<p>College admissions should really take a deeper look at the people they are accepting into their colleges. I mean, think about it; it's not difficult at all to cheat on tests or become the president of this club or be good at that sport. </p>
<p>You can find total tools at the top colleges, but the people that deserve it go to mediocre colleges because they wouldn't be able to sleep at night if they looked at Brainy Betty's paper during a Calculus exam. </p>
<p>Getting into an Ivy doesn't validate your existence or justify your character. </p>
<p>Is anyone else annoyed by Spark-Notes Sammy getting into Harvard and Paper-inside-calculator-slide Patty getting into Yale?</p>
<p>I agree with you on everything you said except “it’s not difficult at all to… be good at that sport.”</p>
<p>College level athletics is extremely difficult, and you really need to be at a high level. For Ivy league, Stanford, etc. you also need to have high grades.</p>
<p>I also think that with the high volume of applicants, it is difficult to go so in depth for college admissions. In Europe, and most of the rest of the world, for the most part what gets you into schools are your grades on what ever final exams you have. In England it’s the A-Levels, in Italy it’s the Maturity Exams, in France it’s the French Baccalaureate (not sure about this one). You get into the best schools solely on merit.</p>
<p>“Getting into an Ivy doesn’t validate your existence or justify your character.” I agree on this one.</p>
<p>Chill. Cheating is a problem, but to accuse everyone who got into the Ivy League of it is going more than a little too far. To say that a gifted student couldn’t get into a good school without cheating is, again, an extreme exaggeration.</p>
<p>Your rant about cheaters has seriously warped your view of school admissions, OP. Are there cheaters (or other “tools”) who made their way to top schools? I’m sure. Did they somehow take spots of people who didn’t cheat? I suppose. But are you implying that the 2nd tier schools are somehow immune from cheaters whose actions didn’t push “deserving” kids to 3rd tier schools?</p>
<p>C’mon.</p>
<p>Then you say:“it’s not difficult at all to cheat on tests or become the president of this club or be good at that sport.” True to the top two. Another poster addressed the sports issue. However, it’s difficult to fake being a top scholar or fake really having the influence and social maturity that actual leaders have. Maybe a cheater can get a few more As or even boost a SAT – but we know that numbers alone don’t get one in. What’s also mandatory is to have rec letters back up your story. Do people lie/cheat/falsify these? Sure. But how do you suggest colleges "should really take a deeper look "???</p>
<p>I agree with this: "Getting into an Ivy doesn’t validate your existence or justify your character. " But it’s ironic how impassioned you are about Ivies supposedly allowing (or even being complicit) in legions of cheaters. Why aren’t you as impassioned about your local state college and its possible lax entrance standards? I mean look at it: they SOLELY base admissions on GPA and test scores – the very areas where YOU rail against because these can be so easily manipulated by the Cheaters.</p>
<p>How about your local urban school district? Why don’t you get on a high horse and decry the enormous pressure the low performing inner city school teacher feels to allow “social” advancing of her kids who can barely read – or to alter the test scores because of pressure from the principal?</p>
<p>Lots of unethical stuff goes on. To worry about a handful of Ivy admittees while tens of millions of our fellows linger in neanderthal school districts – is misplaced, IMHO.</p>
<p>Yes cheating goes on, but rarely could a student cheat “enough” to propel them selves into an Ivy league college without someone catching on to them… at least at our school. Cheaters get a reputation early & are then watched very closely. I’m sure it may be different in larger schools, but not to the extent you are portraying…or I am very naive?</p>