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Admissions outcomes are determined mostly by the applicant's grades, scores, and writing ability.
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<p>And if you had used your reading ability to look up the links I posted above, you would understand that there are many colleges that prefer wealthier students with less by way of grades, scores, and writing ability to poorer students who have better grades, scores and writing ability. This is true of college recruiting of prospective students, true of colleges admitting students who apply, and true of colleges graduating students who enroll after being admitted. The advantage is to the rich and barely able rather than to the able and poor. </p>
<p>For the reading convenience of persons who like to self-educate, I'll repeat the links here. </p>
<p>
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Admissions outcomes are determined mostly by the applicant's grades, scores, and writing ability.
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<p>And if you had used your reading ability to look up the links I posted above, you would understand that there are many colleges that prefer wealthier students with less by way of grades, scores, and writing ability to poorer students who have better grades, scores and writing ability. This is true of college recruiting of prospective students, true of colleges admitting students who apply, and true of colleges graduating students who enroll after being admitted. The advantage is to the rich and barely able rather than to the able and poor. </p>
<p>For the reading convenience of persons who like to self-educate, I'll repeat the links here. </p>
<p>I am with l84ad8: selective college admissions is based on performance (SATs, APs etc etc) and past performance is an excellent predictor of future performance.</p>
<p>To molliemit: contrary to the widespread belief that there are too many high scorers in the pool of candidates to the ivies, mit, etc the pool is very very small. For example, the number of students scoring above 2350 on the SAT is about 1600, of which only 1100 are US residents. Throw in those scoring 5s on 10 APs with the corresponding high grades in challenging courses, the number of high performers is small and this reflects performance not just ability.</p>
<p>The biggest contribution of parents is the teaching of the habit of deferred gratification. Wealth does not directly contribute much advantage in the admissions process (other than legacy and big donations) but the wealthy who are most often successful teach industriousness.</p>
<p>To succeed in most things in life you need hard work, above a certain level of IQ, and this hard word a la performance translates into high scores, high athletic achievement, etc.</p>
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And both this country and the international community would have been better off if Yale had had balls to kick GWB out. As to Kerry, despite his military record, he was one bad politician (although not nearly as bad as GWB)
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<p>But that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about what's best for society. We're talking about what's best for the individual student. The truth is, if GWB and Kerry had gone to some public school (i.e. Berkeley), they probably wouldn't have graduated. Yeah, ok, maybe you could argue that that would have been better for the world. But it wouldn't have been better for them, and that's the point. </p>
<p>To repeat my point: one of the greatest features of the top private schools over the public schools is that at the former, you are not going to flunk out. You are going to get a degree if you want one. The only people who don't get a degree are the ones who find something better to do (i.e. Bill Gates), not because they couldn't get it. It's a risk-averse proposition. Most people are risk averse. However, at the public schools, you run the real risk of flunking out, and that's clearly a negative.</p>
<p>"Bush got a 1206 on his SATs when he took them. The average at Yale at the time was 1370. 1206 was, and still is, a mediocre SAT score, especially for Yale. Taking into account the new curve on the verbal (math stayed roughly the same) his score would be about a 1300. Few people can get into Yale with a 1300 without a significant hook. Granted a C average then means more than it does now (perhaps B-), its still unimpressive. Even Fox News said on our oh so benevolent President's grades:"</p>
<p>Look, think what you want about GW, I won't defend him. What i will say is that his IQ score puts him at ~130, no slouch at all and within statistical striking distance of Mensa. </p>
<p>As far as Yale, My research shows that GW's scores were on the low side of "normal". The class of 1976 SAT Scores were as follows (from Yale's own website)</p>
<p>Bottom 10%- 1090
Bottom 25% - 1240 (GW's band)
Median 50%- 1270
Top 25%-1410
Top 10%- 1520</p>
<p>So- assuming the numbers were about the same, Bush's IQ is ~95th percentile of the general population and SAT scores were ~ bottom third of Yale's class. He is hardly a dummy and hardly would have been an automatic ivy reject.</p>
<p>Now, if you want to attack his politics, feel free. Remember though that not being a great elocutionist doesn't make someone an intellectual lightweight. You </p>
<p>if you are going to attack someone, please do so on the merits and stay away from disingenuous ad homonym attacks.</p>
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[Bush] is hardly a dummy and hardly would have been an automatic ivy reject.
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<p>Have you seen any of his interviews? The man spoke like a bumbling idiot, Palin-style: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we" (GWB); "Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace" (Palin). The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that Cheney and Bush Sr. rather than GWB were the people who crafted terribad policies of the current administration.</p>
<p>tokenadult, I skimmed the two studies. I would not call the Cooke study sample as high achievers. The definition is too broad. Most of them will not get into any highly selective college. This study is emblematic of the alarmist studies that loudly yell that America is failing the high achieving poor. In the Rose study, whilst the upper socioeconomic status is disproportionately represented in colleges that does not mean wealth alone got them in (except in legacy cases and rich donors/developmental admits). As to the fact that even in selective colleges, rich students graduate at higher rates is not at all surprising: most of the poor admits were probably affirmative action admits.</p>
<p>On the columbia univ board I saw a thread two days ago about an African American kid who got in ED with 1820 SAT. He is likely to have trouble graduating from Columbia SEAS.</p>
<p>Tokenadult- nice job of cherry picking, but for every 1 school that prefers wealthy under performers, there are 50+ that routinely reject high caliber applicants to admit underrepresented minorities. My MBA Alma mater has a 135 point SAT spread between admitted blacks and Asians at the undergrad level. this type of discrimination is systemic and far more prevalent than the cause you seem to crusade against. The on ly school that I can think of that practices egalitarian admissions is U-Chicago business school. There are others, I'm sure but they would be the anomaly, not the rule.</p>
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What about the evidence gathered by Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose for the Century Foundation? . . . What about the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation study?
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<p>What about them? Neither study showed that from two equally qualified students schools pick the richer one. JKC study actually makes a point in nice bold letters that the poors underperform academically ("High-achieving lower-income students do not hold their own academically as well as their more affluent peers", p.15), and therefore do not get into top schools.</p>
<p>The problem is your lack of reading comprehension skills. You are confusing "high achieving" and "qualified". In the context of low-income, 1600 on the new SAT may be "high achieving", but this doesn't make you a "qualified" applicant to top schools.</p>
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So- assuming the numbers were about the same, Bush's IQ is ~95th percentile of the general population and SAT scores were ~ bottom third of Yale's class. He is hardly a dummy and hardly would have been an automatic ivy reject.</p>
<p>Now, if you want to attack his politics, feel free. Remember though that not being a great elocutionist doesn't make someone an intellectual lightweight. You</p>
<p>if you are going to attack someone, please do so on the merits and stay away from disingenuous ad homonym attacks.
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<p>Nice try tomslawsky. Bush scored a 1206, bottom 25% was 1240 and below...so he couldn't have been just in the bottom third. Bottom 20% is much more likely. I'm not stating that Bush is dumb, but not being dumb doesn't mean you really stood a chance at an Ivy league school. If we were to look at it today...the bottom 20% SAT score at Yale would be 1350 out of 1600. How many prep school white kids without legacy, without large sums of money to donate to Yale, or without recruited athlete status would get in with a 1350/1600? I can answer that, very few and far between. For all intents and purposes, none. It is extremely unlikely (basically impossible, but these are Ivy admissions after all) that Bush would have gotten in with a 1206 without legacy and donations. His later academic performance doesn't seem to suggest that he was really an academic match for the school either.</p>
<p>What's the source for SAT figures for a Yale class of long ago? What's the source for an IQ score for any famous person? (Many famous people who have never even taken an IQ test are reputed to have this or that IQ score.)</p>
<p>tokenadult, as l84ad8 puts it, the word high achieving sets such a low bar as to be meaningless. Again, to be emphasized, high achieving does not mean you even remotely are qualified for the top colleges.</p>
<p>"If we were to look at it today...the bottom 20% SAT score at Yale would be 1350 out of 1600."</p>
<p>Statistics lesson:
87% of data in a normally distributed data set fall +- 1 standard deviation of the mean. Bush's SAT score was just over 1 standard deviation below the mean. His scores DO NOT make him an outlier. This is just basic data interpretation and should be obvious to anyone who has taken basic statistics 101 or even high school stats. In no way is Bush's SAT score an outlier. Again there are a ton of things to criticize him about, but getting into Yale isn't one of them. In fact, I could make a cogent argument that is more ethical to give an admissions edge to someone who is a legacy than to someone based on skin color, which I am sure is how Yale is filling that bottom quartile now. But that is a different debate for a differnt time.</p>
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high achieving does not mean you even remotely are qualified for the top colleges.
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<p>So I return to the question: why are many colleges admitting well-off students who are not even "high achieving," while declining to admit poorer students who are at the high end of "high achieving"?</p>
<p>That Yale Office of Institutional Research link is helpful; thanks. I see that I myself am an example of a person who was "qualified" for Yale in his day (at least insofar as test scores make one qualified). Money was the issue for my family back then.</p>
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Money was the issue for my family back then.
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<p>Sorry to hear that, but it was back then. Today, top schools are more than egalitarian. Today, they are stealthily running socio-economic affirmative action programs that admit less qualified poors and cover 100% of their financial need. I know my school did. I'm not complaining or anything, but to claim that the poors today take the shorter end of the college admissions stick is incredibly silly.</p>
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His scores DO NOT make him an outlier.
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<p>You said it yourself, his scores weren't even in the middle 87%. Do you seriously think he would have had a chance getting into Yale if not for his family? Really? I rest my case.</p>
<p>"You said it yourself, his scores weren't even in the middle 87%. Do you seriously think he would have had a chance getting into Yale if not for his family? Really? I rest my case."</p>
<p>You rest your case? Um, 87% of the data n a normally distributed data set are "PLUS" "MINUS" 1.5 standard deviations from the mean. Bush's scores fall by my guestimation ~1.2 standard deviations on the minus side, making them perfectly legit data points and not even CLOSE to statistical outliers. Again, you should stick to criticizing his policies, NOT his college admissions record. Bush's SAT scores were more than justified. If you don't believe me, go and run the data by someone whom you trust for their mathematical acumen. Falling 1 deviation from the mean is well within statistical accuracy and not an outlying data point. I'm not sure how else to explain this-it seems to me that someone "educated" enough to criticize anther's lack of educational qualifications pertaining college admissions should be educated enough them selves to understand what they are arguing. If Bush had a 900 SAT score, you would have an argment here, but a 1200+ I'm sorry to burst your arrogance bubble is a darn good SAT score and places one close to Mensa IQ, or top 2% of the population. That is smart enough to graduate or even flourish at ANY university in the world.
I ask you to Stop being blinded by your hatred of Bush and inject some semblance of logic in your criticism, will ya? Stick to criticizing policy and not college admissions.</p>