The inflation charge is because many colleges no longer report matriculated student numbers in owned media. You still can’t find matriculated numbers for the Class of 2025 at many schools. They are burying it until publishing the CDS, and even then, they aren’t announcing the numbers in owned media. For example, here’s Tufts’ Class of 2025 profile:
It’s disingenuous for Tufts to list the admitted numbers for the “Class of 2025” on a page with the URL of, literally, “enrolled-student-profile” in October of 2021 (when that page was last updated), let alone in March of 2022. They have the numbers and choose not to use them. Hence, Tufts is inflating the numbers. Yes, people should be able to read the sub-heading that says “accepted” but some don’t, and I don’t see why they should have to do so when the college could easily update it on a page that’s explicitly supposed to detail the matriculated class profile. That’s the origin of the charge.
I was approached by a private college counselor a couple of years ago (I am a gifted teacher) about a program in which high school students could work virtually as a research assistant for a Duke professor. If the student committed to multiple semesters, the work “may” result in a publication, as well as a letter of rec from said professor. The cost? $7000 per semester. The private counselor received a kickback for every student enrolled.
That this sort of thing seems to work in college admissions is appalling.
I wish I could say I’m surprised but nothing surprises me anymore. Recently I heard about a club coach that (for a generous fee) offered to get a friend’s child in front of a coach at an Ivy – meanwhile he is telling the other kids on the team that they should consider xyz programs. It’s just gross.
I think the colleges are on to this. Our GC who hasn’t made a wrong call yet, even in this crazy admissions environment, says the schools don’t really look at publications for that reason. They are on to this pay-to-play maneuver. High school students, except under the most extraordinary of circumstances, do not have the opportunity to publish in peer reviewed journals.
I’ve heard there’re college counseling firms that recruit professors from well-known colleges for such purposes. That’s why I’m generally skeptical about “researches” and/or “publications” by HS students, even though some (a few?) of them may be genuine. IMO, they shouldn’t be put in the same category as proctored academic competitions.
Many HS students participate in science research programs and engage in “research” with professional researchers. While I am aware of the cottage industry that caters to a few that skirt the ethical boundaries, many students do some projects that - in my opinion - resemble basic research support but they get exposed to what doing research means which is good. On occasion their work may get tagged by the professional researcher. Students may also occasionally overrepresent what they do perhaps but to imply that all students who do research are tainted is a bridge too far and unfair. OK to focus on the “research enabling professional services” who take advantage of willing parents but it is a small %.
There are a handful of kids worldwide every decade who are true prodigies. People like Stephen Wolfram who legitimately expanded scientific knowledge while a teenager.
Unfortunately, 99%+ of high school research today is not like this. It is performed by the student for the purpose of impressing colleges.
Period.
Undergraduate university students are barely ready for this kind of work, and only in special circumstances and aptitudes. High school students are being handheld and guided to buff their college application. It’s so fake, it merits the Pickard facepalm. Yet universities still fall for it.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned through watching this year’s crazy college admissions season (we have a D who’s in 10th grade) is to absolutely make sure that D24’s ‘safeties’ are schools that we know she can get into, that are affordable for our budget, and, equally important, are schools that she could see herself content at for 4 years.
Depends on how you define what research is. To me, a research is a piece of original work, that discovers or establish some original facts/thoughts/conclusions. But few met that criterion. In my mind, students generally would be better off learning more about the subjects to prepare themselves for more meaningful researches later in college and beyond. There’re always some exceptions, of course, as @LaBreaTarheel has stated. For most other types of “research”, where students’ involvements are either less than meaningful or even inauthentic, why should they be relied on for college admissions?
I don’t think many people have any interest in keeping the AO’s honest. Most just want to game the system for their kids. Yes, I’m cynical. It’s become such a toxic process that parents and kids are scrambling. I’d like to see a return to stats. Maybe even bring back subject tests.
Many also think that reworking societal issues can be done via college admissions. They’ve partially succeeded. Some fall into a better group than others. Categories keep changing.
That is certainly true in some cases (or may be a by-product in others) but I am afraid it is still too broad of a generalization and an indictment of many students who are learning about what doing research is. That’s just not fair. Of course, no HS student can or should be expected to do high value, original research and in most cases, they just get exposed to doing research and colleges know it. Let’s agree to disagree and move on, please.
Exposure to a lab as in intro to whether a kid is interested in a research career is fine.
Normally such work would be acknowledged in the footer of the paper, “The authors would like to thank Jane Doe for her assistance with sample preparation.”
Including Jane Doe as an author is likely vastly overstating her role. And putting her as first author when she is not the one who got the grant, secured the lab space, build out the equipment, and devised the project from her deep knowledge of the field is ludicrous.
It’s is simply like stating that a 16 year old new private pilot got to fly 225 people on a 747 on a transatlantic flight as head pilot, or got to first assist on a heart transplant.
It’s just age-inappropriate and another form of privilege.
I agree with that comment wholeheartedly. That is not the case for most, however. A few, perhaps. And colleges do know what is going on. Nobody is fooling anybody, in that sense and in some cases, may work against the applicant if it is overdone/overstated. Again, I am against generalized indictments and moving on.
It is interesting the lists of colleges I see kids applying to, many of them 30-40 colleges long! Many of them have nothing in common (i.e. CalTech and Bates College), and kids applying to vastly different majors at different schools (i.e. engineering at one, philosophy at another etc). Do people really think this is a good idea? Are people taking the rankings lists and doing a shot gun approach to see where they get in? Do people think where you go is more important than what you study?
If a kid (and parents) think this is the correct approach to eventually going to a graduate school and/or building a subsequent career, they are sorely mistaken. I have several friends who’s kids have T20 (based on these ridiculous rankings lists) educations in basically subjects they have little interest in (and have little commercial value), who are working retail trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives. Many have substantial cash outlays and/or debt. Not a great strategy.
It’s really hard (and kind of scary) to think about who best represents “most people” on this website as well as on other parts of the internet. There are over 4000 four-year college institutions in the country and yet I find myself only responding to threads that concern maybe 50 colleges in all. Where does that put me?