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The SAT composite score gives math, reading, and writing each 1/3 weight. I wonder if a composite that gave less than 1/3 weight to math better predicts admission to LACs than equal weighting. Since Asians’ relative strength is the SAT math section, this would hurt their chances a little. I think colleges should be free to give more or less than 1/3 weight to the SAT math.</p>
<p>Many colleges don’t pay attention to the writing score at all. The model essays and grades I have seen make it seem like a joke. At best, it’s a little bit of a check against the essays included in a kid’s application. But I doubt anyone gives the writing section equal weight with the others.</p>
<p>The thing is, though, that I doubt the elite colleges give any part of the SAT (or ACT) particular “weight”. I don’t think that for any serious part of the discussion anyone is comparing SAT scores, with or without some multiplier.</p>
<p>I’ll tell you, when I look at a kid’s scores, it’s always in the context of trying to understand what kind of kid this is. If he is talking about being an economics major or a physicist, and he has 680 math SATs, I think that’s kind of a problem for Yale. But someone whose resume screams “French Literature” who has an 800 CR can maybe survive a sub-700 M. And vice versa. One of the best students I have met had only a 700 CR, but that’s because she had only been speaking English for three years. Her first attempt at the SAT, she got an 800 M and a 450 CR (which went up to 700 a year later). In context, it was more impressive than my kid’s 800.</p>
<p>IMHO, the SAT W only matters when it’s too low or when success in the proposed major hangs in large part on those skills. (Btw, I think the W is the easiest to game.)</p>
<p>Lots of kids are savvy enough to have a teacher or wise adult help them, maybe go over the essay, maybe the whole. No problem with that- and maybe it does reflect in some polish or better focus. In many respects, that’s fine- the kid is wise enough to ask for some support. But I don’t think that most paid “experts” have the secret forumla sought on this thread. </p>
<p>When the kid hits the submit button, he should be confident that, whatever the outcome, he gave it his best. His own personal best.</p>
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<p>It is your right to not be interested in this topic. I will choose to believe that the US Education Department’s probe of Harvard and Princeton influenced the increase in the numbers.</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Targeted in U.S. Asian-American Discrimination Probe - Bloomberg](<a href=“http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-02/harvard-targeted-in-u-s-asian-american-discrimination-probe.html]Harvard”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>From the article:
</p>
<p>The huge jump from 16% to 25% sure looks suspicious to me.</p>
<p>They can’t win for losing, eh? If they keep Asian representation in a narrow band, they’re closet racists. If the number goes up, they’re acting out of fear and got scared into taking more Asians than they wanted to. Sheesh. I guess some people always want to see conspiracies.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it is a conspiracy, but I do think that it was a calculated decision taking into account all circumstances. I hope the trend, if it is merited, continues.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the process of preparing for the investigation led people to examine more closely what they were doing and what they might do differently to better (and more defensibly) express their values. It will be interesting to see what happens this year. </p>
<p>But there’s no controversy about whether Ivy League admissions offices should discriminate against Asians, or hold them to a quota. Not one person – at least not one responsible person – has argued that is appropriate. The controversy, if there was one, was over whether limiting the percentage of Asians admitted was an unintended consequence of other, not intentionally race-based admissions practices. I suspect what has been happening is that admissions staff, and counsel, and provost/president types, have been looking at the practices and saying, “You know, I can see how that particular practive might be disadvantaging Asian applicants. If we did it this other way, it wouldn’t have that effect.”</p>
<p>Wouldn’t that be defensive? Would it serve the U’s interests? Other than to resolve the perception among some that there is bias against Asian Americans? Whose seats would be replaced? See how we can’t answer this equitably? What does it lead to? </p>
<p>IF it’s true more Asian American kids want STEM, how do you balance those individual programs?</p>
<p>“how corrupt are ivy league admissions”</p>
<p>Is our green squares system similar to it?</p>
<p>Are we still focusing on Asians/Jews here? The two arguably value education the most among all groups. The big disadvantage of Asians is that they haven’t been educated here for generations and thus are not fully aware of the ever changing landscape.</p>
<p>Does anyone see the evolution of higher education? I sense that it would be a drastically different system in a decade or so when the knowledge we seek at elite schools today become readily available and learnable online. Ivies could truly become Clubs.</p>
<p>^ I am curious about the impact of online classes. There are so many of them online from MIT, Harvard and Stanford that people can reasonably educate themselves. At that point, will a 75 or 80k education from top schools worth it in in 5-10 years?</p>
<p>Texas, my dad use to say that about a library card</p>
<p>Thinking about saving some bucks on a younger kid, texaspg? How about this, “If you pass our online courses and you are admitted to our school, we give you credits for them, you pay $1k a course, and $100k for the year on campus.” I imagine some schools do just that. If so, why do AP in high school?</p>
<p>“The SAT composite score gives math, reading, and writing each 1/3 weight. I wonder if a composite that gave less than 1/3 weight to math better predicts admission to LACs than equal weighting.”</p>
<p>I think this is an interesting comment, because it gets into the mindset of how people process data and information. Beliavsky would look at a kid’s SAT score and see very clear delineations. JHS (and I) would look at a kid’s score intuitively, to see whether it fits the overall story of the kid, but the numbers themselves wouldn’t be as important - the 790 M and the 770 M are all the same in the context of the kid who does cool things with math. This is classic S (sensing) vs N (intuition) behavior in Myers-Briggs terms. And it seems to me that adcoms, when faced with 30,000 kids who can do the work, turn to their N function when others on here can’t understand why they can’t turn to the S function.</p>
<p>“Are we still focusing on Asians/Jews here? The two arguably value education the most among all groups. The big disadvantage of Asians is that they haven’t been educated here for generations and thus are not fully aware of the ever changing landscape.”</p>
<p>With so many immigrants who are now here, though, and the communities they build (and very admirably too), why is it that messages take so long to permeate? Why is it that each year anew, there are kids on CC whose parents have told them they are failures if they don’t make HYPSM and are deathly afraid they’ll be flipping burgers if they “settle” for Brown? Why do so many still think of a test score mentality? I totally get that it’s hard to change cultural assumptions. What I don’t get is why there isn’t quicker myth busting by those who are here and now know better. M</p>
<p>Lake42ks - I do see some of that in future, no different from executive MBAs online with just couple of visits a semester or year to campus. They are not charging anyless but saving a bundle on travel at the moment.</p>
<p>The real question is whether the college will give a transcript that is a valid credit transfer document at other schools if one can’t get in. I don’t see this working out for my kid though since it will be application season in 2.5 years. Someone who has a kid in 5th or 6th grade OTOH, will see some of these schemes coming to fruition.</p>
<p>On the question of STEM kids and SAT -There are some vanguard middle schools locally whose kids have very high ACT scores in high schools and generate at least a few perfect ACTs each year. They are mostly Asian and several of them suggest having 50% of ACT in science and Math helps them.</p>
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By this morning, I’d say that the overall impression the results give is that Yale is pretty clearly practicing holistic admissions, and is taking some kids from rural locations, or with interesting characteristics. Even so, there was a white male reporting 2400 and 4.0 from Alaska who was deferred, while Asian kids with substantially lower scores were accepted (as well as other white kids and URMs). The lowest score I noticed of an admitted student was an Arab Muslim girl from Qatar–who reported an income that will get financial aid.</p>
<p>I missed my smiley face hunt! I found it interesting that when I had posted it, something like 4 out of 6 kids were all Asians who were accepted.</p>
<p>I was raising the question in another thread. It looks like Harvard is front loading their class while Yale and Stanford are holding a majority of their seats for later.</p>
<p>Someone else mentioned Duke took more kids in ED.</p>
<p>Well, it could have been true…When all the dust settles, it would be interesting to look at the result threads to see how many of the Asian kids are obviously STEM-y.</p>
<p>“What I don’t get is why there isn’t quicker myth busting by those who are here and now know better.”</p>
<p>I agree that the immigrant community needs to do a better job of changing attitudes. I think that with each generation and their realization that not getting into the “elites” is “not the end of the world”, they will learn to find contentment. But for those who fled harsh conditions and their perception that an elite education is a matter of survival, it may take a longer time.</p>
<p>The college transcript issue hangs on how the school is accredited, by which orgs. As I understand it, regional accreditation tops national (or none.) Plus, what all those independent classes add up to. There are some interesting comments about MIT OCW.</p>