<p>Do colleges outside the US even look at extracurricular activities and the like? How come colleges in the us require all sorts of nonacademic stuff on their apps like teacher recs, counselor recs, personal statements, community service, extracurriculars, awards, etc. while it seems that most foreign schools only look at grades and test scores? When I was doing apps for us colleges, there were even questionnaires that teachers had to fill out about your character.</p>
<p>Yourzer: You ask a very interesting and extremely controversial question in the world of college admissions. If you read recent books such as The Chosen by Jerome Karabel, or The Price of Admissions:How America's Ruling Class buys Its Way Into Elite Colleges by Daniel Golden, you will find an answer. In the 1800's, entrance requirements to the Ivy League colleges required certain subjects, such as Greek or Latin, that only private schools taught. This controlled entrance to upper-class whites who could afford certain private schools.</p>
<p>As entrance pressures increased, pre-World War II, and more public school students applied, particularly from the large cities of the NorthEast ( NY, Boston,Philadelphia) the Ivy Leagues found themselves admitting too many Jewish students. Essays, ec's, recommendations and especially personal interviews by Alumni were instituted so the "wrong" type of student could be weeded out and only the "right" type admitted. Administrators were very afraid that if they admitted too many Jewish students, the full-paying WASP's would not attend. They did not want to create another Columbia U.</p>
<p>Other schools, particularly private colleges, adopted this Ivy League strategy. Today you can see this live on thru such admission strategies as "legacies", if only upper-class whites attended Princeton until recently then most legacies will be white. Athletic preferences almost always favor the "right" students who play soccer, lacrosse, equestrian- and hurt some students, such as Asian who favor academics over sports ( as a general rule). Interviews with alumni or on campus are a useful tool for admissions officers to gauge whether candidate is " a good fit" for the school.
Thus, all the subjective criteria allows for selection of a certain type of student body. ( Colleges will argue the process allows "diversity" on the campus".)</p>
<p>The McGill model, and the European model, is geared towards a meritocracy and you admissions is based on quantitative measures, not who you know. This allows much greater social mobility, as opposed to the US model which is creating an aristocracy, and freezing class membership at an alarming rate.</p>
<p>That is my take, anyway. This is always a hot topic on the Parents Forum of CC where you will get different opinions.</p>
<p>Your take on this subject is interesting and I've heard before that today's holistic method of reviewing applicants started out because the elite schools wanted to limit certain groups of people from getting in. However, today practically every college looks at measures beyond test scores and grades so it's not about the ivys trying to maintain their "exclusivity." It's simply that there's more to a person than just academic talent and schools want to look at each applicant as a whole. Colleges aren't just academic, there are also social and extracurricular aspects to them and each student contributes to all these aspects. So a student who had excellent grades or test scores might contribute positively to the academic atmosphere but a student who is a leader or an entrepreneur can also contribute by organizing and leading groups on campus, etc. In this way, nonacademic talents and qualities also become "merit" that admissions officers look at. Also, what you do outside the classroom can affect your performance inside the classroom. For example, if you had one applicant who had to work to support her family and who was also involved in time-consuming extracurriculars and another applicant who didn't do any of these things and they both had about the same grades/test scores, the former would clearly be better than the latter because she had less time on her hands. So these things also need to be taken into account. </p>
<p>Sometimes at really selective schools, I mean like the ivy league and such, their applicant pool is so top-notch academically that it's the extracurriculars that make or break an application. I think Princeton rejects 4 out of every 5 valedictorians and half of all perfect SAT scorers. When the extracurriculars make or break an application, I do suspect like you, that there are certain types of extracurriculars and therefore certain types of people that admissions officers prefer at these elite colleges. They seem to prefer ec's like sports, cheerleading, debate, drama, student government, etc. things that an outgoing person would do. They want people with charisma, confidence, and leadership who would go out into the world and accomplish stuff that would maintain the school's name. In this way, they do rely on subjective criteria to make sure the "right" type of students get in.</p>
<p>I don't agree with your quote that the US model is creating an aristocracy and freezing class membership because anyone can succeed no matter where they go to college as long as they do. Very few people actually attend elite colleges. Also, schools are striving to admit more underrepresented minorities and the socioeconomically disadvantaged.</p>
<p>mcgilldad: Totally disagreed re: holistic evaluation.</p>
<p>In Canada, if I volunteer all the time, play tons of sports and have many leadership positions, but I have an 85% average, I may get easily passed over for students who do NOTHING and have 86% averages. It's stupid and ridiculous. (Not that this actually applies to me, it's just a hypothetical example)</p>
<p>I think it's a huge weakness of Canadian schools that they are only slowly starting to see that there is more to the status of a student than their raw averages. </p>
<p>On another note - if quantitative measures are something you're fond of, I assume you like the SAT a lot - correct?</p>