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<p>Of course we see this sort of immature behavior here on CC, but we also see mature high school students with strength of their convictions, unwillingness to cheat, and genuine curiosity about challenging subjects. Colleges don’t have a PERFECT system for comparing applicants, but we all know which kind of applicants they prefer along that dimension. </p>
<p>The HUGE problem with any “study” conducted by the Education Conservancy is that its study design is inadequate for establishing causation. College admission practices, or at least rumors about college admission practices, are part of the environment of high school students, but high school curriculum design, academic advising, teaching, and discipline practices are a much bigger part of their environment. Maybe it would be good for more high school students to actually meet college admission officers </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=389153[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=389153</a> </p>
<p>and ask those officers what makes sense for getting ready for a competitive college. MIT has an admission officer going around the country, saying, as he said in Minneapolis on the 15th of this month, “Many MIT students are solid B students who take the hardest classes they could,” which certainly suggests a different strategy for preparation for admission from shirking a Shakespeare course to take a PSAT prep course. </p>
<p>I don’t worry about this a lot. Anything Lloyd Thacker can do to help clueless high school students get a clue College Confidential can do faster.</p>