That’s your insular family experience. 1550 on the first try? Really? You think that’s typical for everyone?
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I think the 300 student started in the 1100s range. Most went up 200-250 points. Most were in 1100-1300 range initially. This was when the test was scaled lower and very few students got 1600s. Now it would probably correlate to higher start and end points. Also, this was in the days when prep was not as ubiquitous and most kids taking classes were from very motivated families, so they already did well (on average). Much of what I taught was strategy and recap/repackaging of what they already knew. It’s not like these kids got markedly smarter in 6 weeks!
But, I see @CUandUCmom 's point about having numbers that can be directly compared.
I suppose schools will tier awards even within already ID’d tiers (nat’l, regional, local) which makes them somewhat comparable. I think in ECs some kids lose out more than others. Mine is in poms, and I’m sure most admissions officers have no idea how much work that is and that it is a multi-season sport!
Ah well. I am a fan of holistic overall, though. I think it helps to build an environment of the admits that is part of the learning experience.
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May I remind users that the Terms of Service require civil posts. I will be deleting quite a few right now. This is an instruction, not a suggestion.
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I am a little perplexed by the tone of this thread. Holistic review benefits everyone. Kids who are exceptional in ECs are not doing it because they are trying to get into college and most people cant just become an exceptional artist or comedian or juggler just to get into college. Our country is much more diverse then the ones that are being suggested of models for purely test based admissions and have systems that guide kids to other pathways before university, cant compare.
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Not to nitpick, but I really wonder whether it was your awareness of the public library system that served as the primary factor in your kid’s test score. The 1550 didn’t so much lead me to that conclusion as did your comment that your non-reader didn’t “quite” make it there, which I assume means he/she was over 1400 … as a non-reader! I think your kids are good test takers and are probably somewhat gifted. And that leads an another line of debate on this topic.
I had good test takers but never felt the urge to defend this ground to the death. If a kid isn’t great at one-day high stakes testing at the age of 17 or 18, but otherwise shows academic promise, then I don’t have a problem with holistic admissions letting that person in. However, IMO, one of the two should be there: a solid test score or GPA+rigor, at least for selective schools.
What I have noticed is that parents often base their intellectual views on this topic on their kid’s achievements/talents. What I find interesting are the views that suggest that one data point ought to give their kid more access as a singular achievement vs. whether it is an important data point for assessing future success. @Data10 cited in another thread Bates College’s data comparing test submitters vs. non-submitters in terms of GPA and graduation rates. I was won over years ago when someone posted online an internal memo at Whitman College (which has since gone TO), in which the Whitman administration was evaluating whether to drop the test (they’ve since done so) based on what they cited as strong evidence that GPA and rigor in HS was a strong (or better, I can’t remember) predictor for college success. Our IB coordinators were fond of sharing anecdotes of past fantastic students who didn’t knock the test out of the park who nonetheless went on to be super stars in college.
Most universities and colleges are trying to generate future success stories. For that reason, I can understand why they want to do a 360 on every applicant vs. admission by table. Most things in life are not going to involve one single measure of your performance achieved on one day. And just as you have kids running around like crazy trying to “generate” ECs, you also have a lot of serious students spending an inordinate amount of time chasing test scores.
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Atleast in my case I am making a philosophical point. I think there is some general stereotyping of kids that are academic, which I dislike. The academic kid also spent 20-25 hours a week on ECs and managed to go to bed by 10.30. The system did not fail for him.
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I guess I have @MaineLonghorn to thank, as I think I’m coming in after some of the nasty posts have been deleted.
I am not an admissions reviewer. But after spending a few months here at CC, my eyes start to glaze over at all of the phenomenal stats and superlative extracurriculars/leadership listed by students that tends to give a feeling of being very calculated and not totally authentic (along with their list of colleges that exclusively contains Top X schools). When someone shows up with something different in their initial post…whether it’s offbeat interests or lower stats that makes me question …why are they thinking about these particular universities…it grabs my attention. Sometimes I think, this person totally needs to be redirected because they have very unrealistic and overinflated expectations. Other times, however, there is a very compelling feel to the information being conveyed and I think, hey, I think they have a shot. And this is just me with having read…maybe 100 or so similar posts like this. What if I was reading thousands?
For all the STEM students who want to go to a university that specializes in STEM and don’t care about the rest of the university experience, go on ahead and create the non-holistic admissions experience. But if people want to encounter a variety of people with different interests (both with respect to different majors and different EC interests) and different backgrounds from different parts of the country from different economic strata, holistic admissions is the way to go.
Note: My eyes get reinvigorated when I see a student with top GPAs & test scores who has a list that has obviously been customized just for them. But when you see a list of just the Top X schools, it makes it easier to put them in the bucket of what some CC’ers call the “average excellent student” of which there are far more in the U.S. than there are spots in the Top X universities that they’re applying to. I would imagine that college AOs would be excited if they could tell the student was excited about THEIR university and not just that it is a top-ranked university.
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College admissions reminds me of Moneyball. You’ve got the Yankees (T20s) who can buy (recruit) any player they want who are trying to figure out exactly who they need to build their teams.
Then, there are the rest of the teams (colleges) who need to balance the books and try to attract players (students) who might be able to play for the Yankees or who could contribute to their team without being an obvious superstar.
The most selective schools are looking to balance their student body and the less selective schools are looking at applicants for signals that these students have potential. They may not have had as many opportunities. They might be late bloomers. They may be individuals who created projects outside formal education and ECs.
The big question is whether or not holistic admissions results in the desired outcome. Is any application of a 17 year old indicative of their true potential? Do the European universities do just as well using straight up statistics? They might but it is also important to remember that scores and grades might be more indicative of ability than social class when there aren’t as many children growing up in poverty without access to quality public education.
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Neither of our kids were tippy top standardized test scorers.
One as two degrees related to the most significant EC. Believe me…we didn’t even have college on our radar at all when he started this at age 3…but it became clearer and clearer this would be the college major and career choice.
Our other kid is a STEM kid college graduate, and professional school graduate who had ZERO ECs related to STEM when applying to undergrad school. In fact, she applied undeclared, and declared an engineering major as a sophomore, and added a second major in biology sometime early in her junior year. The lack of STEM based ECs didn’t slow her down one bit.
Just as college majors don’t necessarily correlate with future jobs, it is my opinion that ECs in HS don’t necessarily correlate with future college majors.
The STEM kid college probably did holistic admissions. The other kid was in a major requiring an audition…so not holistic at all.
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Nothing against “holistic admissions”, at all… I think it can be very additive to the class that AO wishes to put together. I do think however, there are still a number of issues with it:
- are the students sure … whatever holistic criteria are applied … whether those are applied consistently (or subject to the bias of the AO/specific AO reader)?
- are the holistic admission criteria the same every year or do they change?
- why are certain aspects of the students profile weighed more than others? are these transparent to the applicants before they apply? if not, why not?
- who knows whether “an academic student” does not have some of the same qualities or strengths? [it is unknowable]
I know that the traditional answer to many of these things is “leave it to the AO to get it right”… well, yes… but doesn’t it make the applicants more anxious?.. it is a random walk process and if so, doesn’t it lead to more applications?
Honestly, I see both the benefits and shortcomings of a holistic process… just not sure that AO can be expected to get it right and whether it can be “fair”… but I do not have the answers, either.
Good luck to all the applicants!!! May the Force be With You!
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That’s how I took it. No worries.
I hearken back to an interview Bill Gates gave after the roaring and somewhat unexpected (not by him) success of a few of the software products in the early Microsoft days. He credited his hiring of a team of sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists- NOT the developers (who were extraordinary, but of a different type of extraordinary).
For the “rack and stack” crowd- life would be very different without people whose “gifts” cannot be measured with grades or scores. Would The Lion King move people to tears if composers and lyricists and costume designers were chosen by their SAT scores? Did Mario Puzo get test prep and is that why the Godfather franchise is so embedded in popular culture? Do people stand- literally like statues, mute and frozen in place- when they see the 9/11 memorial for the first time because the architects were “top of their class” or just rank underachievers who relied on holistic admissions? Are we (those of us who are) moved by President Zelensky and his bravery because he had the top scores for admission to university (apparently not, but there are no awards for being a stalwart beacon of hope to your people who are being bombarded daily).
I can respect the Ox-bridge admissions system while recognizing that the US is a VERY different place, and our entire system of education (not just higher ed) would need a radical overhaul in order to make that system work for us.
For those who dislike holistic (or think it’s unfair to their own kid)-- you don’t really believe that the woman crowned Miss America was the MOST beautiful and talented, objectively measured, do you? Or that the person who won the Oscar for Best Actor was really the Best Actor? Or that the “richest man in Texas” actually IS the richest? (The richest man in Texas is smart enough NOT to be named richest man in Texas… that’s why he’s so rich).
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And yet you’re quite quick to stereotype the kids that aren’t naturally good at test taking or that have fantastic ECs. 
We all most definitely have our blind spots. The stakes are high for these kids and the parents feel their stress. But stereotyping either “side” does no one any good.
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Context. I can see by your posts you are against Holistic Review. However, I am still waiting for the mythical Jugglers or singers you reference in your argument against holistic reviews that are not academically qualified bumping the non Juggler or singer from admissions.
I can further see you have a child that is academically gifted to say the least, able to score a 1550 on the SAT in 8th Grade without studying. A score in the 99% of a test taken by 1.5 to 2 million students mainly Sophomores and Juniors in High School. That is an amazing accomplishment but not something even with the reading you suggest many people can accomplish. So i can understand why you would not want other holistic factors included in admissions.
Interesting you dismiss this out of hand
I see this attitude against Holistic reviews in some of my own friends that send their kids to the top Private schools and pay for tutors, test preps, private coaches and then complain their sons or daughters have to compete holistically with someone who may have not had all the advantages.
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The main gap I see with holistic admission process is that there is no feedback given back to student of why they are not considered. This sometimes leads to kids loosing confidence on key aspect of themselves. I can understand if it’s stats because in a way you can put more effort in college experience and improve it, but holistic process can leave kids with scar on their personality which is very essence needed to do anything meaningful in life.
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It’s interesting in that you’re essentially trying to quantify maybe what isn’t easily quantifiable? So hard to compare equally such qualitative data. Definitely not apples to apples. And certainly you could argue that the bias of the AO could be at play.
I can’t help but continue to question the assumption that holistic admissions is a necessary ingredient for an interesting and varied student body. We are about the only country that does holistic admissions; does that mean that universities in the rest of the world are filled with homogeneous humans? Is the student experience at McGill, or Oxford, or University of Amsterdam too boring? I also question the assumption that a high stats (testing and grades) kid without ECs and “leadership” experience is boring. I personally find knowledge and intelligence more interesting than soccer and juggling. And often I find those who are “interested in neither leading nor following” to be especially interesting. ETA: I know that YOU never said that high stats kids without ECs/leadership were boring, just that others on this thread have implied that.
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I would prefer to hear some summary or note back based on AO feedback, does not matter if you are selected or rejected…
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That can definitely be a negative
That is a great idea as that would really useful info moving forward for these kids.