Admission Process: Ideas, Reform, and Criticism - A Debate

<p>ha thanks, hey caramel, you seem like a nice young woman, what's your SN?</p>

<p>My SN is in my profile, but it's caramelkisses516. :)</p>

<p>Ok, this is from StaticSoliloquy: "Yes my SAT scores are low. Two reasons. 1. I didn't have the money for the classes 2. I didn't practice and that was my fault, but because I had other things going on in my life such as the different roles I play and the different activities that I participate in that spending 3 hrs on a single test doesn't seem worth it."</p>

<p>That is actually very insulting to those of us who only took the SAT once, with no preparation or practice tests. Yeah, you've had a hard life. But does that somehow impact your ability to do simple math on a standardized test? I hope not.</p>

<p>Just a thought...if any minority kids are sick of people telling them that they only got in because they're black/hispanic/Native American, then why don't you just simply not check the race box on the application?</p>

<p>I just have bad recollections from last year...minority student got into p-ton over an insanely qualified white student. The minority student had 1 ap class and was just an average student. The other girl had tons of APs, great SAT scores, stellar class rank, and contributed so much to the community through volunteerism and ECs. And they both grew up in the same environment... that should be fixed.</p>

<p>I say we forget about grades, scores, etc. and everyone has to write a 5-word essay describing him/herself and admission will be based on these 5 words.</p>

<p>Sound ok?</p>

<p>Not a bad idea, Willow. I never thought of leaving the question blank... it would be even better if there were no race question on these applications at all because people would not feel like they are expected to reveal their race, as people feel now. But in my case, and likely in the cases of many others, my race is conveyed through other information on my application, such as particular awards only given to minorities and my participation in the African-American student organization at school. I wouldn't condense my application just to keep my race secret; that would definitely end up hurting me even if them not knowing my race didn't hurt me... so leaving the box blank would really make no diffference.</p>

<p>Our heritage and culture is a huge part of who we are as people; race/nationality cannot be removed from descriptions of people, on an application or not, without removing much of what makes the person who he is. So I've realized that it is OK for admissions committees to know all the details of a candidate, including his race, but it is not OK to use race to admit less qualified applicants over more qualified applicants.</p>

<p>Despite the potential problems, I agree that maybe colleges should make public some more specific information about what they are looking for each year. Or, if they didn't do that, the least they could do would be to give rejected or deferred applicants a little explanation as to why they were not accepted, e.g., "Your main hook was that you are a great oboe player, but we had many oboe-playing applicants this year, and some of them were interested in more unusual majors". Since this consideration takes place in the admissions office anyway, I don't see how it could be a huge burden to jot down a few words to let applicants know. And ideally applicants would understand that this was just a decision by a few people, rather than a statement about the applicant's inferiority.</p>

<p>One important thing to me is that applicants are paying to apply, so they are funding a system without getting more than the most evasive and vague disclosures about how it works. I think it's unfair for colleges to expect this, even if disclosing more information would be politically incorrect or would open them up to a lot of criticism.</p>

<p>I think applicants who don't understand why they were not accepted have a right to know. Maybe disgruntled applicants should write or call to complain about this. You should let these colleges know if you are unhappy that you spent your time and money only to get a generic rejection letter without knowing why. Ideally, another thing that would happen would be that younger students would hear about this and decide not to apply to places that are unclear about their admissions process and refuse to explain rejections when asked. But unfortunately I don't see this kind of backlash occurring, and so I think that these colleges will continue doing this kind of thing just because they can.</p>

<p>Yes, college admissions is flawed. I don't think anyone actually "likes" legacy status or affirmative action, but they are neccessary. AA is crucial to lead to more diversity on school campuses, and, hopefully, someday colleges will not need to practice it anymore. Sandra Day O' Connor, the deciding vote on Grutter vs Bollinger, stated that AA is necessary for now, but she hopes its days are numbered. Legacy status is a necessary evil as well. Colleges depend on their alumni for support, and if they want to keep that support... they'll need to admit legacies. Some of you are grouping athletes into this group as well. Not only is that unfair, you're looking at the whole situation in a skewed perception. Athletics are an accomplishment. While URMs and legacies don't do anything extra to get a boost in admissions, athletes actually work really hard to reach that level of athleticism necesary for college sports. Not only do athletics show that the applicant has leadership and knows how to perform under pressure, they know that athlete applicants know how to work hard to get what they want.</p>

<p>wow this is old school, but just to say shepsports5 is my sn and i didnt write that. not sure who did, but hope you are happy at harvard, etc.</p>

<p>I think where the biggest changes need to take place as far as admissions goes, would be in public schools. It's purely on a combination of ACT/SAT and rank. You could hire a monkey to accept and reject students. I even have a website dedicated to this sort of stuff <a href="http://www.geocities.com/clearcollege%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.geocities.com/clearcollege&lt;/a> . Admissions to public schools (not including Michigan, UVA, UNC, and a tad bit more) is just a formula. Had I known I was going to attend a public college back when I was a freshman, I would have taken all blow off classes (high rank) and since I would have all that free time, I would have went home and just studied for the SAT (high SAT). I could get into some top publics that way and I wouldn't even have to work hard in high school. But then as a result I'd probably do poorly in college, which is why I'm against this. Just because a student as a good rank and SAT doesn't mean he's a bright student. The public schools should also consider EC's, possibly an essay, upward grade trends, and teacher recs. I think the formula based admissions has led to the dowfall of many good schools, U. Iowa, Indiana, and Purdue just to name a few.</p>

<p>with the huge number of applicants some of these schools get it is unreasonable to expect them not to use a formula.</p>

<p>I think there should be a basic threshold that each school establishes. Each school decides on its criteria and its standards. When the number of students that meet the standards is greater than the number of students the college can accept, a lottery determines who is accepted.</p>

<p>Wow. I can't believe that StaticSoliloquy got deffered from HArvard, even after going to RSI.</p>