<p>So, maggiedog, a black child who was raised by an upper class black family in a white neighborhood is not a URM and has nothing cultural to offer to a college? Maybe what this kid and the adoptee can offer is that all black people are not alike in their socioeconomic status, interests, etc. Maybe these kids have gone on ski trips, european vacations. Maybe they like classical music and fencing. Maybe their value is in showing the diversity of minority experiences in the US. And maybe they also have 34/35 or 2300+ test scores which will make them attractive to many colleges.</p>
<p>Regarding ECs, some kids have “hidden ECs” that others don’t really know about. For example, one of my daughters collected insects. This is NOT a hobby she talked to kids at school about, although her biology teacher knew. She has an extensive collection, and got some 4H ribbons at the State level for them. But no one at her school is in 4H… so they did not know about it. She definitely used this EC in her application, and even wrote her NMSF essay about it.</p>
<p>She also went to a summer program that was kind of a pain to explain (Davidson THINK), so she kept pretty quiet about that. Again, it was a signficant item in her essays… but hardly anyone she went to high school with or their parents knew about it. Some knew she went to some “summer learning program”. But they didn’t know the details.</p>
<p>So even kids & parents who THOUGHT they knew what is in my kid’s application really don’t know. So I always assume the same about other applicants as well.</p>
<p>I see some high performing african american URMs turn out to be first/second generation immigrant kids whose parents stress education above all else.</p>
<p>maggiedog, I agree that the race discussion is sad. Also, just wanted to point out that the resentment of the upper-middle-class “URMs” at my kids’ school is not my issue, as my older child did not apply to any crap-shoot reach schools and my younger one won’t be either. It is just something I hear people complain about when their kids are passed up over certain others.</p>
<p>my boyfriends best friend just got into USC with a 1750 SAT, only a handful of honors/AP classes, only EC is football, etc. I’m still waiting to hear and I (along with everyone else I know who applied and havent heard yet) are exponentially more qualified. I’m still fuming.</p>
<p>Then I remembered he is a 1st generation college student and his mom runs a house for abused girls that is attached to their house. He also applied for Biology, while everyone else I know is trying for Marshall.</p>
<p>*There are kids whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors, or who lived on a boat for five years, or have overcome childhood cancer or who have been raised by a single mother who is disabled. *</p>
<p>What’s not generally known is that these kids can get the closer look, too. And farm kids, kids who had heavy family resps, but still performed at top level, kids with disabled siblings or themselves disabled, kids with gender issues they surmounted, some who live quite remote to their school- I’d say anything of the same natue that would get our attention on CC. But the bottom line for all hooks or tips is what they accomplished, despite. It doesn’t matter if it’s on the CDS. </p>
<p>Someone who is URM and presumed to get a boost: we had a couple of angry threads about that. Few wanted to believe most of these kids (at top schools,) even from low SES circumstances, are high performers in hs. High enough to have faith in them- and sometimes be downtright inspired by their merits. I think there can be an issue in the beholder, those who assume if he’s URM, there has to be something funky going on. This is tricky, but many of them, rather than just rely on hs and family privileges, have gone far beyond.</p>
<p>ktf, did you actually see his app and recs? Would you have some basis on which to compare? Or you only know he’s 1st gen and football, etc? I keep saying the rest of the app is every bit as important as the stats and activs.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, it is not what it IS. </p>
<p>It is what people decide to see. It is what some perceive as their truth. It is what people who are quick to criticize the race card as soon as it stopped working for them want to see. It is what the people who are quick to throw the discrimination around like dirty laundry love to see. </p>
<p>According to some, the college officials must be part of a rather clueless bunch who is expected to flll a class according to some secret percentages or … quota. Clueless because they seem unable to differentiate the nuances in the various sub-groups, and be fooled by cheaters and liars. </p>
<p>If there is one reality that is undeniable is that we still have to rely of racial (as well as SES) preferences, and this because the actual policies are still enormously distant from building classes that do offer a BETTER reflection of our population distribution. Not until that day will any of our schools deserve more than a grade of F or I. At many schools, the distribution on a racial basis is simply an embarrassment. An embarrassment that is solely dwarfed by the inadequate distribution of various SES elements. </p>
<p>And the latter is the only thing that is what it is!</p>
<p>I think the truth is that sometimes it is just dumb luck. An AdCom picks up application A at a certain time of the day etc. I’ve known some super exceptionals, double legacies, all the ducks lined up (URM, large public etc.) who were rejected, and average people who were accepted in their place.
One common theme I noticed in one of the ‘results’ threads was that super stats kids who had never held a real job were rejected. (I am talking about super selective schools here)</p>
<p>I see surprising outcomes all the time, even when it’s my own client and I’ve seen the transcript and essays myself. If you didn’t see the teacher recommendations – which no one outside the admissions office typically does – then you didn’t see the whole application. And even if you are certain that an interview went well (or went badly), you can’t know how artfully the interviewer pled your case or how influential s/he is.</p>
<p>I’ve been a judge in a cappella tournaments, where (like college admissions) we are attempting to impose a framework on a fundamentally subjective question, and the committee can only issue one decision even when there is internal disagreement. The Monday-morning quarterbacking I hear about our judging decisions is almost always wrong – usually wildly wrong. I’ll hear theories like “X Group must have won because they had more choreography,” even though the judges all hated the choreography and X Group won in spite of it. I also hear “Y Group won because the judges wanted a coed group to win” when in fact, Y Group won because all the judges ranked them second, and that was enough to put them ahead of groups that got a mix of firsts and fourths – NO ONE thought the winning group was the best.</p>
<p>My guess is that if the admissions officers could hear our Monday QBing, they’d just laugh. I bet we get it spectacularly wrong most of the time. But it won’t stop me from doing it. We just can’t help it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think this is a big thing that is lost on many people.</p>
<p>I was an early admit to a HYPSM school, the only one at my high school. My school had over a dozen rejections. I still hear snide comments about it daily. What the other kids don’t know is that I have been published multiple times in a unique EC, have extensive work and volunteer experience with a national award, and have a significant national award in my area of study. I wasn’t as involved at school as some other kids, only a few clubs, and I didn’t go around bragging about my ECs all the time. I’m paying for it now - bullying, really, by kids who I have literally never talked to in my life. </p>
<p>Not only is it the kids, it’s their * parents. * I urge all of you to think about what you are saying. I don’t care if they are a legacy, URM, athlete, whatever, or if you think they are an absolute imbecile not worth their space on earth, every admit to these schools has worked very hard and even beyond that, we are all people who can be hurt by mean comments.</p>
<p>From my experience, under represented minorities only refers to black kids, and usually, affluent black kids. I have known orphans who lived in foster care (me for example), kids who lost their parents in farming accidents (white kids), Asians whose parents moved here while the mother was pregnant or she would have been forced in to an abortion (Asians), and they are not considered an URM. But then the kid who is actually black, or even just half black, with mediocre grades and spends lots of time partying is given full rides to places like Harvard (and Iowa State, where I lived). </p>
<p>I know it is not PC to say that I don’t approve of handing over free educations and accepting kids who made little effort, just because they are black. But fact is, whenever schools say they want “diversity” they never ever mean actual diversity. They just mean, average, run of the mill, often suburban teens, who happen to be black. It is not right. God forbid any of those schools give so much leniancy or money to anyone who is really diverse. Like a disabled person. Or like the child who lost their parents at 13 yrs old, or the child whose family lost their farm when they were young and they had to work 2 jobs to try to pull their family through, or so on.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>* citation needed. *</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, no citations is needed as anyone with a tiny bit of knowledge about admissions should be able to dismiss obvious this kind of non-sense. Not only for the silliness of the allegation of mediocre grades at Harvard, but also for the mention of getting a full ride at the august Boston school. </p>
<p>Perhaps a poor choice of words and lack of undersrtanding trigger such comments, but that does not stop from being laughable.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No it is not right. And neither is remotely close to the truth.</p>
<p>I still don’t see why anyone “has” to be part of these gossip mills. As adults, don’t you know how to raise an eyebrow at someone who asks an inappropriate question that isn’t their business, and change the subject? It takes two to have a conversation, and if that conversation is “How come Bobby got into Yale when Susie didn’t, his SATs were lower blah blah blah” – well, don’t you know how to shut that one down?</p>
<p>Lmk, not my experience. This is what is so frustrating about these discussions, someone “knows” what he thinks. Knows what he heard or someone told him. I grant you your perspective. Mine comes from working a lot closer and seeing comments and how they react to all sorts of “challenges” in kids’ lives. Oh, but not admitting them just because they faced hurdles. It’s about taking a hard look at the kids who surpassed what s. life dealt them. And, some of it is inspirational. Kids who knock themselves out.</p>
<p>All you out there with hurt feelings against minorities. Put on your thinking caps and analyze the proability of large numbers. Three hundred thousand minority kids are likely to graduate from high school. The top 10% 30,000 will have very good stats and are qualified to go just about anywhere. The top one 1% 3000 will be rock stars and certainly qualified for the elite schools. It’s ignorant to assume anything but merit when dealing with an overall population of 300K. It’s a big number thing not a preference thing! GL.</p>
<p>Who are these mediocre black kids getting into Ivies?
Do tell.</p>
<p>We have to still be qualified. Also, most of the black people at top schools are the children of black immigrants. The actual AAs are a minority within a minority.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Let’s see … Lookingforward works in an admissions capacity for an Ivy League school. LMKH is still holding a grudge against not having been helped when she was admittedly in a bad place as a teenager (orphaned, etc.). Hmmm. Who’s got more face validity here?</p>
<p>I was in a Facebook “argument” with someone who cited that the reason that Minnesota had a high acceptance rate at Harvard was “because of diversity,” as if Minnesota was such a rare state that by golly, if Harvard saw a kid from Minnesota they’d snap it up because goodness knows they’d never spot one of those birds again. Nuh-huh. It took only a few numbers to say - that may be the case for Wyoming or Alaska, but Minnesota represents very well at Harvard given its size, and Harvard isn’t “impressed” by the diversity of Minnesota, especially when you’ve got well-to-do Mpls suburbs that look like any other affluent suburb. But, this person “knew what she knew.” She sent a kid to some whatever-California-State-U and I put 2 kids through the elite college admissions process, but she knows what she knows.</p>
<p>“I was in a Facebook ‘argument’ with someone . . . .”</p>
<p>We have identified the root cause of your issue here.</p>
<p>Haha, that’s why I put argument in quotes. Argument is too strong of a word!</p>