<p>Don’t some European systems winnow the potential college applicants down in secondary school? (And I think some of them do have high-stakes testing.)</p>
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<p>Many track students from end of middle school onwards to the point most students end up getting tracked off the college track into vocational schools…including some higher vocational schools which resemble universities in all but name until the very recent Bologna reforms gave them university status, apprenticeships, or even start working. Students at academic high schools such as the German “Gymnasiums” have been regarded as the academic elite of their age groups. </p>
<p>Results from the Gymnasium exit exam known as an Abitur and the subjects selected determine which university and what majors one could have. </p>
<p>Many other European systems use their version of the academic high school graduation exam to determine university admissions. </p>
<p>Other European systems like some French Universities have open admission policies and are nominal cost/free for citizens, but have exceedingly cutthroat weed-out exams at the end of each year which prevent most students from continuing on to the following year till graduation.</p>
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<p>That question always makes me smile, and my answer tends to irritate the folks who like their IB programs. </p>
<p>In Texas, there are five main values:</p>
<ol>
<li>It is the best and easiest crutch to boost your GPA</li>
<li>It is the best and easiest crutch to boost your ranking </li>
<li>It is the best and easiest crutch to grab a seat among the top 7-10</li>
<li>It is the best and easiest crutch to earn an auto-admit into UT at Austin</li>
<li>All the above</li>
</ol>
<p>In the rest of the land that does not have that snakeoil that helped sell the program in Texas, the main value is simply to separate the commoners from the elite and duplicate a private school within a public school format. And that is why the IB marketing model has been a lot more effective in convincing the public administrators who were pushed by parents and teacgers than it was to convince the private ones who looked at the merit of the program with heightened objectivity. </p>
<p>For full disclosure, it that was not clear, I am very far from being a supporter of the IB program, which I consider a divisive program that will require decades to undo. Inasmuch as it has its place in a part of our education system, it should be incredibly small and focused on special schools, as it is inherently a bad proposal for a monopolistic system of public education.</p>
<p>I am surprised that only one poster (sorghum?) thought that the adcoms messed up. I too have a hard time believing that these esteemed folks can learn more about our life-long friends by looking at their application package for half an hour than we can in a life time of interaction.</p>
<p>What do these experts really know? Perhaps Philip Tetlock can give us a hint:</p>
<p>[Everybodys</a> An Expert : The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/05/051205crbo_books1]Everybodys”>Everybody’S an Expert | The New Yorker)</p>
<p>An interesting snippet:</p>
<p>Human beings who spend their lives studying the state of the world, in other words, are poorer forecasters than dart-throwing monkeys, who would have distributed their picks evenly over the three choices.</p>
<p>And more pertinent to the discussion:</p>
<p>*In one study, college counsellors were given information about a group of high-school students and asked to predict their freshman grades in college. The counsellors had access to test scores, grades, the results of personality and vocational tests, and personal statements from the students, whom they were also permitted to interview. Predictions that were produced by a formula using just test scores and grades were more accurate. *</p>
<p>Now you know why I tell people I am from Missouri.</p>
<p>Another of my favorite trips down memory lane -</p>
<p>[How</a> You Got in Here | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1975/9/1/how-you-got-in-here-padmissions/]How”>How You Got in Here | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>Canuckguy, I could make a good argument in favor of every one of the local students who got into HYPSM+C type schools (I will throw in University of Chicago, Northwestern, Duke, and other flavors du jour). None of the admittedly small number of decisions that I knew about caused me to ask how the person got in.</p>
<p>On the other hand, that did not mean that in every case I would have ranked the applicants in the same way that the university admissions people did, based on admit/waitlist/decline. </p>
<p>In one case in particular, I think that serious errors were made in not admitting a student of my acquaintance (and a friend of QMP’s). I am still at a loss to explain this situation. It bothered me a lot for reasons not connected to admissions, QMP, the school, or academics in general.</p>
<p>I think there was actual “fault” here. I am not sure where it was located, but if I had to bet, I would bet on the head GC. There are multiple possibilities. The school opposed acceleration in mathematics, and I do not think that the GC approved of that student’s taking Calc BC as a 9th grader (and doing extremely well in class, and getting a 5). There might just have been a serious personality misfit between the student and GC, so that the GC didn’t “get” the student.</p>
<p>I am willing to believe that the admissions people see patterns in applications, and even that they might do follow-up work, to see how people with various characteristics work out. However, I agree with you–how could they possibly know the actual <em>people</em> better than someone who has known them for 10+ years, and seen them react to many different situations (including the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat).</p>
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<p>This is true, however given this -</p>
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<p>it is sort of a double-edged sword. How can a student be certain a teacher or guidance counselor, even one they believe is on their side, is not harboring some smioldering latent resentmenmt against them, and carrying this bad feeling over into the rec?</p>
<p>I read somewhere (quoting some admission officer) that virtually all the recommendations they receive from teachers and GCs are glowing. Any negative or even marginal comment at all sticks out like a sore thumb, and the strength of the positive comments may very well depend more on the eloquence of the recommender than the qualities of the student.</p>
<p>i think teacher gc recs are transparent for the student. could a student do a non-meaningful app in eleventh grade early and then read the rec, thus using it as a guide for the important apps.</p>
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I don’t think all students get to read their recs. At least I think I’ve read this on here. Maybe somebody can clarify. If they see them ahead of time then I retract that part of my comment above.</p>
<p>…from Missouri? I would love to understand …what did I miss this time? help…</p>
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Missouri is called the “show-me state”. Meaning people from MO want proof before they believe something.</p>
<p>Missouri is the “show me” state.</p>
<p>bbccpp #370, Missouri has the nickname, “The Show Me” state, meaning that the residents tend to be skeptical.</p>
<p>No opportunity to see any recommendations locally, at any time. It is possible for a perceptive student to gauge the degree of warmth of the teacher toward the student (beyond grades alone), but here anyway so little time is spent with the GC that the GC doesn’t really get to know the student beyond the surface. Students are urged to schedule appointments with the GC’s aside from the once-a-year course selection meetings. However, all GC appointments must be scheduled during regular class time, for 30 minutes. If there is an issue that requires counseling, of course one would do that. But if a student just wants to chat with the GC (so that the GC could know the student better), the trade-off with class time becomes dicier.</p>
<p>I have no problem with the admissions representatives who emphasize that they assess applications, and not applicants. In general, I don’t mind the reminders “The essays! The recommendations!” However, I take issue with admissions offices (<em>cough</em> Stanford <em>cough</em> probably the bad influence of their Department of Psychology) that imagine they themselves can assess the applicants better than people who have known the applicants for most of their lives.</p>
<p>As usual, In Jeopardy! I buzzed in third. 
Someone else will have to take State Nicknames for $300.</p>
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<p>But isn’t this true of any college admissions office? Maybe in the future children will be implanted at birth with microchips that track their progress from preschool on, thus giving adcoms a complete and accurate picture of their worthiness for admission. Otherwise it seems it will ALWAYS be the way it is now.</p>
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<p>In my spare time I developed a device to submit message board postings using only my brainwaves. I think it, and the post appears. I suppose there might be a market for this gizmo, but I’m keeping it secret because it’s much more valuable to me as a means of posting the first response to a question on a chat board.</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>At our high school students do not get to see GC or teacher recs.</p>
<p>In some of the universities, the admissions officers are frank about the fact that they are really assessing applications, not applicants. I think that I have read a comment like that from someone affliliated with Princeton. Of course, they are trying to get at an assessment of the applicant him/herself. I don’t think anywhere other than Stanford issues statements to the effect that they have a superior level of information about the applicants.</p>
<p>Stanford used to have a really egregious FAQ that they sent (unsolicited) to applicants they declined. There has been a change of Directors of Admissions since then, so perhaps they have moderated the statement or even eliminated it. As you can tell, I hold them in “minimal high regard” to borrow a phrase that I have heard attributed to Sen. Frank Lausche, but that may have been borrowed from Speaker of the House John McCormack. (In this sentence “them” = “the historical them.”)</p>
<p>hard time believing that these esteemed folks can learn more about our life-long friends by looking at their application package for half an hour than we can in a life time of interaction.</p>
<p>I’ll just start with that one. YOU are a better judge of your friends, re: the friendship. Or maybe hs impact, how much he/she puts into her schoolwork and ECs, and all those etcs. The colleges are not “judging” your friend on the traits you are. They are building a class. Based on what works for them, not you.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter how nice and brilliant you think a kid is- or how much the GC and LoRs rave, IF the kid presents something else in the app. Remember it’s holistic, which means qualitative factors in. What YOU see in the hs in this kid, may not be what he presents at all.</p>
<p>^^^
LF, I was just about to refer to you when I read those posts about
“judging the ap”. Seriously, I was just about to post something about it. Apparently my secret hat not only has a magical output port, but a clairvoyance input port as well. :)</p>