<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>If you read the story and the excerpt poetgirl posted, the paper is pointing out exactly these type of schools in Illinois are not having much success. So New Trier is getting s@$#ed according to the story. </p>
<p>Chicago Trib essentially wants your state’s fair share Pizzagirl!</p>
<p>What’s that old saying? If you’re not the lead sled dog, the view never changes?</p>
<p>Of course those individuals who follow their own interests will stand out when they attempt or accomplish something novel. But once word gets out that so-and-so works, every college consultant gets on the bandwagon to incorporate the new strategy until adcoms become bored and scream “enough!” Then it’s off to the next game.</p>
<p>There may well be a formula, but it changes every year. It’s about as useful as just knowing last year’s stock price when trying to make a buying decision.</p>
<p>Some of the Unitarians could be Jews, or Catholics, or Protestants. We know some people who are members of congregations in two faiths–say, Unitarian in winter, but Congregationalist in summer. </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s fruitful, though, to get too obsessed with religious diversity, as so many are agnostic in practice at best, even if they attend services with their families. There isn’t a category for, “raised Catholic, but on the road to atheism,” or, “will never set foot in a church again.” The difference between a non-practicing Jew and a non-practicing Catholic would be? On the 2010 Census, if it were ranked by faith, “no religion” would rank just below Baptist: <a href=“http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0075.pdf[/url]”>http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0075.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>Coming a bit later to the conversation, but if it helps, I was an international alumni admissions rep for awhile, and my hunch is that the 500 CR scores are probably the people from Uzbekistan or Tajikistan or somewhere where the admissions committee is going “Oh my gosh, we’ve never had anyone from this place before,” so they’re willing to work with a lower number. (This year, the 500’s will likely be from Burma.) Most likely foreign students – not guys from Iowa that don’t like to read.</p>
<p>Oh, I think 24 from NT is enough, personally. But, I was there when it was a feeder school, and I think we sent more, then. Who knows?</p>
<p>I found it interesting, is all. I don’t think Illinois, or Chi-Town, in particular, is going to fall off the edge of the known world. But, I would say that a school like Stevenson, which has actually surpassed NT, these days, ought to be getting more acceptances, if that is what the top students there would like to achieve. OTOH, the reality is that nobody “ought to be getting more acceptances” and that is the way it goes.</p>
<p>Stevenson is just probably a better school, these days, than NT, and it’s one of those situations where the Ivies may simply be playing in a “groove” they know rather than finding out what has changed. Of course, it’s not their job to find out what has changed around the Chicago area, only the states and cities where they pay no taxes and do owe a certain level of community return. YMMV</p>
<p>^ right, i dont know the decline in numbers or whether there was an actual decline. The paper should have tried to identify what it was 5 or 10 years ago to make a point about whether it was always this way or something changed recently as opposed lamenting about illinois not getting their fairshare and even the elite high schools are not doing as well.</p>
<p>Personally, I have been keeping track of our own high school to see how they do each year and I see declines each year. My conclusion has been that although our school numbers have gone down, the numbers in Houston stay about the same for a specific top school. They just choose to find a diamond in the rough in some obscure school.</p>
<p>Off topic but … Huh? That’s a lot of church-going, particularly for Unitarians! I don’t know any Unitarians who are Unitarian-Christian hyphenates. Clearly your Unitarian friends are different than mine! In any case, I do know many people who came to Unitarianism after growing up Jewish who still consider themselves Jewish “culturally.” </p>
<p>But on a point that is more salient to this thread (though not totally salient; my, how we wander around here): I agree it doesn’t make a lot of sense to dwell on students’ religion. But the article about Case Western shows that at least one university is clearly and unabashedly recruiting students who consider themselves Jewish, and the article implies that other schools are doing something similar (though none of their administrators are quoted so I’m reserving judgment).</p>
<p>I guess that I should have my son pick out my Powerball tickets next time I decide to play. He is white and largely WASP (with about 25% Irish Catholic) and was not recruited to play any sports at Harvard. He was not a legacy, not first generation, definitely not a “development case”, nor any other significant “hook” and graduated just outside of the top 5% of his HS class. He didn’t even get one of those ubiquitous “Please Apply” letters. He is smart, but not “brilliant” (and if you are at Harvard, you meet a lot of kids you are brilliant at something). IMHO, he is also intellectually curious. Nonetheless, he was accepted to Harvard (and “alot of other great schools” that are almost as good).</p>
<p>My perception from visiting many times over the past four years is that Harvard is not 25% Jewish. Strictly observation and some name connection, but I would be the first to argue that names mean very little in identifying the “jewishness” of someone. My son’s first “serious” gf has very Jewish first and last names and is Protestant of some form. He also had two friends who were half-Asian - one with a decidedly Jewish sounding name and the other with an English sounding name.</p>
<p>All sorts of hokum goes on under the banner of diversity. </p>
<p>And there is a formula. They just dont want it discussed. </p>
<p>Interestingly Princeton makes a mistake in their Common Data set that Harvard avoids. Rated as “Very Important”:
Rigor of secondary school record
Class rank
Academic GPA
Standardized test scores
Application Essay
Recommendation(s)</p>
<p>Racial/Ethnic status is just under “Considered”</p>
<p>This is why people like Jian Li are ****ed off. Obviously they arent following their own stated criteria.</p>
<p>It’s further evidence of the decadence of the Old Order that anyone should ask, without obvious sarcasm, “I wonder how many Unitarians there are at Harvard?”</p>
<p>For many years Harvard was the virtual epicenter of Unitarianism. Harvard alumni and faculty practically invented the American version of Unitarianism in the late 18th Century, and Harvard alumni and faculty – most notably Ralph Waldo Emerson – were its most articulate proponents in later years. What would be interesting to know would be when it was (if ever) that Harvard ceased to have more Unitarians than any other college. You can bet Unitarians were over-represented at Harvard for a damn long time.</p>
<p>It so happened, by the way, that I married into a family of Unitarians. Yes, they were “culturally Jewish,” but my father-in-law was in management at General Electric, and for most of his career, which spanned the late 40s to the mid-80s, General Electric’s policy toward Jews in management was more or less equivalent to the U.S. military’s policy towards homosexuals in service. Accordingly, General Electric had no Jews in management positions, but, like Harvard, it had a disproportionately high number of Unitarians, most of whom had lots of Jewish relatives (that’s at GE, not so much Harvard). My oldest sister-in-law clearly remembers when the family stopped being Jewish and became Unitarian, but my wife – the youngest child – was raised exclusively as a Unitarian. Despite her Jewish name and cultural presentation, she had never participated in any kind of Jewish ritual, except for attending one grandmother’s funeral, before she was 22 and involved with me.</p>
<p>A long run of Unitarian presidents, too- up through Lowell, I think. Yes, Lowell. I am one of the minority who was raised UU, fwiw. Also have H legacies. And they were Jewish, too, but not observant. </p>
<p>Apparently UU is big at H Divinity.
It’s an odd group to compare, as membership, attendance and giving (so I joke,) aren’t a component of the identity as they are with others.</p>
<p>So if my “white non-Jewish” D wants an admissions edge at Case Western or Carnegie Mellon (forget which it was), she should check “Jewish” on the religion box? And maybe show up at a temple a time or two?</p>
<p>I wonder…how does this work for kids who are both Asian AND Jewish…? Subject to the Asian quota? In the desired Jewish quota?</p>
<p>Interesting background, JHS. I assumed something of the sort was the case given that the Unitarian Universalist Association is headquartered in Boston, but I’m not as steeped in the denomination’s history as I could be and certainly know very little of Harvard. My daughter did do a “pilgrimage” to Cambridge as part of her Unitarian “coming of age” program.</p>
<p>So how do you explain the smart Asian kids who do get in, then? You know, if there’s a formula explicitly designed to keep them out, and all.</p>
<p>My daughter’s top 10 LAC is about 36% Asian (I don’t have the exact number, but it’s in that neighborhood.) Yep, clearly they hate Asians there.</p>