<p>Just an aside: Has anybody anywhere ever been admitted to a college because they play the oboe? (everybody uses this as an example, but having a musical kid, I have not found that to be a benefit when applying in a non-musical area.)</p>
<p>vossron and calmom are right</p>
<p>"Some private schools value various forms of diversity (economic, cultural, geographic, athletic, racial, religious, ethnic, musical, international, gender, artistic, etc., etc.) and fairness just isn't a factor. An example for one category: If a school needs an oboe player, the top oboeist may be admitted, as long as minimum qualifications are met, even if a rejected trumper's other credentials are better, because there are far more trumpet-playing applicants. Each school perceives its own needs, resulting in a particular mix of student body, giving the school its own culture and reputation. If fairness in being admitted by the numbers is a student's primary concern, s/he can apply to schools which admit accordingly. If, over time, the pool of applicants places increasing value on numeric fairness, schools may have to change their policies to attract top students"</p>
<p>It's pretty funny that the OP knows nothing about the college admissions game. </p>
<p>First of all, colleges don't immediately admit the highest 2000 scorers in the applicant pool. This isn't India or China where students just preload with information, have no passion for what they do, are controlled by their parents, and do not care for passion of learning.</p>
<p>The elite american institutions pride themselves in their quest to form the best class from all diversity of interests with people who will make an impact and who have passion for what they do.</p>
<p>It's simply inane for the OP to think that his child's spot will be taken by one who is underqualified.</p>
<p>In what sense are you defining "qualified". Colleges admit the class who they believe will make the greatest impact in their college and the world. There is no one single standard as "qualified" when it comes to superelite institutions, which is something you do not even realize but instead to target others for your apparent insecurity.</p>
<p>It's not even a "greatest impact" standard. It's more of "provide a multi-faceted environment" standard. What do the linebacker, the alto sax player, the opera composer, the Latina from a single-parent home, the junior Scrabble(tm) champion, the volunteer at the battered women's shelter, the state-class sprinter, the black doctor's son, the girl who memorized all the poems of William Blake by the time she was 14, and bi-polar kid who worked after school in a neursocience research lab at UCLA all have in common? </p>
<p>They provide a richer on-campus environment, intellectual resources, talents, and perspectives than one would get if one simply admitted the first X top scorers or measured diversity by "different kinds of wealthy people." Yeah, and some of those criteria have a race-based label attached. Shrug. So what?</p>
<p>Gee, I said that about 15 pages back... and no one listened.</p>
<p>TheDad - if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, do CCers still complain about affirmative action?</p>
<p>lfk:</p>
<p>I don't think anyone has been admitted "just because [insert skill here]," except perhaps athletes at some institutions. Someone I know swears she was admitted to Radcliffe (back in the Dark Ages when Radcliffe still existed) because she was willing to be on the crew team. But she is also an incredibly smart woman with great language skills and a very interesting life story prior to attending college.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, an alumna interviewer for an Ivy school did say it was a pity that my S did not play the oboe instead of the piano, because he would have been more desirable. Her point was that oboists are rarer, while pianists and violinists are thick on the ground. Tney have no edge. She was not suggesting that had he been an oboist he would have been a shoo-in. Anyway, he had no intention of applying to the school she represented and did quite well in the admissions sweepstakes without being an oboe player.</p>
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<blockquote> <blockquote> <p>...and no one listened. </p> </blockquote> </blockquote>
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<p>Aries, yeah, but you're just a woman.</p>
<p>See the advantage of having a deeper voice, even on-line?</p>
<p>..why on earth should a kid have a better chance of getting into a top college in the Northeast just because he's from Kansas or Alabama or Idaho? </p>
<p>..why can a kid who goes to an expensive private school in any of those states be a National Merit Semi-finalist with a lower PSAT score than a kid who goes to the worst inner City public high school in the South Bronx or in the District of Columbia?</p>
<p>I'm not going to address the NM question. But diversity is not just about ethnicity. It is also about geography. Fully half if not more Harvard students hail from NE, the Mid-Atlantic states and CA. Fewer than 5% come from the mountain and central states. A student from the NE is in fact less likely to encounter someone from some states in the US than from foreign countries.
This stress on geographic diversity actually gives an edge to Caucasians, but this does not seem to raise red flags among critics of AA.</p>
<p><<<< ..why can a kid who goes to an expensive private school in any of those states be a National Merit Semi-finalist with a lower PSAT score than a kid who goes to the worst inner City public high school in the South Bronx or in the District of Columbia? >>></p>
<p>Because the kids from MORE expensive elitist private schools in DC take all the DC spots.</p>
<p>I'll address the NM question: Because it is a state-by-state contest. Each state's allotment of semifinalists is determined based on its percentage of the national total of high school graduating seniors. </p>
<p>If they did a nationwide cutoff, then you'd end up with some states having a disproportionate number of students from certain states -- and some states would be entirely shut out of the process. </p>
<p>It's kind of like the reason Montana gets 2 Senators, and New York gets 2 Senators, even though there are a lot more people in New York than Montana. </p>
<p>I might as well ask why my daughter can't get New York TAP funds in order to attend NYU. Or for that matter, how come people in Arizona get so much sunshine while it keeps raining all the time here? </p>
<p>NM has a set of rules and standards for its program that are designed to allocate the awards in a manner consistent with its goals, and its goals do not involve excluding kids from Mississippi so more kids in Maryland can get recognition. Since it is a privately funded foundation, it gets to set any rules that it wants.</p>
<p>calmom: we posted at the same time. You patiently gave a more thorough answer. I was impatiently flippant.</p>
<p>calmom, don't start me on the 2 senators per state rant, please! (Buttons easily pushed on this topic - one of the key flaws in what could have been a beautiful democracy).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Aries, yeah, but you're just a woman.</p>
<p>See the advantage of having a deeper voice, even on-line?
[/quote]
I've been practicing my barotone. Also, I would think that my war-like screen name would inspire fear into the hearts of fellow posters - more fear than the paternalism which yours expresses.</p>
<p>I think Jonri's point was that, if you are going to "evenly distribute" the NM places, why do so in a manner that gives such a boost to private schools? If you're going to distribute, why do it by state instead of by county? School? Socioeconomic class?</p>
<p>I understand why the status quo exists--I just think it's unfair.</p>
<p>The OP was just being honest in saying that, while he supports diversity, when he sees AA as impacting his kid, he does resent it. One of the replies to this was that "...it really irritates me when people compare recruited athletes to URMs. URMs have done nothing to get that status other than they are born."</p>
<p>So, I was just using another example of something that matters in college admissions and in getting scholarship $ that's beyond the control of most kids--where they live. I don't think there are many parents or kids who live in the Boston to DC corridor who don't resent the fact that it's a LOT harder for our kids to get into top schools than it is for folks from elsewhere.</p>
<p>Some folks may feel it's unfair that an URM kid can get into a college with lower stats than a white/Asian kid. I suspect that the kid who goes to a public high school in D.C. or Lowell, Massachusetts and is a very good student but misses NMSF status may think it's unfair that kids who attend schools like Exeter, St. Paul's, Andover, etc. but come from Mississippi or Montana get that status with lower scores. (D.C. has one of the highest cut-offs each year despite the fact that it has some of the worst public schools.) After all, NMS status does save money at some colleges--and which kid is more likely to "need" that break? (Yes, I know the boarding schools give some scholarships. I just mean as a general rule.) </p>
<p>And, while some of you may think it's unfair that there's a certain # of slots that may be more or less set aside for URMs, I think it's just as unfair that many top colleges want to limit the number of kids from the Boston to DC corridor,especially the NY metro area. who attend. </p>
<p>True story--several years old now. The UVa admissions director admitted that the median SAT of kids from Westchester County N.Y. admitted to UVa was about 100 points higher than the median SAT of all out of state admittees as a group. Seems just as unfair to me...</p>
<p>Anyway, I do know why the rules exist. But, while some of you don't think that mere differences in skin color improve "real" diversity on campus, personally, I don't think my kids benefited from going to college with kids from suburban Indianapolis or Boise or Billings rather than kids with higher stats from suburban LA, Boston or NYC who didn't get in because of geograhic diversity. Nevertheless, AA is the subject of many more complaints. As Marite notes: "This stress on geographic diversity actually gives an edge to Caucasians, but this does not seem to raise red flags among critics of AA." Yep, that's the point..it's only unfair if it doesn't benefit your kid.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the term "fair" in the context of this discussion is a highly subjective term. While that may seem like a patently obvious statement, that is not the way many posters talk (write). There seems to be some relentless effort to agree to some universal standard, whereas in point of fact, there is no absolute moral value to college admissions, nor any independent, authoritative judge, nor any impersonal calculator, of what is "fair." It's not as if this discussion about fairness is in the same realm as what is implicitly & explicitly guaranteed by federal civil rights legislation, & its attempts to provide a universal standard of equity. And while various posters concede now & then that what seems fair to others may feel unfair to onself (acknowledging the subjectivity), even those discussions are still too much built on some amazing prejudices & antiquated assumptions that no college I know of is still operating on -- or perhaps ever has.</p>
<p>Think about what some of you are saying -- or what some of your statements logically imply. They first of all imply that the most selective institutions of higher education in our country are deliberately lowering themselves & contorting the admissions standards just to achieve geographical diversity for its own sake -- the quality of the freshman class be damned. It also implies, of course, that by seeking geographical diversity they are by that fact lowering their admissions standards -- an arrogant assumption if ever I've heard one. (Only the East Coast has high standards, & produces high quality.) WRONG, not to mention offensive.</p>
<p>Let me fill you in on a little secret, because apparently some of you haven't noticed what's been going on for the last 5 or so yrs. in admissions, & in an Extreme version for the last 3. I know you don't want to believe this, because you believe your son or daughter is unique & superior, but trust me: the colleges & Universities of this country are overwhelmed with excellence, & from the 4 corners of the globe. They are <em>rarely</em> admitting "less qualified," "unqualified," or "underqualified" students -- by any standards, including East Coast standards, including versus what your child has achieved, etc. They are admitting thousands of brilliant & accomplished students from every ethnicity, income level, AND geography, while also turning away equal numbers of these from similar ethnicities, income levels, & geographies. The fact that some of you still cling to the quaint notion that an SAT score is an indicator of brilliance, or that it reserves a seat for your child in the Halls of Ivy, is your problem. It is not a problem that the colleges are afflicted with. Not that they disregard a score. Just that they are able to determine brilliance & promise from a large variety of factors. If your son or daughter was not admitted, it clearly does not mean he or she is not brilliant, but it equally does not mean that those admitted are not brilliant. To think otherwise is to believe that you are omniscient about the qualifications of others, and that you "know" your child is, or must be, among the most elite & most deserving. (If he or she didn't get admitted, stupid people must have been admitted instead.)</p>
<p>Top-tier institutions are totally NOT begging for qualified students. And they are totally NOT engaging in pity-admissions. Now & then a person with less accomplishment, character, or true qualification will get in, based on celebrity, donor or some other value to the University or college. But that is hardly the dominant dynamic. And such an admission can be as easily a non-URM as a URM.</p>
<p>Totally the only way to be (subjectively) "fair" about "qualified" college admissions, is to enlarge the top-tier institutions into approximately triple their sizes. I don't know that you'd want that, or that students would want that, but it's immaterial: it ain't gonna happen. Now, some of them are increasing class sizes somewhat, but it will not be of a size to accommodate all the students who would be "qualified" to attend, by any measure of qualification, including SAT scores or even <em>limited</em> to SAT scores.</p>
<p>For decades, & including today, the Northeast has been overrepresented in the Ivy college application pool, & until recently extremely overrepresented in the ultimate admissions pool. The Ivies & other Northeast institutions are not lowering their standards by expanding their boundaries. It's just that they've discovered how broad the horizons of excellence are, & they believe they will become more enriched by that broader spectrum of choices. No, it's not "fair," but it is no more unfair --as calmom pointed out & which I also have known since my early childhood -- that a "local" has less chance of admission to Stanford than an OOS'er with equal (not necessarily less) qualifications. I mean how come I don't get equal consideration, & 4 yrs. at a place with gorgeous weather? And it's "my" region, after all. It's not "fair"!</p>
<p>A friend of mine, visiting Brown last fall, was told by an admissions counselor that they could dump the entire admitted Freshman class, fill another class of equally qualified students, dump that group and fill yet a third.</p>
<p>Three groups of well qualified, deserving students, but only one gets the admit letter.</p>
<p>Fact is, there are many more qualified kids than number of spaces in any of the top colleges or universities.</p>
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<blockquote> <blockquote> <blockquote> <p>kids who attend schools like Exeter, St. Paul's, Andover, etc. but come from Mississippi or Montana get that status with lower scores.<<<</p> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote>
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<p>NM status is based on the state that the school is IN --- Not where the kid comes from. So..... if you go to Exeter but are from Arkansas, your PSAT score is compared tooooooooo the state where Exeter is!!! Remember, that the distribution of NM is to take into account the differences in quality of education across the country. That would not be achieved if they selected NMF's from Ark, MS, LA,etc that attend elite northeastern schools.</p>
<p>also, there is a HUGE disproportionate number of NE kids who attend NE those top tier NE colleges that you claim are so much harder for NE kids to get into.. </p>
<p>Your gripes are straw.. </p>
<p>The exception is for the Hurricane Katrina kids -- they had to take the test elsewhere, but they will be evaluated against their "home" state.</p>
<p>I made the point about geographical diversity. </p>
<p>At no time did I imply that colleges were lowering their standards in order to achieve it or that only does the NE have high stats applicants. Read my post again. Read what I've said over the last few years about AA and diversity more generally then come back and see if a scolding is warranted. </p>
<p>Sheesh!!! Yes, I am seriously annoyed.</p>
<p>Marite: my post was to jonri.. I wasn't scolding you. :)</p>