A student’s view of holistic admissions

Applying to College
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Often times people will try to comfort others and don’t say the harsh truth.

One thing is people say that a B or two won’t hurt you for elite schools. But the truth is, each B does dimish your odds of getting admitted, especially in a relevant class (like B in Calc BC for engineering major).

Another thing is that generally people say that demographics don’t matter that much. But they play a huge role in admissions and do make or break your application. Being a minority increases your odds tremendously, you are expected to be stronger if you’re asian. Being a girl applying for CS helps out tremendously compared to a boy. A girl with USAMO is very close to a guarantee at MIT, while a boy is a coin flip for MIT. Your demographics play a huge role in admissions for elite schools, and often times someone extremely talented would have been admitted to elite schools if their demographics (location, gender, ethnicity) had been different.

Another thing people say out there is that the college you go to doesn’t matter. In general, thats true in the sense that you can succeed anywhere and people won’t care about it years later. Yet the harsh truth is that the college you go to can affect the quality of your education.

Top programs, especially from private schools with smaller classes allow you to seek more help + get research opportunities, while in a very large public school you can easily get lost. The college you go to is where you will build professional relationships that will last a long time. Employers, especially those with a lot of applications will give interviews at a might higher rate from someone who went to a top school, than someone who went to a relatively lower school because they have so many applicants and know that in general those from top schools will be better.

Another is standardized testing, they are very strong indicators of academic performance. Everybody has access to free resources, and those who score 1600 are much more academically capable than the 1500 scorer, than the 1400 scorer, than the 1300 scorer, etc. You can’t really give an advantage to someone who has a 1570 vs someone with a 1530, but in general that they are absolutely essential in allowing AOs to quickly tell your general abilities.

I realize these opinions are controversial, but I think it is the harsh truth that people don’t talk about that much to not make people feel bad. Lets have a peaceful debate if you disagree.

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Please bring citations for these. These are not opinions. “That cake is too sweet” is an opinion. “That cake is sweet because it has sugar” is not.

Standardized tests either indicates academic performance, or it doesn’t, or perhaps in some cases it does, and in other cases it doesn’t. However, what is absolutely certain is that it is either true or false, and what you, or anybody else, thinks about it does not change that reality.

This is true of everything you wrote here.

Again, these are not opinions, they are claims, and claims require supporting evidence.

Since you do not provide any such evidence, I can only conclude that you have no such evidence. Thus, none of these are “harsh truth”, they are all “unsupported claims”. That doesn’t sound so dramatic, and doesn’t do as well in click-bait. but it’s far more accurate.

Not only do you not provide any supporting evidence, for some of those claims there is no such evidence.

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I feel like this is a rehash of your other thread about Asians in the Bay Area.

Another poster shared in that thread a study that showed that high achievers do well wherever they land regardless of the school.

Focus on that! Be the rock star wherever you land and don’t worry about the things you can’t control.

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You should change the word tremendously to slight, or minimal. It is not as great as it was in the past.

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I agree with @momofboiler1’s advice to OP.

But I’m not sure the following is true…

“Tremendously” might be an overstatement, but I also haven’t seen evidence that it’s minimal now or that it’s less valued than in the past. In fact anecdotal evidence from this year indicates colleges are continuing to seek diversity in all its forms.

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What we have here are strong opinions, presented as fact, with no supporting evidence.

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The paragraph about scores contains some misconceptions. I do not think a 1600 score generally means higher chance of admission than 1500, or a 1570 versus 1530. Admission depends on a lot of other factors.

Also many “top colleges” including some Ivies have large classes with sections taught by TA’s.

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Except diversity of thought, unfortunately. Group Think has gotten so bad that President Eisgruber had to warn the incoming Princeton class about it a couple years ago.

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The fact that admission depends on many other factors doesn’t contradict the claim that higher SAT score means higher chance of admission.

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That depends.

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It doesn’t depend at all. Even though the frequency and the strength of hurricanes depend on a lot of factors, higher ocean temperature STILL directly relates to their strength and frequency.

That’s what scientists do all the time. Find relations even when a phenomenon depends on many factors.

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I think you will find that you might not get support for these opinions here. Some of what you say is valid. Some will be tempered when you look back years from now and see how your career evolved.

I think colleges will have hard data two-four years from now regarding how non-scored students performed. Things might change or they might not.

The system is broken. There are many who like the system. There are many who don’t. Unless or until students and parents refuse to participate, colleges can do what they want.

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I will just say that a diploma from an Ivy does not mean you were educated in a top-notch program nor that you are able to apply the knowledge that was attempted to be given to you.

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I see no purpose for this thread which is a) a rehash of past posts, b) only results in other users debating, and c) is a hit-and-run posting. Closed

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