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There was one girl whose parents gave her a $4000 monthly allowance.
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Calmom, what's more absurd....the fact that a college kid would get an allowance of this size, or the fact that she was so gauche as to brag about it! </p>
<p>Barrons, how much are mommy & daddy paying a year for this pathetic girl to be drinking herself into stumbling intoxication that necessitates being carted off by police?</p>
<p>Maybe one should think of the relatively dimmer ones as the challenge. Faculty know they can educate the less dim ones - in fact, many of those could educate themselves virtually without faculty. They have to work a little harder with Muffy. And Muffy is every bit as deserving of an education as ex-Baby Einstein.</p>
<p>Thanks Token...</p>
<p>Some need blind schools aren't so need blind. But the entire process needs to be overhauled in my opinion. We need to understand that colleges are academic institutions and tax exempt ....non profits. BUT...they are still a business and have to meet their budget requirements. Many factors go into admissions and they are free, save from discriminatory practices on race, religion, gender etc, to admit whom they please for whatever reason they please. I am not condoning what goes on. To the contrary, I am openly against what often goes on: a subterfuge and obfuscation of the truth...representing one admissions practice and doing another.</p>
<p>First and foremost I favor an totally open process with full disclosure. Tell the kids the bottom line up front so they dont waste their time. It is immoral in my view to solicit applications from thousands of kids they have no intention of admitting, simply to generate admissions fee revenue..which can be lucrative, particularly if they have an admissions acceptance rate below 30%.</p>
<p>Second, there should be some manner and policy of requiring kids to disclose who they are applying to and their preferences so colleges can see up front what they are doing and dont have to rely on the backdoor of FAFSA to figure that out. We need to cut down on this silly practice of applying willy nilly to 12, 15, even 20 colleges simply for ego and prestige when they have NO intention of attending most of those schools. Schools should be able to discern that a kid has a reasonable interest in attending that school if they are accepted. I know kids who collect acceptance letters like boy scout badges and that is wrong. Society would be BETTER served if the schools accepted kids who really wanted to go there.</p>
<p>Colleges should disclose OPENLY on their website front pages, not hidden deep in the bowels of their websites the real mccoy CDS data so people can discern not only who was applying and who was accepted, but who is attending and what their stats, gender, race, religion were. That helps families discern FIT before they even apply.</p>
<p>If Harvard has a policy of accepting say, 10-15% of "develop cases", that is fine....just disclose it and the general parameters, and whether it is based on race or not, or from certain zip codes where kids are generally underprivileged.</p>
<p>If they accept wealthy kids who pay full freight but who are in the lower half of the lowest 25th percentile of stats of admitted kids, fine.....just disclose it openly so people can see what is going on.</p>
<p>Schools dont have to admit kids from out of state or out of the region. Schools can legally and morally have a policy of preferring kids from certain schools that feed into them, where they have experience with these kids socially, economically and academically....whether its public or private high schools. I just say disclose the facts openly so people can see for themselves, just their chances and judge their kids fit into the institution. Nobody wants to be admitted only to find out they are miserable because its a poor fit.</p>
<p>I would prefer the uber selective schools just tell the truth: "Below an SAT score (CR and Math) of 1450 your chances are greatly diminished. Below a GPA of 3.75 UW and a class rank of top 15% your chances are gravely diminished." Something like that. So people know up front if they are likely to get admitted or rejected or waitlisted. They should also disclose their waitlist stats: how many from year to year and how many are eventually accepted off the waitlist from year to year. And how many accepted kids DECLINE offers of admission and go elsewhere.</p>
<p>In short its all about DISCLOSURE so people can see up front from an even playing field and judge for themselves. If some kid from Alabama or Nebraska or inner city Cleveland or Detroit wants to apply to the Ivy League and has low stats, and just wants to see what happens....fine....but they should know up front what the chances are. Ditto for some kid in a suburb of Washington DC or New Jersey or Los Angeles or Chicago who is from an upper middle class white family with decent stats but on the bubble so to speak...let them see REALITY up front...not hidden or obfuscated or mesmerized with glossy advertising campaigns and recruiting efforts that are disingenuous.....the TRUTH, the WHOLE TRUTH, and NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.....so they can judge before they submit an application.</p>
<p>The colleges might also disclose the relative pool of kids who were rejected saying something like, "the avg. SAT score and GPA of rejected kids was 1350 and 3.5, with a class rank in the top fifth." That way, kids in THAT situation can see that they will likely get rejected and waitlisted and make a judgement whether they still want to give it a try.</p>
<p>Frankly this elitism and prestige seeking neurosis is unhealthy for EVERYONE. My D is at a very good school in the Northeast. It was a match school for her essentially....though her stats indicated she could have even gone another notch higher or two....but Ivy was a clear stretch without a hook (we have friends with a D who had very similar stats and who had two hooks and got into an Ivy.) My D is very happy where she is. Challenged but not overwhelmed. She fits in socially and economically. There are several kids in her dorm who had superb stats (Ivy quality) and chose to go there instead.....for many reasons: scholarship offers, better social fit and closer to home etc. </p>
<p>If people spent more time focusing on a great fit for their kid and less on prestige and status....they might be better off in the long run with fewer disappointments.</p>
<p>The title of the Boston Globe piece is outrageously racist.</p>
<p>It is interesting to see how CC, a forum that I consider to be ambivalent if not hostile to the concept of AA, becomes suddenly so apologetic and defensive when the subject turns to Whites becoming beneficiaries of low standards.</p>
<p>I personally am a beneficiary of a large scholarship that may or may not have been paid for by a dim White kid from Phillips Academy. While I am appreciative of said dim White kid's generosity, that makes it neither right nor meritorious, and it's certainly not good enough for us to remain complacent and shrug, "That's just the way it is" because we believe that it doesn't really affect us personally anymore (after all, we got into the schools we wanted). </p>
<p>The top academic and the top athletic schools are not the same, and rarely will you see the next Vince Young choose Columbia over Georgia Tech or the University of Alabama. Last time I checked, the best athletic conferences were the Big 10 and the SEC, not the Ivy League. So trying to shift the blame to Blacks on the issue of undeserving Whites crowding space in the Ivy League schools is a disingenuous ploy. If you want to blame dim Black kids taking up space, you should focus on schools like Ohio State or the University of Florida, but then again, those schools have mammoth student populations so it really doesn't matter.</p>
<p>
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In short its all about DISCLOSURE so people can see up front from an even playing field and judge for themselves.
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</p>
<p>I completely disagree. Even if these elite schools are private schools, they have successfully convinced the nation (and the world, for that matter) that they are symbols of merit, brilliance, etc. Therefore, they no longer have the right of turning themselves into a country club of academia. Harvard doesn't have the right to tell a poor intelligent minority kid, "I know you're smart and could be the next Pierre Curie, but we just don't have room for your kind. Try Michigan State, it's just as good! Honest!" These schools lure the best faculty in the world to their campuses based on the notion that they are centers of learning, not centers of privilege and wealth.</p>
<p>It's like saying that as long as you let presidential candidates know that they stand no chance if they're not rich old White men, it's okay for them to be black-balled.</p>
<p>
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Once my d. got over the initial shock of discovering that her high-prestige college had its share (albeit small) of students who were clueless & inane (kind of like Romy & Michele in the High School Reunion movie)
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</p>
<p>I have noticed this as well. There always seems to be a small group of girls with no distinguishing merits or ambitions, other than having wealth and spending, whose primary role in college is to hang around troll-like male athletes. Thankfully, they're quite easy to ignore.</p>
<p>I understand wanting more disclosure, but considering all the dynamics involved in the process, including aspects of social engineering, I don't think more disclosure would actually simplify things very much. Those who do their research can already reasonably estimate their chances. </p>
<p>However, I could not possibly agree more that many admissions offices are egregiously misleading. Unquestionably, what they will tell people versus what they actually do is often a "for profit" tactic that takes advantage of the naive and uninformed. Prospective applicants definitely need to perform due dilligence, but at least a lot of the information is out there. </p>
<p>nbachris --- good food for thought. I think you make some valid points</p>
<p>friedorka - I think you said this very well - please spare me the time and expense of traveling around the country looking at schools that my child really has no hope of attending. I recently read this at the CB website - <a href="http://www.brandeis.edu/offices/IR/papers/college_board_paper020306.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.brandeis.edu/offices/IR/papers/college_board_paper020306.pdf</a> - and was sad to see this university actually state that it feels pressured to increase applications to appear more selective. And, how sad that CB is selling this program to schools. It may be saving the colleges money on marketing but it certainly is limiting choices and options for many students not in the targeted profiles.</p>
<p>What's with all this "Harvard does this" and "Harvard does that"? You think the fact that Harvard is a bastion of privilege and wealth doesn't factor in when it tries to "lure" the best faculty in the world there? (And, Cornel West notwithstanding, they tend to stay, presumably even after they have discovered the awful truth. West, of course, left for the presumably more egalitarian quadrangles of . . . Princeton.) As for Harvard telling the poor intelligent minority kid to go to Michigan State . . . it doesn't. (It may say that to the middle-class intelligent non-minority kid, but that's a different story.) It also doesn't admit anything remotely close to 10-15% of its class on a developmental basis. You would be much closer if you moved the decimal place left one space -- probably no more than 3-5 kids a year.</p>
<p>(Remember, also, that the original story on which this thread is based was aggregating statistics from something like 140 schools. It wasn't a story about Harvard and Yale.)</p>
<p>I agree that this title is racist. If it were "at elite colleges - dim black kids" imagine the uproar that would ensue! Why aren't people angered at this title as well?</p>
<p>I wonder about the term "dim" as well. As we all know, there are oodles of kids capable of being educated and keeping up at Harvard - one would have to be in the 300 SAT category for me to consider them "dim". I do think the title of that article was outrageously racist and needlessly divisive and confrontational.</p>
<p>I love how the term "dim" is used here. It's great. By "dim" we are likely referring to someone who is 90th percentile on the SAT. The author of this article is simply a clown.</p>
<p>I'm currently a student at an Ivy and I think that the acceptances of both developmental cases and recruited athletes (I'm neither) is beneficial to my school. This is a pretty common perception among my classmates as well.
I think it's comparable to affirmative action in the sense that it can't really be defended on a case by case basis, but the overall effects are good for the school.</p>
<p>First of all, I think many of you are overestimating the number of developmental cases accepted in each class. It's really only for the children of the VERY wealthy and very famous/influential. I would bet there are probably 10 or fewer per class. It's easy to think that every seemingly underqualified wealthy student at a top school is accepted for that reason, but you also have to consider the possibility that they attended a very good prep school, had a great SAT coach, had access to great resources, etc. This may still be unfair, but it's not the fault of the admissions office.</p>
<p>Recruited athletes are perhaps more difficult to defend because there are so many more of them, but I still believe they add a lot to the school. I'd also like to disspell the notion that they're all dumb jocks who lumber around skipping class and doing nothing. Of course there are a few like that, but they are generally all very smart. No, not as smart as the average student here, but not at all dumb. Maybe like..a 1300 on the SAT instead of a 1400 or 1500, or a 3.5 GPA in high school instead of a 4.0. Many of them probably could have gotten in on their own if they hadn't devoted so much time in high school to excelling athletically. You also have to consider that most of them were recruited by athlete powerhouses as well and make the choice to come to acadmecially rigorous but athletically mediocre schools. They obviously do place some value on their educations. So what benefits do they give to the school? First of all, consider how much the Ivies suck at sports. Now imagine what would happen if we could only have athletes that got in on academic merit. We wouldn't even be able to fill up a roster for most sports. Secondly, I think athletes add some sort of diversity to campus. Not religious or economic or racial, but diversity of personality. Athletes can add a more humorous, fun-loving attitude to campus and remind us that it's ok to focus on something other than hitting the books.</p>
<p>First of all, is 15% really a larege percentage of the class for these "dim" students? It appears that the article's author is lumping in white recruited athletes, development admits, legacies, and the children of the well-connected within this group. I would not at all be surprised that if you took a look at this group in comparison to the rest of the class, their stats would be lower--but how much lower? The Ivies still reject a majority of legacies, so they're not taking just any legacy, no matter how dim. Also, these schools' graduation rates suggest they're not taking too many people who can't do the work.</p>
<p>The title is just plain stupid...and racially insensitive. As relevant an article as it is, the author could've used a bit more suitable language to discuss a topic that, lord knows, needs to be brought to the forefront. I would have loved to see a bit more creativity used in the title. The question is, is the author black? It is hard to believe that he/she is for the same reason Hiliary Clinton can debate Barack Obama and promise the black community this and that, but if Barack does it, he's commiting political suicide.</p>
<p>The colleges have to look for their future expansions as well, so they accept rich white kids in order to increase their endowments. That's how they got where they are in the first place. </p>
<p>While it would be much better if colleges would just come out and admit their practices, and provide information to the public about it so potential applicants can get a true sense of what's necessary to get in, their practices make perfect business sense, and I would have to admit that I would do the same if in their position.</p>
<p>(I'm someone who got waitlisted by Harvard and Yale, so I'm sort of ****ed inside as well, but I recognize that the elite colleges would rather have a rich kid who could financially support the college rather than another middle class Asian who would require a large amount of financial aid.)</p>
<p>*sigh, why is the world trying to get money when it's a temporary filler for happiness?</p>
<p>You have a point Kamikazee. I think the same applies to the gifted black athlete who Stanford, Notre Dame, Michigan, UNC and other elite colleges with nationally recognized sports programs recruit. While some may be borderline of the academic standard to gain acceptance, the schools take them anyway because of all the revenues they'll generate for the school.</p>
<p>A lot of those dunks and touchdowns provide revenue for research, better campus facilities, better reputations and higher enrollment for the school. They also provide things like handicap accomodations and the ability to hire more campus security and better professors. </p>
<p>I believe these are good business practices also. Ex: Michigan's Fab Five. Just because some received back door payments from boosters, the money they generated for that college is unfathomable...maybe as much as any college basketball team ever. The sad thing is that they're wiped out of college b-ball history books, but Michigan got to keep all the spoils those players generated.</p>
<p>I think we need to remember that it is, ultimately, NOT always the grades and test scores that grant the applicant admission. It is the ESSAY and the PASSION conveyed by applicants that can win them admission. Colleges are looking for humanity too y'know..</p>
<p>Much agreed upon, OniLawliet.</p>