If you could change one thing about the college admissions process

Parents Forum
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<p>My point is that the standardized tests and GPA don't tell anything whatsoever about the people skills or individual strengths and talents. The colleges need to rely on other information for that -- interviews, recommendation letters, reading between the lines when looking at activity sheets, information from coaches or faculty that has reviewed audition tapes, etc.</p>

<p>If the football coach needs a fullback or the orchestra director needs a french horn, then they are going to want the best athlete/musician possible. A good fullback with a 2200 SAT score is better than a good fullback with 1900 on the SATs -- but the top-notch fullback with the 1900 may mean more to the school than the kid with 2300 SATs and nothing much in the way of ECs. It doesn't meant that the well-rounded, nothing special 2300 scorer doesn't get in.... but it just means that one way or another the coach is going to get his fullback.</p>

<p>It gets more complicated because colleges are concerned about yield -- and among the recruited athletes, there is no point in wasting effort on admitting a kid who isn't going to enroll. That's why these hooks count for more in the ED round -- in the RD round, the academically strong athlete is sure to have many other offers. If the fullback with the 2200 has no financial need, then the Ivy League recruiter knows that the kid is bound to get merit offers or athletic scholarships from other colleges -- so if the team still has spots needing to be filled, maybe this is a good time to grab a great football player with greater financial need, knowing that he will get a near full-ride offer based on need -- plus, if the kid is a minority, he also adds "diversity" to the college mix. So maybe the coach convinces the ad com to grab the kid with the 1900 SAT in the RD over the one with the 2200 simply because he figures the lower-scoring kid is much more likely to come... and at this point they are getting desperate to fill a position that was somehow missed in the ED round. </p>

<p>The bottom line is that in the RD round, the ad com's first question for each applicant is "what does this kid offer us", not "how smart is this kid". It is true that the overall SAT scores, GPA and class rank for admits tend to be very high, because they do have high-scoring athletes and high-scoring musicians and high-scoring class presidents to choose among. But it is not true that they will necessarily take the higher stat student over the lower stat student, if the higher stat student offers more. And the more they feel they need a student because of a particular quality that the student possesses, the more they are going to focus both on that quality and the issues that relate to yield. </p>

<p>Legacy status is a favorable yield factor -- a kid who happens to have Quality A plus legacy status but comparatively weaker stats may be attractive simply because the ad com can predict that the kid is unlikely to get into a peer institution and is highly likely to enroll if admitted. In other words, in this hypothetical -- the kid is being admitted because of Quality A -- legacy status merely adds a little bit of weight to the Quality A determination. That last thing in the world that a college ad com wants to do is to waste their "hooked" spots on students that are likely to have better offers from other schools.
[quote]
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.

[/quote]
Exactly -- but my point is that a significant number of admitted students are hooked, especially if you broaden your view of what constitutes a "hook". My daughter got into 4 colleges where her SAT/ACT scores were bottom range, with math/science scores definitely below 25th percentile, because of a self-created "hook" (Russian language focus; Russian is identified by the state department as a strategic language, hence money potentially flows into colleges to support Russian programs; but it is also an out-of-fashion language and thus most private elite colleges have serious underenrollment problems in their Russian classes. We looked for colleges with large slavic language departments & many tenured faculty - and serious underenrollment of undergrads.)</p>

<p>Obviously, if there is no "hook", then there is nothing left to look at other than comparative academics -- and for that group test scores, rank & GPA are going to be the most significant factor. For one thing, exceptionally high test scores among the unhooked applicants bring up the average, so the more 2400's that are admitted, the more room there is for lower scoring applicants who bring their special talent, skill, or status to the table.</p>

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<p>"If the football coach needs a fullback or the orchestra director needs a french horn, then they are going to want the best athlete/musician possible." Why is the concept of "best" OK here, but "qualified" is all that is neccessary from an academic point of view?</p>

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<p>Using "yield" as an evaluation criteria led to pernicious behavior on the part of adcoms. That is why USNWR dropped it from the list a couple of years ago.</p>

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<p>"Yield" is being used in different ways here. One way is for colleges to figure out how many students they should send acceptances to in order to get the desired number of matriculants. If you want an entering class of 1000 and your estimated yield is 50%, you should send out 2000. If more students than anticipated accept, the college is in a bit of a bind in terms of housing. The following year, the college will send fewer acceptances, hoping that fewer will come until the housing situation is stable again. </p>

<p>Yield as understood in USN&WR is the number of students who accept in proportion to the number who applied. it encourages colleges to drive the number of applications up. But it is a very different calculation from the first kind.</p>

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<p>curious14, I no longer believe you have an interest in anything other than as an apologist for the academic only's. As many times as people try to explain it to you, you reject clear explanations in favor of your own version of an academic meritocracy , highly dependent on test scores (but interestingly, not rank. LOL. How utterly forseeable.). As such, there is no meaningful debate . You believe one thing, I believe another. </p>

<p>Why don't you post a poll that asks - Should uber-selects change their holistic system of evaluating admits and select their class primarily by who has the highest test scores and stats, starting with perfect and then going down? See how many votes you get.</p>

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<p>Curious:</p>

<p>What is "best" academically? is a student who scored 800 on the SAT math going to be the best math student? Will that student be best across the board, from a gen ed course on Shakespeare's plays to advanced math? Will the applicant who scored a perfect 2400 and had a perfect GPA necessarily be the top performing student in college?
MIT, which is less concerned with building a class than HYP, asks teachers to explain how the student came by the grade s/he got. By dint of hard work, through memorization, through being grade-conscious, through sheer brilliance. We may debate the merits of these questions. The underlying explanation, however, is that, as far as MIT is concerned, not all 4.00 GPAs are equal.</p>

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<p>curious, 780 and 790 are included in the subset 750-800 at Penn and Brown. ;) They get a boost, whether you want to admit it or not.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
"If the football coach needs a fullback or the orchestra director needs a french horn, then they are going to want the best athlete/musician possible." Why is the concept of "best" OK here, but "qualified" is all that is necessary from an academic point of view?

[/quote]
Because the college has plenty of academic students - by definition everyone who matriculates is also an academic student -- but they don't have large numbers of whatever specialized slots they are looking to fill in a given year. </p>

<p>Plus there is no particular advantage to the college to have unusually smart students. There are no prizes awarded in inter-school competitions for smartest philosophy student. (or at least not any that attract much attention). </p>

<p>Also, it could be counterproductive if a college had to redesign their curriculum to match a changing academic demographic. As it is, the elite colleges are faced with cutting back on the credit they allow for AP exams, because they have too many students enrolling with advanced standing. </p>

<p>If the college has a graduate program, they really don't want undergrads competing with their grads for research spots or internships. </p>

<p>Plus if all the students are too smart, the next thing that happens is grade inflation and when you turn around and find out that 90% of the students are graduating cum laude... it ends up hurting everyone's chances for grad school and employment. Better for the colleges to have some C students in the mix to allow the A students to shine.</p>

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<p>I will make a limit of applications to the IVY LEAGUES</p>

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<p>Calmom,</p>

<p>I award you the prize for the best argument yet for admissions preferences and I am serious. </p>

<p>"... if all the students are too smart, the next thing that happens is grade inflation and when you turn around and find out that 90% of the students are graduating cum laude... it ends up hurting everyone's chances for grad school and employment. Better for the colleges to have some C students in the mix to allow the A students to shine."</p>

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<p>whyivy,</p>

<p>What's the motivation and why specifically the Ivys?</p>

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<p>Curm, </p>

<p>They may get a boost, personally I think they should, but you still don't have any evidence for it and you know it.</p>

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<p>Marite,</p>

<p>Your wrong about "yield" in the old USNWR rankings. It meant the percentage of "admitted" students who accepted admissions just like it means to the colleges.</p>

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<p>Curm, </p>

<p>I am as much of an apologist for the current system in terms of assessing academic merit as you are an apologist for the current system of non-academic preferences. Your entitled to you opinion, I'm entitled to mine. The CS monitor survey that I mentioned earlier not only indicated that 75% of folks opposed the legacy preference it also indicated that a similarly large group thought colleges placed to large an emphasis on athletics. I'm not in the minority, you are.</p>

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<p>curious: I think the wisdom of concept that "best" is O.K. for music & athletics, but "qualified" for academics is sufficient is pretty obvious. Have you ever had to listen to an orchestra with kids who are merely qualified? It's painful. Watch a "qualified" basketball team play the "best" and it's a real lopsided snore.</p>

<p>There are simply tons of kids bright enough to do elite level academic work. Not so many elite musicians & athletes & other talents.</p>

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<p>Stickershock,</p>

<p>Have you ever had to teach an academically bottom-of-the-barrel recruited athlete? Trust me, it's every bit as unpleasant as listening to a "qualified" musician.</p>

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<p>Curious:</p>

<p>It still means different things to the colleges. For them, yield is the percentage of students who accept their offers, regardless of the number of applications. They have to figure out how many students will occupy the dorm rooms. Make a mistake, and they have to house them in hotels at great cost or have them triple up in singles. We've seen that with Swarthmore when a spike in acceptances one year resulted in a decrease in admissions for the next three years.</p>

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<p>Curious:</p>

<p>I've never met a "bottom of the barrel" recruited athlete at HYP nor a "bottom of the barrel" qualified musician.</p>

<p>I remember reading a profile of Sara Sedgwick, a former captain of the Harvard soccer team. She was described as a 13th generation Harvard legacy, recruited for her soccer skills (she is currently a volunteer assistant coach) and had a 1200 SAT. Granted the SAT score was below the 25% but it is not verging on illiteracy, nor is it likely to cause a dumbing down of classes. At a lot of schools, it would be a very respectable score.</p>

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<p>curious, I imagine it would be frustrating. I don't advocate that at all. I think an athlete with a 1400 (just randomly picking a number) & good academic record will be able to intelligently contribite to class discussions at an elite school. And he brings something else they want as a bonus.</p>

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<p>


I didn't mean take a poll of the great unwashed. I thought it was clear that I meant take a poll on CC. And the two examples you gave, legacy and athletics, make up a percentage of holistic admissions, but by no means all. </p>

<p>You have embarked upon a quest for "fairness" that treats the highest test scorers even better than the Penn and Brown results show they are already being treated. A 50% bump, my gosh. 750 kids are already in the top 1% of testtakers. We are really splitting the atom when we cut it down any further, and to what purpose? CB itself says there are ranges and those ranges clearly overlap. 750-800 is "good enough" for admissions purposes for all the reasons stated before. (There are those of us who have watched a couple of cycles who feel that for admissions and merit aid a 1550 old score is even better but I have nothing other than my experience here to support that.)</p>

<p>But in your haste to defile and derail the current system you ignore all the evidence that suggests the highest achievers, the vals and sals, the 750+ kids ARE treated more kindly by admissions. Why do you do that? Even the most holistic among us believes that the highest test and GPA achievers are accepted at a greater rate and so far I haven't heard any complaints. Why can't you step back from your personal position as a parent and see that? </p>

<p>As background : My kid is safely in a school where she wants to be. She had a successful season of admissions and scholarships. She did not get in everywhere. She had near perfect scores - 35/36. She had perfect GPA and Rank and beyond the toughest schedule. She was not a legacy. Not first gen college. Not development. Not recruited athlete. Not an oboe player for the orchestra. Not URM. No hooks at all. Her ranch/rural life and interests may have been a slight tip. </p>

<p>By all rights I should be arguing what you are arguing but I'm not because your scorched earth admissions plan would destroy the feel of the colleges she liked (and the ones I liked , too). Very few selective school attendees want to go go to a school where 10-20 points higher on the SAT guarantees you admission over a singer for the Lair on Saturday nights. No one wants to go to a school where Mensa membership gets you an admissions spot over someone who wants to row for the club crew team. </p>

<p>Academic merit stands you in great stead in admissions. You just want it to be the end all and be all and to that, I object. </p>

<p>Again, and since you never answer any of my questions , I don't expect an answer to this one (I wouldn't either if I were you. For you they'd be hard.;))- </p>

<p>why do you try to change these colleges when there are other colleges where you obviously like the admissions scheme better? </p>

<p>Good , better, best. Little Johnny deserves the "best", whether he's a fit or not. Is it really for little Johnny or do some parents have a bad case of "sticker envy"? Y'all have to get over that before the decisions start coming in and you start sending messages you can't cancel. JMO.</p>