How corrupt are Ivy League admissions?

Parents Forum
541

<p>Well isnt it just as much “your lens” of what is important as mine? And I have to point out if this was another area of business having a racially motivated “lens” would result in being sued by the Federal government. </p>

<p>And how do you decide it is “a few more perfect SAT scores”? This could be a hundred or more kids per school, resulting in over a thousand impacted each year. The fact is you dont know how many kids are effected and how big the disparities in qualifications are. I sense you guys like to tell yourself its only a few but the experience of CalTech would argue otherwise.</p>

542

<p>One of the things I took away from this article is that the student who can check off a box for each category (academics, sports, student body president, etc.) but doesn’t stand out in any category is at a disadvantage. When put up against the pool of violinists or lacrosse players a student may not make an impression. Similarly, a student who’s among the top 10 percent from the deep South may outshine a similar or stronger student from an overrepresented area like NY or MA.</p>

543

<p>argbargy–</p>

<p>I believe we have many excellent institutions in this country, and I do not believe the Ivies are as valuable as you. That’s one thing.</p>

<p>But, we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this. I am absolutely positive that there are many areas where people in this country are experiencing injustice.</p>

<p>I am not even going to put Ivy league admissions in the top twenty.</p>

<p>ETA: </p>

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<p>Actually, I think you would have a helluva time suing because a group that has experienced traditional prejudice is getting a job. Good luck with that one.</p>

<p>Of course, you never know. I could be wrong. I guess you could sue. it would be really hard to win.</p>

<p>actually, has the federal government ever sued someone for hiring an african american if they are underrepresented in the company? I’ve never heard of that.</p>

544

<p>" believe we have many excellent institutions in this country, and I do not believe the Ivies are as valuable as you."</p>

<p>There is one place some are quite valuable - free money in terms of FA. Not all schools are created equal in this regard.</p>

545

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<p>Lending institutions are sued all the time for race blind policies that result in a desperate impact. Here we have race sensitive polices having desperate impact. </p>

<p>But have we put this “handful” thing to rest now?</p>

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<p>I didnt get that so much as there is in fact an empirical process where candidates are given an AR score and a PR score and those go into their overall evaluation. Then the school looks for oboe players and geographical diversity. </p>

<p>The most helpful piece I think is yieldability. You have to convince these schools that you are willing to attend. I wonder if the same discussion goes on with ED or they assume those kids are yieldable. I am cynical enough to think there is still some suspicion.</p>

546

<p>I’m sorry, but what PG wrote this am, followed by LI’s take, is what I see. What you did and how you package makes a difference. -What you did during the hs years, what you accomplished, how you view it and present it- all says a lot about your maturity, perspective and savvy. And desirability.</p>

<p>There are no “points” added up by category. It boils down to: have you made yourself a draw for this school? Did you show you know this school, have an idea of what it is about, what we value in applicants and in current students, what we aim to accomplish, what you will do with your time here, etc- incl, have you gotten beyond simplistic and emotion-based “dream school” statements? (Or, their sisters.) Did you give a few words to describe that project- or focus on prom dec? </p>

<p>I sincerely do not see this quota prejudice that’s spoken of. I have asked myself many times, how I could miss what seems to be so obvious to some parents, kids and young adults on forum threads. </p>

<p>I have never seen comments on CA reviews of a kid that match what some posters think goes on. No casual dismissals because a kid is Asian or phoney excitement because he’s URM. (That coding, btw, is easy to ignore.) </p>

<p>The whole package gets read multiple times, by adults with multiple sorts of experiences and perspectives. It all has to add up- not in a series of individual “points,” but in the overall impressions and scores- ratings for the overall impression and fit. Whether the kid is (to use a CC term someone coined that I like) “compelling” - or cookie cutter. (Or whether red flags went up.)</p>

<p>A standard process is that the regional rep does first-pass. Very basic. Then several independent reviews by people qualified to engage in this. In the end, senior reps go in that one more time (or more, depending) to see if the interim reviews affect their final impressions. Then, finalists get committee discussions. None of this is arbitrary and it all hinges on how a kid presents inthe CA- that’s all we have. </p>

<p>LoRs can sometimes be impressive. Sometimes, they re-form a kid in ways that say, wow. Sometimes, they provide the info a kid skipped. Sometimes, they say the same old phrases that tell little. Sometimes, they damn with faint praise.</p>

<p>Each app is looked at as an individual. Each kid is that kid. In many respects, the game is his to advance in or not, on his own merits. Kids do make mistakes. What can work in hs (that wacky essay about only two hours sleep, that funky stab at wit about staring at the ceiling or skipping class) may fall flat for a stranger reading your college app.</p>

<p>Overnight, I got flamed by a brand new member, for being arrogant and caustic. My apologies. I have a perspective that doesn’t always match what CC thinks and I get as excited about my opinions as the next person. I am not an adcom. I am just one of those reviewers. And, when final decisions are made, yes, all sorts of institutional considerations can apply. But to suggest this is all a corrupt process-??? Best wishes.</p>

547

<p>As I have said in the past…if a student does not want to be judged on holistic standards…don’t apply to schools that use holistic admissions.</p>

<p>If you want to be judged just on your numbers…apply to schools that make admission decisions solely on the numbers.</p>

<p>If you like how it is done in India or China, apply to schools in India or China. if you like how it is done in England, or Switzerland, or France or Germany…apply there.</p>

548

<p>"Overnight, I got flamed by a brand new member, for being arrogant and caustic. "</p>

<p>I thought brand new members are blocked from sending private messages until they build some rep. We will not let this person near our coffee area.</p>

549

<p>I agree with boysx3, for one thing.</p>

<p>Argbargy wrote:</p>

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<p>I’m hoping you mean <em>disparate</em> not desperate. I’m just going to assume so, though you might want to look into why this feels so desperate to you.</p>

<p>I think when you talk about schools with 1 digit or low 2 digit acceptance rates, you are not going to have very many “automatic admits,” regardless of what YOU might deem laudatory and worthy of such a thing. And, so, you see many harmed and I just say, when 94% of those who apply are rejected? what the heck do you expect? And why on earth do you “expect” anything?</p>

550

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<p>I am not as mathy as you, so I see formula can be as simple as x+y or as complex as requiring a super computer to run hours and hours. Knowing that formula may not help at all, though it may give you an accurate chance, say .123 - .321 at a college.</p>

<p>I think trust has something to do with holistic. “Trust but verify” would be ideal to all applicants. A great thing about the US government as compared to many others is its openness, e.g., debates, votes, etc.</p>

<p>By the way, you may not like judging people on a board like this, but I have quite a positive view of Pizzagirl. “Welcome to America!” may not sound positive to some, but I see no negative intent there, not at all.</p>

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<p>I am okay with that too. So be it if some group get admitted more than their population share and AA gets some help.</p>

551

<p>Texas, a visitor message.</p>

552

<p>It is the lense of the admissions staff that matters, not yours or any other member here. If your lense is distorted compared to theirs, you’re not going to see the same thing as them. If mine is close to theirs, I will, and am likely to like the same things they like.</p>

<p>There may be any number of compelling reasons why a school wants a certain level of diversity, regardless of the demographics used to define that diversity. There is not space at any Ivy League school for the number of people that apply, some some who are qualified - even some who are highly qualified - are not going to get in. But if we assume that the schools must rank all candidates based on some formula, and go down the list to admit students, are we not going to see the same students in at every school, and a signficant drop in yield due to the number of students who apply to more than one school? Or would you prefer the schools to all use one common application, and you have to rank your order of preference, so you only get admitted to one?</p>

<p>Isn’t a college admissions class much like a team? These are people who are going to study together for the next 4 years, so you want a group that will work well together. It seems to me that schools with very low attrition, and where 90% or more graduate do a pretty good job of putting together their teams. If you’re creating an all-star baseball team, are you going to simply take the 15 best overall players, and force someone into a position they’ve never played, or are you going to balance your team a variety of position players? Maybe you need to balance the phenomenal first baseman against the good first baseman who is also a decent backup pitcher.</p>

<p>The availability of federal funding does not trump Harvard’s right to meet its own institutional needs, and its right to spend its own money supporting those students it chooses. For the applicants, it is all about individual qualifications, but at the institutional level, it’s more about the class as a whole. I suspect if any student who was rejected tried to identify a specific individual that was “given their spot” the adcoms could probable point out specific details as to why that person what a more desireable candidate, other than just race. They could probably also point to other admitted students who were “worse” as well as other rejected candidates who were “better” than the one complaining.</p>

<p>Ultimately it comes down to a subjective decision, and we are not the people who decide on the subjective criteria. If the Supreme Court, or anyone else, insisted that everything be more “open” and define the “weight” given to certain criteria, we would have hordes scrambling to meet the heaviest weighter criteria, rather than focusing on being a good candidate overall. Maybe each year the Ivies should change the weight applied to that year’s applicants, and publish those weights at the end of the process?</p>

553

<p>I finally got through the entire article, although I started skimming near the end. First, it did not come across to me as anti-semetic, but of course I am neither Jewish nor religious, so I am probably incapable of recognizing anti-semetic cues.</p>

<p>What jumped out at me was the over-reliance by the author on NMS as the evaluation tool for discrimination. Where I live, there is a substantial and growing negativity about the overabundance of standardized testing, so the PSAT is still sold as merely a practice test for the SAT, so “don’t worry about it too much.” The author uses the results of this test as the bellweather for elite university qualifications. </p>

<p>I am a strong supporter of holistic versus objective admissions standards, because I think the holistic framework encourages the development of outstanding citizens of all types; not just excellent studiers and test takers. I would not like to see this framework eliminated. There are several excellent public universities that serve the needs of students who prefer to be admitted on their stats.</p>

<p>Based on my impressions gleaned from my Ds’ college experiences, I do think there is an extremely strong liberal bias in elite colleges, which I suspect spills over into the admissions selection process. I think this may positively impact Jewish enrollment in the sense that there may be a subconscious bias that Jewish students, who are notoriously liberal, will mesh nicely with the tenor of the university. (If that last statement came across as anti-semetic in some way, I apologize, as it was not intended.)</p>

554

<p>The process reminds me of jury selection in the way that the game can be over before it has begun because of the preliminary choices – in application review it would be what activities and characteristics are going to be valued and by how much. I would be surprised if the Asian student were tossed at the end in spite of having an application that is deemed to have as much value as that of some other kid, but would not be surprised that the choices of what has value and how much are influenced by the natural biases and individual perspectives of the adcoms. I don’t mean “bias” in a pejorative sense, but simply as an inevitable outcome of organizing one’s model of the world according to one’s own experiences.</p>

555

<p>^^ From the sections I have read, I did not get the feeling about anti-semitism either but I may be oblivious to those cues too. I thought the author was making a strong point to show that when religious bias was removed, more jewish students were admitted and same may happen if race bias was removed, i.e., more Asians may get in. </p>

<p>Whether it will happen or not is an entirely different issue since there is also a limit to how many Asians are willing to take on Art History, political science, Socialogy, anthropology, or other areas of liberal arts. I tend to agree that there will be a limit based on interests.</p>

556

<p>I am not Jewish (very White Anglo Saxon Catholic), but my guess - I believe part of the distaste for the article is the implication that there is some sort of Jewish cabal at work, instrumenting machinations to keep their enrollment high (the business about the number of Jewish university presidents for example). This is distasteful for obvious reasons, since this type of jealousy and distrust is likely at least part of the rationale used for some pretty horrific treatment of Jews throughout recent history. Sort of like this conspiratorial stuff you always hear about the Rothschild family.</p>

<p>Plus the notion of roundabout ways of categorizing people as Jewish or Gentile probably strikes some people the wrong way - viscerally.</p>

<p>I am in no way saying that is what anyone is thinking or implying. But that is likely what some readers may be inferring.</p>

557

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<p>I agree with your statements, but you mean “disparate impact”, not “desperate impact”.</p>

558

<p><a href=“the%20business%20about%20the%20number%20of%20Jewish%20university%20presidetns%20for%20example”>quote</a>

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<p>Yes, that occurred to me, however, I am certain that if the issue was the over-representations of Asians, and most of the universities had Asian presidents, this point would be raised without hesitation. I wonder of the reaction would be the same, in that case.</p>

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Maybe, maybe not. Unless you have an example you can’t say for sure. But if it did happen I suspect some Asians would react in a similar manner.</p>

560

<p>Agree with bovertine (as usual).
Ursinus’s president is asian [News</a> - philly.com](<a href=“http://mobile.philly.com/news/?wss=/philly/hp/news_update/&id=138617734&deliver=android]News”>http://mobile.philly.com/news/?wss=/philly/hp/news_update/&id=138617734&deliver=android) And Rice’s president’s wife is asian (if that matters). Doubt its affected the ratio of asians to non asians in their enrollment.</p>