<p>Some people seem shocked about things mentioned in this article that have been well-known for years. </p>
<p>At the elite private schools schools, academics are only half the picture (Princeton, for example ranks non-academics 50%, and I’m pretty sure the same is true for the other Ivies and Ivy-type schools). Math geniuses without anything else going for them have been getting rejected for years – one from my high school was rejected by the Ivies to which he applied back in the 1970’s. The only difference is that he was white, and this article specified Asian math geniuses. </p>
<p>Why would a school with way more academically-qualified applicants than they can accept take someone who comes across as boring?</p>
<p>Why would they want someone who isn’t likeable? If a company looks to hire people who are likeable, why wouldn’t a college look to accept people who are likeable? (Who wants to be around someone who is rude or unpleasant?) Outgoing, likeable people who have tremendous drive and academic strengths are likely to be more successful than shy or rude people with the same level of drive/academic achievements.</p>
<p>This article, although generally sensationalist and lousy, does give some guidance to kids. To get into an elite school, you need to clearly demonstrate that you are different, interesting and likeable. There are many ways to do that (and not merely with essays).</p>
<p>And, of course, kids need to realize that there are countless excellent alternatives to the schools that accept only a handful of students. Anyone who has been out of school for a while has seen people who have had tremendous success coming out of colleges that are not only not elite, but are rated as mediocre.</p>
<p>A development case is a student whose admission the school hopes will result in a large donation or a series of them.</p>
<p>It’s not a tit for tat; in other words the school doesn’t admit the student with the understanding that the family will make a contribution, but the families of development admits tend to have a history of giving. The school might hope that after stretching to admit the child of Bill and Melinda Gates they may some day end up with a Gates Technology Center or Gates faculty chair. Development admits can also result in higher eventual alumni giving. That same Gates kid will inherit some serious money and hopefully he or she will want to share some with his or her alma mater.</p>
<p>Har Har. How is this new? Yeah, I feel ripped off, alright, for that money I paid for my app to be read. Hundreds of dollars just for a cursory look, sometimes not even beyond the cover page. I’m just way too cynical, but I sort of hate them. I figured there’s no way Harvard could have read more than 30k apps carefully. Maybe common app should limit the number of apps in any given year to 6. That’s what they do in the UK. People who have a snowball’s chance in hell to get into Oxbridge, don’t apply because if they fill the slots with all reach schools they can end up nowhere at all. Oxford purportedly have a 25% acceptance rate for those who DO apply.</p>
<p>I think that the problem is that a lot of applicants look at their applications as the summation of what they have done over the past 4 years…rather than what they are likely to do over the next four years…</p>
<p>.At the really selective schools, virtually every single applicant has achieved essentially equally. There isn’t a huge meaningful difference between the student with a 2250 vs. 2350 on the SAT…both are excellent students and well able to handle the academic work in college. So, once a certain threshold number is attained, admissions folks don’t pay a whole bunch of attention to it. And seriously? There aren’t a whole bunch of students with a 2.1 GPA and a 1510 total SAT applying to Elite U.</p>
<p>So the focus is not so much on what the applicant did in high school, but what will the student add to the campus when he/she arrives? </p>
<p>They are not looking for a huge cohort of students who will never leave the library or the lab…they are looking for students who will excel in the library and the lab, and also make the university a stimulating environment with lots of cross-pollination. They want the biology student who will help start up a quidditch league, the math major who will lead the campus Race for the Cure, and the anthropology student who will be the life of the swing dance club. And using the adage that past performance is a good predictor of future performance, students who have been involved in life beyond their studies, and who have done interesting things outside of the classroom, are considered to be likely to continue to do so in college.</p>
<p>Or are the super-selective schools really looking for students among the academic achievers who are likely to graduate college and then be successful after college? I.e. either bring fame and prestige to the college, or donate lots of money to the college, or both.</p>
<p>Boysx3, on target.<br>
So many kids can’t even answer the Why Us? relative to that college. I don’t blame them, it’s a new challenge. But, it’s a critical issue. </p>
<p>To respond to the idea H can’t read 30k apps, well, they do. Whether or not you think so. </p>
<p>As for development kids- Gates is an appropriate example- this isn’t usually your ordinary million dollar giver. And, as Sue said, a history of giving. The number of these easy discretionary admits, btw, is surprisingly small.</p>
<p>ucb: the equation (or one of them) is that grads who were happy at the college, engaged and grew in more than professional training alone are the most likely to give back. Even the colleges measure “success after college” in various ways- Yale keeps touting “future leaders,” then explains it in a very broad way. Of course, one Gates can outgive 10,000 others. Nonetheless.</p>
<p>Impero - “People who have a snowball’s chance in hell to get into Oxbridge, don’t apply because if they fill the slots with all reach schools they can end up nowhere at all. Oxford purportedly have a 25% acceptance rate for those who DO apply.”</p>
<p>It isn’t people with a “snowball’s chance” that don’t apply - even those with a decent or even favorable chance of getting in don’t apply.</p>
<p>You also have to remember that for undergraduates, one isn’t allowed to apply to BOTH Cambridge and Oxford. Plus, people applying from within the UK (the vast majority) use the nationwide UCAS application which limits their total choices to 5 schools. So applicants that aren’t pretty damn sure they’ll be competitive to oxbridge don’t even apply - even those that have excellent A levels. The notion of a “reach” school doesn’t really apply to such a system since one is wasting 1 (of 5) of their chances on a school that probably isn’t going to give them an offer.</p>
<p>For these reasons, applicants to either Oxford or Cambridge really are the “best of the best” and EVEN THEN 75% get turned away.</p>
<p>But isn’t it the case that most students in the UK only “need” 5 applications at the most, since university admissions there emphasizes academic qualifications more (and the academic qualifications “max out” at a higher level than the ones used in the US), so that reach/match/safety is not as difficult to assess in the US?</p>
<p>If that were the case there wouldn’t be so many (75%) rejected from Oxbridge - even after all that self-selecting. I think what you say is true but doesn’t compete with my point.</p>
<p>“Outgoing, likeable people who have tremendous drive and academic strengths are likely to be more successful than shy or rude people with the same level of drive/academic achievements.”</p>
<p>Plain rudeness in an applicant is one thing, but I take issue with the idea that shy people aren’t able to achieve as much as outgoing ones are. Some of the most innovative, successful individuals have been introverts. It’s undeniable that social skills are important, but, in my opinion, they are becoming overvalued. Ignoring those who may not be extroverted but still have incredible skills and talents to offer is damaging to our society. I understand why personality and questioning whether a student would fit in at a university is taken into account during the admissions process, especially when comparing applications that are otherwise nearly the same. But it is sad to think that a significant amount of the decision might come down to which applicant is more charming than the other.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that shy and introverted are not the same thing. Introversion has more to do with how people deal with stimulation and how they process information. Shyness is more about the fear of being judged critically by others - ore self-conciousness.</p>
<p>True, I did kind of combine them in my response, and I know there’s a difference. Though they often go hand-in-hand or are mistakenly viewed as the same.</p>
<p>“Some middle-tier schools will reject top applicants, too — Kids that should have no trouble getting in. But the admissions officer’s attitude is, ‘Oh, he just applied here as a safety. He’ll never come.’ They don’t want to lower the yield they have to report for the college rankings.”</p>
<p>I see this in college admissions. I got waitlisted at schools that I thought I’d get into easily. But I also realize that I wouldn’t have fit very well at some of the schools I applied to. I only applied to them because I wanted to have a variety of choices in case I changed my mind by the end of my senior year. In the end, I did get accepted to the school that I think I will fit well at, so all is good.</p>
It’s pretty clearly just poor formatting in the article. It’s like a teaser line you see injected into the middle of every other online news article, but it isn’t in a different font. The first instance doesn’t fit at all with the rest of the content of that quote, and is separated from it, so it’s just a floating excerpt.</p>
<p>No journalist would expect people to believe that two people said this exact same thing.</p>
<p>This is truly a problem. If Asians need to perform better and get higher averages and test grades than African American or Hispanic applicants to get into the elite colleges, they’ll continue to try to do better and excel in order to increase their chances against African American or Hispanic applicants. Thus, Asians will generally be seen as “smarter” and so the standards set for us will continue to remain high unless reform of the application approval or rejection system is reformed. On the side of Asian applicants, we really can’t change anything except generally trying to excel or perform better then peers of other non-Asian minorities. </p>
<p>In this time and age, minorities are given the same opportunities as Asians who are also minorities.</p>
<p>Not necessarily. A LOT of apps never get to the group stage. If the regional rep recommends deny, and the second reader concurs, then it’s deny. 2-3 minutes and its over. OTOH, two recommendations for approve of a really strong applicant, the folder can go straight to the Dean for approval. (Think early writes.)</p>
<p>It’s those in the vast unwashed middle that are discussed in Committee.</p>
<p>And of course, every college is different in processing.</p>