't have the same level of discomfort. Good thing too. I had a number of 'C's and 'D's on my high school transcript, hence the August acceptance off the waitlist. I have also seen a number of 'C's from my sons. For full calculus in junior year, for one. Big deal. Half the class had to take the class again to pass it. </p>
<p>dstark, don't you think that many CC posters were academic titans as teenagers? For them, anything less than an A is a discomfort--still. In marite's case, her preference probably reflects the preferences at certain institutions. Why does that disappoint you?</p>
<p>I can think of far worse threads on CC.</p>
<p>Dstark:</p>
<p>We seem to be reacting to different segment of the story. If I were on the admission committee at a highly selective college, a C in pre-calc (as opposed to Calc) would not look good. But a C in Calc taken in junior year would look very differently to an adcom.</p>
<p>As for your anecdote, how are adcoms going to guess that a student who has a C in a class is going to get a 5 on the AP test and end up majoring in math unless they have powers of divination?</p>
<p>You seem to think that if a student is capable of doing well at a particular college, that student should be admitted. That is the wrong way of looking at admissions at highly selective colleges with limited slots.</p>
<p>I am trying to see things from the perspective of adcoms at highly selective colleges where there are far more applicants than places. It does not mean that the 80% who get rejected from Midd would not be able to handle the work. It just means that they are not as desirable as students who get As or mostly As. Even larger state universities have to reject perfectly qualified applicants. As TheDad has said many times, UCLA could fill a whole incoming class with students it did not admit and they would be as capable of handling the work as those who were admitted. </p>
<p>I don't find Midd's admissions practices in the least nefarious. I doubt that the adcoms have balls of fun rejecting students whom they know could do the work.</p>
<p>dstark--in your example citing the 5 on the AP and the C in the class, I think this is a case of a poor teacher who is incapable of either inspiring students or possessing a communication deficiency.</p>
<p>and this thread does bring out the worst</p>
<p>Quite a discussion here!!</p>
<p>A boy I know was deferred ED at Middlebury this year. Raised as an expat. 800 math SAT I and II. Probably had a C Freshman year in something since he did not get on meds for attention issues until late in his Sophomore year. Social skills- well it depends on your frame of reference- he is social, but not always pleasant (how is that!). Not a quirky kid...No huge EC achievements, clearly bloomed late in HS as in his very rigorous school had all A's by the end of junior year. Likes history, snowboarding. Probably wrote very interesting essays...and didn't need money. </p>
<p>Having an 800 math SAT and being male are neither necessary nor sufficient. I think this is just about all I am able to conclude from these 2 points on a line and those reported in the article.</p>
<p>I do cringe at the descriptions of presumed 'slackers'....is a kid better off getting a 1400 if they don't have straight A's than getting a 1570????? Does that mean every kid with a 1250 and straight A's is an 'overachiever'-- these kinds of labels are presumptious and dishonest. </p>
<p>Every grade on a transcript has a story. The stories aren't told, only the title given. The 'C' in a single class...could be subtitled "the math teacher who meant it when they said homework counted" or "the worst 24 hours of my life" or "the substitute teacher who didn't teach"... or it could be "the year math got hard before I was ready for it"..We just don't know.</p>
<p>All this said, having had 2 sons look at Middlebury, one turn them down, I don't think (based upon the limited information available) that the boy in the article is meant to be a Middie. Unless there is a lot of the story that makes the fit feel snugger..this just might be a kid playing the 'odds' at a school with a relatively high ranking....</p>
<p>I am not complaining about Midd's application process. The school can choose the students they want.</p>
<p>I am objecting to the comments the adcoms made about students with high 3 gpas and high test scores. The comments that these students were likely slackers or weren't capable of college work. </p>
<p>Marite, you posted one of those comments from an adcom. </p>
<p>Then I read over and over how maybe the adcoms know something about these kids that we don't know. I'm sure they do. </p>
<p>The statements the adcoms said above are ridiculous. </p>
<p>Then I object to any statement that implies that a C in precalc reflects on a person's intelligence or how that person will do in college. </p>
<p>People grow at different rates. There are people that are successful in school
at early ages. Others are successful much later. Some brilliant people are never successful in school. They are still brilliant.</p>
<p>One of the most brilliant people I know grew up in Wisconsin. Freshman and sophomore years in high school his grades were Cs and Ds. Sometime in his junior year he figured out he was on the wrong track and started to turn things around. Senior year he applied to the University of Wisconsin. He contacted the school and pleaded with the school to give him a chance. </p>
<p>The school did. Later he got 2 graduate degrees at Stanford including a Stanford Law degree. (He doesn't practice law). Now he is worth 9 figures. </p>
<p>Something tells me the adcoms at Midd would have said he couldn't do college level work. He was a slacker. What a joke.</p>
<p>Professor Denise Clark Pope, from Stanford, has a much better understanding of intelligence than what I have seen from many people on this thread. That lecture about what we are doing to our kids is insightful.</p>
<p>
[quote]
People grow at different rates. There are people that are successful in school
at early ages. Others are successful much later. Some brilliant people are never successful in school. They are still brilliant.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, agreed. And how are adcoms supposed to know which student will suddenly bloom in college and be on her way to a Nobel prize and which will flunk out after the first semester? All they have to go by are GPAS, standardized scores, recs, etc... and their past experience with similar students. They cannot even guess whether a C student will receive a 5 on the AP-Calc exam unless they know the teacher and his grading practices.</p>
<p>Schoolmarm: Whew! That makes me feel much better.</p>
<p>Marite, I'm saying the same thing over and over. I don't care how schools choose the students. </p>
<p>I care about labeling students as slackers or students that are unable to do college work. </p>
<p>Why can't an adcom deny a student's admission without making derogatory remarks about the student? Remarks that are garbage.</p>
<p>The college admission process is screwed up enough. Kids don't have to be called slackers or unable to do college work.</p>
<p>What kind of message does that send to students?</p>
<p>How will the adcoms know who will bloom in college? Obviously there's no science to it but there are clues. They'll get some insight by looking at the student's entire performance in high school, by disregarding a single C if appropriate, by considering the extracurricular activities that the student has led and the recommendations of those who have supervised the activities--in other words by looking beyond the GPA and test scores to get a hint of what the applicant really offers. I had naively believed that colleges were beginning to do this and was dismayed to read this article. We're going to end up with a generation of burned out automatons if we continue on a path of demanding unwavering perfection.</p>