I left out one more: Notre Dame
So the list for 2018-19 is:
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Stanford
Georgetown
USC
Notre Dame
Boston College (but planning to change to ED next year)
I’m sure I have missed others.
@JBStillFlying @APStats Interesting to hear that Gtown uses Subject tests only for placement. Why not require them only after acceptance?
^ for the same reason they won’t go on the CA. They don’t want anyone applying who isnt willing to jump through a few extra hoops. Keeps them from having to expand their admissions office to triple its current size.
@observer12
Caltech is also Early Action with no ED.
USC has not used EA or ED, but for Merit Scholarship eligibility, apps had to be in by Dec 1 - of course this might change next year.
I guess I’m missing the point about the good and bad of not having ED as opposed to EA. What difference does it make when Harvard, which doesn’t have ED but EA, selects a freshman class this year in which more than one third of those admitted are legacies? Please see article:
In this world, I do not consider that a good thing. And it’s not just Harvard. At Yale, Princeton, Stanford and, of course, Notre Dame, a very high percentage of its freshman classes are also legacies (Notre Dame around 25% or more). Certainly, I understand the value of having a number of students who are legacies, but does anyone really think that having a freshman class with 36% legacies, as is the case at Harvard this year, is a good idea? Frankly, I find it obnoxious. Are we back in the 1950s and 60s? I’m all for schools getting rid of early admissions, but what schools should really do is move away from giving legacies preference, because it’s just another way the rich and connected wield their influence. And though I know many argue that legacies are subject to the same rigorous scrutiny as non-legacies, that’s not always the case (for instance, Jared Kushner and many, many others), and the fact remains legacies are still given preference. Certainly, these schools and others should not only be more transparent about the number of legacies they admit and how much preference is given to them, but also what their admission stats and accomplishments are compared to non-legacies.
I suppose this is where CU123 comes on to tell me I’m just not doing the math correctly.
^ legacies and development admits are a high priority for private universities for a number of reasons most important of which is their endowment which at the end of the day is what pays all the bills and catapults these places up the rankings or shores them up there. The university and it’s prestige are tied to this cohort just like banks are tied to wealthy individuals and corporations. This has nothing to do with merit or fairness but the survival and growth of the institution.
^ yes, you’re right: legacy admissions have “nothing to do with merit and fairness.” And yet these top institutions claim to seek the best and brightest, etcetera, while admitting a large percentage of legacies, or as you suggest, a necessary cohort of the university. And so the black-box admissions process these top universities refer to as a "holistic process” clearly favors legacies. Thus, many of those coveted admission spots are not going to the best and brightest applicants but to the “best and brightest” legacies. Yes, “the university and its prestige are tied to this cohort just as banks are tied to wealthy individuals and corporations,” but don’t forget that part of the prestige these universities enjoy is also tied to their selectivity in admitting the best and the brightest etcetera. Well, that’s not really the case if a third of the students they select are wealthy legacies. And so universities should be required to provide a breakdown of admission stats for legacies and stats for non-legacies, so that non legacies truly understand how truly daunting their chances of admission are. The bottom line: preference for legacies amounts to affirmative action for the wealthy, just one more example of how the system is rigged for the rich.
My son, too, goes to a rigorous public high school, the biggest difference being we do have a large number of URMs. And we typically have zero state championship sports teams every year. We do have a very, very strong music program. Noting that these numbers are small, we seem to get several non athlete, non legacy kids into ivies each year. On the flip side, almost none of the dozens of applicants get accepted into a very popular public OOS flagship (maybe 2 of 30 kids are accepted when, by their and the acceptance rate of the school, 10 should). I think our HS must be a school where the ivies know they can find several very high achieving URMs in one place and so they make a point to visit every year and know our GCs. I am researcher and I did a study of relationships between GCs and colleges a few years ago. GCs tend to really know (and recommend) 25-30 schools. So, the relationship, in terms of familiarity, between GCs and colleges seems to really matter.
It’s very understandable that colleges want the comfort in knowing their endowment coffers are filled. This is often said to be a reason for keeping alumni involved, and giving. Having development candidates from wealthy families is another reason. It’s a balancing act because the funds that are raised will do some good, enable a few extra scholarships, endow a professorship or two. If one development kid can enable another two or five indigent and very smart kids to go along for the ride with him, why not? Right?
It just seems a very underhanded and wasteful way to put a value on these seats. If these seats are for sale, they should go for sale at highly publicized auctions to the highest bidder (meeting a minimum set of academic standards). Ten seats for Chinese billionaires can probably raise a billion, ten for Russians might raise another billion, and ten for oil sheikhs another billion. There, you can sell 30 seats a year for $3 billion (annually). Allow them to buy seats for their future progeny too - unborn children and grandchildren, or even children of friends. Thirty kids in a class would be barely noticeable (none more so than those who have names on buildings). However undeserving and non-academic they might be, they wouldn’t be a sufficient quantity to ruin the atmosphere. And if 30 is too many of this ilk, reduce it to 5. That’s still a lot of money going into the endowment. Why have 36% or 26% or even 16% legacies and a huge development office. And along the way, the sale of seats allows one to maximize the number of places remaining for the real top students. It is the current practice of nod-nod, wink-wink, hush-hush, way of selling seats that gets to very suboptimal outcomes.
I do exaggerate, of course, but the philanthropic angle is much better served with a greater degree of transparency.
NYU - interesting article here explaining the drop in the fall admissions rate.
https://nyunews.com/news/2019/04/15/nyu-spring-admits-wait-longer/
@cypresspat I think most URMs in Ivies come from well off publics. the majority of kids who get into ivies from our public are URMs, it likely has nothing to do with relations since our counselors are swamped and don’t do much besides get the forms into common app, Would love to see the breakdown would bet most of the white kids at ivies go to privates (or a lot) whereas most URMs come from publics (or public charters Boston latin, NC science and math etc.)… Would also love to see the demographics of the zip codes where most URMs come from: guessing they are affluent areas and not inner cities as a general rule
@bronze2 I understand what you are saying, it is a very rational way too optimize. As much as I dislike
this (it turns my stomach actually…) optics are more important than even money. Even though they are selling seats for less money than they could they also have deniability and that is only part of the story. The long play here is power too. Take Steve Job’s widow, a Stanford Alumni. Her daughter attends (obviously paying full fare) and they have her mom on the board. That alone is a win win for the institution as she is not only expected to chip in (hopefully include the institution in her will) plus they have her on quick dial… They don’t need a few extra few millions but live and die for people like this.
@bronze2 My friend was accepted at Babson as a Spring admit too. In some regards, it makes sense (not just for manipulating admit rates) since you will have some Fall graduates and you will have some dropout during the year.
Legacy discussion - especially with private universities, think of them as a business first and the way they make decisions on legacies, athletes etc all makes complete sense. I know that we want to think only the top academic/holistic qualified applicants should be considered but that’s not how the real world works.
@cypresspat There has been a lot of discussion here on relationships between GCs and colleges - have you published any of the results of your research? There is a lot of speculation and anecdotal evidence, but nothing along the lines of real data.
@anon145 Unlike in the NE, most of the HS in Chicagoland that are considered the best are public magnet high schools, like IMSA, Whitney Young, Walter Payton, etc. Actually, they’re a good demonstration as to just how important income and legacy are for acceptance into Ivies. These schools are at least as good, and have students who are at least as academically and otherwise accomplished, as any of the super expensive private prep schools out in the NE, yet the acceptance rate from these schools to the ivies is just a fraction of that of private schools in the NE. Unsurprisingly, private high schools in Chicagoland which have much lower academic achievements than the public magnet schools, but a much higher proportion of kids from wealthy White families also have higher acceptance rates to the Ivies than those magnet schools.
Again, it is what it is, and not getting into an Ivy is hardly a tragedy, it counts at most as a minor inconvenience. However, these facts should be taken into consideration by those people who look at Ivy League schools as the Beacons Of Higher Learning To Which All Colleges Should Aspire, and sees Ivy League Students as The Intellectual Leaders Of Our Youth, Paragons Of Wisdom, Who Have All Reached The Pinnacles Of Academic Achievement, And Who Should Be Seen As Role Models By The Inferior Students Of Public Universities.
“Again, it is what it is, and not getting into an Ivy is hardly a tragedy, it counts at most as a minor inconvenience. However, these facts should be taken into consideration by those people who look at Ivy League schools as the Beacons Of Higher Learning To Which All Colleges Should Aspire, and sees Ivy League Students as The Intellectual Leaders Of Our Youth, Paragons Of Wisdom, Who Have All Reached The Pinnacles Of Academic Achievement, And Who Should Be Seen As Role Models By The Inferior Students Of Public Universities.”
Couldn’t agree more. The quasi-magical powers attributed to these private colleges are just a mirage and everyone would be better off if they would just look at that reality and put their energy somewhere more productive. It would take a genius many lifetimes to take advantage of just a fraction of all the offerings readily available at most land grant/flagship universities in the US. We are way overdue to put behind obsolete notions from a time when this was a luxury only available to a select few.
oh @MWolf I agree that way too many people are fixated on T20 schools. And those magnets are amazing however, they don’t work for everyone and at least in NC are amazingly competitive. NC science and math is a single statewide residential public boarding charter that basically accepts juniors who already achieved 99%tile scores to get in. Just sayin for the run of the mill publics in my district they produce very, very few white/asian kids to T20s. The white/asian kids who got into T20s I do know mostly go to the expensive private prep school in the area.
@1stTimeThruMom sorry if I missed the post, but where did you hear that Georgetown only uses subject tests for placement? My daughter is a student and Georgetown and we never heard that before?
I may have posted this already but I took my son to Georgetown a few weeks ago and the admissions rep told us that they would be going common app next year. Then he said “April Fools!”. It was actually really funny. So they are NOT changing next year.
Also, as it relates to the comments about legacies…I think for the most part, legacies have to have strong stats. My daughter is a legacy at Boston College but she was 7th in her class of 400 and had a test score at the top end of their range her year. It was a described to me once as “a feather in your cap” but not enough to make up for grades and scores that aren’t competitive with most applicants with similar backgrounds. Not sure how it is at the other schools, but i know of a few Penn legacies with strong stats that were rejected, and I have a good friend who used to interview for Harvard (she was an alum) and didn’t even bother to have her daughter with great grades and a 35 ACT apply because she was sure she wouldn’t get in. That 36% number is really surprising to me. Maybe she should have applied!
@mwolf. I can’t publish my data as it is proprietary, but the results make sense if you think about it. The GCs are humans, and so are admissions folks at the colleges. One can only manage so many close business relationships, so all of them have their favorites to work with. I am not suggesting GCs steer kids inappropriately or anything like that. I just know that GCs tend to have a small number of schools that they (self admittedly) know really well. As do admissions counselors, I would guess. This benefits the students at the HS where there is a match. Hurts those at other nearby HSs, as there are only so many acceptances sprinkled in any given geography. Except in regards to the colleges those GCs are very familiar with! This is why a tool which reveals how well students at YOUR school have done at various colleges. For our son, I consider that info among the most important. Among a lot of important pieces of info, of course.
@collegemomjam your experience seems to tally with ours. In our info session Georgetown specifically said they use the subject test scores for admission. They also emphasized that “recommended” actually means “required unless you have an excellent reason for not doing them or a spectacular application without them”.
However they did say legacy has an advantage, and showed the stats on legacy admissions.
@collegemomjam Thanks for all the info re legacy status. I’ve held off on taking my son to my alma mater until he gets his SAT scores up! Regarding Georgetown’s use of SAT scores for placement - I read that in a thread here on CC and then I found something to that effect online, when I searched for info re SAT Subject Tests.