<p>“If you spend any time at all in the “chance me” threads here, you will see a lot of anecdotal evidence of kids with lopsided scores. In the schools’ own breakdowns you’ll see MIT kids with high math and low(er) writing, too. I just looked at H and MIT’s stats for this freshman class and there are like 2-3% in the under 600 SAT range.”</p>
<p>Yes, but they are positively correlated. Most people’s scores will be within the CB’s 100 std dev. Of course there will be some people with a much larger lopside and that is probably a self selecting population that needs advice on their college chances. The 27% who score below 700 on their CR are probably disproportionate represented in the 23% who got below 700 on their M. </p>
<p>Thats a more likely scenario than all the kids in Illinois independently deciding not to apply to Ivy schools.</p>
<p>This is anecdotal only, but “in my day” the Hillel on our campus didn’t do any kind of outreach whatsoever. My maiden name was about as Jewish-identification as one could get, but they wouldn’t have known that I existed and I never darkened their doors.</p>
<p>Nowadays, they seem to do a lot more outreach – having broad social events, sleep-overs (my S’s first day on campus was actually a Hillel sleepover the night before move-in day), and lots of other programs that don’t necessarily require someone to be “religious” to want to participate. Some of them are indeed the social bagels-and-lox types of things. I think it’s possible Hillel has a better handle on how many people are at least nominally Jewish on campus, than they used to. Which is not to say that it’s perfect, of course.</p>
<p>What % of high schools in the country even had ANYONE apply / go to an Ivy League or similar school, such that there’s a database to work with? Everyone here is projecting their own Short Hills / New Trier / we’ve got dozens of kids who go to Ivies to the rest of the country.</p>
<p>So argbargy, how do you propose the Ivies run college admissions? Do you believe they should rack and stack the scores? Should they have a score minimum (let’s say 700M 700V for the sake of argument)? How should they decide between the oboe-playing math whiz from Alabama and the student body president classics major from Manhattan?</p>
<p>That must be part of what those super-high-priced college consultants do. Surely those consultants can’t justify their rates by casual conversation about college admissions alone? ;)</p>
<p>Well, then, feel free to apply to Caltech. Isn’t it great that we’re here in the United States with so many choices, so you can choose to apply or not-apply wherever you see fit?</p>
<p>And I wonder why Caltech doesn’t remotely have the “prestige” of the Ivies, given that they are admitting smarter students. it’s almost as though there is a cultural attitude in the United States that smarts aren’t everything, go figure.</p>
<p>If Caltech only accepts by the numbers why did my son have to do “the box”? (They gave you a box you filled it with art etc. of your design.) Why have essays about your greatest ethical dilemma?</p>
<p>And while my son loved the nerdy vibe at Caltech, I’ve known plenty who were looking for a place that wasn’t like that. Having spent considerable time at both Harvard and Caltech, I can tell you they are very, very different places.</p>
<p>If nothing else this thread will serve as a useful compendium of bogus debating techniques. From strawmen to begging the question, to appeal to authority. </p>
<p>Now its unAmerican to question a discriminatory policy.</p>
<p>And in World News Tonight…
There is a massive bidding war going on this week between Ivy League schools in an attempt to land the nation’s only white non-Jewish applicant. The crisis began when College Confidential User sm74 was able to convince the nation’s white gentile population that they would have no chance at all. Conspiracy theories now suggest the sm74’s child is the lone child now under consideration. We will bring you live updates as they occur…</p>
<p>Caltech admissions is holistic. However, they do feel that SAT math or science scores <em>roughly</em> below 750 or B’s in math/science are red flags that a student may not be ready for Caltech. </p>
<p>They are looking for the smartest people they can find. That does not equate to “rack-and-stack.”</p>
<p>If nothing else, this thread… has been (as have a few others, lately,) a thought-provoking discussion. With a few exceptions for a few who need an outlet for anxiety and anger. </p>
<p>DH commented that the Chronicle of Higher Ed has noted many southern colleges have increased recruiting up north/northeast in order to somehow bolster their academic reps. He mentioned a few schools that we all can admire, but that, as he put it, fall at the fringes of what people commonly perceive as the best fruit on the unreachable top branches of the tree.</p>
<p>Well, good for them! Isn’t it great that Caltech is free to set its mission and its admission criteria how they like … and other private universities are free to set their mission and their admission criteria how they like? Who died and made Caltech god?</p>
<p>Notre Dame, a private university, gives a lot of love to legacies. is that “discriminatory” towards their non-legacy applicant pool, which is likely also less Catholic than their legacy applicant pool?</p>
<p>Stanford gives a lot of love to athletes. is that “discriminatory” towards those who aren’t naturally athletically talented?</p>
<p>I think most of us on CC by now realize that getting accepted to an elite school is a bit of a game, of completing a well-balanced portfolio of achievements that are known in a broad sense to appeal to adcoms. The Jewish community, as a cultural rather than religious unit, is strongly interested in the value of education and also has a tradition of helping its own. It stands to reason, that the children from such a group will have early access to the information they need to tailor their achievements to be appealing without being stifling (as appears to still often be the case with Asian families where Confucian deference to authority may be prevalent).</p>
<p>None of this has anything to do with being Jewish per se. The regulars on CC could well be considered such a group, except that many who begin to reach out here do so too late in life to optimize their chances of elite college admissions.</p>
<p>That’s a great post, LoremIpsum. It explains why others seem to have a hard time accepting “the game” without resorting to - well, what’s the formula, how come I can’t predict ahead of time who can get in, it’s not fair.</p>
<p>Please understand that I do not have any axe to grind with regard to people of any religion. I also accept that private institutions have rather wide latitude in how they recruit and fill their classes. Having said that, I am having some difficulty understanding Case Western’s argument about increased enrollment of Jews being a way to increase “diversity.” And this is their stated goal, according to the school’s vice president for enrollment management. Right now, Jews account for 7.5 percent of the school’s enrollment. There are just under 20 counties in the United States that have a higher percentage of Jews than that, so unless Case Western feels they need to prepare students not to be shocked if they end up living and working in, say, the New York metropolitan area, that seems a reasonable percentage. </p>
<p>Now, you might say, “Well, Case Western wants to be competitive in the recruitment of Jewish students who, if they are not quite as smart as Unitarians [ed. note: Could not resist! UUs represent!], are statistically likely to be strong students. Nothing wrong with that.” You might think that. I thought that. And I think it would be totally cool if Case Western copped to that. But, according to the provost, William “Bud” Baeslack, “That Jews as a group do well academically and that many Jewish families are able to pay full tuition at an expensive private institution are not among the reasons CWRU wants to increase Jewish enrollment … It was not our goal to say let’s grow Jewish students so they can improve our academic profile … If that happens, wonderful, and in all likelihood that would happen based on information (I’ve seen).” </p>
<p>Who believes him? I don’t.</p>
<p>Ah, but I digress. Back to the topic at hand. Who cares about some second-tier school in Cleveland when Ivy skewering is on the agenda? ;)</p>
<p>A more general version of Upton Sinclair’s statement that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it” would be that “It is difficult to get an individual to understand something when that individual’s self-interest (at least in the short-term and narrow sense) is best served by not understanding it.” That applies to many discussions on CC, but to few more than the one here.</p>
<p>Another way of putting this (without reference to Jews, just in general) is that Ivies are looking for leadership. A mentality of “where’s the formula? how come they won’t be more transparent about the formula, it’s not fair! there’s got to be a formula” presupposes a mentality of – just tell me what you want and I’ll twist myself in knots to become that. That’s the antithesis of leadership.</p>