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I don't know why admissions officers would ever post on this bb. They could explain what they do and why until they are blue in their faces and people will respond as complete @@@es.
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There's always that hope that we'll make one or two people a little more comfortable with the process. </p>
<p>Also, it's extremely frustrating to see certain posts treated as gospel. I can't zero in on a particular thread, but I think that it what got me to sign on. There are some very knowledgeable people on here, but there are plenty of people who post rumors and fabrications.</p>
<p>I'd love to know what admission officers are on here routinely and whether the number of people submitting information verifying their identity (thus getting the "College Rep" label under their name) has increased over time.</p>
<p>Agree, i'dad.
There is either an absence of any alternatives to the Dream Schools, or there is a chasm between Dream & "Nightmare" -- whoops, I meant Safety. I definitely agree that it's digitally driven, not analog driven. </p>
<p>If anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, just look at many of the Deferred Threads, last year & this year. (Gee, since I didn't get into Ivy X, I'll try for Harvard.) Now <em>there's</em> a real Safety!</p>
<p>Disclaimer:<br>
In individual cases, Harvard may be actually a better personality or academic fit than the first Ivy of deferral, but that doesn't seem to be the motivation driving the list, unfortunately.</p>
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actually, in recent cycles, HYP have been particularly interested in admitting rural students (and have done so). However, there may not be a great number of them applying.
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<p>I found this mentioned at both Harvard and Yale's info sessions! Case in point....Yale: Girl in Iowa... Class of 30 kids... Girl was not valedictorian nor did she have perfect test scores but she impressed the committee with a kick @ss essay and passion for a community service project she had been working on since middle school.</p>
<p>What we got out of both info sessions: You have a better chance at Harvard and Yale if you are not in the top 5% of your class and have average to above average test scores that demonstrate to them that you can do the work. One common theme at both schools: We want passionate, UNIQUE individuals..... They dont want a bunch of over achievers who will have their nose their books all the time.</p>
<p>drb, I concur with you. The attitude of "..trust us to make the right decisions" bespeaks of an arrogance that hardly inspires confidence in this adcom. Decisions that involve consensus by a majority of committee members rather than by unanimity imply differences in opinion among members. How could such decisions be casted as "right" or "wrong"?</p>
<p>I would have no problem with an adcom saying that these are difficult choices and each adcom tries to make the best decision based on its institutional needs and guidelines.</p>
<p>I'm with you and drb. It's obvious that admissions officers make mistakes. Any time a kid flunks out, the admission was a mistake. The idea that admissions officers don't make mistakes is absurd. Everyone makes mistakes.</p>
<p>Wow. padad, tarhunt, and drb. We sure keyed on different parts of the post, didn't we? LOL. Other than the claimed omniscience (if that is what that was. I didn't pay any attention to it) , nothing else popped out at y'all from the post?</p>
<p>I guess I just automatically edited it to agree with padad "these are difficult choices and each adcom tries to make the best decision based on its (edit: the school's) institutional needs and guidelines."</p>
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<p>The idea that admissions officers don't make mistakes is absurd. Everyone makes mistakes.<<</p>
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<p>I've never taken such statements to be claims of perfection. It's more like a statement of "I do this for a living and I know my business," much the same assertion of expertise that a doctor, accountant, or plumber might make. Everyone makes mistakes, but in any job experienced professionals know the business better than inexperienced outsiders do.</p>
<p>"It's obvious that admissions officers make mistakes. Any time a kid flunks out, the admission was a mistake. "</p>
<p>? How is a kid's flunking out an admissions officer's mistake? Flunking out doesn't mean that the student couldn't do the work. They may have been ill, lazy or under extreme stress in college that led to the grade problems. </p>
<p>I also know adults who flunked out of college once or even twice, and later returned and became so successful that they became college professors, often at colleges that were even better than the ones that they had flunked out of.</p>
<p>"HYP might be "interested" in rural schools - but I really haven't seen that here. At all."</p>
<p>I've seen it here. One example occurred last year when a white male, rural Virginia, nonlegacy, non recruited athlete, got into Harvard EA with stats that were OK ( i seem to remember SAT scores in the mid 600s), but not spectacular. </p>
<p>Places like HPY would love to get rural students, but it's hard to attract them, and it's hard to find qualified ones. The students still need to have excellent grades, SATs reflecting their ability to do HPY work, and they need to have the kind of character/personality that indicates they could adapt to an environment which would probably be far more sophisticated and diverse than what they are used to.</p>
<p>I concur that it is amazing that this is what people are getting out of that letter.</p>
<p>To me, it's obvious that if you do not trust them, why are you applying there? Why not apply somewhere where you have confidence in the type of people they hire?</p>
<p>I never felt that admissions was an adversarial process, and I feel rather sorry for people who do.</p>
<p>I really believe that most admissions folks take their jobs seriously and do the best they can. They are human and are subject to the same failings as any of the rest of us. Does the application that is read at midnight seem as compelling as the first one of the day? This is why there is a committee to help with some of these issues.
I did not read this letter as claiming to never make a mistake. They do what is right given the facts and information before them. Why is a kid who flunks out any more their mistake than is a kid who leaves because he or she is homesick? &hit happens.</p>
<p>Garland: It might not be 'adversarial", but it most definitely is competitive and the 'ground rules' bob and weave at each institution!</p>
<p>As a result, the applicant is entering a 'game' where he is competing against many, under conditions established by AdComs that at best are uncertain and fluid.</p>
<p>I feel that most Adcoms sincerely try their best, I do not feel that there is extreme bias on the part of the vast majority of AdComs and their schools.</p>
<p>Still to the applicant (and their families) this is a one-time game and without awareness of the 'rules' or even how to score - the frustrations do lead many to feel 'left out', 'badgered' and if rejected or waitlisted to have been in an 'adversarial process'</p>
<p>All in all that posting was a fine generalization of the admission process, but that trace of humility as advocated by Drb and others would have hit the better note IMO.</p>
<p>Cur, "Other than the claimed omniscience..., nothing else popped out at y'all from the post?" Yea a lot, but you got most of them them in bold already. Actually, if I know how to bold them, I would bold most of the text as I do agree in general of the need to gather in students from disadvantage settings and students who enjoy throwing balls around.</p>
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Still to the applicant (and their families) this is a one-time game and without awareness of the 'rules' or even how to score - the frustrations do lead many to feel 'left out', 'badgered' and if rejected or waitlisted to have been in an 'adversarial process'
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<p>I think in many cases kids go to school in an environment where they are encouraged to get good grades and participate in ECs and then they will be successful in college admissions. They are not expecting to have to strategize to get an acceptance. The GCs don't say to a white Jewish boy who wants to major in history and apply to Brandeis "Gee, there are a lot of Jewish boys like you applying to Brandeis- why don't you apply to Georgetown or BC where there are more white Catholic boys and your chances will be better." Many kids and families don't understand this. After the bad admissions results come in they begin to see the light and feel that they have been treated unfairly.</p>
<p>Nor did I take the "trust us" comment to signify perfection or omniscience. However, relatively speaking, committees are in a more omniscient position than any applicant. I took the comment to mean, not just institutional awareness, but ACCESS TO ALL THE APPLICATIONS, TRANSCRIPTS, REC. LETTERS, STUDENT RESUMES, INTERVIEW RESULTS & ACTUAL ESSAYS -- not to mention access to confidential personal info, such as family circumstances WHICH GENERALLY ARE NOT POSTED ON THE INTERNET. Sorry for shouting, but I just don't get how students claim to know "everything" about a competing applicant & based on limited info can therefore determine that any single admissions decision is "discriminatory" within a universe of applications.</p>
<p>Reading an abstract vs. reading the article...
Reading Cliff Notes vs. reading the novel...
etc.</p>
<p>I'm torn about various lines of argument here. Sure, picking an incoming class is complicated and it can't be reduced to test scores and grades which, after all, don't measure the whole person nor indicate the applicant's likely contribution to the campus community.</p>
<p>However, the idea that admissions counselors know what they are doing is based on the idea that they have effective expertise; that is, expert opinion that operates in an especially useful way. The problem with this is that there are many, many cases in history (think big picture - war and peace - you get the idea) when experts were flat out wrong. A recent award-winning book by Philip Tetlock demonstrates that experts are no more correct in predicting outcomes than amateurs. </p>
<p>So, yes, it's not easy to fill a college class and it is complicated. But let's not imbue admissions counselor with the glow of authority well-earned, 'cause their "expertise" is probably no better than myriad experts in other fields.</p>