Btw. Some with strong opinions/suspicions about admissions may want to consider getting involved with their own alma maters. See how it works, if they truly go gaga over expensive ECs, guess about FA needs, or have some bias against violin or tennis.
My alma mater is insufficiently selective for any of those things to be issues. I do think that the tennis-playing violin player from the upper middle class has a hard hand to play in admissions. Not that he/she faces bias exactly, but rather that he/she has to counter a feeling that people with those characteristics are interchangeable, to a certain extent, from the standpoint of constructing a class–when they are actually individual, and different choices would probably lead to rather different outcomes, in terms of the class overall. There is also no novelty feature associated with those EC’s. Do you disagree with this?
^I don’t disagree which is why you probably won’t choose to write about playing tennis or the violin. My younger son was in two orchestras, but he was very cognizant that with somewhat lopsided test scores and somewhat imperfect grades he needed to figure out how to sell himself. He really thought about which teachers to ask,and how to present himself and which schools would appreciate what he had to offer. He did best at schools that had off-beat essay topics where he could show off his sense of humor, talk about being a budding historian and really tell his story.
Harder hand, not necessarily, QM. Not necessarily. From the standpoint of constructing a class, they need violinists in those chamber groups and orchestras, to accompany, take lessons, maybe take their music to the community.
The question is more, is this an activated, interested kid who will? What DO we see in her/his overall app? (One of mine did do orch and dig into fiddle and bluegrass, once at college. I highly doubt her music interests were a risk on her app. In fact, I think it was a little tip. She was able to show the breadth of her music in hs and had a chance in one question to express the interest in continuing.)
We wouldn’t think of telling kids not to take AP Calc or higher, or attend higher level DE college math classes, just because so many other kids (or others of the same identity) do. I’ve never seen anyone say, “Oh, dang, another X taking linear…”
And a lot of these same kids are doing more than just practicing in a corner, alone. They do orchestra, accompany, some use their music in their vol work, and more. Plus myriad other things in their lives, student govt or some interesting out of school things.
The various qualities and attributes a given college wants either show or they don’t. No lost points because you play violin or tennis.
Sure, the colleges want some violinists, but I suspect that they have quite a few to choose from. There used to be a general feeling that an oboist had better odds. That may be overplayed by now.
There is always Tuba. 
I just hope not very many kids out there read this post. This post makes the entire admissions process look like a sick game. What the heck are we doing to our kids?
Of course there is bias in college admissions. It used to be gender driven, then race driven, then driven by affirmative action, and now driven by “holistic admissions.” Most of the elite schools are private and should be able to select whoever they want. The problem is that the schools act like the process is “fair” and parents/students long for a transparent process instead of the black box of magic in the current process.
The idea that students need to “stand out” with their EC’s to gain an edge in admissions is just another form of grubbing. In other words, the student is not choosing activities based on natural interest but through the lens of potential college admission hoping he can manufacture uniqueness. It is inevitable though when there are no clearly objective ways of earning admission. Prospective students (and their parents) who want to go to an elite school will do whatever they think it takes to get in.
Like it or not, elite schools are brands that they need to protect. They are businesses that must bring in money. The admissions process as it is helps feed the frenzy, boost demand, keep prices up. To a certain extent, maintaining high application rates requires a degree of arbitrariness in the process.
“Prospective students (and their parents) who want to go to an elite school will do whatever they think it takes to get in.”
This is reality, and tends to applies to those who have the (financial) resources to polish up their application profiles. As kids from well-off families, under guidance of professional college consultants, are more capable of developing interesting profiles to stand out in the so-called holistic admission competition, diversity can be an increasingly more difficult goal for universities and our society to achieve.
Allow me to use the a natural experiment to illustrate my point. Like elite college admission, the selection of US Presidential Scholars in the academic category is at a very high level and also holistic, once standardized test threshold is met. The main difference between the two is that US Presidential Scholar does not have the mandate for race diversity because only 1 boy and 1 girl for most states. I have a copy of 2016 national recognition program with the names of all the 121 scholars, along with their photos. I was able to identify 42 of them to be Asian Americans. That is, about 35% of US Presidential Scholars are Asian American given that about 20% of Ivy students and 8% of US HS graduates are Asian Americans. This seemingly accomplishment achieved by Asian American, IMO, is simply a by-product of holistic college admission. That is, for those who really want to stand out in the competition, they will deliver whatever holistic profiles that you need because they have means and will to do so. And I suspect that this is only going to intensify because more and more rich Chinese families come to the US.
So the adcom says: we use holistic admission and are interested in diversity.
The adcom means: they really want to achieve the two things (make no mistake, they are genuinely nice people).
But the reality: holistic selection per se is unlikely to reach diversity.
Parent/Student at Info Session of highly competitive college:
“What’s better, an A in a regular class or a B in an AP class”?
Admissions Officer response: “An A in the AP Class”
What they really mean: You are competing against kids that get As in AP courses. If you get a B in an AP course, you are less desirable- plus the B drags down your UW GPA. So don’t take the AP unless you can get an A.
The final result is that each institution has its own personality based on what the admissions board values and the student body reflects that and has that in common. It is an odd self-selection process where both the students and the admissions staff contribute to.
The fact is a college is a business, and we live in a capitalist economy. These are the unfortunate consequences. All we can do is be wary of every “helpful” statement made to us.
That’s funny, @suzyQ7 , because all the times I have heard that question and seen that same answer, I always took it to mean the opposite – meaning “push yourself, take the AP class, that’s what we want, you’ll be better preapred to be here”.
Of course it’s just my perception! But I do believe the AP-B is better.
@Postmodern If your kid has 4 APs in 4 years of high school and they are all Bs, he/she would have been better served with an A (at least in some of them - the ones in subjects they may have more trouble with/ or less interest) in an honors or regular college prep course. The UW GPA is a powerful thing.
^^^ I guess that might be so in some versions of that occurrence, but IMHO it would not be. Also, I think the student will be better prepared for college work regardless of where they matriculate.
At our HS, rank is from academic GPA, which is weighted, so you’d get the same 4.0 from a B in AP or an A in CP. So your rank effect is the same but you would lose your “rigor” rating.
Again, just my opinion, which I consider no better than yours. What I was specifically referring to was the totally different subtext to the adcom’s answer that I perceived from yours.
For super selective colleges, anything other than 4.0 or close to it in the most demanding course choices is a significant drawback, except perhaps in very unusual circumstances.
So the “A in easy class versus B in hard class?” question basically asks which less desirable outcome is a lesser disadvantage. The “correct” answer for super selective colleges is “A in hard class”, because there will be many applicants who did just that.
@JuicyMango College in no way approximates a capitalist economy. College is a business, but it is more of a statist, socialist business than capitalist.
@WISdad23 I was talking about the elite colleges, which are privately owned rather than state owned. Its all a competition driven by numbers: which school has the lowest acceptance rate, highest yield rate, lowest tuition, etc.
Try to imagine 25-40,000 apps for few thousand seats. And the volume of 4.0uw kids with rigor. And even screening for ECs and thinking, still a large remaining pool.
A “B” grade in an AP might serve your own child well. But it may also not be competitive for these elites. Nor the “A” in a less rigorous class. It’s the nature of the beast.
Our natural perspective is our own kids. But when you (want to) enter them into this sort of competition, you have to know what the real race is.
It might benefit her to run with the varsity team. But that doesn’t mean she gets to All State.
The fact that we call college apps a “meritocracy” and accept that Asians/Whites are denied because there are “too many of their type are overqualified” is crap