A new (and larger) Chetty study on elite college admissions is released today

Parents Forum
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For the record, that is a straw man.

Holistic review colleges like Harvard are constantly talking about the affect that students have on each other. They can have fun together, compete together, explore interests together, and inspire each other. This is all part of what they see as valuable about getting a college education at a residential college–the classes are just one part of the overall experience.

And the sorts of measures of success that author is using have nothing to do with all that. There was never any promise that these factors would translate into further benefits that they and not others would get. The whole point was they would make the community experience better, and by extension benefit everyone in the community.

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I agree with what you said about letting students develop their own interests, etc. However, as elite colleges become increasingly more “holistic” in recent years, haven’t those problems you cited become worse, rather than better, year over year?

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I personally see no problem whatsoever with a system that is clear and predictable. And thus less prone to unfair manipulation.

I get it that it’s literally a foreign concept to many in the US who grew up with the holistic system.

But when I was a high school student in my old country, I had guaranteed admission to any university in the country as a winner of a national academic olympiad in my desired discipline and a 4.0 student. And kids were still kids.

One may say: if your old country was so great, what are you doing in America? But I trust you are not one of those people :slight_smile:

And I do not have to subscribe to the “America, love it or leave it” mantra. I am an American by choice, not by obligation. I get to complain as much as everybody else :wink:

The author(s) demonstrate that holistic admissions are not achieving its desired purpose. By any measure of future success, holistically selected athletes and legacies underperform their higher academically-credentialled peers. So much for future leaders.

As for the other concerns about kids being kids, I have always been a big proponent of the Applying Sideways approach, even though I didn’t come across that essay until after our older got his silver tube.

There are kids out there who genuinely love learning for its own sake. Those kids should not be penalized because they do not play water polo.

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I didn’t read this until I finished writing my response to your earlier message.

I see your point.

I guess I just find these pretensions of benevolent social engineering pushed by schools in their corporate visions and mission statements deeply disingenuous and rather distasteful.

These are the same schools, mind you, that had quotas for my brethren well into the second half of the last century.

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I don’t understand where you are getting your premise. To my knowledge, these colleges have been “holistic” since they have had selective admissions.

As far as I can tell, what has happened recently is instead this.

In recent decades, the more selective colleges have been becoming increasingly nationalized. Like, within living memory, a college like Chicago, say, still drew disproportionately from the Great Lakes region. Princeton was the “Southern Ivy”. And so on. But increasingly these colleges have started drawing more applications from all over the country.

Contributing to that has been technology like the Common App, and also better and better Internet sources of information, and now increasingly things like “virtual” information sessions and college tours and so on. All that has made it easier and easier for people to cast a wider net in terms of applications.

And now test optional has added even more to that effect.

All this has led to a massive increase in applications to these nationalizing colleges. Not as much applicants, actually–nationally, total applicants increased far less, and actually peaked a while ago and it is down since. But applications per applicant are up, and actually that is mostly driven by a minority of applicants whose applications per applicant are way up.

OK, so admissions rates necessarily have dropped massively as well. And in the face of that, some people started coming up with theories as to how to beat those odds that can be loosely grouped under the label “spike theory”. The basics of spike theory are that if there are many very good applicants in terms of academics and academic-like achievements, to beat the odds you have to be even BETTER at academics and academic-like achievements.

But things like GPAs and AP lists and standardized test scores aren’t capable of distinguishing “very good” from “even better” at the necessary degrees of specificity. So, instead a theory developed that you need to treat this like, say, grad school admissions. You need to choose a specific major, and do all sorts of things that normal HS students don’t do–competitions, research, internships, and so on. THAT is how you will show you are even better at academic things.

And in fact, a whole industry sprang up around spike theory. Expensive college consultants who would tell your parents how to get a spike. People trying to make money on social media. And so on.

Now, none of this was ever consistent with holistic review. And admissions officers at the most selective colleges kept telling people that’s not how it actually worked. And then the lid was ripped off the Harvard process, and it confirmed that’s not how it actually worked. And yet the industry rumbles on.

OK, so what seems to have made this problem worse in recent years is not holistic review, it is spike theory. And spike theory, at least in this form, is actually a rejection of holistic review and the substitution of a theory about how these people think admissions SHOULD be working at the “top” colleges, even though we know that is not how it actually works.

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“As one of the most desirable colleges, Harvard could fill its incoming class several times over taking only students with perfect SAT or ACT scores. Harvard students deserve to be here, but so do many, many others. There is so much talent in the world that any admissions process at a place attracting the best applicants will end up throwing darts at a board at some point. It’s better for everyone if we internalize this reality and respond accordingly.”

So, lottery it is?

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I said they have “become increasingly more ‘holistic’”, not that they weren’t “holistic”. They have become more “holistic” in recent years by reducing the roles of less “holistic” elements in college admissions.

If a college wants to favor certain groups, unless it implemented explicit quotas or set up formulae to favor these groups, it would want admission to be more uncertain to the vast majority of other applicants, wouldn’t it? That increasing uncertainty helps them disguise their preferences.

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Yes, I am aware the system in most countries also leads to bachelor’s level admission being essentially like our postgraduate admission, where you apply to a specific “course” (what we would call a major), and admissions is entirely about academics.

I think there are pros and cons to requiring such specialization so early. But even if you like that system, it requires a lot of other things to work.

Most notably, it requires a high degree of standardization of courses and tests at the secondary level. This allows institutions at the tertiary level to meaningfully compare applicants in a very precise way.

So, if we wanted to move the US over to such a system–and again, it has some downsides–we would have to end the US tradition of hyperlocal school boards with independent curriculum control, and adopt a similarly standardized national curriculum and testing system.

Good luck!

And the kid who loves water polo should also not be penalized.

Until people see both of those as valid points, it isn’t really possible to fully understand the issue.

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Sign me up! :slight_smile:

Absolutely not! Imagine what would happen if sports teams were forced to diversify themselves with math nerds for some higher societal purpose. :wink:

ETA: The case of John Urschel notwithstanding. He got in on his sports merits. :smiley:

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But this keeps returning us to the same point.

I wouldn’t say people should have to leave the country to avoid these colleges.

But they can certainly just not care about going to these colleges, if they don’t like their college model.

I gather your point is you have a very specific academic interest such that the set of colleges satisfying that interest, but that are also not among these colleges, might be limited.

But that is a micro problem, not a macro problem. Add enough requirements together, particularly if some are low-frequency, and even in a set of thousands of colleges, the colleges that satisfy all of your requirements may be small, or indeed non-existent.

And so you might have to figure out which colleges are closest to your hypothetical perfect college for you. Because in fact there are millions of college students, and so there cannot be the hypothetical perfect college for each one.

And sure, you can complain your hypothetical perfect college didn’t exist and so you had to compromise in some way. Just don’t expect anyone to see that as a special problem worthy of a system-wide response.

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I would favor some type of national education standards because student preparation is so uneven. I’ve had the good fortune to live in a state (MA) where public education is excellent and I think it is sad that public education is subpar in so many places. That has nothing to do with elite college admissions, BTW, it’s just that, to me, it’s an issue of equity. Of course, that will never happen because there are so many competing interests, socially and politically, that are against it.

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It would certainly be an interesting approach. Of course, there is zero chance of that ever happening. I don’t actually expect any substantive changes although there may be some tinkering around the margins. Once the furor dies down it will be business as usual.

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Nothing is perfect. But some are a lot closer than others.

Well, apparently there are at least three more people who see this as a problem worthy of a system-wide response.

They even got together and wrote a paper.

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I find your posts informative, but I disagree with you on this:

Through my kids and their peers, I have seen the impact that “spikes” can have on admissions. One received a STEM award received by a few dozen others nationally. And within two weeks of that award, every one of the dozen plus students who had applied to Columbia received a likely letter. And about over half of those received a Yale likely letter. In all, those dozens of students received were admitted to an average of 3+ HYPSM colleges. That wasn’t random.

Likewise, I have know of hundreds who received slightly less prestigious awards over the past 10 years and found a pretty high correlation between their awards and the level of colleges they were admitted to. Since then, I have advised many talented STEM students, who are aiming at the HYPSM level, through private messaging on CC with the only stipulation that they tell me about their admissions afterwards. My track record on that is pretty good.

And while my niche is understanding STEM awards, spikes certainly don’t have to be in STEM. It can be in painting, fencing, dancing, violin, activism, etc.

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Again, why exactly do you think that is true?

To my knowledge, holistic review colleges have long followed roughly a three-legged stool model. You have academics, you have activities/athletics, and you have personal factors. Although there is no official weighting, the basic idea is you have to be “good enough” in all three to get admitted.

If anything, the academic standards for being “good enough” academically for a college like Harvard have increased over time. So in that sense, the role of high academic qualifications has not decreased. They have, if anything, increased.

So I again think this is essentially a mistaken interpretation of admissions rates.

Harvard’s admission rate was something like 90% at the point the GI Bill was passed. It quickly dropped to like 60%, thanks to the increased volume of applications. It has since been in a long downward curve, hitting around 20% in the late 1980s, under 10% by 2010, and now about 3.2%.

People interpret this as increasing uncertainty about how Harvard is admitting, but it really isn’t. Harvard is applying the same sorts of standards in the same basic way, it is just able to increase those standards–although not necessarily as much as some people seem to think.

To illustrate this, suppose Harvard treated all three factors exactly the same in the sense you needed to be in the same top X% by all three of academics, activities/athletics, and personal factors. For simplicity, we’ll also assume complete independence (the Harvard data actually showed some dependence, but not that much actually).

At a 20% admission rate overall, you’d have to be top 58% or so in each area. Right away, I think a lot of people have no idea it would be that high. It is just math, but I think it is shocking to some people you don’t need to even be in the top half of any one thing to end up in the top 20% overall, given this crude model.

OK, at a 10% admission rate, you have to be in the top 46% in each. Again, I think shockingly high to some people, and also not so different from 58%. Just math, but math not a lot of people grasp intuitively.

Finally, 3.2% admission rate, top 31.7% in each. Wait, you only need to be top third in each thing to be top 3.2% overall? No way! But yes, that is how the math works–given this model.

OK, but top 31.7% is higher than top 58%. On the other hand, all the extra applications these days are not necessarily as competitive as they used to be. Still, it makes sense Harvard will be able to crank up its standards in each area a bit.

But, it only needs to crank them up a bit. Because that is how the math works.

OK, so I think a lot of people are totally shocked that applicants who are only, say, in the top third of Harvard’s academic qualifications pool are considered qualified enough by Harvard. With a 3.2% admission rate, they think that MUST mean the other things are now worth more, and that feeds the idea this has all gotten less “certain”.

But in fact, that’s getting the math wrong. No weights have to change, Harvard can just be a little more choosey in each area. But not nearly as choosey as people who don’t intuitively understand the math seem to think.

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This would only be true for all students if there were no hooks and everyone had an equal chance of getting in. But about half the class benefited from ALDC and URM hooks. Even if we no longer consider URM, Harvard had about 30% of the admits coming from the 5% of applications that were ALDC, and that is still continuing at this point.

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But it’s for everyone’s benefit, so it’s ok!

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Adding hooks doesn’t change the basic picture. Of course once you have removed the hooked applicants from both the applicant pool and the admit pool, you will get a lower admittance rate among the unhooked. But then the same math applies.

Like, probably the unhooked Harvard admit rate in the last CDS round was more like 2% than 3.2%. Fair enough. But then applying the model, that just means you have to be in the top 27% of unhooked applicants in each category. That’s lower than 31.7%, but only by a bit.

By the way, some proof of concept. The admit rate for non-ALDC applicants, RD only, no international, in the period studied in the Harvard lawsuit was about 7.3%. Using the model, we should be looking at top 42% in each category.

OK, then in the overall pool, the percentage of unhooked people who got academics 2s or 1s was about 43%, activities or athletics was about 40% (this is an estimate because the data on non-recruited athletes was not well reported), and personals was about 21%. That’s low so far, but when you add in a bit of dependence, and also understand there were other combinations that could get in, that is at least on track.

Again, the big picture here is I don’t know if people fully grasp this math. Maybe today as an unhooked applicant to Harvard you need to be more like top third academically among the unhooked pool than top 40% to be considered academically qualified enough–but that isn’t about academics getting less weight. The weights (such as they are) can stay the same, because Harvard just needs to make minor tweaks in standards to adjust their percentages to the necessary levels to make it all work.

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It’s because @NiceUnparticularMan used an equally weighted model. A hook is just a factor into the weight of one of the buckets.

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This is the end game truth about this. Strike ALDC all you like…your dear Sally still isn’t getting into Harvard.

I’ll share a related anecdote. A kid we know got one of those awards (maybe even the same one) and got a LL from Yale. But, this kid is an absolute jerk. Known widely as such. Selfish, and mean spirited. And I’d be stunned if this didn’t come through in their LORs, veiled though the language must have been. Said kid did not get into Yale (nor any other Ivy+).

And you know what? I have no problem with that. Knowing this kid as I do, I would not want my kid in classes with them.

IMO there simply are factors that do and should impact admissions beyond simple academic “merit” however you want to define that.

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