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<p>OHMomof2, how about this one? I haven’t seen a reasonable explanation of why admissions rates for Asians have gone down yet have remained static for Jews. What do you think?</p>
<h1>461 by argbargy:</h1>
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<p>The “innate ability” of #2 and #5 can be significantly enhanced or limited by what one does (of course, the opportunity to do what it takes to enhance those abilities is also variable). For example, if someone with good “innate ability” in swimming never swims, then s/he will never realize the athletic prowess to become a recruitable athlete for colleges. For those with good “innate ability” intellectually, the motivated student who completes school work and reads for fun is more likely to achieve more than a slacker who does nothing but watch sitcoms on television.</p>
<p>By #3, do you mean most of the usual “hooks” like legacy, big donations, relative of prominent domestic or foreign politician, celebrity (e.g. subject of a “tiger mother” book “coincidentally” published right when college applications are sent), etc.?</p>
<p>Yes, yes and yes. Which is why SES is number 1 on my list.</p>
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Wow. Thank you.</p>
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<p>I’d think this applies to college applications and as well as real life, where dress is somewhat like CA.</p>
<p>poetgrl’s 8 points cover all. Ivies’ formula are derived from the list with varying weight to each and with layers of interactions among them. It’s a blackbox to outsiders.</p>
<p>I don’t see anyone who has evil intent here. Understanding one anther is important and helpful. If we don’t try here on CC, where many educated people gather, where?</p>
<p>You keep saying varying weight to each, as though there is a formula where being student council president counts for x and being editor of the paper counts for y, and gosh, then you add points for being black, Hispanic (or apparently Jewish) and subtract them for being Asian (or apparently non J white).</p>
<p>Don’t you guys get it? This kid’s student body presidency is compelling for student A – and not compelling for student B. this kid’s oboe playing is of interest – that kid’s isn’t. </p>
<p>You all know who on CC you like and don’t like, who you think is smart / clever and not so smart, who has a personality you like and who doesn’t, who you’d want to have coffee with and who you don’t. You are able to evaluate that holistically, since none of us have posted our scores. Why is it so difficult to understand that it’s the same process?</p>
<p>You guys also seem to mistakenly think that a decision is made and then a race factor is applied. “He’s qualified, he’s in the admit pile. But I see he is Asian, so out he goes.” You also mistakenly seem to think that 2 candidates are being explicitly compared, but you think you know who those candidates are, which leads to the stupid “they turned down the 2350 Asian from Silicon Valley for the 2000 black kid from LA” when for all you know they turned down the 2350 Asian for another 2350 Asian or a 2350 white kid."</p>
<p>You still are lost in the mindset of “higher scores deserve the seats in the absence of evidence that they kick puppies” and you keep acting as though other people “stole” those spots. And you keep professing shock and horror that smart kids get turned down. As if you don’t understand the concept of low acceptance rates.</p>
<p>“Unfortunately the selection group that reviews the essays does not have many Asians who can interpret the essesence of the essay that an Asian writes compared to essays from jewish or hispanic or black who can relate themselves to the reviewers. This is a big negative for Asians. Thus schools need more asians on the board of essay reviewers”</p>
<p>Maybe they should institute a soft quota that, oh, about 20% of their adcoms should be Asian. What irony!</p>
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<p>It’s true that adcoms don’t actually know the student, merely the product the student produces – his personal “marketing package.” As such, what a given student accomplishes within a given role – and what that student writes about his achievements and their corresponding challenges – is almost certainly worth more than the title of the role itself. We all know people who have had titles or held positions where nothing really got done. This would make quantitative value assignment rather problematic, even if it were deemed desirable.</p>
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I demand a quantitative method! This holistic thing is only giving me one freaking green box.</p>
<p>Welcome to the “2 green box” group, bovertine!! ;)</p>
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<p>Apparently not. It’s 7 minutes since you posted and I clearly see that you have two boxes. See how easy “holistic” can be? :)</p>
<p>Edit: I see I cross-posted with jym, our reigning Queen of Green!</p>
<p>^^^Complain and ye shall receive!</p>
<p>Feel free to show your appreciation in green!</p>
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<p>Why are you pretending that there is no metric possible when there clearly is?</p>
<p>Lets say you can award 10 points in every category that is “Very Important” and 5 for every that is designated as “Important”. You can get 2 bonus points for everything that is “Considered”.</p>
<p>There! I have constructed your elusive formula. </p>
<p>In no way does that means that someone who got a 7/10 for SAT, GPA and school schedule rigor should get in in front of someone with 10/10 in those categories. </p>
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<p>Its a sadness that you still havent read the article because that is what the data suggests.</p>
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<p>I think a more likely scenario is that there will be situations where a handful of borderline applicants are presented and the committee will pick from this pool with an eye toward maintaining demographic balance.</p>
<p>“You all know who on CC you like and don’t like, who you think is smart / clever and not so smart, who has a personality you like and who doesn’t, who you’d want to have coffee with and who you don’t.”</p>
<p>I am drinking tea. Am I still allowed? Where was I supposed to go to meet my favorite CC people and which places should i avoid not to meet those who want to mug me?</p>
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<p>You have decided its a handful. Based on the Princeton study and the experience of Caltech I say its a lot. </p>
<p>Would you support peeling back the secretive process and have an outside party quantify whats actually going on here?</p>
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<p>I would. </p>
<p>But, here’s where you might find yourself a bit shocked. Not everyone is going to “quantify” things in the same way that you do. For example, I would not consider the marginal value of having a few more perfect SAT scores to trump the value of having a reasonably representative number of URMs on campus, and many in the academic world would not, either.</p>
<p>That’s the problem you would face, to some extent.</p>
<p>No matter what YOU decide is the more valuable metric, it might simply not coincide with what the admission committee sees as a more valuable metric.</p>
<p>I don’t even believe the supreme court would believe that YOU get to set the metrics.</p>
<p>But, sure, even though I believe it is probably a different process every year, to get the right financial, academic, arts, athletic and demographic balance on campus, peel back the process. </p>
<p>I just doubt you would be satisfied with that. What I think you really want is to be able, through your own lens of what is important, to dictate what matters and what does not. You might be surprised to find out that what matters most to you is not what matters most to most people.</p>
<p>The problem is that …holistically, how do you evaluate what someone does with the soft things on their applications.</p>
<p>For example, take student council president. Usually just a popularity contest…so is it worth points, and if so, how many, and also does it count as leadership? But what if this individual actually accomplished something while in office? for example, persuaded the school board to change the school bell schedule to start at a later time. That is leadership…but what if the movement to change the bell schedule was lead by a student who was not president? He showed leadership…but doesn’t get the Student council points.</p>
<p>And how do you evaluate the kid who learned to play oboe in school band, and loves it, but could never have private music lessons because the family couldn’t, or wouldn’t , afford them…so this kid can’t play in all the fancy honors orchestras…as compared to the kid who had all the advantages?</p>
<p>By the time a reviewer added and subtracted “points” on all the things that makes each applicant unique…according to the opinions of that reviewer as to what was worth adding and subtracting how many points, especially as a lot of the items being scored would depend on how they are each described by each applicant, trying to gussy them up and make them sound impressive–nothing would have been gained from just going with the holistic review as it now exists.</p>
<p>The reasons that holistic review isn’t quantified is because it involves information about applicants that paints a picture, not a chart.</p>
<p>For the students who strongly feel they don’t want to be judged on a holistic review, there is a simple solution–don’t apply to those schools that use holistic reviews. There are a lot of good schools that go strictly by the numbers–apply to them instead. If you like the way admissions are done in India or China better, then apply to schools in India or China.</p>
<p>Here’s a good look at a holistic admissions process. The article is from 5 years ago, and it’s about a NESCAC school, not an Ivy, but I think it gives a good sense of how some of these decisions are made.</p>
<p>[Down-East-Magazine</a> November-2007 Who-Gets-In - Who Gets In?](<a href=“http://www.downeast.com/Down-East-Magazine/November-2007/Who-Gets-In]Down-East-Magazine”>http://www.downeast.com/Down-East-Magazine/November-2007/Who-Gets-In)</p>
<p>I have to give kudos to the school for opening their admissions process up to a reporter.</p>