<p>Now that only the wait list decisions are still in play for this admissions season, I thought I'd invite you to sum up your conclusions from this year's admissions decisions by considering an ENTIRELY HYPOTHETICAL college applicant ("Applicant") applying to some unspecified superselective college ("Famous School"). I've faked up some stats and other information in a familar "What are my chances?" format, and I ask for your comments about Applicant's chances to get into Famous School, and about what is missing from this hypothetical admissions file. </p>
<p>All comments, serious or humorous, pleasant or querulous, are welcome. </p>
<p>Stats:
[ul]
[<em>] SAT I: 1600 (old SAT); 2400 (new SAT)
[</em>] SAT IIs: 800 (Math IIC); 800 (Chemistry); 800 (English Literature); 800 (foreign language with listening)
[<em>] ACT: 36
[</em>] GPA: 4.0/4.0 My school doesn't weight grades, but I took the school's toughest courses at the youngest possible ages.
[<em>] Rank: 1/417
[</em>] Other stats: Junior year grades and current year grades are from dual enrollment at local university; AP national scholar, AP state scholar, Siemens AP award
[/ul] Subjective:
[ul]
[<em>] Essays: I worked on them since spring of junior year. Every once in a while I'd have a different adult who knows about college admissions give me some tips, but I kept them in my own voice. I revised and edited ruthlessly.
[</em>] Teacher Recs: I haven't seen them, but all of my teachers offered to write me recs, and I asked the two who seemed most enthusiastic to write for me.
[<em>] Counselor Rec: I haven't seen this either, but my counselor told me that he recommended me without reservation.
[</em>] Interview: I thought the interview went well. I asked a lot of questions, and tried to be open about myself when the interviewer asked questions.
[<em>] Hook (if any): Both of my parents are alumni of Famous School. There is a building there with my family name on it, and also an endowed chair with my parents' names on it. I am all-American in a sport that Famous School recruits for. I have received national-level awards in an "olympiad"-style problem-solving EC, in a "fair"-style major-project EC, and in musical performance on an instrument that Famous School will have a shortage of in its ensembles next year because of graduating seniors. Despite my parents' former wealth, we are poor now (eligible for Pell grants), so I've had to overcome adversity, and besides that Famous School is putting on a big push to recruit more low-income students.
[/ul] Location/Person:
[ul]
[</em>] State or Country: I'm from a small state that sends few applicants to Famous School, but Famous School likes to have admittees from all fifty states each year.
[<em>] School Type: Public. My school is in a poor neighborhood but is said to have strong academics and has quite a few college-bound students.
[</em>] Perceived Strengths/Weaknesses: I won't belabor my academic stats and my ECs. I'm just one applicant out of many; Famous School is entitled to admit whomever it wants to.
[/ul] Other Factors:
I'm applying early to Famous School. I expect to apply to some other highly selective schools. The state university where I am already dual-enrolled is my safety school. General Comments:
I'm just posting here to invite discussion. I'm having a good time in this phase of my life, and I don't want to obsess about getting into college. I wish all the rest of you students good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>As an alumni and board member of Famous School and probable classmate of your parents, I have to wonder what they did to suffer such a profound and rapid reversal of fortune. Did they work for Enron, or did they simply squander our... their funds? We are seriously concerned about whether you are a good fit for our institution.</p>
<p>What school do you attend? Are you a BWRK, attending some middle of the pack school? Do you go to an inner-city school where you've had to make the most out of your education? Or are you a student at Phillips Exeter, Andover, etc.,?</p>
<p>Post #3 is funny. Let's stipulate, for the sake of describing this hypothetical applicant, that the parents' reversal of fortune was honest on their part--something equivalent to being told to put all their assets into Enron and WorldCom stock by an investment advisor who graduated from Rival School. </p>
<p>I was originally going to dress up this hypothetical even more, by writing that the parents were just coming back into their former prosperity, and had been visiting the Famous School development office recently. Post #4 suggests that that would add little to what already appears in the application file.</p>
<p>I think a perfect SAT score is the kiss of death, so to make this applicant even more appealing, I'd lower that score--just slightly. All around perfection suggests this kid might have some kind of obsessive/compulsive streak :) And since this student is now a low income student--which was a nice touch, by the way--I'd say he/she is a sure bet for Famous School. But is this hypothetical applicant male or female? That might just make the difference ...</p>
<p>Hmmmm. I think the applicant needs to have spent one summer working to preserve the rare southeast asian super-skunk in its natural habitat, and then needs to have co-authored the definitive peer-reveiwed technical paper on the skunks for Nature.</p>
<p>Adcoms are trying to play God by trying to make sure that yester years problem are solved by them. Thus merit means jack ****. College admission does not reflect about a kid, it is about who your parents are. If you want a better chance the either be born very rich and then who cares about college or be a URM and work little hard and move out of Chicago and NY City and chances are you are golden. </p>
<p>If someone is Chinese, Korean, and Indian chances in elite schools are very dim, as many other more qualified kids will be fighting you for the few spots. If you need money, forget it.</p>
<p>White - Unless college have a building in your close relatives name, chances are your having similar tough time. One way to get around it is to move to state like North or South Dakota with those stats and somehow you will look golden.</p>
<p>URM If you are from downtown Chicago or NY City, chances are that nobody cares for giving you a chance. Your maybe intelligent but nobody has time to uplift you and give you any chance. </p>
<p>Rich/poor versus Middle class Rich have money, poor will qualify for aid Middle class hahahahah God have mercy on your soul.</p>
<p>"Super-skunk preservation, hmmmmmm, yesssss, very interesting indeed. As you mentioned in the four-page cover letter submitted with your application, our own Dr. Habitat is the world's leading expert on the reproductive habits of the rare southeast asian super-skunk. He is always looking for undergraduate research assistants to assist in the field, collecting skunk, er,...oh never mind." </p>
<p>Dear applicant. As your guidance counselor I would advise you that, while you have an excellent chance to become admitted to Famous School, you should not apply there.</p>
<p>There is one simple reason: as the descendant of a famous family of the school, you wil spend a good bit of your time there trying to convincingly everyone in campus that unlike your forebears you are not wealthy, nor do you come from a "black sheep" or illegtimitate branch of the family.</p>
<p>Not only will you be unable to convince people of this point, and will waste a lot of your time doing so, but due to the energy you will have to expend on this effort you also will have no time to go through the process of developing yourself, finding out who you really are as a person - as opposed to being a "Smith" (fill in the family name).</p>
<p>It used to be an accepted and understood practice for members of a poor branch to attend the traditional "family" school anyway (as well as to be brought into the family business anyway), but in today's competitive meritocracy, such gentility is no longer understood.</p>
<p>No - I would go to a school where you have no connections, but where your other attributes will gain you admission, and where your lack of finances can guarantee you good financial aid (including merit aid), and where you can become your own person instead of being handcapped by the family background. And if anyone asks whether you are related to the famous "Smiths", you can always say "very distantly".</p>
<p>the building with the name on it clinches it but just to make sure:
be a movie star/child of movie star/child of famous Hollywood director by the end of your junior year.</p>
<p>There have been some references to gender on other threads and in some recent college admissions articles. </p>
<p>Here's a quote from a Washington Post Article that is a couple of years old, but probably still relevant in some cases.</p>
<p>""Females who apply to traditionally male-dominated programs such as engineering also may have an advantage. At Lehigh, for example, where 80 percent of the engineering class is male, a woman has, "a slight edge," according to Honsel. "It's a buzz," he says, "if it's a female engineer--something we'd like more of."</p>
<p>But at liberal arts colleges, it may be a different story.</p>
<p>"Students applying to the University of Richmond are applying to the school of Arts and Sciences, but they are also applying to Richmond (male) and Westhampton (female) Colleges," says Gruber. "We want half of the students men and the other half women. So gender is important in the review process. If you have a man and woman applicant from Walt Whitman High School, they will not be reviewed in the same way. The men are competing against the men and the women against the women. There are more women applying here and more women at most colleges in the U.S. and women are achieving at a slightly higher rate, making it more competitive for female applicants.""</p>
<p>Before I posted this thread, I wondered how long it would be before someone brought up the ethnicity (which I carefully omitted to mention) of Applicant. The reply quoted above came within the first few posts, as I expected some reply of similar nature would, so I barely won a bet with myself. I didn't anticipate who would post the first reply of that nature. </p>
<p>I'll turn to policy issues about consideration of ethnic origin in college admissions in a further reply. But first let me ask a direct question: does anyone think an applicant with the characteristics described in post #1 would have any trouble being admitted to any college, no matter what the applicant's ethnic origin? How low do you think the percentage chances are of such an applicant being admitted to the most selective school if the applicant has the least favorable ethnic background? Is there any difference to be made here? Or don't we already know all we need to know about this applicant?</p>
<p>While this candidate was working with the skunks, he also discovered a previously unknown skunk variety that, after he/she (a hermaphrodite) did genetic testing, proved to be a missing link in the genetic chain and totally reversed some of Darwin's findings. His findings were presented to the National Historic and Anthropological society, verified and published, and he has started a cloning program so the 10 known such skunks can thrive. Along with that, he has been on Oprah, who gave him a $100,000 grant to continue his work, and started a grassroots effort to save the skunk. In his spare time, he is a world renowned bagpipe player, who was invited to play at Prince Charles' wedding, and sent in recs from the Prince and Tony Blair. In his genetic background, he is a URM, with one granparent native American, one Pacific Islander, one Hispanic (National Hispanic Scholar), one Nepalese because he has been chosen to be the next Dalai Lama and Orlando Bloom starred in his life story.</p>
<p>You forgot that you were raised by wolves and you actually have a small tail that puts you in a category of VERY URM- tailed wolf boy.</p>
<p>You also speak Martian. You have translated the message received at the YETI project and been cleared for top clearance.</p>
<p>As well, neither parent went to school. Ever.</p>
<p>After designing a special chair to accomodate the tail, you were the youngest person to ever recieve a patent, but donated all the money to buy bagpipes for the poor.</p>
<p>Do I get to be the admissions officer at Confidentialia College who recruits this applicant? The descriptions in the humorous replies are sounding more and more intriguing.</p>