College Admission: Facts, Opinions, and Myths

Parents Forum
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<p>@knightclub Glad to hear you have gotten some value out of this thread. At the end of the day, the value of these forums is to share experiences, ideas, etc. and given that, in particular, this is a parent’s forum, possibly help eachother provide helpful guidance to our children or others around us as they navigate through an important and often confusing event in their lives.</p>

<p>Having abdicated this thread several days ago to the masses, and being a bit preoccupied with “real life”, it wasn’t until last night that I was able to catch up on the dialogue of the last few days. I saw a number of interesting ideas represented related to the initial question as well as a number of interesting tangential questions. Hope to respond tonight with a couple counter thoughts of my own. </p>

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<p>As I recall from our campus visits, at both Princeton and Harvard Admissions officers said something along the lines of, “you shouldn’t take the SAT so often it could be listed as an EC.” The Princeton person said, “We’re not looking for perfect,” or words to that effect.</p>

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<p>@pizzagirl, Just wanted to clarify something I just saw from posts 100 and 103.</p>

<p>I said " If the difference in the admission rates were caused by the difference in scores, as opposed to some other factor that correlates with getting a perfect score, then for a student applying to 7 Ivy-type schools, the difference would be a 24% chance of an acceptance vs. a 44% chance. I don’t believe that’s actually true. But I think it’s plausible that score alone might boost you from 4% admit to 5% admit, and that would raise your chances from 24% to 30%."</p>

<p>You said “You can’t just add up the chances like that. Otherwise, every kid could just apply to the top 20 schools and have a 100% chance of getting in at least one, and it doesn’t work that way.”</p>

<p>Um. I didn’t just add up the chances. Maybe I made a mistake, but I certainly didn’t make that mistake. Feel free to check my math properly.</p>

<p>My point is that when chances are small, even a small increase in your chance, even 1%, will make a difference if you’re applying to a bunch of schools. It doesn’t have to be nearly as large as the apparent differences in the score subgroups (which aren’t all about scores because we know they also due to other factors such as strength of letters and EC’s) to make a enough of a difference that might be worthwhile for students who are pretty confident they can score higher to re-test.</p>

<p>OK sorry to backtrack this thread. Carry on.</p>

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<p>Taking the SAT “so many times”, whatever constitutes that measurement, is different from taking it a second time to improve a score. Many kids to well out of the box, make a good-on-the-verge-of-great score on their first test. Maybe MIT will be fine with that good score, but at many schools to the OP in this thread it is better to get a better score. In the context of a second seating of a test it is probably reasonable in most cases to take a shot at improvement. There are not universal truths (ok, if a kid gets a 2400 on the SAT it is a universal truth that they cannot score any higher), but different truths in different contexts and situations. One blog by one MIT admin officer does not speak for all schools or all admin officers. </p>

<p>I’ll share an example. Talking to a professional, private college counselor, she shared with me that at a specific elite college that having a 34-36 on the ACT can be helpful to getting a kid over the hump of EA admissions. The reason, specific to this school, is that the school has a D1 football program. The more kids that they take who have a 34-36 on the ACT in EA the more recruited athletes they can take that fall below the schools average ACT and even below the 25% level in EA. It not a matching program where your kid with a 34 specifically offsets the star player with a 24, but it is another factor that puts more weight on stellar test scores in the EA admissions process at this school. Again, even in this example, there is not a universal truth that getting a specific score will get you admission. But the odds of admission, especially in EA, improve for the student with a 34-36 score in part because of the school’s athletic programs. No, she has not worked in that schools admissions office. Yes, she has developed relationships over the years with people in that school’s admissions office as well as other elite admissions offices and she does know many unique (certainly not all) points of emphasis in those schools’ admissions processes. It would certainly serve the kid well that scored a 30-32 on the ACT to retake it in order to try for any incremental increase in this case.</p>

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<p>@Quantmech – I have a dim view of standardized tests in general. The AP lit exam is fine because it is based on writing analytical essays – which is what students are expected to be able to do in college. But the mechanism of “read a passage” and then answer a set of multiple choice questions about what is in the passage is pretty much the antithesis of the sort of thought or analysis that goes with studying literature. It might be an appropriate format for assessing very young children for reading comprehension, because younger children are reading text that is more straightforward and fact-based. But a high school or colleges student should be able to develop the ability to consider multiple possible interpretations and nuances. </p>

<p>Some SAT II tests cover a more fact or skill based content base-- so something that fits a multiple choice format somewhat better. But I don’t like the multiple-choice format in general - I mean, even for math-- which obviously does have clear right and wrong answers at the levels tested by the SAT – it is far more important that the student knows how to work out solutions on their own than to choose among set of given answers. Many of the SAT questions can be answered through a quick process of elimination – but in the real world, you need to know the algorithms or formulae to apply. Most high school math teachers insist that their students write out their steps to solving problems, precisely to focus on that skill – and most will give partial credit when they see that a student is on the right track, but perhaps makes an arithmetical error in the course of solving the problem. </p>

<p>My son has told me that the only tests that he had in high school were the Golden State exams (which are no longer given) - see <a href=“Golden State Exams - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_State_Exams&lt;/a&gt; & <a href=“http://www.eddata.com/projects/past/gse/--”>http://www.eddata.com/projects/past/gse/--&lt;/a&gt; but those were not a multiple choice format. My son liked them because the science exams required students to do lab work. They did not have numerical grades - I think was more along the lines with a gradations like “pass” and “honors” but I don’t remember exactly. They were criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced for scoring. But obviously more difficult and time-consuming to score. </p>

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<p>knightclub: </p>

<p>I doubt there is a single person on this thread who would not advise a kid with a 32 or 33 to retake the ACT, assuming there was some reasonable prospect of improvement and the kid wanted to go to an Ivy League or similar college. In essence, what we have been fighting about – and ALL we have been fighting about – is whether a kid should retake with a 34 or 35. </p>

<p>That’s whether they have a D1 football program or not. Honestly, as I indicated above, I thought that the Ivies’ recruitment rules actually give them an incentive to admit non-athletes with lower scores, so that there would be more room within a standard deviation or two from the general average. It’s a different story, of course, if the kid in question is a potential football walk-on – then having an above-average test score is a real plus.</p>

<p>I am clearly on the anti-retake side of this discussion, but I have fully supported a kid’s decision to retake a 2200 SAT, when one of the components was below 700, and the kid had felt uncomfortable taking the test. On the other hand, if a kid wanted to retake a first-sitting 2350, fuggeddabowdit.</p>

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<p>I don’t believe any college is stating one time is good enough. How many times is reasonable is the question to ask, especially if the school you want to apply to requires all your scores. </p>

<p>The other question is what point are you trying to get to and how many times have you already tried without getting anywhere close.</p>

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<p>@QuantMech

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<p>I agree with Pizzagirl – you are focusing on mechanics of writing or choice of subject, whereas the college admissions staff is focusing on content and overall impressions. Again - the whole POINT is to either supply the college admissions staff with important information about the applicant that isn’t going to show up in other ways, and/or to grab their attention in some way. It helps if the essay is well-written – but it doesn’t have to be. </p>

<p>My d. wrote humorous, light-hearted, self-deprecating essays. Yes, my d. did submit an essay that started with her presence in far-flung locale, included dialogue, and ended with an epiphany-- though she didn’t use that word. But the fact that she had spent a semester abroad during high school was a key selling point of her application - and the essay gave insight as to how she responded to the predicament she created for herself. (Far from home, living with strangers, with only a rudimentary ability to speak and understand the local language). </p>

<p>Students seem to approach elite admissions as if it is a competition they need to win – they want to have the best test scores, they sign up for every possible AP and honors course at their high schools in order to achieve the “most rigorous” curriculum, of course they strive for an astronomical weighted GPA along with val or sal status at their schools, they choose EC’s from among the offerings via their high school and strive for leadership roles (“President”, “Editor”, “Captain”) – and they write essays that they hope will impress the ad com with how smart they are. </p>

<p>And the admissions readers at the elite colleges can’t tell one app from another. In their home communities these students may be seen as exceptional and extraordinary – but when stacked against a bunch of other applicants with the same high test scores, the same high grades, the same courses completed, the same types of EC’s,-- they all look the same, and in that context seem routine and ordinary.</p>

<p>My d. had a friend at Princeton who played the bagpipes, well enough to have attended and participated in some international competitions. I never met the kid and have no idea whether or not he wrote an essay about bagpipes … but I have a hunch it is the sort of thing that would have been included in his app. It’s not that there’s anything wonderful about bagpipes… it’s just that “bagpipes” is more memorable and attention-getting than “saxophone”. </p>

<p>My d. approached college admissions not as a competition, but as if she were auditioning for a role. She took her own path through high school, and then what it was time to choose a college list, took stock of her own strengths and targeted reach schools that would appreciate those strengths. (For safeties it didn’t really matter - her GPA was enough to guarantee her a spot at the in-state public). My daughter wasn’t auditioning for the “lead” role – just as she didn’t have the looks or the talent to get that sort of role in high school plays, she didn’t have the stats to try to convince the ad com that she was smarter or better-prepared than other applicants. She auditioned for a character part. </p>

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<p>

College admissions is not random. That rationale works for raffle tickets, but not for college admissions because no individual’s “chances” are the same as the statistical, overall chances of admission. Sure, on average, a student with a 2350 SAT may have a better chance of admissions than one with a 2310 – that doesn’t mean that the chances of John P. and Mary Q. change in any way when they add 40 points to their own scores. They are still just as likely to lose their spot to some other, lower-scoring applicant who offers some less common quality that the university wants. </p>

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<p>I think a 32 or 33 is plenty high enough.</p>

<p>For a score of 28 or 29, I’d advise a retake. 31+ – no, not unless there was a particular subscore that could be a problem in itself. Or if there was a particular, close-to-guaranteed, numbers-based merit scholarship that could be had for as slightly higher score. </p>

<p>At 31, the student is in the top 3% range. At that level, the ad coms are going to be looking at the rest of the package. </p>

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<p>But that’s the point – it wasn’t the score by itself, it was the circumstances. If score breakdown was 750 - 730 -720 you might have had different advice. </p>

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<p>"What about including dialogue in the personal statement? Is this something that successful applicants do more often that not? Or is its inclusion random? "</p>

<p>Even if you did a statistical analysis and found that “successful applicants include dialogue more often than non-successful applicants,” no one would ever conclude that “therefore, add in some dialogue and therefore you’ll increase your chances.” That’s just silly.</p>

<p>To extend my musical metaphor, if I analyze “Let It Be” by the Beatles, which is probably one of the best selling songs of all times, I can find a pentatonic tune, a refrain pitched a third higher, a harmony limited to four chords, diatonic harmony with frequent appoggiaturas, a bluesy flat seventh, and a use of Plagal cadences. (Well, *I can’t figure that out, I don’t have the ear, but people well versed in music theory tell me that, so I’ll accept it as truth.)</p>

<p>If I were to try to write a song, and I dutifully incorporated those components, do you think I’d magically come up with a million-record seller? </p>

<p>Can you really not get that you can’t reduce certain things to mechanics? It’s like asking if you should ensure you have the letter Z in your essay, because this other kid had the letter Z in his and look, he got into Harvard. </p>

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<p>Re: CR/Lit SAT II: I agree that multiple choice tests are about the worst way to test analytical capacity. However, I also don’t think we should go too far in the direction of “therefore, these tests are meaningless/not representative.” </p>

<p>If you are a highly skilled critical reader, you should be able to score very well on both the verbal and Lit SATs. That doesn’t necessarily mean an 800, but a few iffy or arguable questions shouldn’t bring your score down all that much. People like to treat literature as if it is so inherently ambiguous that practically all interpretation is arbitrary, but the truth is that some interpretations may be unsupportable or strained, and others may be essentially the plain and unambiguous meaning of the text. Most SAT questions do have a pretty clear right answer; there might be one or two other answers that also make some sense, but the correct one will be rightfully considered preferable. Part of critical reading is being able to separate the most direct meaning from other possibilities. It is all very well to say that the scarlet “A” could have a variety of meanings, for instance but the answer to the multiple choice question “In context, what does the letter “A” most likely stand for,” is still going to be “adultery.” </p>

<p>I’d also add that in my experience, the real tests seem to have fewer problem questions (ie, ones in which there really do seem to be two plausible answers) than practice tests, presumably because the questions on the real test have been better vetted than the ones in a Kaplan book. Over multiple SAT practice tests, if I remember correctly, I generally scored somewhere between a 730-780 on verbal. I’m not sure if I ever got an 800, and I certainly always had some moments of uncertainty. On the actual test, I got an 800 and, despite not normally being one for overconfidence, was almost positive that I had answered every question correctly as soon as I finished. My experiences on the literature test and GRE were similar. </p>

<p>Now, it doesn’t follow that everyone who scores well on these tests is a highly skilled critical reader. Just as in math, one can score well into the 700s without having the kind of aptitude you’d need to do really well in multivariable calculus, it is possible for a studious kid with reasonable facility with texts to do very well, at least on the CR test, without having any kind of astonishing talent. And of course, there are people who have various reasons for not testing up to their potential, whether because of test anxiety, pacing issues, or the more pervasive problem of lack of preparation by a poor school or lack of exposure to complex vocabulary and sophisticated materials. That’s why these scores always need to be taken in a larger context. But in general, the scores do tell you something - as, indeed, they do even in some of the outlier cases. It is terrible if a student hasn’t had the educational background to do well on the SAT, but that is still something meaningful to know.</p>

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<p>@QuantMech - regarding the issue of standardized testing & literature - you might be interested in looking at the 6 stages of reading development outlined by the educator Jeanne Chall – see <a href=“Education.com | #1 Educational Site for Pre-K to 8th Grade”>Education.com | #1 Educational Site for Pre-K to 8th Grade; and look at the description for college level and adult reading ("Construction and Reconstruction). “Mature readers can read multiple sources, opinions, and views and then construct their own understanding. …They decide how fast or deeply to read and when to gloss, skim, or attend to detail.” </p>

<p>That’s what is expected at a college level and that is what is not really going to be assessed well in a standardized testing format. In fact, I think there’s a good argument to be made that the more capable and developed readers may end up doing worse on those tests as compared to the stage 5 readers who may be more concrete and literal in their thinking and analysis. </p>

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<p>I am focusing on the mechanics of writing, because I think that could be very helpful to this year’s applicants. We have no one left in this generation of my extended family who is not already in college, graduated, not going, or dropped out. So I don’t have any stake it in.</p>

<p>However, I think that if a student had never thought of including dialogue in a personal statement, and then realized that it was a possibility, it opens a new way of thinking about the statement for the student–not to increase their chances of acceptance by 1.7%, but just to help out a student who doesn’t especially like to write about him/herself, yet has to do so for college admissions. Similarly with the other questions I raised. </p>

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<p>Kudos to Calmom. And to PG. Some may find it helpful to reread.</p>

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<p>@apprenticeprof – I’m not saying that the scores are meaningless, but the narrow gradations of scores mean very little. that is, there is no useful information conveyed by the fact that one student scores 720 and another gets 780 on the same test-- especially in the context where students are allowed to repeat the tests as often as they want, until they get the scores they are satisfied with.</p>

<p>I think that the AP grades make more sense – I mean, I knew, my kids knew, and the colleges knew that a grade of a 4 or 5 on any given test meant that the student had basically mastered the course content. </p>

<p>My son attended a high school with an “outcome-based” approach to testing - if a student wasn’t happy with their grade on a test, they could re-take the test to improve their grade. The educational rationale was that the goal was for the student to learn the material, and if that student needed to retake the test several times before they got it – then that was seen as part of the process. But of course many students perceived it as unfair to the students who did well on the test the first time around, as if their own A’s were being devalued.</p>

<p>I don’t think most CC parents would be very happy with that approach to high school level grading – it certainly promotes grade inflation – but that’s exactly what our current system of standardized testing is built upon. </p>

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<p>"I am focusing on the mechanics of writing, because I think that could be very helpful to this year’s applicants. "</p>

<p>Then you are completely and utterly missing the point of this entire discussion. The mechanics of the writing are the SUPPORT for the content. There is no formula for the content and there is no formula for the mechanics (beyond the typical grammar rules, and even those can be broken for the right effect). I know you would desperately like to construct a formula of 10 adverbs + 5 gerunds + 3 lines of dialogue + reference to a far-away land + reference to a Greek god + reference to a sport, but that’s not how it works – any more than I could go to the piano, compose a tune that any music theory expert recognizes as pentatonic, and think I’ll rival Paul McCartney. </p>

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<p>Quantmech - I don’t think this is the right thread for essay-writing advice to current applicants - that belongs in something with a title that might alert them to thread content. The essay discussion arose out of a comment somewhere along the way that some of the repeat-testers might better enhance their “chances” by focusing on their essays instead - and my main contribution to the discussion is that the essay should help the student stand out from the crowd. That doesn’t mean that the essay itself has to be particularly well written or memorable – but if not, it ideally will relate some facts about the student that will be. Beyond that, I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules. </p>

<p>The most helpful source of information that I ever found was the Harry Bauld book, but if one were to read that book and take it’s admonitions literally, there would be nothing left for students to write about. Bauld uses humor to make his points, but the point isn’t that kids can’t write about their foreign travel or their dead pet – it’s that they need to avoid turning in the same foreign-travel or dead pet essay as other students will. If the essay reader knows what the entire essay will say after reading the first line… then it’s a wasted effort. </p>

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<p>Okay, sure, I will take the essay comments elsewhere–except that I don’t think my point about the mechanics of the essays has actually been understood. You perhaps come from a region with fairly large numbers of successful applicants to “top” schools, and so thoughts about the essays are ho-hum for you. PG, I have no interest in constructing a grammatical formula for the essay–none at all.</p>

<p>I am just suggesting that it might be illuminating for some students who were originally going to write a 5-paragraph expository essay (in the form that they have been taught for so many years) to think more broadly about the different types of essay that can be written. Dialogue–a trivial and mechanical thought for you, I am sure, but for some it would open a new way of thinking about the essay. And along with that, it could suggest different categories of content that could be communicated effectively in that way, but not so much in the 5-paragraph essay form.</p>

<p>Personally, I don’t like the epiphany essays. I have read a few of them over the years, and have only read 2 or 3 that I thought served the writer well. Others may obviously disagree.</p>

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<p>Actually, no, QM, my kids" school sends kids mostly to comm college or U of I, and only a handful to top schools. It’s not New Trier or its ilk, at all. I think essay writing is extremely hard and a real skill. It’s not a slam-dunk, at all. But it seems like such common sense that a memorable, well written essay makes a student stand out in a sea of 2300s and 2350s and student body presidents and newspaper editors and science fair winners. </p>