<p>
[quote]
Have you ever had to teach an academically bottom-of-the-barrel recruited athlete?
[/quote]
What do you mean "bottom of the barrel"? What would you consider a minimally acceptable SAT score?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think it's clear that in Curious14 World you start at the top with "perfect" academic applicants and fill seats till you get down to way way low , almost single cell life-forms, like 1520/34. ;)</p>
<p>(Yuck-o patooey. What a place that would be.)</p>
<p>"(Yuck-o patooey. What a place that would be.)"</p>
<p>Agreed.
And it's pathetic that that's where scores of CC students seem to want to be: with like-scoring classmates. Now, if URM's get scores like theirs, they have no problems with URM's being admitted "on their own merits" (versus a below --<strong>gasp</strong> -- 1520 score). But a URM being admitted with, say a (current scale) <2100 score? Why, that's racism and an abridgement of their civil right to show off & self-segregate among other insiders who've taken 37 practice tests and done at least 2 sittings. I mean, it's un-Amahrican!;)</p>
<p>
Somehow these smart kids (and parents) aren't smart enough to understand that these scores are not "created" in a vacuum. That societal, neighborhood, high school, and family values and environment contribute to the scores and are reflected by the scores. </p>
<p>They don't accept the colleges' statements that they look for and at performance within the circumstances each applicant finds themselves. It's easy for most of us to see that you have to adjust for variables in wealth, opportunity, and quality of teaching (among other things). Now would someone not in the throes of this process automatically understand? No, and I think that is reflected in the views of the academic only's, both parents and students. (That or it's all pure mama bear protecting her cub.;))</p>
<p>I believe the tests have a function - "can they do the work?" Beyond that their utility is arguable. I tend to believe that a higher score does say something about a student's ability to do college work, just not a lot. But they don't show creativity, personality, drive, determination, humor, honesty, team spiritedness (cooperative effort), empathy or countless other valuable human charectoristics. The rest of the package has to show that.</p>
<p>The original question was: What would you change about the admissions process. I think it is the parents.</p>
<p>Reading this thread it seems that there are those that think that the admission process is (1) scientific, (2) "blind" and (3) accurate in predicting "success at the highest level."</p>
<p>It clearly is none of the above. It is a way to roughly rate/rank 1.7 million college applicants (not counting the ever increasingly sought after international students) so that the seats for the next entry class get filled. </p>
<p>My S was blessed with very knowledgable and forthcoming college counselors. They suggest that the parents let them work with the students because the parents get so over the top. They are right.</p>
<p>The fact that the process gets it wrong a good percentage of the time is reflected in the burn out rate, retention rate, graduation rate and ever increasing time most students take to graduate, if they ever do.</p>
<p>Ask most 3rd year college students what their biggest adjustment was. Many say the "new freedoms." Seems that a good deal of college success has to do with non-academic factors (like maturity) that can barely be gleaned from the applications (at least from the grades and scores).</p>
<p>I still smile when I remember that Gates and Dell did not finish college. You can succeed "gasp" -- without college.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>That is exactly what "yield" meant under the old USNWR system, before they droped it from the analysis.</p>
<p>A fatal flaw in the "academics only" argument is its implicit view of education as an engineering process: where the best skilled technicians (professors) pour education into the best-equipped skulls (seemingly based upon high scores) to produce a superior product. It totally ignores the dynamics of an intellectual community, not to mention that education is not a passive process where the student is the recipient of the action.</p>
<p>I haven't seen anything posted to suggest that perhaps the high SAT/ACT scores might also correlate with other desirable qualities, such as writing ability, leadership, love of learning etc. that may show up in those applications. Perhaps qualities other than SAT scores are used and, oh, by the way, the top students selected also have high scores. According to the admissions folks at UChicago, this is precisely what happens there. They claim to pay very little attention to test scores, and in a post on this forum declared it was the very last thing considered. Even so, the kids admitted have very high scores, and the distribution of scores are not unlike those posted earlier for Penn. A fact the admissions counselor found quite interesting given minor role test scores play in admissions decisions.</p>
<p>If it was what was meant, there was no reason to challenge its presence much less drop it. No, it meant, as far as USN&WR, total number of applicants vs. total number of admits. It gives universities bragging rights to say that a record number of students applied. But for adcoms, the more important figure is how many of the admitted students will actually come. This is why factors such as ED, self-selection (at Chicago) legacy status, are significant to adcoms.</p>
<p>It's too bad you can't go back and rename threads!</p>
<p>TheDad</p>
<p>Who made the argument that you are attacking and in what posts?</p>
<p>Marite,
"yeild, or the ratio of students who enroll to those admitted" p 28 USNWR Best Colleges 2000. They dropped the criteria of yield entirely within a couple of years.</p>
<p>If there is someone on this thread arguing for an academics only admission system, would you please identify yourself. There are several people on here attacking your position, who you might want to respond to.</p>
<p>I would:</p>
<ol>
<li>Drop the requirement for letters of recommendation because it’s is unfair to public high school students.</li>
</ol>
<p>2.Drop the requirement for home grown or paid essays and require everyone to take a standardized 3-hour essay test.</p>
<p>3.Use only GPA in 11th and 12th grades.</p>
<p>4.Reduce number of standardized tests and only accept test scores taken in 12th grade.</p>
<p>5.Only accept application after April 1 in senior year.</p>
<p>The change in process I would most like to see is for every college to be extremely clear and open about how they select their class...leave nothing to the imagination, and post the data from each year to illustrate what they value in admitting students, and how much they value it. In other words (without the student names), who gets in, and why.</p>
<p>I would definitely add the option to take SAT in summer - the only time high schoolers have a chance to go to the testing centers well-rested and well-prepared.</p>
<p>There are exceptions to every rule.
Drop recs? My kids's public high school teachers wrote excellent recs based on extensive knowledge of my kids. </p>
<p>Use only 11th and 12th year GPA? What about kids who graduate early? What about kids who take APs in 9th and 10th grades?</p>
<p>curious14
The motivation = less students will apply and the acceptance rate would be higher
why the IVY LEAGUES = A lot of seniors apply to the ivy leagues to see their ability to get in + Parents pressure but then again this is only my opinion.</p>
<p>I'll second adding an SAT date in the summer. </p>
<p>And my daughter also goes to a public high school and got good recommendations (I assume she did, although neither she nor I ever saw them). I could possibly see an argument for dropping the guidance counselor recommendation, but I think the teacher ones are very important. They might be the most honest appraisal of the student the college reads.</p>
<p>An SAT date in the summer looks like a winner. Hard to imagine what the objections would be.</p>