<p>I was having a "Dean's Lunch" with the residence dean of my dorm and Vice Provost of Undergraduate Affairs John Bravman the other day. Somehow admissions was brought up, and he told us about an experiment him and the admissions department were thinking of doing in the near future. </p>
<p>First, he told us that all applicants are graded in 12 different categories. He didn't specifically say what, but he said academically (probably grades, test scores, etc) and non academic things (extraccurics, recs, essays). He also didn't say how they were graded (A-F, 1-10, 1 to 5 stars). Everyone at the table was actually somewhat shocked that we were actually graded like that. Dean Bravman later said that the scores in the categories were never added up though. (Probably so when they have two applicants for one spot, they won't just pick the person with the higher composite score.)</p>
<p>Back to the experiment: He told us admissions would accept 100 (for a class of 1700) people above a certain grade/test scores cutoff. He hinted the cutoff was high (I'm thinking 4.0+/2300+..or maybe even 2400 kids). He said that the university would keep track of how the kids did in their 4 years at Stanford and see how well things like grades/test scores actually influenced their success here. The university would obviously not tell the kids they were one of the 100, it would be soley for the admissions office.</p>
<p>My (obvious) thoughts: these 100 kids would probably be disproportionately white/upper class/had access to lots of test prep. </p>
<p>So CC, what do you think? I thought this would make for a pretty good discussion on here.</p>
<p>I think the point is that these kids will not be judged on subjective things like recommendations and essays. The admissions office will just admit them for having a 2400 or something.</p>
<p>There are well over 100 people who get perfect SAT scores. And most applicants to Stanford have high GPA’s. To truly get the top 100 academically qualified applicants, the criteria would have to be something ridiculous like 2400 SAT I, multiple 800 SAT II’s, 15 perfect AP’s, valedictorian, National Merit Recipient, etc.</p>
<p>And btw, I’m sure there have already been studies like this conducted, which have shown that there is practically no correlation btw. standardized test scores and college GPA, although there’s some correlation btw. high school GPA and college GPA.</p>
<p>*although there’s some correlation btw. high school GPA and college GPA. *</p>
<p>At a school like Stanford too? It feels like most kids came in here with a 4.0W…and if they didn’t they came from tough competitive private schools.</p>
<p><although there’s some correlation btw. high school GPA and college GPA. </p>
<p>At a school like Stanford too? It feels like most kids came in here with a 4.0W…and if they didn’t they came from tough competitive private schools. ></p>
<p>…then they will suck at Stanford and graduate bottom 25%. They pay the price sooner or later.</p>
<p>Interesting. Maybe that’s how the only person who got into Stanford from my school got in a couple years ago. She had a 2400 and took IB certificate with 7 HL’s (for those unfamiliar with IB, NO ONE does that)</p>
It is not a secret that MIT and Stanford use some matrix methods, and most of the kids with top scores are Asians, I guess. They usually get all As at Stanford, as I know two of them. They don’t prepare SATs – they usually aced them before they even got into high school.</p>
<p>I think this is an interesting idea (having a control group) but it won’t work: </p>
<p>If the admissions officers are expending extraordinary time and resources trying to pick the ‘best’ students (assuming everyone has a high gpa and test scores), then clearly they should have a control group at some point to see if all that effort is worth it. If they can’t distinguish between the kids they hand-picked, based on essays and recommendations, and those who they chose purely based on stats, then they are doing something wrong (wasting a lot of admin resources for one thing). </p>
<p>The biggest problem I see is the need for a longitudinal component: The kids may be indistinguishable while they are still at Stanford, and even a few years out. The real ‘test’ is where they end up 10, 20, 30 years out…Are the hand-picked kids really ‘different’ in some meaningful way from those admitted just by stats alone. By the time, the admin office has meaningful results, it will be too late.</p>
<p>I’m not opposed to the idea of admitting on the basis of academic performance alone. The fact they just thought of this NOW is what is kind of ridiculous. </p>
<p>And if they wanted to find kids who would do the best in school, they could just select the kids who did the best in school in high school and had sky-high scores and impressive performance in academic competitions. It’s not rocket science. Some high schools are easier than others, sure, but the way it is now you could crush all your classes at Thomas Jefferson or Stuyevant (sp?) and still get rejected.</p>
Fewer than 300 last year. Plus I’m sure a few of those are kids with weak GPAs and all. And many others who will go to state schools on full-rides. And many more who will get into Ivies early and won’t even apply to Stanford because of this. And more who si,ply aren’t interested in Stanford.</p>
<p>I don’t think any school, even Harvard, could fill its school with 100 perfect scorers even if it wanted to. Unless it pulled some strings to make it happen.</p>
<p>I think the interesting part of the experiment is to see whether these 100 kids, selected by solely grades/test scores, will be as interesting/successful several years down the road as applicants admitted on holistic criteria, given that they each have similar opportunities and resources at a top school like Stanford. </p>
<p>I remember reading that colleges began using holistic a admissions process not just for the sake of keeping Jews out of top colleges but to pick those who were going to be most successful in life, not just those who were the brightest or those who could get the best grades. And by successful I mean not professors or even Nobel Laureates but the big guns, the Donald Trumps, the rich guys, the glamorous guys, the guys that would glorify a school. And perhaps this experiment may be to reexamine whether the logic that using a holistic admissions process will get more of these type-A profiles holds true when applied.</p>
<p>
Why will waiting that long be “too late”? College admissions has been and will continue to go on for hundreds of years.</p>
<p>By “too late,” I meant that any social experiment where the outcome is going to be 40 years in the future is probably not going to be useful because the social milieu will have changed so much. For example, 40 years from now, the top universities may all be located in China, our kids will be learning Chinese and hoping to get full scholarships there, and the admissions process at those schools will be entirely different. The admissions process these schools used 40 years ago is no longer relevent today, nor are they seeking the same qualities in students, so who cares if the process 40 years ago worked to produce the kind of class they wanted back then?</p>