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

Parents Forum
913

Hmm, I suspect that a substantial amount of “evidence of leadership” that has gone into holistic applications for the last few decades is perhaps not so clearly correlated with leadership later in life.

President of the Key Club might be an admissions committee’s idea of leadership potential (or at least, a HS applicant’s guess at an opaque admit committees views), but personally, I’d bet on the kids with the 35 ACTs who were perhaps not vice-president of NHS over the 30 ACTs who were.

Obviously, we’re both speculating with minimal, if any, real evidence. But I’d venture that intellectual capacity and ambition/effort (to the extent they’re measurable/visible among 17 year olds) is the best broad based estimate of future leadership and “world-changing” (hopefully for the better) potential. Yeah, sure, there may be the occasional 17 y.o. who truly stands out for some exceptional exercise of leadership during H.S., but I would guess that is fairly rare.

914

And that’s the reason why most Harvard grads don’t end up as leaders (and, no, working in IB or at MBB doesn’t make you a leader - although it does make you very well paid).

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915

In terms of future team leadership, I’d bet on the successful varsity captain of a team sport with a 33 ACT over the individual academic competition award winner with a 35 ACT.

And that is a more realistic hypothetical.

Yeah, sure, there may be the occasional 17 y.o. who truly stands out for some exceptional exercise of leadership during H.S., but I would guess that is fairly rare.

Personally, I think it is much more rare for HS kids to actually do meaningful scholarship.

In my experience, the sorts of people who are really good team leaders often do have a history of being such team leaders going back to their youth. Not always, but often.

I think the problem here is certain people treat this as a box to check. Do I have some sort of position in some sort of organization that checks the leadership box? Maybe to make it easy, I will become founder and President of my own club–won’t that sound impressive?

But the true leaders are typically the ones who actually get involved in the most important existing activities at their school, and eventually get chosen to lead those activities. It isn’t easy because many people do those activities and only some end up those leaders. And often there are coaches and such involved who want those leaders to actually be the sorts of leaders who will lead their team to success.

Being that sort of person in high school is not rare in the sense usually every decent-sized high school class has a few people like that. What is much more rare is for those people to ALSO be getting near-perfect grades in the hardest classes and very high test scores. The overlap of those two circles is small enough to explain why those people tend to do quite well in holistic review.

But if the two circles are very good grades and test scores, plus doing well in academic-related individual competitions? That’s a lot of overlap, and so a much less rare combination.

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916

I’m not sure any AO can assess an applicant’s leadership quality with any degree of confidence by reading her/his application. What can be done much more easily is to identify an applicant who is more likely to have influence because of her/his connections, fame, etc. Those are different qualities, however.

Another unintended consequence of looking for so-called leadership quality is that the selection criteria at these schools are biased in favor of extroverts. Introverts are underrepresented as a result.

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917

Maybe this ONE dimension of holistic review.

But keep in mind that, say, getting near-perfect grades in the most rigorous courses is usually a requirement too. This typically requires quite a bit of time studying alone, doing individual projects, or working in very small groups. Those are the sorts of things that introverts are typically more energized by than extroverts.

So you could equally well say their criteria select for introverts over extroverts.

Once you think in those terms, it can start clicking how their admit rates can be so low. Because not a lot of people can do so well at both of those sorts of things.

918

I’m not sure that’s necessarily the case. Take David Hogg, for example. He certainly demonstrated leadership more than most other Harvard admits could have, but even he probably would admit that his academic qualification was lacking. Schools like Harvard do have a bucket for academic star applicants, regardless of their leadership qualities, but they’re a relatively small minority.

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919

The admit rates are so low because of the number of apps they get.

Same. I think this gets at the perceived value that playing and leading in athletics has in this country. Many athletes have the qualities that people tend to associate with ‘success’.

Separately, many of the holistic schools have detailed rubrics for app readers to use…and they cover things beyond academics, such as activities and showing leadership, identifying quiet leaders, evaluating achievements in context of the HS/applicants situation, etc.

These schools have put a great deal of thought into how they read and rate applications. It’s not random. Although there can be elements of randomness in the process, such as who the app reader is, what time of day they read the app, etc etc.

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920

many of the holistic schools have detailed rubrics for app readers to use…and they cover things beyond academics, such as activities and showing leadership, identifying quiet leaders,

Harvard absolutely did not have this on identifying ‘quiet leaders’ until after the lawsuit.

In fact, I recall it being something they were heavily criticized for.

But I will point out as I’ve done above, leadership in the US looks nothing like an elite college campus today in terms of gender/demographics. From companies to political leadership, it does not at all look like the demographics/gender split of an elite college.

So are elite schools missing out on a significant number of potential leaders?

921

Right, there are limited exceptions to needing to be very good in all three of academics, activities/athletics, and personality/fit. At Harvard, such exceptions added up to maybe 10% of unhooked admits, give or take.

922

The criticism related to applicants from one demographic group averaging slightly lower personal ratings than others. I won’t elaborate in this thread to avoid violating forum rules. Harvard suggested that one contributing factor for this difference was the personal qualities rating favoring more extroverted traits over more introverted traits. One of these traits that tends to favor more extroverted persons is leadership, but is not the only one. The changes to the reader guidelines following the lawsuit included adding statements like below to the reader guidelines:

It is important to keep in mind that characteristics not always synonymous with extroversion are similarly valued. Applicants who seem to be particularly reflective, insightful and/or dedicated should receive higher personal ratings as well.

…

I’m guessing you mean that White males are overrpresented. For example, ~86% of both Governors and Fortune 500 CEOs are White men. Nearly every demographic group other than White men is severely underrpresented. I expect this primarily relates to the underlying system historically favoring putting White men in positions of power, rather than White men having a higher rate of leadership qualities than other demographic groups.

The world has changed from previous decades and the degree to which the underlying system favors White men is decreasing, which relates to why other demographic groups have become more represented in political/company leadership positions in recent years/decades. Ivy+ colleges claim that they do not want to perpetuate the old system. Their specific admission policies send a mixed message. For example, legacy preferences almost by definition perpetuates the old system. Test optional changes does not.

923

In addition, the demographics of the age cohorts of current leaders may be very different from the demographics of the current age cohort where most college students come from.

924

This is where I think school type (large public vs small expensive private) comes into play.

As I’ve mentioned in another post, our large (800 per class) local public high school is excellent with many AP and IB options, producing dozens of NMFs each year. There are also a couple of expensive (although not “famous”) privates, with a graduating class of ~80. They also have excellent academics, but produce proportionally fewer NMFs.

The average test scores of the top 80 students from the public are substantially higher than the average of the 80 students attending the expensive private…let’s say average ACT 34 at the public vs 31 at the private. Yet the public sends only a handful of students to Ivy+ schools, and these are almost always hooked, while the expensive private sends many more in absolute numbers, and of course many, MANY more proportionally. Since the difference is not better academic accomplishments for the private students, it must come down to “better” ECs, personality ratings, or leadership.

And this is where the expensive private provides opportunities the public can’t. The private, despite a student body 1/10th the size, actually offers MORE team sports. More opportunities to “prove” your leadership potential with only 1/10th the competition! Same thing with student body president etc.

Add to this teachers and college counselors who understand their job is to package the graduates of the privates as having great personalities and leadership potential…and are given time (!) to craft letters of rec that do that.

Again, paint me cynical if I fail to agree that the football captain with an ACT of 31 from the private has more of “what it takes” than the kid from the public with an ACT of 34 who had to start his own club (gosh how pathetic) to show leadership.

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925

I understand the point that you are making, but I also wonder if you are underestimating the number of hooked kids from the private day schools in your area. Both my kids’ (boarding) schools send a lot of kids to ivy+ and highly selective liberal arts colleges, but at least according to my daughters, the kids headed to ivy league schools are almost always hooked in some way (legacy, faculty children, recruited athletes, dean’s list types) or they are FGLI students. While there are unhooked applicants headed to liberal arts colleges and non-ivy private universities with low admissions rates, I don’t think there are many completely unhooked applicants headed to the 8 ivy league schools even from my kids’ well-known prep schools.

At the same time, I think their prep schools do the other items that you mention below and those items help with admissions to other “rejective” colleges and universities.

Maybe it seems like I am just dancing on the head of a pin, but my overall point is just that being hooked helps from any high school (private or public), but I suspect that private schools are likely to have a greater proportion of kids with the type of hook desired by selective colleges.

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926

It seems to me the problem you are identifying has nothing to do with ACT scores being a good measure of aptitude for leadership. Rather, it is the observation that a kid who is academically well-qualified, and who could be a standout leader as well if given the right opportunity, may have fewer such opportunities within a large public K-12 system.

And I agree that is true, and it is one of the many unearned privileges that high socioeconomic status families can provide for their kids though the private K-12 school system.

You brought in the ACT by further assuming the “hidden” leader at the public also had a higher ACT than the “revealed” leader at the private. But we could equally well be talking about, say, 33 ACT kids at both schools, with the 33 ACT varsity captain at the private having had a better opportunity than the 33 ACT student at the public, if the latter never found such an activity in which to become captain or equivalent. And I agree it is not the 33-ACT-at-a-public kid’s fault that might well happen, although it is also not the 33-ACT-at-a-private kid’s fault either.

But if the “solution” is then to simply deny all kids credit for demonstrating leadership, private or public, and reallocate that decisional weight to standardized testing instead, that isn’t going to help that 33 ACT kid at the public who never found the right activity. Indeed, all you may do is swap the 33 ACT varsity captain at the private out for the 34 ACT student at that same private who didn’t do such a thing.

Or it could be a 34 ACT student at a public, but again we know that high socioeconomic status families ALSO have an advantage when it comes to getting high test scores. And again, it is a dynamic system where high-SES families are going to allocate their resources to wherever the marginal benefit is highest. So very likely if this was a near-universal shift among the “top” U.S. private colleges, that observed SES correlation with test scores would go up to compensate.

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927

Another key difference is likely how many kids apply. Kids who attend public high schools are generally more likely to apply to in-state public colleges. Kids who attend selective private high schools are generally more likely to apply to selective, private colleges. As such, it would be more appropriate to compare admit rate for similarly qualified applicants, rather than compare number who matriculated.

As an example I attended a non-selective public high school in upstate NY that is roughly in the distance middle of the 8 Ivies. Nevertheless, few students form my HS applied to 7 of the 8 Ivies. Among students in my honors classes, a significant minority did apply to some of those 7 Ivies. However, the overwhelming majority did not. A large portion did not apply to any colleges outside of upstate NY. The exception was the upstate NY Ivy – Cornell. Cornell was by far the most popular Ivy+, with far more applications than all other Ivy+ colleges combined. With few students from my HS applying to non-Conrell Ivies, few students from my HS matriculated to non-Cornell Ivies. However, we had plenty of students who matriculated to Cornell.

The author of the paper does show that students applying from private HSs average significantly higher non-academic ratings than students applying form public colleges, which suggests an advantage. However, this does not mean this advantage in non-academic ratings is the primary reason why a disproportionately large number of students matriculate, after controlling for score.

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928

I agree with you. The expensive privates have many more hooked students.

The expensive privates are also much more likely to have top 1% and top 0.1% income families. The Ivy+ schools desire these rich students not just for the full pay, but also for the elite social connections that are correlated with these exceptional incomes. It isn’t a good look to come right out and say that, so they couch it in “personality” scores, “leadership ability” etc. So even the unhooked students from these schools have a “mini-hook.”

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929

This is what I used to believe as well. However, according to this new Chetty study, even if the effect of hooked applicants is taken into account, non-religious private high schools still have an enormous admissions advantage over public schools (even those that the authors termed “advantaged” public schools such as Scarsdale HS in Westchester, NY). Moreover, the authors found that the higher admissions rates to Ivy+ schools “arise entirely from differences in non-academic rather than academic factors.”

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930

I do suspect this varies by HS. In ours, I think it is roughly half and half. As in roughly half of the kids going to Ivies or MIT, Stanford, Duke, or Chicago (that was how this study defined Ivy+) are either recruited athletes or legacies and such, the other half were not. It is hard to be sure because you would not always know who is a legacy, but the kids talk enough that I think that is at least roughly accurate. As always, I don’t think you can assume none of the legacies would have gotten admitted to an Ivy+ anyway, and indeed in some cases the kid is choosing between Ivy+ colleges where they were a legacy, and others where they were not–and they do not always choose the legacy colleges.

For what it is worth, it appears “HYPS” are notably tougher at our HS. MIT is sort of its own thing (usually it is one kid to MIT), but we definitely do not send someone to each of the HYPS schools each year, and I believe the average is right around 2 total for that group (although it is a could be 1, could be 3, sort of thing). For the other 5 Ivies though, I think the average is over 6 per year total, but with a lot more variability (probably because that is an overlapping pool with other Ivy+, some LACs, the military academies, and some of the top national publics). And most of the HYPS attendees were also admitted to other Ivies.

So roughly speaking, I think our admittance rates to Columbia, Penn, Dartmouth, Brown, and Cornell collectively are something like four times our admittance rates to HYPS collectively, give or take. Again, that’s a mix of recruited athletes and legacies and such, but also just non-recruited athletes who often get into multiple such colleges.

I’m pointing all this out just to note that things really do vary by HS. We’re not even one of the well-known Ivy feeders, and when I first learned about all this I was actually a little shocked how many kids ended up at whatever you want to call the most selective colleges that are not HYPSM. Again, recruited athletes and legacies is some of that, but really not all of it.

931

I admit that I haven’t read the study, just the newspaper articles about it and some of the posts here. So I am curious, did the study control for being FGLI as a hook? According to my oldest, the non hooked kids from her high school who went on to ivy league schools were almost entirely FGLI kids. There were only a few “run of the mill” rich high achievers who went to ivy league schools, and the college office emphasized to parents multiple times during junior year that just looking at the outcomes for the previous year’s graduating class was misleading because as parents, we don’t know anything whether the kid is a legacy or whatever. But certainly all her classmates benefited from attending a prep school with low teacher/counselor/student ratios.

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932

I note again it is interesting to me to think how this would apply in our HS.

It is fairly common in our HS for kids with really good grades and test scores to still not get into the Ivy+ as defined in this study, sometimes with “better numbers” than some of the kids who do get admitted to Ivy+. Sometimes that is obviously explainable–recruited athletes, say–sometimes it is less obvious, but presumably it is something in the “subjective” factors. And of course some of these high-numbers kids prefer other schools anyway, including because they prefer LACs, or other very selective privates and publics, or military academies, or get merit scholarships or such. But some also applied to “Ivy+” colleges, and probably would have attended if they could, but they didn’t get in.

OK, so suppose the “Ivy+” had to get rid of the recruited athletes, legacies, and “subjective” factors. I think at our HS, this would likely mean some of those higher number kids would then take the place of the Ivy+ admits we lost.

And as I was suggesting in another post now, it is a bigger pool. Meaning there are way more kids who go to one of those sorts of alternatives than to the Ivy+. So it would only take “upgrading” a fraction of that pool to compensate for “downgrading” some of our current Ivy+ enrollees.

Anyway, all this is anecdotal. But I do think it is important to realize the higher-on-academics-only kids who would be helped by this sort of policy shift are definitely not just at publics.

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