<p>Whoops: it wasn’t oldfort; it was vorosson. Sorry about that! :)</p>
<p>I have spent time on several of those campuses, epiphany, and I agree that most kids are very strong, but for pure academic ability (if that is the definition of merit that people have in mind), some legacy kids, kids of celebs, athletes wouldn’t be there. Almost are still pretty strong, but you’d have a somewhat different class if half the class weren’t blocked out for those categories. I think it is what it is. </p>
<p>The question from my standpoint is different. What should the elite schools be trying to maximize? I don’t think it should be purely the ability to do academic work. Ability to lead society in productive ways? Ability to contribute financially to the institution? Ability to put butts in seats at the football stadium (or at least get alums to feel happy that the football team is over .500 so they’ll contribute)? I think all of these things are factored in. They pull admissions away from pure meritocracy, but I suspect that incorporating them aligns better with the long-term strategy of the institutions.</p>
<p>epiphany said: “When one actually spends time on Ivy League campuses . . . you begin to get a much more accurate picture of just how talented & meritocratic (overall) these student bodies are, and how exaggerated are the assumptions of special-but-nonmeritorious admits.”</p>
<p>The “non-meritorious” point is a red herring.</p>
<p>As the Admin Officer at Columbia said, about 80% of the people who apply can do the work.</p>
<p>In other words, it’s largely not a choice between qualified and non-qualified applicants, it’s the process by which some applicants are selected and most are not that only partially based on individual merit. Institutional imperatives are also used - some argue extensively - to select among the qualified who shall be admitted.</p>
<p>Your point that the classes are fuilled with qualified people indicates that the pool to select from was high quality, not that the selection process itself was meritocratic.</p>
<p>At Princeton for the class of 2012 over 70% of the applicants who scored 2300-2400 on the SAT were rejected, and over 80% of applicants with a 4.0 were rejected.</p>
<p>^^^NP, I often feel like an old fort.</p>
<p>^^Perhaps the main long-term goal of all private schools must be to keep themselves attractive to their applicants (along with the general notions of survival and improvement). So it follows that the elites’ goal must be to stay elite, in whatever ways the (perhaps changing) times define it.</p>
<p>One example of public university meritocracy is Germany, where admission depends solely on the results of the high-school-exit/university-entrance exam (Abitur).</p>
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<p>Duh. ;)</p>
<p>But that’s exactly what some above were arguing: that the results – the student bodies – are not of high quality, which is a lot of baloney. I wasn’t referring to “the selection process,” but to who gets in. From the position of those rejected, it never seems, subjectively, ‘meritorious,’ because it was apparently judged by others that you either were not as merited or as desirable as some others. Just don’t be fooled that the results are not filled with those who have merit + +. </p>
<p>The point is that the elites do get whom they want, so the selection process – however outsiders want to damn that or doubt that - works. Despite the stats you quote of those rejected from Princeton, do not fool yourself that those accepted are losers or of lesser quality. </p>
<p>Hardly.</p>
<p>lol no. Admissions to top schools is not, and never really was, a meritocracy. However, being inside the system I can observe the forces that make this almost required. </p>
<p>For instance:</p>
<p>1) If you aren’t going to give advantages to legacies and other wealthy people in admissions how will you get donations and give good FA?
2) If you aren’t going to give advantages to URMs in the admissions process how are you going to make sure you’re not going to pass up the next Obama or not look like a school lacking cultural diversity? Also, how are you going to educate a largely homogeneous group of students to be leaders in a world that more or less demands appreciation of people different from you?
3) If you aren’t going to give advantages to good athletes who is going to play in the sports arenas and get alumni donations?
4) If people were admitted on raw academics and ECs alone someone is going to be in the bottom half of the class and some people will not get to shine through their ECs. With a class full of these go-getters who is going to be happy with that?</p>
<p>In addition, even though the process may not be meritocratic it’s not as if these colleges are filled with mediocrity. You’re still talking about kids who are pretty bright and can do the work for sure. Maybe not as smart as kids with 2400s but you won’t find anything significantly lacking academically (vast majority of kids top 10% and SATs over 2000) for the vast majority of the students in the school. They are pretty smart IMO.</p>
<p>That being said, I can 100% understand certain people’s aversion to the way elite schools admissions processes are run. It’s anti-merit so it’s anti-American…or something like that. I used to believe what you guys did too. In fact, I still sympathize with that view because some really excellent kids in all areas end up being shut out of top schools which is quite unfortunate. However, because of this spike in selectivity, there’s a nice trickle down effect for other schools (kids who may have gotten into Harvard are now going to Penn and those displaced are going to Rice etc etc)</p>
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<p>I disagree with what is likely your arbitrary interpretation of the adcom’s words. What he likely meant is that 80% of the applicants are academically qualified (which in itself only really means that they stand better than a 0% chance of being admitted), but part of the admissions process is to figure out which of those 80% can truly handle the workload at Columbia. There is a difference between having a high enough GPA/SAT and being able to cope with hours of advanced material. Additionally, although an applicant might have the qualifications, another aspect of the admissions process is selecting those who have higher qualifications than others. There isn’t a threshold where if an applicant meets the “qualified” criteria he/she receives review on his/her ECs; if there was, the acceptance rates for unhooked candidates at top schools would be very similar for 2050 applicants as they are for 2350+ applicants.</p>
<p>monstor344, no he said what he meant. What you are alluding to is that there is a difference being able to do the work and being able to truly excel at it. 80% of the kids would do satisfactorily at Columbia doesn’t mean they’d all get A’s and B’s. Being able to do the work means they can be reasonably sure if you continue on the same trajectory you’ll get at least a 2.5. The reason admissions is different at the 2350+ level than the 2050 level is that the kids at the 2350+ level are likelier (though definitely not always) to be getting the A’s and being the truly outstanding students in the classroom-and more often than not Columbia wants that more than someone who will just pass. That being said, as long as you are able to pass you are eligible for consideration for admission so Columbia isn’t admitting any unqualified students.</p>
<p>You can disagree, but Kei-o-lei’s interpretation is the right one. Schools like Ivies get thousands upon thousands of applications, and the majority of applicants are qualified for admissions as in they are capable of not only handling the workload, but succeeding at the university. The admission officers carve an interesting class out of that very large group.</p>
<p>To be honest, the competition at Ivy League schools aren’t nearly as steep as you’d imagine. Pretty much any median student within the top 20 schools could hack it.</p>
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That is essentially the gist of what I was saying. Being academically qualified to attend Columbia doesn’t mean that you are necessarily academically desired at Columbia. But some people on here sometimes assume that all 80% of those people will have a similar chance being unhooked candidates with identical ECs, and that’s simply false. Many of these 80% will likely be eliminated from contention in the admissions process because of their academics.</p>
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<p>Nope. That post was about process, not results. It doesn’t mean that the 70% and 80%rejected were superior to those accepted. It just means that the 30% and the 20% had a boatload of rockin’ accomplishment in addition, often AS WELL AS geography and other tips and hooks to go along.</p>
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<p>That is entirely the point. And it’s not just because they want them to excel in the classroom, but because they want them to excel <em>after</em> graduation. That is even more important to them than the 4 years.</p>
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You said a lot of silly things in your post, but this was beyond the pale so I had to respond to it. Any person smart enough to be president hopefully would not need to have their test scores boosted. It disturbs me that you think that is not the case.</p>
<p>double post</p>
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<p>My point is this: the students that are rejected aren’t necessarily rejected because they’re inferior students. In fact, they usually aren’t. You can’t honestly believe that the objectively most accomplished students are the ones that always get in. That’s simply not the case. The process is almost random.</p>
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<p>You never know. Academic accomplishment doesn’t really correspond particularly well with presidential pedigree. Carter was a genius. Reagan was not. We don’t know if Obama was an AA admit. We do know that Sotomayer was, and she’s an objectively accomplished person. But she might not have been had her ad coms just looked at her test scores.</p>
<p>^^^ I disagree that Sotomayor is accomplished. She is an AA baby who rode the AA wave. Without she would never have gotten into Princeton or become a judge. She was a stupid judge and the only reason she received an award at Princeton is because they discounted her non major grades. She is a disgrace to SCOTUS. </p>
<p>And you need to read between the lines of my post. I said that we can hope anyone smart enough to be president is would be able to score high enough to get into any school based on numbers. That some were not does not really change the fact that they should.</p>
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<p>Since all of our Presidents have been the pinnacle of test scoring prowess…and hell if test scores were a requisite to becoming President, killbilly can you help run my campaign, I’m sure you’d find me very qualified 
As NearL pointed out Sotomayor who graduated top of her class at Princeton would probably not have gotten in if not for AA. Princeton in large part is not prestigious because of the kids there who scored over a 2300 on their SATs, were top 1% in their class and were very involved in their community. Those kids certainly are impressive and valuable and surely many of them will become leaders in their field but not necessarily famous. Princeton is prestigious because of the Sotomayor’s. And how the hell do you think Sotomayor could have afforded Princeton without those alumni donations for FA…oh yeah that’s right…she couldn’t have. The day admissions starts running purely on merit is the day HYPS et al will lose their allure.</p>
<p>^^ Sotomayor is an idiot. I’m glad you brought her up. Her grades her first year were terrible, she admitted that. Do you know why she graduated second in her class? She majored in history with a joke focus on latin American studies. those classes are the ones which counter for the award, and they were a joke. the reason she became a judge was because she was a latina who graduated from yale, which she only got into because of AA. she rode the AA wave. </p>
<p>read her decisions and listen to tapes of her. her legal mind is third tier toilet</p>
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<p>Yes, without Affirmative Action, Sotomayor, a poor urban Latina, would have never been accepted to Princeton University. Her SAT scores were too low. She managed to get straight A’s her last two years there but those first years – she probably only average a B! Never mind that she may have been adjusting to college. The leap from a inner-city school to an Ivy League school is easily surmounted, right?</p>
<p>I guess it’s OK for our presidents to be rich kids and legacies. But AA babies are just unacceptable. Gotcha. </p>
<p>P.S. LOL. Sotomayor is plenty sharp. She’s not Posner, but she’s not supposed to be.</p>
<p>Killbilly, did you go to law school? Have you graduated from high school? I’m asking these questions honestly because I would like to know what background you possess that lends you credence to call her legal mind “third tier toilet”.
That being said, it’s a distraction from the point at hand. These schools want to produce famous leaders who will increase the prestige of their school. That doesn’t always correlate with having astronomic test scores. Although I have test scores that are all above the top 25% in each section on the SATs at Stanford doesn’t mean I will be the kid who brings Stanford the most glory. However, you can bet that Princeton will be yukking it up that they educated the first Latina to ever sit on the Supreme Court-brilliant legal mind or not. It’s just not practical for them to have a class admitted purely on the traditional definition of merit.</p>