<p>I don’t know that liberal kids tend to be smarter, but I could believe that smart kids tend to be more liberal, especially on social issues.</p>
<p>makennacompton: Your last post (#277) doesn’t do much to convince me that you were slandered before. I think you completely miss the point about a homeless kid who qualifies for Harvard: That’s not just different from other applicants, a point of distinction to help you stand out from the crowd; it’s downright amazing. </p>
<p>I have many times – I think even in this thread – contrasted my son with one of his high school friends, because when they applied to college their GPAs were only a hundredth of a point different. My son looked better on paper, thanks to test scores and ECs, but from the standpoint of character there was really no comparison. All my son ever did was to meet the reasonable expectations of his family, and almost everything he did was something his sister, mother, father, grandparents, and various cousins had modeled for him. There were several students in his class like him, and scores (if not hundreds) of him scattered among the schools in our area. His friend had been walking a tightrope without a net since middle school – no one in his family had finished high school, his parents barely spoke English, his father was afraid applying for financial aid would get him deported, his community did not value education at all. There was no other student like him in his class, and maybe one other at the school. He was almost certainly the top academic student of his ethnic group in the region. But he at least had supportive parents and a safe, regular place to live. Kids who achieve at that level without consistent parental support, and undergoing the day-to-day uncertainties of transient living are as rare as hen’s teeth.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s unfair to my son and the many others like him to point out that their accomplishments aren’t as impressive as those of a classmate who had more to overcome. So what? It’s still true.</p>
<p>“I think you completely miss the point about a homeless kid who qualifies for Harvard: That’s not just different from other applicants, a point of distinction to help you stand out from the crowd; it’s downright amazing.”</p>
<p>People of substance know, understand and appreciate the difference. </p>
<p>“Ergo: don’t have personal truth insult the common wisdom or received certainties such as global warming, gender equality and for sure, do not write about mission trips etc because while service to others is venerated in college apps, service to others provided through a Christian organization is not.”</p>
<p>Fascinating, because I personally know someone who is currently at junior at Yale who did mission trips and other charitable work through a Christian organization, and that was a major part of what set her apart in her application. But, you’ll believe what you want to believe.</p>
<p>Hunt: Did you cross post with JHS with your post 264, or was that a response to his post 263? Post 263 is one of my favorites ever on this board. Thank you, JHS.</p>
<p>“Any alum” isn’t privy to apps. They may get some digest but I could bet it doesn’t say we take 2nd rate hockey players who were treasurers, we can’t generally distinguish, nor that they advocate stalking reps and on and on. If you have a link, post it.<br>
Can’t see any evidence you know how they make decisions. </p>
<p>My kid made no mention of politics or social issues at all. He just said he was a computer nerd, and his optional extra info was at their suggestion a list of the kajillion sci fi and fantasy books he’d read that year. (Plus some computer related stuff.)</p>
<p>This alum has no access to any of the admissions stats and I have a cousin who used to work in the Harvard Admissions office. </p>
<p>What would impress me, if I were an admissions officer, would not be spouting opinion, either liberal or conservative, that was uncritical or uninformed. What I would be looking for is a student who wrote thoughtfully about what and why he believed was important, not unconscious acceptance of acculturated precept. Neither going on mission trips nor being outspokenly gay (to take two things one might take a presumption of identity from) guarantee that one has learned to value other people, their views and their histories. It is what one has to say about one’s experiences that matters.</p>
<p>I am curious what people’s perspective is on the importance of class rank. I was told by a few Admissions officers at very competitive,highly selective schools that they often choose to exclude anyone ranked lower than a certain rank in their class, under the assumption, for example that the first 5 in a class are very strong, even if it is a smaller school. I never followed up with the question as to what happens for schools that only rank by percential. But I am curious if people have a POV on class rank importance. </p>
<p>My daughter attends a large public high school that doesn’t rank students and was told by a fancy admission counselor (fees in the $10,000 range that we did not hire, but does that mean he knows more?) that they use a UW GPA of 3.8 as the equivalence of top 10% if the school does not rank. So the 3.7 might be the top 15% that others are reporting you need to be in to be considered for Ivies.</p>
<p>Gravely, I think it varies by high school. For example, some of the top prep schools get more than the top 5 in their graduating class into highly selective colleges. </p>
<p>If you have access to Naviance for your high school (or similar system), that would be a better way to answer your inquiry. You can look for the “school stats” segment to find how many students from your high school have gotten in/been deferred/rejected, etc., for each of the past 5 years or so. </p>
<p>That’s more useful for you, than to ask us all to speculate about the assumptions admissions officers may have.</p>
<p>I think it matters, but I think exactly how it matters, and how much it matters, varies a lot depending on other factors.</p>
<p>-- If the school ranks based on unweighted grades, or has a system that punishes kids for doing orchestra or newspaper because those grades aren’t weighted, then the ranking will be discounted, maybe a lot.</p>
<p>-- With many schools and many colleges, the college admission officer will see multiple applicants from that school year after year, and the college will be able to rank them itself based on what it cares about. They may get a sense that there is a zone of official ranks that matters, and use that, or not.</p>
<p>-- If an applicant has special talents or qualities – athletics, music, some special background – then any customary rank requirements will get very flexible.</p>
<p>-- It probably matters most for a run-of-the-mill academic applicant from a school that sends few kids to the particular college, as long as the school ranking system makes sense. It lets the admissions officer get a sense of how this candidate relates to candidates from schools the officer knows better.</p>
<p>-- Some colleges like to brag about how many valedictorians they have, or how many they have rejected (or both). Some other colleges don’t. I have to assume that at the colleges that make a big deal out of it, it matters. But that doesn’t mean the college cares about #3 vs. #5, or #15 vs. #30.</p>
<p>-- Highly selective colleges love the sense that they are getting the very best person (or one of the very best people) in a particular school’s class. They know perfectly well that the very best person may not be ranked #1, for any number of reasons. At the same time, they probably doubt that someone ranked #25 is really the very best person (as long as the ranking system makes sense)…</p>