<p>Oxbridge is disproportionately made up of public (i.e. expensive private) high school graduates, it definitely doesn’t fully represent the best of British intelligence any more than Harvard gets the best of America. </p>
<p>
Translation: You do not believe that our current holistic college admission polity is based on the merit.</p>
<p>It may be a taboo topic that I hate to get into, but your saying reminds me of this: </p>
<p>Since the admission rate for asian american students to CalTech is very different from that for HYP (Edit: actually what is different is the percentage of their incoming class : 40% vs higher teens like 16-18%) , and the majors for these students (esp. those who are among the first few generations in this country) tend to be different, what you were saying seems to imply that these three elite colleges discriminate against these students, if you do not buy into their holistic admission policy.</p>
<p>Maybe another way to check for SES: the ZIP code of where they live, or the kind of their EC and/or leisure activity. BTW, isn’t it also true that, to some extent, the SAT score correlates well with the student’s ZIP code or the kind of jobs that his/her parents have?</p>
<p>This is sort of off-topic, but I’m kind of tired of people assuming that CalTech admissions doesn’t reward personal factors. I have a close friend who was one of those math and science types with strong academics and stats, but weaker extracurriculars and essays. He was rejected early, not even deferred, from CalTech. Yet he was accepted regular to Brown, so clearly he was a competitive applicant. After discussing this with him, we decided that the biggest weakness in his CalTech application was his “Why CalTech?” essay, and that might be why he was rejected instead of deferred. So CalTech isn’t as perfect as everyone thinks it is.</p>
<p>@warbrain:</p>
<p>CalTech gets far more applicants with perfect/near perfect academics/scores than they can take. I’d certainly expect them to take the students who want to be at CalTech more than those who aren’t as ardent if their academics are similar.</p>
<p>In any case, I don’t think anybody has a problem with your essay being part of the admissions criteria, as that is also a measure of ability. CalTech doesn’t discriminate by race, athletic ability, or legacy status, though (though they do by gender, like virtually all engineering schools; and many of the less selective LACs, in the opposite direction).</p>
<p>@sorghum, in the English system (and French, and many other countries’), however, at least everyone is subject to the same standard, even if some kids get more resources in helping them achieve such a standard due to their parents having more resources to spend on them. So you can trust at all Oxbridge grads met a certain minimum academic standard (so the dumb Harvard hockey player example is very unlikely to be found in Oxbridge or an Ecole).</p>
<p>The interview is very important for Oxbridge, and that is definitely subjective and measuring things other than pure intellectual merit. The actual baseline academic requirement (AAA for ‘A’ level) is not very onerous for someone who has been been prepared for the exams by a public school. In fact, the problem in recent years has been that grade inflation in ‘A’ levels gives too little scope to meaningfully determine top academic performance.</p>
<p>George Osborne, British Conservative Party politician who has been “Chancellor of the Exchequer and Second Lord of the Treasury” since 2010 and the Member of Parliament for Tatton since 2001. Osborne comes from one of the oldest Anglo-Irish aristocracies. He was educated at St Paul’s School, London, and Magdalen College, Oxford, gaining a degree in Modern History.</p>
<p>So he has Oxford degree, albeit non-quantitative, but is Minister of Finance (under a quaint title), surely a slightly quantitative job.</p>
<p>The chancellor was asked by 7 year old Sam Raddings whether he was good at maths. “I did maths A-level so I have been tested at school,” Osborne said. “What’s 7x8?” the boy asked. The chancellor replied: “I’ve made it a rule in life not to answer a load of maths questions.”</p>
<p><a href=“Watch George Osborne Dodge 7x8 Maths Question From Child | HuffPost UK Politics”>http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/03/george-osborne-maths-video_n_5553988.html</a></p>
<p>Although I know he is unpopular with a lot of Brits, I have always had a crush on George Osborne - could care less if he can’t multiply! He is wonderful to look at and listen to. </p>
<p>"Since the admission rate for asian students to CalTech is very different from that for HYP (Edit: actually what is different is the percentage of their incoming class : 40% vs higher teens like 16-18%) , "</p>
<p>Math 101. That stat says nothing about acceptance rates. You cannot compare unless you index against what % of the applicant pool is Asian. 40% of Caltech being Asian could mean a lower acceptance rate of Asians compared to HYP, an equal acceptance rate or a higher acceptance rate. It all depends on the % of the applicant pool. </p>
<p>And don’t you people ever tire of elevating HYP to epic status? Do you seriously not get that they are merely 3 of this country’s top schools and not the holy grail? </p>
<p>“My general rule is simple: If I want to check for SES, look at the school; if I want to check for ability, look at the major.”</p>
<p>Those are both silly rules. You are aware that elite schools give tremendous aid AND go out of their way to recruit low income students? (Fascinating how schools are simultaneously “bastions of the rich” and admit under qualified URMs all the livelong day. Can’t have it both ways,)</p>
<p>And don’t even pretend some of you STEM uber alles types could handle certain humanities majors. </p>
<p>True, I prefer to use the term HYPSMWCDCDCCBNRSWAHPCOSBMVTIC myself.</p>
<p>Correction, actually there are only 8 and not 3. :D</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. I wish I could ask some of them–in your own life, are the only people you know who are happy and successful those who have an undergraduate degree from H, Y, or P? Is that why you put them on a pedestal? It is just really bizarre.</p>
<p>To be fair, I believe that the poster in question was using HYP as shorthand for “traditionally elite private” (as opposed to CalTech, which is idiosyncratic in its own way).</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>@pizzagirl - is there a reason you believe this to be the case? Oh yeah - everyone knows that Asians are good at math so they overwhelming apply to CalTech/MIT instead of HYP. Whatever.</p>
<p>I didn’t say “what I believe.” I merely said that knowing that 40% of Caltech’s class being Asian vs 18% at Harvard (and I have no idea if those numbers are right, I just accepted the poster’s word for it) isn’t sufficient to conclude a higher acceptance rate. Only if you assume the ethnic makeup of the applicant pools are comparable, which may or may not be the case. How the heck would I know. </p>
<p>Or care, for that matter.</p>
<p>@mcat2 The British calls it “merit in motion”. "Those who are able to define ‘merit’,"Karabel wrote, “will almost invariably possess more of it, and those with greater resources–cultural, economic, and social–will generally be
able to ensure that the educational system will deem their children more meritorious.”</p>
<p>The SAT correlates with anything you want to correlate it with. The elephant in the room is this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2004/pr040329.cfm”>http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2004/pr040329.cfm</a></p>
<p>Why do you think they tinker with it again and again?</p>
<p>There’s no elephant in the room. Sure, the SAT likely correlates with socioeconomic status and with IQ (which, themselves, are likely correlated). So what? Elite universities in America aren’t interested in amassing solely the “best” academically. They define merit differently. This is not news, of course. </p>
<p>Agree that “connections” have got to be the most overhyped thing ever. Here’s how you know if you/your kid will make useful “connections” in college: have they made any in high school? Have they had a teacher or coach who helped them get an internship, or a schoolmate whose friendship got them a part-time job at the place where the friend works? Some people are just naturally good at leveraging their personal relationships into opportunities – either they instinctively know how to get others to want to help them, or else they’re just so impressive that the people they know want to recommend them for opportunities. The rest of us (probably 97% of the population) just struggle along and occasionally get up the guts to ask someone for an informational interview or something.</p>
<p>I would have been so lost if I wanted to utilize my “connections” from my undergrad (a Top 10 school). Of my best friends in college, one is a struggling artisan, one just gave up a lucrative management career to go to community college and become a blue-collar worker, and one moved to Australia and we lost touch. Unfortunately, it appears that I made friends in college based on who I had the most in common with, rather than on who I thought would be most likely to be a good “connection” in later life. Oopsie!</p>