<p>Of the four, three are legacies, and all reportedly mediocre in college (par for the course when they attended). Two Yalies, one Harvard. Edwards was the first in his family to attend college (Clemson then transferred to North Carolina State).</p>
<p>After criticizing SAT, now I like to comment on GPA. The problem is that with grade inflation, top colleges are getting too many applicants with unweighted GPA of 4. Furthermore, grade inflation has another effect on education. The standard practice is 90+ is an A. If you want to give out lots of A in a test, then the question cannot be too difficult and test deeply, otherwise most will be below 90. The students realize this and many of them would just study enough to understand the subject superficially since that is enough for them to get an A. Grade inflation plus A=90+ do not encourage student to have a solid foundation in the basic subjects. Instead they rushes to AP classes to try to get better weighted GPA without a solid foundation. The result is an AP arm race. One problem with AP classes is that the AP policy and availability vary a lot from school to school, so it is not a fair criteria to compare one student to another.</p>
<p>To get to the top universities, you have an AP arm race, and EC arm race, and to be all rounded, you need to commit deeply in some sports. No wonder the top students are over-scheduled.</p>
<p>^^And all their children would be/are developmental admits, and legacy won't play a huge role because of the huge donations they give and their last names. I think Edward's daughter goes to Harvard Law (unlike dad who went to UNC law, correct me if I'm wrong) so she is not a pure legacy admit. Also, Bush is a Harvard MBA, and got Cs at Yale... I don't think that his legacy status got him that either.</p>
<p>bomgeedad,</p>
<p>Also agree with you here. I am always amazed at stat posts in which the kid has a perfect UW 4.0 and mid 600 SAT's. It's not as bad as it looks because most schools submit (I think) profiles that make the grade inflation obvious. The problem is how does the adcom discriminate between a dozen students all with perfect GPA's. The answer has to be difficulty of the curriculum and test scores. They dont have much choice.</p>
<p>
Yup. I am. Try here.</p>
<p>Acceptance Rates<br>
SAT CR Math Writing
750-800 27% 22% 28%
700-740 22% 19% 22%
650-690 18% 16% 17%
600-640 15% 15% 13%
550-590 9% 9% 10%
500-540 7% 5% 5%
Under 500 1% <1% 1%
"Old" SAT only 21% 21% 21%
ACT only 15% 15% 15%
Incomplete Testing 0% 0% 0%</p>
<p>Anything else you'd like me to debunk? </p>
<p>I trot out those Penn stats every year when someone makes the val isn't important to Ivy schools argument , as Val is the single most telling factor among UPenn admissions. </p>
<p>Acceptance Rates
Valedictorian 38%
Salutatorian 33%
Other Top Five Percent 19%
Second Five Percent 10% </p>
<p>But curious, you might not like vals or sals , therefore that's unfair , too. LOL.</p>
<p>Seems to me like there is substantial preference given to the highest achievers. 750+ vals are looking good, aren't they? ;) </p>
<p>What about you curious? Just look at that monstrous bump between 700-740 and the near perfect 750-800 group.</p>
<p>For all of those that think academic merit is not considered in every case of uber admissions , well....just research a little more. It'll come to you. The more academic merit you have the better chance you stand of getting in AT ANY SCHOOL. This DOES NOT TRANSLATE to an individual Johnny or Jane chances of getting accepted as this is one element of many that are being looked at by admissions. But to say it is not a major element defies logic and statistics. You have to look at percentages accepted of a selected group like val or over 750 CR.</p>
<p>He could be a total dolt and dolts with perfect stats don't get accepted.</p>
<p>Again, people tend to think what their kid does well on is the best measure to use. What their kid is weak at whether that be SATS, interviews, essays, ec's, leadership needs to be devalued. It's natural , but as adults we really need to try and see our blindspots so our kids don't get a warped view of the process, "Doug's at Penn because of unfair preference A that I don't have". That's not real healthy if you ask me. </p>
<p>Try telling them the truth instead, "That school liked/needed someone else better/more than you this year." My God, they are not going to fall apart, and if they are - y'all have more serious issues to work on.</p>
<p>Brown shows similar trends for SAT scores and class rank:</p>
<p>Although there's no difference in the percent of Vals and Sals accepted, look what happens when you drop down to 6-10% rank, a major drop in acceptance rate.</p>
<p>We're big on reality in my house and sometimes I just have to break into song: "You don't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need".</p>
<p>^^^
The largest group is no rank, suggesting top high schools usually don't rank.</p>
<p>Wow, entomom. 16.2-24.6 and 16.7-25.5, big preference shown to the near perfect SAT scores over the merely great scorers. If I'm doing my math right as a group 780 kids have a 50% better shot at admissions than the 730 kids. That's a strong preference for such a minimal differences in scores. </p>
<p>And I agree. Reality is the best policy. Mine has been told since the process started that there are students that can compete with her applying at every school . It's what that shool wants that year that will determine. Some cards cut for you some against. All you can do is present yourself and your attributes in the light most favorable to admissions at that school . So , when she not only didn't get a scholarship to Duke, she got waitlisted she knew it wasn't an indictmnet of her. She just wasn't liked as well as some other kid. No biggie and it was water off a duck's back because she knew the system. She didn't listen to the GC's and others saying she was a lock everywhere.</p>
<p>bomgeedad, But when they DO rank, you see who comes out on top don't ya? The Val and sal. Is your kid a val or sal? ;) Or an unranked, therefore val and sal preference should be abolished?</p>
<p>There's clearly no preference for unranked. LOL.</p>
<p>
You are making the mistake of assuming that the colleges want to find the smartest, most intellectually capable students. That may be true of a few schools like MIT or CalTech (which are in the business of training mostly engineers and scientists)-- but it is not true of other colleges. They aren't looking for the very smartest kids -- they are looking for students with good social skills who also are capable of doing the work at their college. They may also want some very-brilliant students, but they also want their clubs to stay active, their athletic rosters filled -- and Ivies like Harvard and Yale are proud of their ability to churn out politicians and stockbrokers, as well as scientists. Ever notice how politicians who are too book-smart have a tough time getting elected? A test-based academic competition would end up weeding out the students with the strong people-skills -- you'd end up with classes full of nerdy future scientists. (e.g., compare the Harvey Mudd campus with Pomona -- very different ambiance at each). </p>
<p>If the criteria is: special skill or talent + capable of doing the work -- then you use the test scores/grades to set the bottom line and you choose based on the skill or talent. More testing doesn't help, because you have already decided that everyone who scores over 1300 is fully capable of doing the work. (And that's why you can even lower the SAT bar based on demographics, recognizing that the minimal SAT score as an expression of potential ability rises or falls in part depending on the environment the kid is coming from)</p>
<p>Curm,</p>
<p>What is the data you posted in#265 supposed to prove, that students with higher SAT scores get accepted more often? Well duh! The poster who brought the issue up was arguing that there was some special preference for perfect or near perfect scores. Sorry, if i misinterpreted, but I see near perfect as 790 or at least 780, 750 is just "high."</p>
<p>I've seen stats similar to what 'Mudge posted for Princeton for Georgetown as well. Steep gradients on both SAT & Class Rank. Enough so that even being 95th percentile of class rank wasn't nearly as encouraging as 98th percentile and, well, for val or sal, not even the same league.</p>
<p>Are there lots of non-val/sal students accepted? Certainly. But the the odds are much lower for each individual in a much larger pool.</p>
<p>Bomgeedad had it right on the unranked issue. Most private schools and many of the best public schools don't rank and most selective colleges have large percentages if not a majority of students who fall in the unranked category. Rank is important as an indicator of admissions from less competitive HS because either the quality of the students drops off rapidly or because colleges like to pad their list of vals and sals by taking these students from schools that they would otherwise pass over completely.</p>
<p>curmudgeon, what I am saying is that according to the Brown data, if we assume only students from good high schools apply to Brown, more than half of the good high schools don't rank. This is just the fact from the data.</p>
<p>Whether the school ranks or not is not up to the student. According to the Brown data, if a student's school don't rank, it is not a penalty for that student unless his real rank is in the top 5.</p>
<p>Marite, the difference between legacies and non-legacies is probabilistic, not deterministic. Of course non-legacy students get in. Also, I have the advantage of having met your S...I think any college would have been nuts not to take him.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But I still don't see the problem of favoring legacies over non-legacies if applicants are equally admissible. It's not as if the schools don't have room for non-legacies, including, thanks in great part to the generosity of alums, low income students on full ride.
[/quote]
See, I have no problem whatsoever with the low-income students on a full ride and it's something that I think the top colleges have a social responsibility to do. But I see no rationale that I'm willing to buy to give a tip to legacies who, as a statistical group, are much more likely to have accrued other advantages along the way. The son or daughter of a Harvard grad is much more likely to have assets and advantages beginning in pre-K than the son or daughter of a grad from U/Mass or Cal State or even UCLA. I think it proper, if resources permit and the spirit moves them, for alumni to make donations to their alma maters, thus building endowments and facilitating the college's ability to give generous financial aid...but don't think much of the donations made in a spirit of possible-quid pro quo. We're already making modest donations to Smith...and it doesn't signify that our D may have only boys or even no children at all (though I think the latter highly unlikely, whereas she will be so disappointed in the former event as she already has names picked out). I suspect our D will make donations in the same spirit.</p>
<p>There are more than enough students with excellent people skills and scores over 1500 to fill every seat at HYPS. They don't dip down below 1400 for people skills. Frankly, is see no reason to believe that recruited athletes and legacies have any better people skills than the average person on the street.</p>
<p>calmom, I am not saying that non-academic criteria do not count or should be de-emphasized. Still academic is one aspect of consideration, so we may as well make that aspect more rational.</p>
<p>As for anyone with 1300 SAT being good enough for top colleges, read the other recent posts in this thread, they are certainly arguing for the opposite is true from the admission data. 1300 may be good enough for someone with hooks like URM, athlete, legacy, son of politicians; without such hooks one better has higher scores than that.</p>
<p>TheDad:</p>
<p>If I understand correctly how studies have been conducted, they take students with similar stats then add the legacy factor. Sure enough, those with legacy status get admitted at a higher rate. Then readers of these studies cry foul, the legacies were weaker, etc... What I am suggesting is that very possibily, the students who are legacies at one college can be and are often admitted at similar colleges where they are not legacies. It would be worth studying their admission success at places where they are not legacies. </p>
<p>I went back and read the article Golden wrote about Mr. Park from Groton who got rejected from 4 Ivies plus Stanford and MIT. The same article carried the information that Robert Bass's daughter was admitted to Stanford with 1220 SAT. Personally, I think that a 1220 score is indicative that a student can make it at top schools. And indeed, she amassed a stellar record at Stanford and was characterized by a schoolmate as a great writer who probably wrote a great application essay. Bass is an alum of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and donated $25 million in 1992 (worth a great deal more then than now, I presume). Well, if I had been an adofficer, I would have admitted her in a jiffy. $25millions is a heck of a lot of scholarship money.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The son or daughter of a Harvard grad is much more likely to have assets and advantages beginning in pre-K than the son or daughter of a grad from U/Mass or Cal State or even UCLA.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Maybe UMass or Cal State but not, I suspect UCLA. I'm thinking primarily of the advantages that come from having educated parents with a certain level of income; this allows the parents to provide the kind of educational preparation that give their children an edge, irrespective of legacy status. This is why it is a bit hard to separate legacy status from other factors; and why I suggest comparing application success at different schools.</p>
<p>I would have admited Bass too. I know Golden objects to "Development" candidates buying their way in with large donations, but I don't think I have heard anyone on this thread objecting to it.</p>