<p>I'm currently gonna be a second year in college and I've been thinking a lot about my future. I've realized that admissions is NOT based on merit. Well, there's more to that then just this blunt statement, but I'm sure many of you know people who were expected to gain admissions but didn't, while an arrogant kid gets in over them. </p>
<p>I wanted to ask if you think that admissions is "fair" and get your opinions!!!</p>
<p>Elite colleges are constantly criticized for a lack of meritocracy is SOME admissions cases. Check out the controversy surrounding Harvard’s COAR.</p>
<p>At most colleges, admission for about half the class is based on pure merit.</p>
<p>Op, as someone from a rural public HS with no connections or wealthy
family, I believe college admissions are based on our merits provided
they are showcased contextually well.</p>
<p>^
Then there are athletes, legacies, developmentals, and minorities.</p>
<p>^Those are the half for whom it’s a different mind of meritocracy.</p>
<p>Hahahaha:</p>
<p>“LEGACY: A DIFFERENT TYPE OF MERITOCRACY”</p>
<p>Love it.</p>
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<p>In other words we accept the best quarterbacks, Asian nerds, rich colored persons, slum colored persons, rich persons, and well-born without regard to how they rank against each other? That’s like saying mediocrity is a metriocracy in which we accept the “best” of the average depending on their irrelevant qualities.</p>
<p>No. Not even close. Colleges like to think of themselves as promoting merit, and they like to propagate the myth that they promote merit. But the game is rigged on so many levels that it amounts to a bad joke. Does anyone seriously think that a kid born into a low-income single-parent household in the inner city or in rural America has the same chance of getting into HYPSM as the kid of equal intelligence born into an affluent, well-connected, Ivy-educated household in a posh suburb? You know the latter kid is going to be groomed for an Ivy education from day one, programmed, coached, and schooled to burnish his credentials. The inner city or rural kid is going to have to find his own way, and that’s not so easy when you have no role models or mentors who have been down that path themselves. Is it “merit” when Mr. Posh ends up with shinier credentials (that just happen to be what the elite schools are looking for), a more impressive list of academic courses and ECs, recommendations from more articulate teachers who know exactly what adcoms want to hear, better test scores, more polished essays, more impressive interviews, etc., etc., ad nauseum? By exactly what notion of “merit” or “desert” do we judge Mr. Posh more meritorious or deserving than Mr. Poverty, when Mr. Posh (as former Texas governor Ann Richards so eloquently put it) “was born on third base and thought he got a triple”? Ex hypothesis, equal intelligence. Let’s further stipulate, equal effort. Who do we think is likely to get farther: Mr. Posh who is born on third base with a wizened old third base coach advising him on how to get home, or Mr. Poverty who finds himself born in the batter’s box with the bat in his hand and no idea what the rules of the game are and no one to tell him, and just three strikes to make it to first base or he’s out forever? Is that meritocracy? I don’t think so. Not even if, at the margins, the umpire occasionally goes out of his way to make the call in favor of the poor/urban/rural/minority kid.</p>
<p>Ho-hum… Here this goes again. Here’s my take on it. The vast majority of American colleges are meritocracies for the most part i.e. if you have a certain GPA or SAT score, you’re admitted. Done. Next file please.</p>
<p>However, there are some which choose to sift out applicants based on criteria beyond just metrics. Amongst these are the so-called “elites”. Their “prestige” precedes them and they get multiples of applicants per open slot. They practice “holistic” evaluation in order to carefully construct the incoming freshman class according to some ambiguous measuring stick that is their college’s “community”.</p>
<p>My questions to the OP and other commenters: 1) Is the problem with these “elites” and their hazy admissions standards the fact that they are hard to decipher? Or 2) that they should be done away with completely since it isn’t truly merit based?</p>
<p>I can agree with no.1 but disagree with no. 2. I posit that the “elites’” ability to craft their incoming classes is one of the main reasons society lauds them with “prestige” and single digit rankings in USNWR. </p>
<p>You feel they aren’t “fair” and reward only “merit”? Fine. ** Don’t apply.** A full 80% of US colleges would love your test scores and transcript – the acceptance letter is just waiting to be printed. But then you don’t want to go to these lessor schools right? You’d rather go to Brown or Columbia or Duke or Harvard. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.</p>
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<p>Who says there’s no regard for how they compare? As said above, it’s impossible to compare two people that have faced entirely different circumstances. And frankly the typical QB for a high level football team is vastly more accomplished in their field than the typical student is in their’s. Heck, that might even be true at some of the Ivies.</p>
<p>Tee-hee, who says “colored” any more?</p>
<p>Apply to caltech.</p>
<p>
That’s all fine and dandy except that those with the highest merit qualifications should be subjected to the highest education. Just because a brilliant student isn’t involved with years of community service and a gajillion clubs doesn’t mean that they should receive an inferior education.</p>
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<p>i love you</p>
<p>bclintonk nice post. Meritocracy for most customers is a finely crafted and
well honed illusion.</p>
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<p>There’s no evidence that only the tiny fraction of U.S. universities & colleges which require more than grades & scores provide a “superior” education, while the vast majority of the remaining colleges provide an “inferior” education. It is only demonstrable that the former have a certain popular rank and popular reputation. That’s all. It’s mostly about perception, not reality.</p>
<p>People focused merely on grades & scores (which btw does not necessarily equal intellectual brilliance; there are more components to intellect & <em>academic</em> ability than grades & scores in themselves) can apply to any of thousands of excellent colleges which would die for grades & scores and award huge merit money for those.</p>
<p>btw, in my neck of the woods, it is said that some of the best profs of all are teaching in community colleges and intellectually exciting their students.</p>
<p>as someone who spent 15 years teaching in community colleges, I don’t think
the quality of teaching is very good. Yes, there are some excellent teachers,
but it is very erratic, way too many underpaid part timers and lots of dis-interested
students. sorry</p>
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<p>I should have rephrased that. Rather than an inferior education, they will receive inferior research/internship/job opportunities even when those positions demand those who are the smartest. And of course a meritocracy is not an infallible system, but it remains a lot more accurate than an overtly holistic process that often offers advantages to those less intellectually capable.</p>
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<p>If only there were more Caltechs in the US.</p>
<p>speedo, you left out my important qualifier, “In my neck of the woods.” I don’t know where or which college(s) you’re referring to. I am also aware of subpar teaching in colleges, both 4-yr. and 2-yr. I’m referencing regions which are richer in talent than in upper-level opportunities.</p>
<p>monstor:
</p>
<p>= just one more fallacy. Talk to some of the parents & students on CC who have reported exceptional or unique internship opportunities from unexpected colleges, including state-level publics. Additionally, the ‘brag about your lesser-known school’ thread may include such information.</p>
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<p>Your assumptions are erroneous. Holistic /=/ an advantage to those less intellectually capable. Especially for the upper-level tier, it especially = an advantage to those of high intellectual capability who can variably multi-task & achieve similar high levels of achievement outside of the school environment.</p>
<p>And outside of CalTech, the streets of academia are paved with opportunity for those willing to search beyond labels.</p>