<p>Blossom </p>
<p>I didn't say it was an evil, malicious, or secret agenda it's just a non-academic agenda which off course it is. So is having a competitive football team. That's just the truth.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What agenda does legacy admissions promote besides the desire of a non-profit institution to continue to attract voluntary donations? You are implying that there is something insidious to all of this-- do you have facts to back this up? Has the presence of some football players at Columbia diluted the core curriculum? Is the Lacrosse team at Yale exempt from a Senior Thesis? What secret plot to ruin the intellectual content of a university is being promoted by the possible rejection (or possible admission) of your hypothetical kid?
[/quote]
And to build on that thought ... if there was some latent demand for more schools to be so thoroughly foussed on academics in their admissions policies I would think a bunch of schools would have adopted this approach to admissions. While, as an individual applicant, the whole process can look pretty random the overall process is pretty systematic and slowly evolves ... if there were demand someone would fill the demand ... it seems, both schools decisiding how they want to build a class and what type of learning/living environment they want to establish and students selecting from the options presented to them seem to prefer the current model for the most part.</p>
<p>I have attended 3 "top tier" schools and my time at these schools expanded my acceptence of (and now desire for) the broader admissions policies of these schools. Why did this happen, after attending school I would have failed miserably trying to figure out who those lowly athletic recruits, or URMs, or legacies were ... because overwhelmingly my classmates were terrific. There were a few people here and there who I wondered about but I' not sure there were any more athletes than non-athletes for examples. I was a cross country/ track guy and the team's GPA was well above the school's average and my freshman year the track captain's GPA was 4.17 (that is not a typo) ... I still don't have a clue who the deadbeat athletes were.</p>
<p>I don't hear from "those on the inside" that the legacy preference is real at all. Quite the opposite. The legacy preference, if any, has to be distinguished from a developmental preference, which would benefit a small fraction of legacies and a few non-legacies. That exists, but is probably meaningless in terms of numbers.</p>
<p>I'll give you a few anecdotes from this year:</p>
<p>Stanford: East Coast boy, 2340 SATs, top 1% of public magnet school, good ECs with lots of leadership, one BA parent (very involved in alumni groups), one prof degree parent, >$900,000 cumulative giving</p>
<p>Harvard: girl, 2250 SATs, top 1% of famous suburban public high school, decent ECs, serious crew athlete, between the parents two BAs and two prof degrees, all summa, involved alumni, >$500,000 cumulative giving</p>
<p>Yale: boy, 2300 SATs, top-5 student at famous private school, decent ECs, very "pure" intellectual kid, one parent with BA and PhD, >$500,000 cumulative giving, kid accepted at Trinity Coll (Oxon.)</p>
<p>None of those kids was accepted. Non-legacy (and non-URM, not recruited athletes) classmates with equivalent (or lower) stats were accepted from each of the high schools involved. Tell me there's a meaningful legacy preference. (Of course, I could give you an equivalent list of legacy kids admitted, but the kids are really, really impressive -- as were the rejected kids.)</p>
<p>The larger point, though, is that you can take legacy admittees off the table as inconsistent with your top 1-2% idea. No legacy kids are getting in who are not in that group, unless they have something else really major going for them. </p>
<p>URMs don't account for enough of the student body at these schools to come close to 25% of a class, and many of them qualify in your top 1-2%, too. I'll give you another example from my son's school: URM, low SES, first generation high school graduate, 2200 SATs (non-native English speaker, 800 M), top 1% of class, top student of his ethnic group in the region, significant research ECs . . . and rejected at Harvard and Yale. I'm not going to say I think every URM kid admitted to those schools looked better in outline, but a bunch of them sure must have, and I don't think you can complain too much about them. And the larger point is that Harvard and Yale rejected this kid because they had 2,000 or so better applicants. If they took URMs or non-URMs with lower stats, it's because they had much better something else meaningful. This kid is your 1500/high GPA kid, and a URM to boot, and he was rejected (although I would guess he did have a 50% shot at admission). To me, that means that the people accepted instead of him are probably pretty darn impressive (the ones I know are).</p>
<p>Athletes: many of them would come within your top 40,000 group. The ones who don't amount to maybe 1-2 kids/sport/year, except for a few high profile/high body count sports like football and hockey. 100 to 120 kids per school per year, tops.</p>
<p>(And of course there's lots of opportunities to double- or triple-count among athletes, legacies, and URMs.)</p>
<p>So if almost everyone admitted comes from the top 2% pool, then why aren't the stats higher? Because the top 2% of the students did not get the top 2% SAT scores. That's all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
a large number of students admitted on non-academic criteria like recruited athletes, legacies, and URM's
[/quote]
</p>
<p>i guess harvard's academic standards just aren't high enough for your hypothetical student even if he could get admitted there -- he just wouldn't be completely surrounded with the type of student he seeks. too many of those non-academic admits. wouldn't want to be going to a school with all those non-intellectual harvard athletes and urm's who must not be top 1% like your hypothetical student.</p>
<p>you still can't get past the fact that you want to claim you aren't relying on sat's but you keep falling back on sat's as the measure of your criteria. you've made up a phantom measure of top 1% and then complain because others don't adhere to that phamton measurement. YOUR hypthetical student is clearly in the top 1% -- but CLEARLY too many other non-top 1%'s are being admitted for non-academic reasons thereby dimishing your hypothical student's chances -- truth is you have no way of concluding who is or isn't top 1% unless you rely on sat's which you've already conceded is not what you are doing.</p>
<p>It's not just the most selective colleges that court alumni. I came across this article about Sewanee:</p>
<p>
[quote]
When Legacies Are a College's Lifeblood</p>
<p>To attract better applicants, many institutions are doing more to court the children of alumni</p>
<p>By ELIZABETH F. FARRELL</p>
<p>Every other summer, Sewanee: the University of the South invites a handful of prospective students to take an exclusive tour of its campus and surroundings, in Tennessee. Forget routine visits to dormitories and dining halls; this excursion includes scenic hikes, caving expeditions, and a chance to ring the bells in the historic Breslin Tower, a 120-year-old campus landmark.</p>
<p>This special treatment is reserved for "legacy" students. Sewanee, like many other small private colleges, aggressively recruits prospective students whose parents, grandparents, siblings, or even aunts or uncles graduated from the institution. "Like any good Southerner, we're pretty liberal about who we call kin," says David Lesesne, dean of admission at Sewanee.
[/quote]
<p>As for intellectual atmosphere, here are some facts posted on the Sewanee website:
[quote]
Since its founding, the College of Arts and Sciences at the University has graduated 25 Rhodes Scholars—a record that is unmatched by all but a handful of institutions—, 34 Watson Fellows, and 26 NCAA Postgraduate Scholars, while the institution’s School of Theology has added to its alumni ranks countless bishops, including three of the last four presiding bishops of the Episcopal Church.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
Middle 50% Ranges, Class of 2010</p>
<pre><code>* SAT Combined: 1170-1320
* ACT: 25-30
* Mean High School GPA: 3.4 (academic core calculation)
[/quote]
</code></pre>
<p>Not that I thought that marite was in any way denigrating Sewanee, a great self selecting school with traditions that may be be "odd" to some located on a mountain plateau in Tennessee but I just want to point those who know little of this school to the following link and a remarkable studen <a href="http://admission.sewanee.edu/sewaneestories/katharinewilkinson%5B/url%5D">http://admission.sewanee.edu/sewaneestories/katharinewilkinson</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
The fullness of my life at Sewanee was the very reason I decided it would be the right place for me. I knew I wanted to attend a small liberal arts school that would allow me to delve wholeheartedly into my passions. At Sewanee I could be a student, an athlete, a writer, and an activist, all of which are important aspects of who I was and am. Moreover, I could do so alongside incredible professors, mentors, and other students. The relationships I had at Sewanee made my experience there unparalleled, and I can’t imagine having had a better undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>The year after I graduated I worked as a consultant for a major environmental non-profit organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council. During that time I applied for and received a Rhodes Scholarship to pursue graduate study at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. I have been at Oxford since late September, working to bring together my interests in religious studies and environmental studies through a two-year Master of Letters researching the Evangelical environmental movement in the United States. </p>
<p>Here are some of my stories…
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's true shame that it is not filled to the brim with students meeting hypo-kid's standards. They might have something then, huh? :)</p>
<p>I'm so glad there are schools like Sewanee , kids like this girl, and parents like hers who supported her vision (Yes. I am making that assumption about her parents.) . We need them. This what it's all about folks. She found her spot.</p>
<p>Curm:</p>
<p>I am mightily impressed with Sewanee's history of producing Rhodes and Fulbrights (well, we know that Rhodes requires an athletic component, so maybe it's not intellectual enough). But hey, students who score only in the 1170-1350 range would not be considered intellectually fit to be peers to our hypothetical 1500, would they?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They are the dregs of society but what can you expect? Anyway, they need somebody to work in the cafeteria. Maybe that Wilkinson girl perchance?</p>
<p>
[quote]
But my hope is a very modest one: that a few academic institutions would focus on academics in admissions and drop the non-academic tip factors.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So pick those schools that emphasis academics. </p>
<p>For example, the number one criteria for admission to Swarthmore is an evaluation of whether or not a student has demonstrated the ability to handle a very challenging academic program...specifically a highly-interactive program that demands student engagement in the classroom discussions/presentations and critical thinking (i.e. not just memorizing "what will be on the test"). There are many seminars that are built around student presentations of papers, reports, and problem sets, so it is essential that applicants have shown the ability to be successful in that kind of academic environment -- regardless of their race, ethnicity, parent's college, or athletic prowess.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, your additional criteria that the school not prioritize diversity does rule out many of the strongly academic oriented schools. So, your choices are to limit your search to a smaller number of schools or change your criteria or accept the reality that all colllege choices require some tradeoffs. For example, Swarthmore meets your requirements except that there is an emphasis on diversity -- and, frankly, your focus on "objective" measurements of intellect (such as SAT scores and grades) runs so counter to the campus culture at Swarthmore that I don't think you'd be happy there. For example, the pass/fail first semester would leave you with no way to evalute your relative "intellect".</p>
<p>marite, it's a great school and if it were located anywhere else it would be ranked even higher (although it is ranked quite highly now and the character would be forever damaged). Of course my kid wouldn't even visit as another student she knew from home was attending. Sheesh. Now there is a good reason. ;)</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>Most of your post is a bunch of examples that would serve to counter my argument, if I was arguing tha being a legacy guaranteed admission. Since I'm not arguing that, I fail to see the point. The rest of it is a bunch of assertions, most of which I believe are generally false. It is a waste of every one's time for me to simply assert the opposite. Mixed in with these are a bunch of truisms that don't matter like the statement that some of the recruited athletes, URMS and legacies are in the top 1-2%. Yes, I'm sure some are.</p>
<p>unbelievable,</p>
<p>I think many people attack objective measures like the SAT because in their absense it would be easier to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. There is all the difference in the world between having an admissions system based only on stats and judging an admission system using the stats. To think otherwise is to believe that high scoring students, systematicaly write worse essays, have worse recommendations, and are less interesting people. Are you such a knee jerk anti-test person that you can't see that distinction?</p>
<p>curious -- i am not anti - test -- you are the one who keeps saying this is NOT about sats. you are trying to have your argument both ways -- using sats when it suits your purpose and then claiming that this isn't about sats when it more suits your argument. just one of the many ways in which you are failing to make a logical consistent argument. whenever i point this out, you find something that doesn't really address what i've said to raise while ignoring the fundamental flaws i've pointed out in your arguments. the more you keep making these types of arguments the clearer you make it for everyone reading here to see just how illogical you are being. </p>
<p>the best thing i can wish your hypothetical student is to get better college counseling than he would be getting if he listened to you -- since your type of thinking will only lead to a lot of anger and resentment instead of helping him to find a school where he could in fact be happy for four years of his life.</p>
<p>Unbelieveable,</p>
<p>Here is a challange. Go back over your posts. Pick the best argument that you can that shows that I am being illogical. I will go back over my posts and show you how I have responded to it or I will explain, in detail, why it was not worthy of a response. You really are unbelievable. If I responded to every silly argument posted here I would have no other life.</p>
<p>i have no desire to go back over what i've already written -- you are welcome to if you choose. i don't think anyone else here has had trouble following what i've written. and i have had enough responding to silly arguments from someone who seems to just want to raise controversy without seeming to genuinely want to engage in a rational discussion. don't let me keep you from your other life.</p>
<p>Interested Dad,</p>
<p>I have no objection, as I have repeated ad nauseam, to the use of subjective measures of intellectual ability in admissions. In fact, I think the best system is one that combines subjective measures and objective measures and allows the subjective ones to be put in context. By the way grades are a subjective measure. It would be wrong to do so, but I could go back over the admitted student thread and pick out the students who were admitted on a non-academic basis with a high degree of accuracy. I would not catch all of them because, as I have admitted ad nauseam, some are indistinguishable from other candidates. But very few of the ones I pick out would have been selected because they wrote a great essay or had exceptional recommendations.</p>
<p>Unbelievable, </p>
<p>I didn't think you would take up the challange.</p>
<p>*Unbelievable,</p>
<p>I didn't think you would take up the challange.*</p>
<p>Its good to be right isn't it ?</p>
<p>i've noticed a few times now -- when you seem to feel challenged, you challenge the other person to review past posts -- seems like some sort of a defense mechanism you have -- must make you feel "successful" when people don't bother to play along with your games. well then, go ahead feel successful -- i'm not playing -- you and everyone else are capable of reading what's been written already. your "challenges" really don't add anything here other than apparently stroking you own ego.</p>
<p>Unbelieveable,</p>
<p>I only do it when the posts have been answered already or when, like you, it is diffucult to make enough sense out of your argument to begin to address it. The offer remains open. Hey how about this, it does not have to be your best argument just one that you think was particularly good.</p>