I never suspected that Frank Bruni was such a polarizing figure until I started reading CC. He has a new essay in today’s NYT on the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success:
His main point is that this coalition will have to do more than build a website to achieve socioeconomic balance among college students. Pretty valid point.
this new replacement for the common app is silly.what I would love to see is talented smart people of all economic means bypass the ivies altogether. (different subject)
that said
I am sure the ivies and other elite schools have a lot of sway with the people who run the common app. why add another app system (does anyone even know about https://www.universalcollegeapp.com/colleges?)
anyway, I think it is actually an attempt to separate the elite schools from the “regular” schools. and the reason is a smoke and mirrors excuse to do so.
look the schools are free to do what they want.
p.s. if it works I think they will pull out of the common app. if it fails they will quietly shut down the site and resume business as usual with the common app.
I’m still having difficulty seeing how this is going to help low income students. The amount of hoops students have to go through to apply to these colleges is pretty daunting. The Common App doesn’t really alleviate this due to how much colleges can customize their admissions requirements using the supplement. When you combine this with the sheer opacity of admissions it’s not hard to see why students from low performing schools aren’t applying to these colleges.
The proposal to have students store their academic work starting in their freshman year would only exacerbate this problem. And it would probably increase admissions anxiety for students in more high performing high schools.
the “new” application idea was done in best intentions, but it is really naive.
The rich folks living the Ivy Towers just don’t get life on the other side of the tracks.
I am not sure what the end game should be for ivy league schools when it comes to admissions. but, me thinks they could care less what I think.
As long as elite schools continue to employ “Holistic Admissions”, this new website is nothing but putting lipstick on a pig. Not only does HA give preference to money and time consuming ECs which most middle class and poor kids can’t afford, but its opacity allows for colleges to continue favoring whichever demographic they wish to favor (legacies, development, athletes, URMs), and excluding whichever demographic they wish to exclude (unhooked middle class white and Asians).
This new website is nothing but gimmick, a cute idea that will do next to nothing to change the status quo. If anything it will make it even more competitive for unhooked middle class kids, as the enlightened liberals dominating our media and academia continue to focus on the top and bottom 5% and ignoring everyone else.
Good PR, nothing more.
Ever seen the Questbridge app? Much more complex than the CA.
We don’t know everything yet about how this new one will work. But a successful app is a set of components. Maybe this will help prepare the kid in advance.
I don’t know.
But many CC folks have “no idea what life is like on the other side of the tracks,” how much the best of those kids are accomplishing, they just assume they can’t. And that is dangerous and devious, imo.
lookingforward
they can just ask for full name home address social security number, phone number, email adress
school you attend
gpa,sat or act scores (of course verify them)
1 page essay on whatever subject and an interview with an admission officer or alumni.
and no charge if your family earns less than x number of dollars.
it does not need a new app on line.
just make it simple
And what, pick based on stats? That’s so limited. If you can ever see some of these apps from high achieving low SES, it might change how some view what kids can and do accomplish, despite. And try to find a copy of the Questbridge.
I freely admit (there were two other threads on this, they got merged) that I don’t know if this new format is valid or bogus. No one does. We’ll learn more in Jan.
I don;t think the point is to store work just to build some complex file. It’s to start a record for later reference- AND have work to share with mentors from community programs. At this point, I need to point out we know very little about it, not enough to so easily and roundly dismiss it. And most folks who heard about it don’t really know much about how admissions works, anyway. No matter what CC opinions we get. So let’s see.
lookingforward if you want to be less elitist…simplify the app.
I don’t consider the app elitist. See, we differ in perspective, from the get-go. I want kids to think. This isn’t about transferring to another hs, it’s the leap to college. I’m torn on the Q app- it’s nicely comprehensive, but so many pages.
Those who usually call the CA or holistic “elitist” insist it’s about expensive and time consuming activities. (Or how the wealthy can afford expensive test prep.) Do you know that’s what adcoms want? My perspective is the highly and most competitive colleges.
That’s what the rest of the world does, so it’s really not an unusual idea. And applying is far simpler and less expensive in the rest of the world. I would hope this coalition will address this.
Most public schools pick on just stats don’t they? No recs or essays or description of ECs, just test scores and transcript?
I’d say that option already exists.
The rest of the world doesn’t just “use stats”, especially the top schools. Look at the full process for Cambridge, Sciences Po, Bocconi, ESADE… And, opposite to that, Americans don’t all use holistic admission: plenty of state universities have automatic admissions grids or GPAXSAT formulas. Finally, few international universities are residential and built as places of education, rather than merely instruction.
Anyway, the way American universities do it is what makes them such desired places.
Top universities have extensive financial aid for lower income students, consider “work” as a very strong EC, and try to reach out to students via I’mFirst, Questbridge, Posse, etc.
However, I agree, I don’t see how this will help lower income students. I’m guessing the intent is to help them have everything somewhere where it can be at their disposal when they meet with AVID, Upward Bound, etc, etc. but I’m not sure how this can work as announced, since most lower income students won’t even know about this until it’s too late, whereas prep school kids will start working on what to put into their 9th grade portfolio as early as 7th grade. :s
Honestly I think this is payback for C4 and for putting many universities in such a position that they never want to run that risk again. And maybe something positive will come off it once they’ve tweaked it.
Even if ivies admit only poor students, the vast majority of qualified poor students will still be denied the opportunity. For that matter, the vast majority of qualified students of any SES won’t get into ivies and their peers. They only educate a tiny fraction of the college age population. If we truly care about poor students getting a college education, we should make colleges, especially public universities and community colleges, affordable.
So now 9th graders have to upload to the college admissions portal their current portfolio advancing their candidacy for admission to elite schools 3 years down the track. This will most definitely make the college admissions process a far less stressful one.
Yes, adcoms of elite Ivies championing the poor, why not make an admissions process already biased in favor of the rich (ECs that take money) even more biased towards the rich by requiring that portfolio of ECs be carefully developed all 4 years of high school and presented each year to the colleges. All in the name of helping the poor of course, as that sells.
I suspect independent college counselors are cheering, as I predict a sharp uptick in their business. I better start looking for one if my child is to compete in the ensuing frenzy.
Nothing I saw said they are uploading the materials to an admissions portal, all along. Nor that adcoms will see this early portfolio.
EC’s that take money ARE NOT better considered. The better EC’s a student can have is have a job to help the family or conduct research with/for a professor at a nearby university or community college. Being All State in a sport or music ensemble is also a way.
Elite universities adjust to context. However, they want to see a student who’s maxed out what s/he could do.