<p>IF you guys could see how low the ivy league’s dipped into the intelligence pool at my school to fulfill their holistic & affirmative action quotas…</p>
<p>I mean 26 ACTs, drug users, resume padders, one kid had his mom write his essay for him (accepted into Columbia)…</p>
<p>yay holisticism!</p>
<p>swimguy112, do the cons outweigh the pros? i really think that success in life is more than just numbers, and schools are looking for that spark/leadership/intellectual potential. they are choosing a class of individual and unique people, not numbers. sure, the bad parts of personality are often left out of applications - substance abuse, lying, etc., but i think the good outweighs the bad in the holistic process. my scores aren’t stellar (in CC terms) but i’ve really dedicated myself outside of the classroom for things that inspire me and i’ve moved a lot and adapted well, learning a new language along the way. and i’d like to believe that my hard work, not necessarily my ability to take the SAT, got me into college. there’s a reason i applied to school in america and not anywhere else. i don’t mean to come off as angry, but stuff like what you described happens. i know a lot of cheaters and idiots who got into college and you know what? good for them. i’m going to make the best of what i have.</p>
<p>Well, I got pretty screwed over by the holistic approach (2400, USAMO, quite solid GPA and ECs, rejected from Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Stanford), but I still think that admissions should include something other than just raw test/grades data. Otherwise, you’d just have colleges with students segregated by intelligence and the whole thing would have an assembly-line feel. There might be an exception for places like Caltech where you definitely want to judge based on pure scientific brainpower first and foremost, but that’s only for the schools training future geniuses, and even there you need people that are curious and driven as well as talented.</p>
<p>In my case, holistic admissions helped me, a middle class kid, a ton. The admissions committees saw my good standardized scores, my varying grades (horrid in Math/Chemistry, fine in others), job (20+hours a week), and dedication to few activities (journalism, student government, and the performing arts) and I was accepted where they must felt I fit. If it was just based on perfect GPAs and SAT scores at the schools I applied to, I wouldn’t have gotten in anywhere. In my opinion, it’s just about being yourself and trying to make the best of whatever you have, I think. So, I like holistic. Like my guidance counselor said,a lot of people can “do the work”. It’s just a matter of what other people have said, about what you might add to the campus.</p>
<p>I think Hollistic is a good system, but either way you can get misrepresented based on your context [non-hollistic or not taking it into context hurts chances for pure number systems] and if you screw up your essays… well that’s by default bad.</p>
<p>I suppose I feel like I got shafted by admissions, for public schools. I applied to the top 5 UCs, or thereabouts, and I only got into UCI. Not into the honors program like my very similar peers overall [hollistically, I guess]. My numbers were on target for all of them, but if the UCs became more hollistic this year, perhaps I failed that.</p>
<p>I really like holistic admissions a lot. I feel it is important for colleges to see what you are like beyond just numbers. I hardly think just numbers will get you far in life, but being well-rounded WILL get you further in life.</p>
<p>Well, if you don’t want holistic approach - you can look at England. If Oxford gets an application from a student with 8 A levels (A) they will surely choose him over a guy with 7 A levels (A) (granted there is no other academic distinction). And no one would care if the 7 A level guy studied all of that by himself outside of school, surviving terrible conditions (poverty, war), and working his butt off. It makes the incoming class much less interesting - a much higher probability to meet nerdy ‘calculators’. I like the U.S. system because when you are on campus, you benefit from the diversity - people come from all over the world, different backgrounds, and with different ambitions. I don’t think that goal of HYPS is to recruit more students who will get a 4.0. Their goal is to produce leaders who will change the world, not ‘calculators’ who study 24/7 and so on. Academic success is very very important, but the context in which you want to use it, and what you did to achieve it, is, to me, much more important than stats alone.</p>
<p>In today’s society, lots of well-meaning parents with financial resources are providing a privileged environment to an ample supply of high school seniors. What would you do as an admissions officer to differentiate those who look good because of their environment or those who look good due to their inner character and drive?</p>
<p>The holistic approach may not be perfect, but I fully support the need for colleges to incorporate it as part of their admissions criteria.</p>
<p>I think I saw Wakeforest in the Newsweek College mag- don’t they accept something like 94% of the students who apply? Maybe their issue isn’t holisticism in general, but just plain too much of it? xD</p>
<p>Fact check on Wake Forest : in 2007 they had 7177 applications , accepted 3041 and enrolled 1124 freshman.</p>
<p>Ah, silly me. I mis-thought. It’s <em>evergreen</em> that does that.</p>
<p>Too many tree names for me to remember them all.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=fireandrain]
I think holistic admissions actually can help kids from truly middle class and low-income families. Because admissions officers look at the SAT score in context with the high school the student attends, the educational level of the parents, etc. Because having a job is considered as impressive as, if not more so, than paying thousands to send Muffy to volunteer in South America.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The thing is that kids from middle class and lower class high schools simply do not have the opportunities that kids from upper class high schools do. The majority of them do not know what adcoms are looking for. They don’t have meaningful guidance on what they should write their essay about. They do not know what a good GPA is for the schools they are looking at. </p>
<p>I have never heard a case of a poor white/asian student getting admitted to a top university with subpar SATs through superior extracurriculars. In fact, all of the kids in my public high school who got into top schools did it through SATs/GPA. </p>
<p>And I doubt having a summer job at Wal Mart is really as impressive as being in Intel Talent Search, going to a math olympiad, or winning a Latin contest. Most middle class kids don’t know that those activities even exist, although I know plenty of kids who were bright enough to be competitive. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The thing is that upper class kids have the resources to pad their resumes and get what adcoms are looking for. Relative to their SATs/GPA, upper class kids have much stronger extra curriculars. The only way to level the playing field is to make admissions decisions based on academic criteria which all applicants know about, and which all applicants have access to.</p>
<p>al6200, I agree with you that there isn’t a level playing field. And that’s exactly why there is holistic admissions. Because students from low- and middle-income families can’t afford SAT prep classes, their SAT scores are lower. Because they have to work a full-time job, or live in a homeless shelter, their GPA might be lower. Plenty of high scorers don’t get in, and some low (relatively speaking low) do, because their scores are looked at holistically, in context. </p>
<p>Admissions officers know which high schools produce Intel winners and the like. For a student who doesn’t go to an Intel-feeder, then yes – working a job at Wal-mart IS as impressive as Intel. And because there is holistic admissions, committees look at all those expensive and “stronger” ECs with a jaded eye. They also read essays in context – the essay from the kid in a small rural school is read in an entirely different light than the one from the kid who took the “college essay writing English class” in his tony suburban HS.</p>
<p>I don’t agree that admissions is looking for resume padders. I agree that many applicants spend a lot of money to increase their chances of admission, and that sometimes those efforts pay off. And those families are pretty angry about the kids who get in with lower SAT scores.</p>
<p>I agree that many low-income and middle-income kids (and by middle-income, I mean truly middle income – in the $50-75,000 range) are very ignorant about the college application process. Harvard abandoned ED specifically to go out and educate those students. The answer is better communication, improving services at rural and inner city schools, not throwing out holistic admissions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Like what? SAT scores? Then most low-income kids, students from rural areas and students from the inner city won’t be accepted. How is that leveling the playing field?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There may be quite a few of these admitted as elite athletes.</p>
<p>When you guys say that adcoms expect more out of upper middle class students, what about upper middle class students whose parents are tight with money? It seems as if I am expected to get tutors, go to expensive SAT prep classes, get my parents to pay for summer programs, get my parents to pay to send me volunteer in Kenya, etc. but I really cannot do any of that.</p>
<p>I suspect that schools are good and sick of kids who go build houses in Guatemala and write essays about how they met some waif named Jose and now understand how lucky they are to live in Scarsdale. I almost think that kind of thing backfires at this point, and that colleges would be more impressed by someone who helps someone in the next town all year.</p>
<p>No, the ad coms don’t “expect” you to do any of that. Working as a dishwasher this summer is probably more impressive to the admissions committee than that volunteer trip to Kenya, especially for an upper middle class kid. And since SAT scores tend to track with family income, your scores are most likely already in a higher zone.</p>
<p>Truth to be told, standardized testing is not a problem by itself. Rather, the deficient kinds of test <em>SAT, AP, etc…</em> are the main problems. We would see admission officers relying much more on test scores if we had better national academic measures (not the SAT or ACT, which tests middle school science/math knowledge and speed-reading).</p>
<p>Which relates to Al2600 argument. We need to create tests that caters to a larger range of abilities, tests that are available and recommended for ALL applicants (unlike Olympiads). Thus, applicants who are truly academically qualified can shine in the application pool. Because as it is now, having 4.0 GPA, with 5-6 5’s on AP’s, and 2200+ SAT’s don’t make you “shine” academically for a school like HYPSM.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the reliance on SAT scores. I aced the math SAT -but the math SAT stops with algebra 2 or something like that. The really advanced math kids who are on Calc BC or higher are not even tested in this test. And the SAT II in math has a ridiculous curve, So if you look at my scores you think I’m a math genius…not. Not complainig…</p>
<p>My guidance counselor at my public school actually advised me to not put all my overseas travel on my appliction so I wouldn’t look like a rich kid (we’re middle class but travel is my parents’ priority. I wrote my essay about something that happened in my family, not about an exotic trip I took. </p>
<p>I think holisitc helped me because I was known as a leader in the school - not just getting elected President but in actually working with the superintendent of schools to solve some curriculum and schedulling dilemnas when the teachers felt “stuck”. Everyone at school knew me and I think that helped. Go Blue Devils!</p>
<p>i don’t if the holistic approach is totally outdated but…</p>