<p>The issue of underachievement ("slacking") is a staple of discussions about gifted children who are not challenged or choose to coast through school and acquire poor work habits they cannot shake off when they get to college. It is a real concern, and one we grappled with ourselves. We were fortunate insofar as it was our own child who refused to coast as some of his teachers would have been very happy for him to do. His asking for more challenging work was not always welcome. But he has a friend who went the other way, using his undeniable intelligence to actually shirk work. He racked up a transcript that did not do justice to his intellect but fully reflected his lack of work ethics. So he'll be going to a college that is not Midd caliber. Adcoms are familiar with that type of applicant, just as they are familiar with grade-grubbers and BWRKs, lop-sided kids, etc... these are useful short-hands they use among themselves. We know about them because someone has been a fly on the wall. Remember that admission discussions are supposed to be confidential and they are supposed to be honest, i.e., not full of PC gobbledygook. Members of admission committees have to justify their decisions to themselves and to their colleagues. So yes, they use labels. </p>
<p>And yes, some students wake up senior year in high school as the person you describe did. And a place like Wisconsin can afford to yield to his plea: it has places to spare. And remember, too, that it took a plea for him to overcome Wisconsin's adverse decision. Midd does not have lots of slots and is therefore far more risk-averse in its admission strategy. This means sometimes it fails to admit someone who will show brilliance later in life (hey, Princeton rejected Robert Rubin who not only has been spectacularly successful but has also been a really loyal Harvard alum and I believe has raised tons of funds for it). If there is a moral to your anecdote it is that there is a place in college for every applicant. </p>
<p>If only some reporter sat in on admission discussions at less selective colleges. Less fun to read perhaps, but more reassuring to a larger swath of the high school population.</p>
<p>Marite, you're not getting it. It's not about admissions. It's a bigger issue. What are we doing to our kids? </p>
<p>"But he has a friend who went the other way, using his undeniable intelligence to actually shirk work. He racked up a transcript that did not do justice to his intellect but fully reflected his lack of work ethics. So he'll be going to a college that is not Midd caliber."</p>
<p>And how this will affect the above student's life?</p>
<p>I could care less about schools like Midd.</p>
<p>Where I live nobody has ever heard of Middlebury.</p>
<p>Sorry, I don't get you. This thread IS about admission. that's how it's started and how it's continued. If you want to change topics, start another thread.</p>
<p>So: what's your beef about Middlebury, a school no one in your neck of the woods has heard about? </p>
<p>No one claims that only those who attend highly selective schools will be successful in life. There is a college for every kid in the US. Why obsess about admission (yes, that's the topic I'm discussing following the OP's posting) into the few which are highly selective and by definition must discriminate among highly capable students?</p>
<p>It seems to me that many of you are taking this article much too seriously. My guess is that it was written as an entertaining fluff piece rather than an in-depth look at college admissions (which it certainly isn't). The most bothersome statements are not quotes from the committee members, they are simply words written by a reporter who didn't necessarily even use the same terminology as the commitee members. The information given about the applicants is very superficial and most likely composites to protect the privacy of the applicants. I'm suprised that anyone is taking this article so literally. It is just a light newspaper article about a topic on many minds this time of year. </p>
<p>"Remember that admission discussions are supposed to be confidential and they are supposed to be honest, i.e., not full of PC gobbledygook. Members of admission committees have to justify their decisions to themselves and to their colleagues. So yes, they use labels."</p>
<p>That is so true. </p>
<p>It is obvious that we react to small parts of an article describing a two-hour discussion at one small college. As I said before, we react based on our personal experiences and ... preferences. I think that it is the beauty of a site such as College Confidential where we can express our differences without ... hurting feelings. Based on this thread, if Marite and I were two adcoms, we would draw different conclusions. In this case again, she would agree with the committee's decision and I would find it wrong. However, none of us has the benefit of the entire file. So, we are left to following our REACTION and fill the blanks with interpretations. Still, I find the comments so misplaced I called them callous. But, there again, we do have different interpretations. Different but NOT right or wrong. </p>
<p>As usual, I learn more from people who disagree with me. In this context, inasmuch as I will stick to my position to scratch Midd from my sister's list, I've to concede that it is not that hard to let the pendulum of conclusions swing the other way. And speaking of conclusions, I do not think that this thread is one of the worst on CC ... threads with spirited debates are the most instructive. I also think that the worst threads find their way to the Caf</p>
<p>Xiggi, you may want to let your sister draw up her lists. By all means give her your opinions, but remember that she should be deciding for herself. </p>
<p>One of the most difficult things I did in this whole college process was to let my son make his own choices. After all, he's the one who will be going to college next fall.</p>
<p>I don't think this was meant to be a "fluff" piece. I know this reporter's work, and she's pretty good. The Free Press is NOT the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Boston Globe, and doesn't have the resources to do an indepth piece the way they do. This story was part of a series started last year on college admissions. Believe me, I am the last person to praise the Freeps, and I agree that this article has many flaws, but I can assure you it was not written to be "entertaining fluff."</p>
<p>I had lunch yesterday with a friend -- mom of a HS sophomore -- who read this article and viewed it as a wake-up call. She had no idea college admissions was this tough (like most non CC people). She gave the article to her daughter to read. You know all those people out there who assume that the smart kids will have no problem getting into HYP etc.? This article serves to show them a slice of reality. </p>
<p>This thread is about admissions, and it's also what we are doing to our kids, and what our kids are doing to themselves. I went to an Ivy back in the days when it wasn't almost impossible to get in, and there were plenty of kids there who weren't perfect (me included). They were all smart, but not all were geniuses -- we all did not have perfect GPAs, 10+ APs, national awards, etc. etc. And it was in the days before USNews made the schools care so much about GPAs and SAT scores. </p>
<p>This is strictly my personal opinion, and I know many disagree with me, but I'm not thrilled with the direction that many selective colleges have gone, which is to demand more and more perfection and to raise the bar of achievement higher and higher. I'm talking about when a student here laments that his 750 SAT math score is the reason why he/she isn't getting into HYP etc. I've already said this in this thread, but what this article suggested to me is that the numbers are more and more important.</p>
<p>Why have selective colleges become more selective? Because more people from far more varied backgrounds than ever before have decided to apply (when HYP did not admit women, their pool of applicants was considerably smaller, and dare I say it, less stellar than it is now). </p>
<p>But where I agree with Dstark is that there is no reason to obsess about selective colleges. There are plenty of other colleges to choose from and they do not necessarily provide an inferior education than the LACs and crapshoot colleges such as HYPSM.
A market is only a seller's market if the product comes in limited quantities and there is a far larger group of would-be buyers than can be accommodated.</p>
<p>I don't know if I would have agreed with the committee's decisions in all the cases that are described. I'm really trying to see things from the point of view of an adcom at a small, highly selective LAC that is trying to build a particular student body. I am a real softie and would have had a hard time turning down many of the applicants profiled. And who knows, if I knew more about the math-genius, I might have turned him down, too. :)</p>
<p>"Xiggi, you may want to let your sister draw up her lists. By all means give her your opinions, but remember that she should be deciding for herself."</p>
<p>Drawing up the lists is not as hard as using the relevant information to discard bad fits. For full disclosure, while I mentioned to have a weakness for the soccer player, I may have added that the captainship of the soccer team offered quite a parallel. Except for the C, ho-hum performance, and not being recruited, the story did hit home. </p>
<p>Rest assured that my sister's final list will be entirely hers, and that it will not be a copy of mine nor solely represent my own affinities. She has eliminated schools that I like and has added schools I do not like to her list. </p>
<p>The reality is that the number of schools that offer better fit makes the elimination process easier. In so many words, why bother with schools that present negatives when others don't -at least on the surface?</p>
<p>"A market is only a seller's market if the product comes in limited quantities and there is a far larger group of would-be buyers than can be accommodated."</p>
<p>You see, I look at it as a BUYER'S market, or, alternative, WE are the sellers, and look to find out what the bids might be for an institution to "rent" my d. for four years and as a future alum. If they don't wish to bid, it's their loss.</p>
<p>This is a great discussion concerning what goes on in the admissions process at a "selective" college. I am reminded about the SOS project at Stanford. Denise Pope suggested the most important thing for parents to do is to go home and talk with their kids about what it means to be a successful student. What does it mean to be successful? Talk to them and listen to them. She also said that the admissions office at Stanford and a few other places do not want groomed kids--they want engaged learners. They say that they don't want kids who are killing themselves in high school to make an impression. But they know they are getting them. Schools in general are impeding that which they claim to embrace: they are encouraging cheating and going for status. "Doing school" has nothing to do with engaging with learning. "Doing school" is all about grades, knowing how to multitask so you can work on your Spanish homework during physics and the such. Changes need to be made. And hence this discussion about grades. Funny thing, the kid who didn't cheat in the study, did things honorably because it mattered to him, and didn't establish treaties with teachers or form allies with the staff got the worst grades of the 5. Interesting.</p>
<p>Why have selective colleges become more selective? Actually, marite, the history is far more political than economic. In the mid to late 50s, leading institutions, prompted by media and government, made deliberate decisions to switch from a Legacy/Money game to a Merit game in order to promote civil justice. Once the doors were declared open and funds were offered, bunches of folks from all corners decided to apply. That interest was multiplied by a long era of prosperity. Millions of folks with newly earned money learned about amazing colleges--including those with historical greatness located across the country.</p>
<p>It is healthy to keep the Merit Game in perspective though. As a social experiment, it's very radical compared to thousands of years of education history, western and eastern. It only a few decades old. Has it produced civil equalities beyond what would have happened? Has it produced superior intellectual and creative efforts?</p>
<p>Those are questions which cannot be answered from this short distance.</p>
<p>I can vouch for marite's softiness, even when it comes to slackers who are trying to find their feet. We must keep in mind that many CC posters were academic titans as teenagers. Diligence is the method they used to achieve their success. It is a tried and true method and former teen academic titans tend to swear by it. </p>
<p>On the other hand, there are those of us who have found fantastic life and financial success, (not in 9 figures <em>ahem</em>), FOLLOWING some period of slackerdom. B+s do not make us break out in hives. We have accepted C's and even D's from ourselves and from our progeny. From experience, we know that high school performance has limited bearing on a successful life. We know that the sky is the limit for high school slackers--if they catch a bit of ambition and apply themselves.</p>
<p>For those who don't know where Midd sits in the scheme of things, this might have seemed like a cruel thread. Even though it is a small school, because of it's position and history of academic excellence, the particulars of the Middlebury article can be extrapolated and examined for wider trends, especially in light of the huge gender imbalances in many, many higher institutions.</p>
<p>Raise your hand if you think the Midd adcom who decided to let the journalist in has gotten an earful from the Dean's office!</p>
<p>Because there are more applications chasing the same number of places does not necessarily mean that prestige colleges have become more selective. In aggregate, the total number of reasonably (not "hail-mary") applicants may not have increased at all - all that may have increased is the number of applications. We have very little data on this one way or the other. The result is that, at some point, it becomes more and more difficult for admissions reps to select a class of students who will actually attend who will likely benefit most from their specific institution. In other words, given the institution's particular needs and niche, it is possible that, at some point, the quality of students attending goes down even as the number of rejections goes up.</p>
<p>I hope not! :) There have been several videos made of the admissions process, one at Berkeley and one at Amherst that were very interesting to watch. I think it helps to remove the veils and let kids know what they are up against when applying to more "selective" schools. Do they really want to?</p>
<p>This is an interesting "inside" admissions article. I don't remember if it made it out of the Williams board, but here it is for anyone who may have missed it.</p>
<p>Cheers, I agree with your analysis; there are also additional factors that all combine to raise selectivity: demographics, the introduction of the Common Application, the reaching out by universities across the whole country and even the world (otherwise known as self-marketing), and so forth. I also think that the obsession with selective colleges is a variation on the obsession with brand names. It can't be pure aesthetics that causes large numbers of people to wear the same Burberry's scarf or pay $$ for expensive handbags. </p>
<p>You are right, too, that academic excellence whether in high school or in college does not guarantee success in later life. Personally, my money is on S's slacker friend: he knows how to make people laugh, and I think that this trait will take him further than abstract algebra. :) He is also blessed with a mother who does not put too much store by academic performance or getting into the most selective colleges.</p>
<p>Dstark, I would agree that those who Midd turned down are capable of doing the work. Elite colleges turn down very very well qualified kids because they have limited slots. Therefore, a kid with no C's might appear more attractive than a kid with a C even though the kid with the C is quite able to succeed in a challenging learning environment and that one C does not mean he/she is not so hot of a student. The slots are limited. The adcoms can afford to be very choosy. As Marite says and I agree, students who are very capable such as the one with a C are still going to succeed in college and in life. Perfection is not required to be a success by any means. But in selective admissions, kids with stronger records are going to have an easier time (though NOT easy) being chosen over someone who might have one slip or blemish even though that slip or blemish is nothing bad in the scheme of things and not any indication of not being able to succeed at a competitive college. </p>
<p>That said, elite admissions is NOT just about numbers/stats. If it were, then they'd have a cut off for SATs and GPA and rank and that would be that. But time and again, we see applicants get into an elite school who have SATs lower than someone who was rejected and same with GPA or whatever. I think that stats DO matter in that you have to have ones that are in the right ballpark for the college you apply to but after that, other factors are what set one kid apart from another. It is not only stats. My own kid attends an Ivy and her SAT score is not as high as ones I have read about on CC where kids were rejected. She had solid stats but those alone did not get her admitted. I believe they really did look at the whole picture. Even my other kid who was selected as a Scholar at her selective school (very few get this distinction there) did not have SATs as high as I read about on here, or rank or GPA....they were all very good but not at the tippy top. I think her entire profile was strong and apparently was recognized as being so. Perfection was not the criteria. But yes, stats count to even be considered. </p>
<p>Kids can apply to many many fine schools. I think many (who don't read CC!) are not aware of how competitive elite college admissions has become and that just being a very good student is no longer a ticket into a selective college. You can have ALL that and still be rejected. Many who were rejected were as "good" as those who got in! That's the nature of that beast. But very selective colleges need not be the end all and be all. A student who is impressive but perhaps not the most outstanding, surely will have many college from which to choose even if not an Ivy or some such. Is that a bad thing? </p>
<p>I interview applicants for a very selective college. Yes, I feel badly when I meet kid after kid who has been accomplished and done well in school and know they will NOT all get in. MOST I interview don't! So few will get in. I get jaded sometimes seeing just another really good student. That kid deserves to get in, of course! But with the MOST selective schools, there are so few slots that they are often given to those who are outstanding and not merely impressive. There is nothing wrong with getting a C in one course. That student is bound to be a success. But at the most elite schools in the land, when so few slots are available, they have their pick of kids who have no C's AND have some major other accomplishment and so forth. I would not want to have to turn down many qualified students like those in the article. Of course they can do the work. There just are not enough slots to take them all. If someone is gonna enter the elite college admissions process, they MUST know that they can be VERY strong and still not get in. It goes with the territory. A rejection at an elite school is not a commentary on one's abilities or worth. I know when my kid got rejected at Yale, she never felt she wasn't good enough but merely that the odds were such that many qualified kids would not get in. </p>