<p>My thought-- so what? As many others have said, private institutions can use whatever criteria they wish in the admissions process. And as many have said (myself included) these fine institutions of higher learning are, IMO, BUSINESSES first, and educational institutions second. They have to keep their doors open and fund faculty salaries, scholarships, infrastructure, support staff, that part of the cost per student not covered by tuition, you name it,. I would bet that there is a study somewhere that shows alum families whose kids also attend the legacy school donate more to their school. However, this article [10</a> Myths About Legacy Preferences in College Admissions - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“10 Myths About Legacy Preferences in College Admissions”>10 Myths About Legacy Preferences in College Admissions) doesn’t support my theory. :(</p>
<p>Regardless, for the mostpart, I am fine with legacy admits, recruited athletes, URMs. Whatever these top tier schools use in their class selection, it seems to be working for them. Who are we to disagree?</p>
<p>Most of the advantages that get applicants into top colleges are a result of being born to the “right” mommy and daddy. Why is legacy the only evil one?</p>
<p>Your son has an Ivy mom and a UCB (?) Dad, yet you claim he got into UCB “ON [HIS] OWN.” That is almost funny.</p>
<p>There is always some inequality in social life. Legacies exist, and they get some extra consideration in admissions at many schools (not just Ivy League!). A small class of people is well-connected enough and/or wealthy enough to guarantee their children admissions at any college through traffic of influence, lavish donations, etc. The real question isn’t whether or not immoral stuff happens, but whether or not it has reached a point where nepotism and favoritism is choking our society. </p>
<p>Does anyone think legacies have reached a point that it is so disillusioning and stifling our young people? I feel that talented but not well connected people still have a good chance, even if it’s a public school in-state and not the Ivy league. I can’t really think of a way to stop legacies without invoking class warfare or some Marxist notion of a social revolution producing an ideal classless society (both of which I find unlikely and unpalatable to most Americans).</p>
<p>The easy way to deal with this legacy issue would be for the top schools to stop giving legacy preference, and at the same time stop giving financial aid to anybody. Then, their admissions would be entirely fair. Right?</p>
<p>Good grief, not compared to the HYP of 50 years ago, where it really was about the proper feeder school and coming from a High WASP background. To suggest that it’s anything like that today is ludicrous.</p>
<p>SM74, you made a comment about the kids coming from your hs who get into HYPSM. I am always amused at the people who seem to think that there should just be enough room at HYPSM for all the bright kids in their high schools. There are 30,000 hs in the US. If you just took the 5 brightest kids, that’s 150,000 kids. Why would you possibly think it’s the norm for multiple kids in a school to go to HYPSM (beyond particularly affluent areas and / or traditional feeder schools)? Why wouldn’t you get that there simply isn’t enough room at the inn?</p>
<p>I love how some think being a legacy, URM, or athlete are the only “advantages!” </p>
<p>So, how about what high school you went to? My D’s roommate freshman year at Brown (actually they chose to room together beyond the first year), went to a private prep day school with 80 students in her graduating class. EIGHT students from her class got in EARLY DECISION to Brown. (actually D’s roomie also was a legacy) Contrast with my D’s high school (rural public) where my D was the only kid who got into ANY Ivy League school (my D applied only RD, not ED schools). </p>
<p>One could argue it was an advantage to get to go to the prep school that roomie went to. Obviously students from that HS were quite attractive to Brown. Most Ivies wouldn’t even know of our high school.</p>
<p>However, I don’t find ANY of this unfair (or “immoral” to borrow a word thrown out here) at all.</p>
<p>ROFL! In the old days, alumni interviews simply ensured that the same privileged members of the same privileged society perpetuated their clubbiness! </p>
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<p>Having a greater # of AP’s is a reflection of living in a “better” school district that can support it. There are many, many schools in this country that can’t field a single AP. Isn’t it better that admissions isn’t predicated on # of AP’s when that’s just generally correlated with socioecon status?</p>
<p>And if these schools “don’t get an exceptionally strong class,” then why would you want your little genius to go there? If the smart kids are being shut out of Hahvard by the dumb jocks and Thurston Howell IV - they’ve got to go somewhere, right? So why not find that place and send your little genius there?</p>
<p>But no one really simultaneously believes that Hahvard et al is a cesspool of undeserving URM’s/legacies/first-gens/athletes and desires greatly that one’s own kid goes there.</p>
<p>Why on earth would you assume that all national merit level kids, everywhere in the country, would want to apply to HYPSM in the first place? It is so very odd, this continued assumption that everyone’s first choice is always HYPSM and any other choice is a fallback. A majority of national merit scholars may not even have HYPSM on the brain in the first place.</p>
<p>Post about % of -----Americans getting admitted into Yale or wherever, % of ------Americans getting admitted bother me. They just do.
We live in a super highly educated, high salaried area with lots of -----Americans (a particular ethnic group — many of whom immigrated into U.S. and in this area, most are highly compensated professionals. Fine. My spouse, first gen college grad in my spouse’s family, immigrated into U.S., but our kids didn’t get to call themselves -----Americans, because such phrase (or category) doesn’t exist.
I think it’s time to call ourselves AMERICANS.</p>
<p>Pizza, I am happy you are amused by my postings. At our private school out of about 100 seniors 7 got into HYPS. 3 were from the top 10% of the class and deserved admission, one asian 1st in class, one white kid 2nd in class(yes there are a few), and one professor kid. There were four admitted from 10-25%-2 athletes, 1 low-income and 1 minority.
Now while I understand going beyond the top 10% for minority and low-income kids I absolutely do not understand doing that for athletes and donor kids. So they have a little worse than their already sorry sports teams. And if alumni understand that the tipping point on admission is a reasonable expectation of their kid being in the top 10% of their class is that too much to ask.</p>
<p>I find it in poor taste to say that a kid did not deserve to get admitted. The college thought these kids deserved to get in!! So what if an athlete was in the top 20% of the HS class at a private school no less. That means the student was a really good student. This student offered up to the college strong academics AND strong skill at an EC that contributes to the school as well. If some other kid is ranked top 10% instead of top 20% (not a HUGE difference in the first place) but only is strong academically and doesn’t have anything major to contribute to campus but academics, I would pick the scholar/athlete too…who not only worked hard in two areas and excelled, but also deserved admission. </p>
<p>Admission to highly selective colleges is NOT a numbers game where the top SATs and top GPA/rank are taken off the pile!! Rather, a student has to be over a certain threshhold or in the ballpark academically (I take it that a top 20%tile at a private school is likely in the ballpark academically speaking), and then many other qualities a student can offer comes into play in the admissions decision. At all these elite colleges, you will find some who were admitted with a lower SAT than someone who was rejected, or a lower rank or GPA than someone who was rejected, but the student brings other qualities to the table (and not even necessarily “hooks”). And that is how holistic admissions works. It is not about taking the best stats over other stats. The top 10% in class didn’t necessarily “deserve” it more than the top 20% when the whole package of the top 20% kid may be more attractive than the total package the top 10% had to offer. Not to mention that I find it much more impressive that a kid excelled in academics while also excelling in a sport which is harder to accomplish than only excelling in academics. Much more time and effort to make both happen is needed.</p>
<p>Also, I am observing “armchair admissions judgments” here as to who deserves to get in from one’s HS and who doesn’t. An observer may know who ranked higher than someone else but hasn’t seen the entire applicant’s folder and it could be that an applicant has better essays and recs than a student ranked higher or more achievements of note, or many other things that those in the armchair are not aware of. Admissions to elite colleges are not just based on rank, GPA and test scores. These just get you into the consideration pile.</p>
<p>texaspg…agreed! This complaint would be more valid if the kid in the bottom 50% of the class go in over the kid in the top 10%. The kid in the top 20% in a private school is ranked high enough to be considered by an elite college (on this one criteria) and may have similar test scores to those ranked in the top 10% and a GPA not that far off, etc. Then add in that the kid in the top 20% had something really to contribute to a campus extracurricular and excelled enough at that activity to boot.</p>
<p>It reminds me of posts where someone says…“he got accepted and “only” had a 2200 on the SAT and I got rejected and had a 2300. NO fair!” It is plenty fair because an elite college just wants scores in a high ballpark range and then other factors separate one applicant from another and so strong ECs, recs, or essays, or many other things would be attractive and it wouldn’t matter that someone with a slightly higher test score scored better if they didn’t have other things to offer that were also strong. Where it would matter is if someone had truly poor SATs. For an elite college, your stats just have to be strongly in the ballpark but they don’t take the highest stats off the pile of apps and accept those students…and they shouldn’t. They are accepting people, not merely numbers. You have to have strong enough stats to be in consideration but after that point, a hundred points on a test or 5% in a rank or .2 in a GPA are not going to matter in terms of picking one student over another. It will be all the NON-numbers factors that will make the difference between the candidates.</p>
<p>Bay, I dont expect that all kids in the top 10% should get into HYPS. I will say all of the top 10 were exceptionally strong academically(virtually all were national merit finalists) and were active in arts and athletics.
For the athletes that did get in I don’t think there was much to commend them beyond having a coach at HYPS who wanted them and they met whatever SAT target HYPS had.</p>
<p>the problem with saying someone “deserved” to get in and someone did not, is that you are assuming that you get to determine what the mission of the school is, and you have decided that the only valid mission of the school is to serve the population you deem most worthy…perhaps this includes your kid.</p>
<p>I’m very sorry for anyone’s kid who wanted this above all and did not make the cut. But, you know, life is like that. </p>
<p>“Who do you know” trumps “what do you know,” past a certain point, every time. “What can you do” trumps “what do you know” every single time, past a certain point. In life it is the intangible extras, all things being relatively equal, which makes one candidate stand out over another, whether it is in the work force, or whatever. In the end, at times, what you might believe to be an “unhooked” candidate might be just an incredibly likable kid, beyond the average likability factor. We’ve all met that kid. We just walk away thinking “What a GREAT kid.” Could be as simple as smile that lights up the room. </p>
<p>Don’t despair. There is really a very marginal return for an ivy acceptance except in the cases of the pell students who are accepted at such an abysmal rate and who really do recieve a tremendous benefit from these places beyond what the rest of the population will get. </p>
<p>Regardless, it has never been the mission of these schools to create only an academic class of students. Not ever. Probably it is more so now than it used to be, really. However, just as there is a strong anti-intellectual strand that runs through the most successful layers of the culture, this is true even at the Elite schools. It’s just true.</p>
<p>sm74…is this an elite private school? (it sounds like a strong one if so many went to Ivies and so on) I thought many competitive private schools don’t even use rank?!</p>
<p>You say the kids in the top 10%…some were actual athletes. The kids who were in the top 20% (which likely isn’t too shabby at your private school)…were their SATs comparable give or take a hundred points? Were their GPAs significantly lower or just a little lower? You say that these admitted athletes from the top 20% were wanted by coaches at HYPS…well, you also said some of the top 10% in the class also played sports…did the Ivy coaches not want them? Then perhaps since the academic profile of the top 20% athletes which was not so far different than the top 10% athletes was good enough but these kids were also better athletes than the top 10% athletes at the school. They had strong enough academics but could offer more to the sports program than the athletes they were not interested in that were in the top 10%. Same could be said about a musician or thespian…if the best musician or lead in the school play is in the top 20% and has SATs close to those in the top 10% but are standout musicians and theater kids whereas the kids in the top 10% are not the shining stars in those areas, that makes the kids in the top 20% a bit more attractive to the college. It is not as if the athletes, musicians and theater kids were getting in from the bottom of the class. The differences from top 10% to top 20% in a competitive private school of only 100 seniors cannot be great enough to make a significant difference in academic qualifications but the star athlete or star in the play or top musician would be a stronger pull than kids with a slightly higher GPA or rank who are not as strong in those other areas.</p>