<p>Decent article by Brooks, but he gives Deresiewicz too much credit. Deresiewicz has an outcome that he wants to see occur, and its not what’s happening. So he attributes it to “soulessness” or whatever label people give to others’ self interest decisions. I don’t think he cares about anyone’s search for self unless the outcome is the one he favors. </p>
<p>I always think it’s funny how that “only 10% academics” gets interpreted. Just about everyone at Harvard is perfectly capable of being a top academic if they want to, but 90% of them have other interests as well. There isn’t any one from our high school in my memory whose gotten in who wasn’t already in the top 2% of the class and had the SAT scores to match. They all had other interests too. Some were well-rounded and others had more specialized interests. No athletes in my memory. </p>
<p>I can only speak about my kid who got in, but he wasn’t a brown-noser type. In fact his AP Bio teacher thought it was funny that when given an opportunity to do extra credit, my son chose to read a computer book instead since he thought his grade was good enough.</p>
<p>Imo, Deresiewicz is a ■■■■■.</p>
<p>And I think Pinker’s article needs a close, effective reading. He does not say he was informed by admissions how they select, never says he has first hand awareness, only something about a new faculty orientation- (maybe his own, 10+ years ago.) And things like, “I was told” or his pronouncement that "the rest are selected “holistically,” based also on participation in athletics, the arts, charity, activism, travel, and, we inferred… </p>
<p>This makes it sound, at fast glance, like he really knows- and after that 10% are selected for academic might, the rest have miscellaneous pursuits clouding their worth. Come on. 40,000 apps to cherry pick through for 2000 seats and anyone thinks this guy has a bead on it? Give it another read.</p>
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<p>No, they’re not. And that’s his point. You’re setting a pitifully low bar for “top academic”. The standard metrics (SAT, GPA in high school courses) are calibrated towards measuring the median individual. Consequently they’re so easy that any halfway competent individual will saturate these measures. Try hanging around some Harvard Math 55 alums and you’ll see what true “top academic” capability is - the vast majority of Harvard students don’t hold a candle to those 5-10% admitted on academic merit. The rest are decoration of various sorts, admitted to make the entering class ‘interesting’. They merely <em>look</em> almost as academically capable because we’re using measures that are poorly suited for measuring 3+ standard deviations above the mean.</p>
<p>What Pinker is saying is that aptitude as measured by these tests empirically shows positive outcomes “as far up the upper tail as you can go” across many fields, not just what you’d expect (i.e. STEM fields). I haven’t reviewed the literature, but if that’s true (he’s obviously credible, highly cited psychologist and all), then it makes sense to ditch the current system. No doubt that this would cause heartburn to a lot of parents who thought their precious children were ‘gifted’. :)</p>
<p>I’m divided on how I see this. On one hand, I think a lot of the ‘holistic’ application mumbo-jumbo is just that, and it’s certainly just as possible to game the system as it is to game the SATs (both being more easily and better accomplished by spending lots of $$, of course). </p>
<p>However, when I mentioned to my 11th grader that I thought ‘merit’ (however defined) might be a better way to go, her first thought was that her and her friends - the students who really want to ‘do well’ in school and life - would end up spending all their time studying. </p>
<p>She describes the current system as something that ‘forces’ (her words) students to do something other than study, though she said it in a way that made it clear she was glad to be ‘forced’. (We don’t ‘force’ her to do anything; in fact I feel we must be the only parents in the state who tell our kid not to work too hard, not to take an overload of classes, a couple of B’s are fine - but she was always this way, someone that wanted to try everything).</p>
<p>I believe in some places they place students into ‘tiers’ of comparable stats, then have a lottery or medical residency-like match process to see who will go where among a set of comparable universities. I don’t see that flying here, however.</p>
<p>So even though I’m not wild about the current process, it’s better than the (true) competitive frenzy I fear would result from a purely stats-based system. The current college competition is bad enough - although it’s actually very low-key with my daughter’s friends (I think they quietly decided not to talk about it among themselves, at least not yet), but it’s supposedly really bad in the other two high schools in my town, both of which are in wealthier areas. </p>
<p>I knew some of the Math 55 kids they were bright … at math. (My dh’s freshman year roommate was a 15 yo math major.) I also knew people who were brilliant in other fields - many of which (history, linguistics, film) aren’t obviously measured by the SAT. (And that was in the old days of plenty of gentleman C’s in the class.)</p>
<p>@dividerofzero it’s what my parents tell me how it is if you’re going for IIT’s. But maybe it’s not that bad. Yeah the quota is strong there. I still feel that there’s more free time and less monotony for a student here. I am only talking about it from a student’s perspective. But that may also stem from the fact that far fewer students in America are academically inclined (plus with more universities and less sheer population (especially among the young) there’s far less competition and to be honest I think compared to people in these countries Americans are pretty lazy about education stemming all the way from the parents on average; there’s just little impetus to work harder basically riding on the cottails of past success.
I agree that holistic admissions is largely a front to justify keeping Asians out of elite institutions, but honestly I’d prefer this system with all its flaws than working 5-11 for 4 years straight even if my results would likely have been better in the latter situation.</p>
<p><a href=“Harvard, Ivy League Should Judge Students by Standardized Tests | The New Republic”>http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-tests</a></p>
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<p>Come on…surely you know that the sort of thinking that makes one good at math is also applicable to humanities, and vice versa. For some STEM fields, verbal right-brained thinking is absolutely required to be good at it. Abstract algebra (also called group theory) is a good example. I know a number of very left-brained people, one recruited to an engineering faculty position at MIT, who just could not do abstract algebra because the thinking required was more akin to reading an abstract poem. For something like number theory and discrete mathematics, verbal thinking seems less valuable. Also, I don’t think you will find a physical chemist who is any good who was not outstanding in their humanities classes. </p>
<p>There’s a reason the Greeks who founded mathematics were also philosophers. </p>
<p>I think the greatest misunderstanding of Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory is that these intelligences fit neatly into different professions or fields of study. </p>
<p>Nope, holistic isn’t about Asian American kids. Plenty of them are fascinating, hard working and accomplished, with real lives, grounding, and interests- and an ability to communicate that through their apps. Nor is holistic about including unqualified kids. </p>
<p>The problem is, not all applicants are savvy to the process, no matter their stats and hs accomplishments/standing. So they have trouble standing back, planning a path through hs, and presenting themselves effectively in an app. Ie, some strategic thinking (a life skill, imo.) </p>
<p>If you were a top ten sort of U, wouldn’t you want the kid who could stretch in multiple directions, make qualified decisions, and still be real? </p>
<p>“Right-brained thinking.” A well-known cog-sci professor scornfully dashed my belief in the right/left concept- but it’s hugely important, by whatever name, in some STEM fields. </p>
<p>Why is it thought that if one actually tried to identify the most academically talented students, one would not wind up admitting students who could “stretch in multiple directions, make qualified decisions, and still be real?”</p>
<p>Right, QM. They do and they do. And that includes more than just what the high school places in front of them. But remember, out of that pool of 35-40k applications, there are probably 15-plus thousand kids with high stats and then more. They don’t have to just choose on the high stats alone. </p>
<p>For heaven’s sake, aren’t their CDS numbers for the 75th percentile 790 CR and 800 math?</p>
<p>collegealum314, actually most of the Harvard kids I knew (and know now) are pretty good at everything. The math guy I knew best plays a mean guitar and reads a lot of comic books. He also made his own computer using a tape deck and a tv set. My point is merely that it’s ridiculous to say that because only 1% of Harvard kids are in Math 55 that doesn’t mean there aren’t other geniuses in other fields. And I personally, have no problems with Harvard having a variety of kids, academics and future leaders and artists. I don’t think I was harmed academically having been in classes or sharing dorm space with Deval Patrick (in my house), Grover Norquist (German class I think), YoYo Ma (friend of a roommate), or Esmerelda Santiago (same major). Not an academic among them, but they all seemed pretty smart to me.</p>
<p>It is true that even the “non-academic” admits to Harvard are, by any objective standard, academically well above average. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that every students at Harvard is just a genius in his or her own way. That does an injustice to the students who really ARE geniuses, and perpetuates the unhealthy Ivy-worship that most of us criticize on other threads. Frankly, if every student at Harvard really were a prodigy of some kind or another, then people would be fully justified in obsessing over going there, and it would be a pretty good idea for potential employers to have a strong pro-HYP bias. </p>
<p>The thing is, Harvard and other elite schools tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand, we are to accept the notion that <em>every</em> admit is so extraordinarily accomplished and fascinating that no mere mortal could hope to compare. But on the other, we are told outright that admissions is a holistic process based on a variety of factors including factors that are independent of academic merit, or, sometimes, merit of any other particular kind either. Again, that doesn’t mean that the kid let in partially because he’s from Alabama, or because she fits a diversity need, or because his parents are wealthy Hollywood producers, doesn’t also have well above average SAT scores an a bunch of APs. But if having a 1600 doesn’t make you a genius, certainly, having a 1400 doesn’t either. And 20-25 % of Harvard students had a 1400 or lower on their SATs. </p>
<p>Let’s even forget about non-merit priorities like diversity of various stripes, and assume that all kids who aren’t pure academic admits have some other talent. First of all, when it comes to athletic talent, there’s obviously disagreement about whether or not that’s a type of skill elite colleges should be in the business of valuing much at all, especially as the Ivies aren’t known for producing oodles of professional athletes, which cuts into the “best of their field” justification. You need to be very talented to play for the Ivies, but you don’t necessarily need a level of athletic ability comparable to the level of academic ability you would need to be an academic admit. Even beyond athletics, though, I don’t think there’s any need to assume that you always need some stratospheric level of accomplishment in EC x in order to be looked at for admission on that basis. That might be true if your academic stats are deficient in some way - if you’ve got a 1320, you’d better be a world-class pianist. But what if you are, say, a student with a 1480 in the top 5 % of your class who also won a statewide opera competition in addition to putting in significant time on a local political campaign? Well, that sounds like a pretty attractive applicant to me - but it doesn’t follow that that student is either an academic genius, a future star at the Met, or the next Hilary Clinton. Rather,she’s a bright, multi-talented kid likely to do well in life - but not necessarily to become a mover and shaker in a particular arena. Which is fine, most people don’t become movers and shakers, including most elite school students - which is precisely the point.</p>
<p>My point isn’t to denigrate Ivy students, or to suggest that holistic admissions should be done away with. Certainly, I don’t think Pinker’s solution is a good one - it is far too extreme and puts excessive emphasis on the SAT. But I would like to challenge the “every HYP kid is a super special snowflake” rhetoric, not only because I don’t think it is true, but because it becomes an excuse not to question current admissions priorities. If every kid is presumptively Stephen Hawking, Mother Teresa, Yo-Yo-Ma, Bill Clinton or Mark Zuckerberg, then who could ever suggest that the system might need some tweaking? But I think Pinker makes a good point in suggesting that academic excellence deserves extra consideration, if only because the aspiring scientist or historian may need and value the education Harvard provides more than the champion wrestler or the glee club kid. And, as Pinker says, the idea that putting more stock in academics would lead to a Harvard full of drones who never take their nose out of their books is an insult to academic high achievers with little basis in reality. </p>
<p>Other than some athletic admits (I’m so uncomfortable with recruits that I try to hold back comments) and a few special cases (ok, more than a few, but I don’t mean legacy and development,) I don’t see elite admissions “independent of academic merit.” The kid has to be able, some way, somehow, to keep up academically and be graced with whatever advantages the college offers. Otherwise, it risks a lose-lose. And you’ve denied that slot to a more qualified kid.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of myth and assumption. And I’m not sure they’re saying every admit is a snowflake. But I see this thread turning to the same circular logic this topic always does. I’m unbookmarking. Not solely based on any one poster or two, more because we’re the same old gang that usually argues about elite admissions.</p>
<p>Obviously everyone has to meet certain academic qualifications. That isn’t what I met. Rather, what I’m saying is that it isn’t simply that Harvard doesn’t admit the 1500 highest scorers, it is that it doesn’t even claim to admit either the 1500 smartest kids OR the 1500 most talented kids. It admits 1500 smart, talented kids who also fulfill a variety of institutional needs, some of which are entirely independent of merit of any kind. Depending on your beliefs about what elite higher education should be, that may or may not be a problem, but it should inform our discussions of these schools more than I think it does. </p>
<p>What I’m objecting to is the seeming assumption by some that the baseline threshold for “smart and talented” is so high that a) anyone who meets that bar is not just a bright, hard-working kid but a superstar of one kind of another and b) that trying to distinguish levels of accomplishment within that group is quibbling. </p>
<p>I think I agree with apprenticeprof #36, though I am not totally sure. All of the people admitted to the “top” schools are “smart and talented.” Nevertheless, there is a wide range of accomplishment within that group. Leaving Math 55 at Harvard out of the discussion, I have met some strikingly, breathtakingly brilliant students in history and some in classics. They are “full” people in every (good) sense of the word. </p>
<p>It is possible that Harvard admits all of the “utterly brilliant” people who apply to them, and there just aren’t that many of them. I don’t have any personal counter-examples to that. </p>
<p>I also don’t know whether Harvard admits all of the “merely brilliant” students who apply. I don’t think they would lose anything by doing so.</p>
<p>In this post, I am not confused, just under-informed. 
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<p>I definitely agree with apprenticeprof #34. On the other hand, I have posted elsewhere that a friend of mine who worked in Harvard admissions told me that Harvard wash’t looking for the smartest students, they were looking for those who would be most successful.</p>
<p>I suspect that this is still true.</p>
<p>If Pinker’s complaints are accurate, it must be sort of galling to the faculty, who are either at or a hair’s-breadth away from the top in their fields, to think that what they have to offer is not all that important to future Masters of the Universe–at least, to the extent that the students are skipping lectures for choral EC’s (and probably getting the notes from someone else). </p>
<p>On the other hand, with regard to a different complaint of Pinker’s, I can’t necessarily fault students for not doing ALL of the reading in their classes. A while ago there was a post from a student at the University of Chicago who had 5,000+ pages of reading for a single class, for one term. Even supposing that the other classes were not quite as demanding, nevertheless, I cannot read, analyze, and recall 15,000 pages of serious scholarly work within a 3-month period.</p>
<p>But then, going along a different train of thought: If the purpose of Harvard is to educate the people who will become the world’s “movers and shakers” in their post-collegiate lives, what is the point of having the top scholars to educate them? Wouldn’t Harvard meet its mission more effectively if it selected its faculty on more than scholarly grounds? (Note: if they start that, I am available!)</p>
<p>Or is there some kind of romanticism for the era of Aristotle as the mentor of Alexander the Great?</p>
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This is what I in fact think Harvard does. I think there is a pile of “utterly brilliant” (not entirely defined by test results, by the way), and a pile of “excellent students that meet defined institutional needs.” Then, because neither of those piles fills up the whole class, there is another pile, of very smart, very accomplished students with multiple interests. Most of our quibbling seems to be about who, exactly, should be in the institutional needs pile. But since I don’t believe that any of the utterly brilliant applicants are ever denied in favor of the institutional needs people, I just don’t see the problem. The people who lose out and have to go to the University of Michigan are those very smart, very accomplished but not utterly brilliant people. So, in my opinion, if Harvard eliminated its football program entirely (for example), this would not result in Harvard recruiting any more super-genius future academics.</p>