<p>I can’t understand why anyone actually thinks going to Harvard, Yale or Princeton matters.
Seems to me the education one can get at a small liberal arts college equals or exceeds what you find at some of the Ivies. What’s the big deal?</p>
<p>I think the advantage of the Ivy or neary Ivy experience and degree is the networking.</p>
<p>Admissions trickery remains open to discussion from what many of us have witnessed…</p>
<p>You can’t really compare sports achievement (top baseball player or something) with ECs of charitable efforts/achievement. The sports thing is accountable and easily witnessed and documented. So if a kid gets an offer based on sports, I assume it’s accurate – the kid REALLY is the fastest mile runner in the state or whatever.</p>
<p>Where I think is there needs to be greater examination of ECs is related to claims of charity/volunteering, bc I have seen multiple cases where it appears that this is being gamed now and some are very contrived. </p>
<p>This trickery advantages applicants who have overinvolved parents who planned several yrs in advance for apps process. The apps process could be a problem for the serendipitous high achiever who decides an Ivy or other top uni could be a match, does something personally great, a step forward owing to personal initiative, but is overlooked owing to not having the “3 yrs of increasing success.” SOme have been sympathetic to the “normal student or applicant” but I read that description another more positive way that I admire - the kid who did his/her own work and life took him/her to a point where s/he should have a shot at a top acceptance. Well, there is a lot of competition now.
And - there are a certain number of PARENTS who are managing their kids from a younger age and carefully compiling resumes, experiences, scheduling out plans, prepping for tests, until their kid comes across with a slight edge. I don’t like that.</p>
<p>Here in Silicon Valley we occasionally hear of truly ridiculous ECs - one way we hear these things is a HS student will be publicized in a newspaper. I remember one story where the PARENT actually was quoted praising her kid (when it was obvious the kid was not a self-starter or leading the show!)</p>
<p>I will try to recall another case from a few yrs ago: a girl with a certain ethnic background (who is clearly extremely wealthy and attending a top local public school) travels with her family back to the home country (costly to start with to make this trip) and “identifies a need” for a women’s charity (medical, I think), comes home and sets up this major charity, utilizes teleconferencing and whatnot, it goes on from there. </p>
<p>The whole language associated with this thing was laughable and preposterous. There is plenty in the article to indicate between the lines that the parents are really setting the whole thing up; it just isn’t practical or possible for a busy HS girl in CA to run a charity in this other country on the other side of the world. I assume she was admitted to an Ivy, I don’t know, at least this helped her apps unless someone saw through it. One clue is when the mother is quoted a lot more than the girl.</p>
<p>What I think is newspapers should refuse parents who phone them to print such stories. IF the story comes from a reputable known separate charity about an outstanding young HS volunteer, hey, do a story on them. I’ll be delighted to read it.
What I don’t like is these schemes sometimes appear effective for admissions.</p>
<p>I hope to fund a scholarship someday and it may take into account student ECs, volunteering - what I’d like to see is innovative LOCAL efforts, caring for one’s local community perhaps in more mundane ways, hey!, not elaborate trips to other countries - I am totally unimpressed by that and the burden would way be on the applicant to prove that this was a genuine personal effort.</p>
<p>Sorry for being too hasty in my writing - I meant to say some who have posted have NOT been sympathetic to the “normal student or applicant” - I look on this more favorably if the student is showing initiative, goal-setting, action on his or her own.</p>
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I highly doubt that any student with a 1760 and 3.6 GPA would get accepted to Brown (whether or not they’re a minority), barring an exceptional hook or circumstance. URMs that attend top schools like Brown are qualified to handle the work at that college.</p>
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What about the athlete that got accepted over the 2200/4.0 GPA kid? Or that kid whose parents went to Brown, so he got an extra boost in admissions. Or the kid from Wyoming that got accepted so the school could have students represented from all 50 states. The fact is that private colleges like Brown can accept whichever students they want. As I said earlier, i’d rather not change the direction of this thread, especially not into an AA debate.</p>
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<p>entirely agreed</p>
<p>when i was a freshman i debated with two kids who ended up going to yale and princeton and they were actually really normal guys we would laugh and talk about babes and stuff and in reality we were all just doing debate for our resumes but just because you bulk up your resume doesnt mean your not normal they both got 2300+ SAT and i still talk to them and theyre still cool guys and id consider myself “normal” i play baseball, basketball and go out with friends on friday nights so i like to think im qualified to say who is normal but maybe im not whatever</p>
<p>I think one of the problems here is when people talk about ‘normal’ kids, they think they are talking about ivies significantly diluting their student body or somehow becoming ‘ordinary’. There are several false assumptions here, that some others have covered as well</p>
<p>-The assumption that the kid with 2400 SATs, 4.0 gpa, ec’s up to the wazoo, etc is always an indication of what the kid will do in school or will bring to the school, for that matter. The problem with that as others have pointed out is that instead of being a kid who can be a great asset, someone who will distinguish themselves and do well, this also can be a kid who has been ‘stage managed’ with the ultiimate goal of getting into an ivy, from the time they are out of diapers. Don’t believe me? read some of the hysteria among the hoity toidy in places like NYC about getting their kids into the ‘proper’ pre school program…</p>
<p>And does anyone thing the kid with the 2400 SAT, who has been pushed and prodded by mom and dad, stage managed, lived their life strictly to meet the qualifications of what they think the Ivies are looking for, who have literally lived their life with that goal, not doing anything unless it furthered that, is going to be necessarily an asset? In systems terminology that is known as gaming the system and the results are not often so stellar…</p>
<p>The preference admission from a rural or inner city or other underserved area/group? It could be they are admitted with lower stats then many, but there is something that is being left out of that discussion, and that is the effort that it took to get there.Chauncy uppercrust at the Dalton school, where the school basically preps you to get into the ivy of your choice, where Mom and Dad spend gazillions on tutors and test prep, where they have access to anything they need, unlimited computer access, access to cultural events and books and anything else they need…so to get to a 2400 SAT and a 4.0 GPA with EC’s and so forth isn’t exactly a mean feat, and that kid from Compton or East Harlem with the 3.7 and a 2000 SAT might represent a more focused kid, one who really had to work to get into the school, and in my experience (and this is direct) those kids often flourish, lot more then they fail. </p>
<p>I think the answer to ‘ultimate students’ or ‘best and brightest’ is in finding the kids who will excel in school and life, and that is a combination of factors, something I think Admissions people know. And I also can tell you that studies bear out what I am saying, that often the kids who are Avis to the 2400 SAT et al Hertz try harder, and this continues on down the road. A course I had on tech management in grad school made the point that places (then) like IBM that hired by gpa’s often were disappointed, and recently Google figured that out, that often the more ‘normal’ kids i.e not the perfect students, did a lot better.</p>
<p>Actually, I like the Yankees analogy, because I think it can be a good analogy to the student at Ivy issue. Despite their success, for almost 15 years the NY Yankees after the 1981 season barely did anything, they had one of the highest payrolls in baseball and put together teams of incredible superstars, with stats up to the wazoo and supposedly the best, and what happened? they didn’t win, because basically they were a collection of high stats people who weren’t a team. the 1996 yankees that went to the world series did so because they were a team, and a lot of the people who made that happen were not stars, they were tough, disciplined players…and it is the same way I suspect with a school, having only kids with 2400 SAT’s and gpa’s and ecs is like the high priced talent the yankees had in the 80’s, on paper should have blown the league out, often got outplayed by players supposedly ‘inferior’ to them. I think the real problem is measuring students by one dimensional things like GPA and SAT’s and AP’s, because you can have a kid who excels at those whose only feat is doing that. EC’s have been gamed, they were supposed to help give an idea who someone was, now it is a game. Ask people associated with high level pre college music programs, and they will tell you that there are a lot of kids there, as good as they are, who don’t care about music and only tried to get into the program because it looks good on a high level college CV and only did music because they and their parents knew that.</p>
<p>But Paralegal, they do sometimes lower the bar and George Bush is a very clear example. He was not in any way an exemplary student. So where does that leave us? And does making it to the President’s Office necessarily mean that a person is brilliant?</p>
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<p>While I don’t disagree with you about some students getting in through a lower standard of sorts, I think you will find that the majority of students that are enrolled in top schools are for the most part, exceptional scholars. Places like Harvard, Duke, Yale, Princeton, etc., will usually bring out the best in those type of scholars.</p>
<p>There was a recent study that came out that said students who were, essentially, “Ivy League material,” but ended up at lower ranked/state schools, typically earned just as much as their Ivy peers. </p>
<p>Thus, income, connections, and success seem to be directly relative to intelligence, not where you went to school. </p>
<p>Maybe 40 years ago,the Ivies had a monopoly on what would be considered “a quality education.” I’d say you can get just as good an education now at schoos ranging from Ohio State to USC to UNC, as you would at an Ivy. Thanks to an increasingly competitive admissions environment, really smart kids, that typically would have went to an Ivy or Ivy+ are now winding up at their State U and, thus, boosting the prestige of their respective universities.</p>
<p>Yes “average kids” go to whatever college is nearest them in my school’s instance. I live in Maryland and everyone goes to Salisbury, Towson, Loyola [md], and University of Maryland. I’d say 5% go elsewhere, and the avergae SAT score is well below 2000 FYI so to say average really is more like, ‘above average but not standout’</p>
<p>show them your passion…if you have pretty darn good grades, solid test scores (not necessarily 2200), take rigorous courses, are serious about some select extracurriculars, and really show them that passion in your essays…then you will be a competitive candidate</p>
<p>OP, I can’t tell whether you’re simply misinformed, ignorant, or bitter. For now, I’ll assume that you simply feel it’s unfair or wrong that selective schools only take the top students. But think about what you’re saying. Approximately 30,000 high school seniors applied to Harvard’s undergraduate college. The vast majority of them had top grades and SATs, so there’s a self-selecting pool of at least 20,000 applicants (and probably more). If you were an admissions officer reading applications, how could you justify taking a student with mediocre grades and no terribly interesting qualities? It seems unfair perhaps from an individual applicant’s perspective. You’re a good, “normal” kid and you did decently in school, so why does it seem like these schools only accept students who are at the top of their class? From the school’s perspective, though, it makes perfect sense. The fact that Harvard doesn’t grant you (and I mean you in a general sense, not you specifically) admission to the freshman class does not mean that you’re a bad person, a sub-par student, or even that you’re not “Harvard material,” whatever the **** that means. It only means that you there were more compelling applicants who applied.</p>
<p>From some of your later posts, it seems that you don’t understand how the admissions process actually works. At the most selective schools, students are not judged solely on their SATs, GPAs, and ECs. Obviously, you have to be academically competitive, but that’s not enough. Students are selected because they are academically qualified and can positively contribute to the college community. The essay questions and other qualitative evaluations of applicants matter a lot more than you think. On a related topic, CC chance threads are almost completely useless. Learning an applicant’s stats and ECs might be enough to say whether they’re in the ballpark for a given school, but there’s absolutely no way to predict whether or not they will actually get in. Applicant evaluation is certainly informed by relatively dry and objective measures of academic potential (e.g. standardized tests or overall GPA), but it’s ultimately subjective (and rightly so).</p>
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Yes Hunt, this phenom is mystifying to me too. Perhaps it’s that people don’t feel as ENTITLED to a Mustang, or perchance they do not have their priorities sufficiently organized (eg. feed your head for a lifetime instead of ‘looking good’ for a few years…;)</p>
<p>itsmylife99: You should apply to Arizona State. You would love Tempe - there is so much to do and great academic opportunities! Go Devils!</p>
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This is a false statement to start with. People take out loans all the time for an HYP education. They may not want to take out $100,000+ in loans, and that is understandable. There is a value judgment in everything we do, and that includes an education. It is perfectly reasonable to choose an education at school X where you come out with little or no debt over an education at Harvard if it means huge debt. Where the cut off falls is an individual decision that will vary with the families involved.</p>
<p>Hi Everyone,</p>
<p>I am speaking from the perspective of a parent whose child got into Harvard, Princeton and Columbia. She did not have any tutors. She did take a very heavy, challenging course load and had a 2370 SAT, without any SAT Prep. She had just two EC’s, Music and Science Olympiad…but was absolutely passionate about both (She has not played in Carnegie Hall, or anything, BTW). She chose not to have myriad ECs, and do only what she cared about. We, her parents, are somewhat laid back and very new to this and only discovered CC after her applications were complete. We were pretty convinced, after reading some of the threads here on CC, that she was not a standout candidate, and would get into good schools but not necessarily the ‘elite’ ones. Imagine our happy surprise on April 1st, when we heard back from H, P and C! By the way we are not URMs and are from the Northeast, so she did not add to the diversity of the schools.</p>
<p>I think, therefore, that maybe doing what she loved, and expressing herself eloquently in her essays got her in. Maybe the initiative that she showed in the pursuit of her EC’s was what impressed the admissions officers. She was not alone, many classmates, with similar profiles, from her Public school got into similar colleges. So don’t despair if you feel that you are not a superstar like some others on CC. There is still hope!</p>
<p>offtocollegemom - congrats to your D. And thank you for demonstrating, at least for one case, the falsity of some of these posts where people see conspiracies and machinations in every corner. However, I would say that your D is a superstar, lol. 2370 SAT score and I bet an outstanding GPA with lots of AP’s, coupled with sincere interest in her activities. That is exactly what I said in a post a couple pages back, that these outstanding schools take outstanding students. The word “normal”, which is what the OP used, was a poor choice of words. I bet your D is quite normal. Translating that instead to “average” or even “less than top 2% of all students”, I repeat: What would one expect from the most prestigious schools in the country? They are going to take the very best over the next level of student, good as that might be.</p>
<p>BTW, where did she actually end up going?</p>
<p>PS: NM, I see from another post she chose Princeton. That’s wonderful. Hope she is loving it.</p>
<p>I remember President Larry Summers, then Harvard president, saying that 3 characteristics distinguish those who matriculated to Harvard: they were intelligent, they were passionate and they were lucky! </p>
<p>The fact is that probably 1% of the applicant pool is of the crazy-awesome-superstar-“I cured cancer and proved an unprovable math theorem” or “I overcame horrible circumstances and did fabulously” variety. 94% of the applicant pool is intelligent and passionate about a couple of things and seriously pursued their interests outside the classroom. And the remaining 5% probably had no chance but wanted to see if they could get in anyways.</p>
<p>Within that 94% who competed on basically level ground, the admissions committee chose those who somehow fulfilled some institutional need in making up a diverse class (and diversity is a lot more than socioeconomic and ethnic in nature). That’s where the luck comes in. </p>
<p>If there is any profile that you see time and time again with the “average” Harvard student, it is the one offtocollegemom’s D presented: fabulous grades in a challenging courseload taken throughout high school, top notch (but not necessarily over 2300 as OTCM’s D’s) test scores, passionate about at least 2 things and showed initiative by seriously pursuing these interests outside the classroom, and an application with eloquent essays that show off those passions.</p>
<p>Are these kids normal? Sure. Are they average or even slightly above average when it comes to grades, test scores or EC depth compared to what I’ve seen as the norm in our local high school? Nope. They pushed the envelope compared to many of their high school peers. That’s what many of the highly selective schools are looking for.</p>
<p>^ [/end of thread].</p>