<p>Lazy Kid- Instead of arguing and getting ****ed at the system, try and WORK the system. That’s life- everything is unfair. Especially today, people will always be doing things that are selfish and not right. I am not saying you should sacrifice your integrity or cheat; but you can stop being upset and take that energy and try and beat the system, in a moral and honest way. I know a girl who started rowing crew just so she can get into mit, and she did. Its just an example, but don’t be those people who complain about everything. Instead, be smarter than those people and do what you can to “get in”.</p>
<p>OP - You have no idea of how the ivy league recruitment works and simply based your argument on a couple anecdotes. Do your homework before making general statements about how the system functions. H does not offer special academic assistance to help their athletes succeed in the classroom like many D1 schools do. If they admit athletes who cannot handle the workload they won’t be there for long. Many elite athletes do choose to go to H if they feel it’s a good fit with their goals in life. At the same time, many won’t go even if H offered them admissions - because either it’s not a good fit or they can’t or don’t want to do the academic work.</p>
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<p>Like someone else has already alluded, you can go travel overseas or move into NYC to experience diverse culture, viewpoints, or whatnot. And, let’s not pretend that 'everyone with perfect scores are the same, boring, not diverse, and nerdy". </p>
<p>Whether or not I like how Harvard admissions function is besides the point. The point in question is whether the process is rationale or meritocratic.</p>
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<p>1) I already graduated from college and I am attending a top 6 law school, so no, I am not interested in applying to or attending Harvard College.</p>
<p>2) Yeah, how about many of those others who worked hard and successfully attained top SAT scores and became valedictorians at their high schools? Are these folks’ efforts or accomplishments any less than that of those sports recruits?</p>
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<p>As you might know, the hardest part about Harvard is getting in. </p>
<p>At my college (a different Ivy), I’ve noticed that a huge chunk of athletes take easiest courses and easiest major possible and they had no problem whatsoever graduating. I would assume Harvard has its fair share of easy courses and majors to choose from. </p>
<p>Let’s face it - those athletes won’t major in electrical engineering, physics, math, statistics, or computer science at Harvard. They’re likely to major in Asian Studies, Medieval European History, Sociology, or Russian Literature. Although it is Harvard, it shouldn’t be too difficult to graduate from ‘easier’ majors filled with ‘easy’ courses depending on course selection and choice of major.</p>
<p>Now, it is not about admitting students that are capable of doing the work at Harvard. I suspect 99% of all applicants would satisfy that requirement. It is about whether Harvard should accept the most qualified and gifted applicants or not - for the sake of meritocracy.</p>
<p>A lot of the Asian applicant who do well in the admissions process are particularly involved in their own cultural heritage, rather than trying to deny it. The cookie-cutter ones who play piano and tennis and get straight As and are on the math team? Harvard only needs so many of those. I see admitted students for whom heavy involvement in Indian dance or hapkido or whatever working worked as a significant plus, because that sort of student does add diversity in the same way a Hispanic or Middle Eastern (yes) perspective does.</p>
<p>For floridadad’s analogy about Harvard Law, that actually doesn’t work at all. Harvard Law is admitting students to. do. law. That’s the end of the story. So GPA and LSAT provide a fair pair of criteria on which to admit students. Harvard College’s purpose in admitting students is broader. First, they want a range of academic interests: a school with 50% premeds is Johns Hopkins, not Harvard. There will probably always be a higher percentage of highly qualified potential Classics or Slavic Languages and Literatures concentrators than potential biology concentrators being accepted, which by itself works against Asian people. That may be unfortunate, but it’s true. Second, Harvard College doesn’t just want the best and brightest future academics: they want the best and brightest future leaders of America, even if that includes some students who will only do OK in class, but then apply what they learned in Harvard’s academic settings to the way they run the community service initiative they’re spearheading, or after they become a politician, or a businessperson, or artist, as well as the brilliant future scientists, doctors, and academics. This also leans in favor of freer thinkers, rather than people who follow a preset mold. Whether that’s “fair” is debatable, but I think so, and wouldn’t propose any huge modifications.</p>
<p>@LazyKid- Your argument is hypocritical. You tell me I’m sterotyping perfect score kids as “boring, not diverse, and nerdy”, but then you go around stereotyping athletes “students that take the easiest classes”, basically insinuating the “dumb jock” stereotype. If you are going to argue your case, be fair.</p>
<p>Also, you are right about many places having diversity like NYC and the like, but college is the only place where you have an environment filled with intelligent, driven, and accomplished people your own age. Name me another place where you have easy access to accomplished peers with wide ranging interests?</p>
<p>LazyKid, if you want to live in your fantasy land where all colleges are meritocracies, apply to UC-Berkeley.</p>
<p>But UC Berkeley isn’t the so-called “most esteemed intellectual establishment” in America.
One would assume such an institution would, at the very least, be meritocratic, like the best universities in England.</p>
<p>I used Berkeley as an example, because it is not allowed to admit people based on quotas or affirmative action, so in essence it is a meritocratic institution. I would never call Berkeley “the most esteemed intellectual establishment” in America. The universities in England are good examples of meritocratic universities, though.</p>
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<p>but this is the very atmosphere that is the goal at Harvard. your vision of a purely “meritocratic” (as you define it) Harvard conflicts with the ideal that Harvard itself holds dear: that of a lush intellectual and cultural experience that will shape students into the best, brightest, and fullest leaders possible in the years to come</p>
<p>Harvard can’t shape gold from iron. Indeed, it can’t even shape gold from silver. What it can do, and should do with its admission process, is manipulate the shape of gold. That is, it should admit the most academically talented people it can find, while also maintaining a degree of diversity… and by the way, the people of the same race do not necessarily hold the same viewpoints; to say so would to be racist.
I agree, then, with the idea that Harvard should gather people from different regions and with different religions, activities, passions, and curiosities - but not at the expense of intellectual ability.
It should hunt for the gold in the applicant pool – it should hunt for the stars, the leaders, the people that have overcome adversity, and the people that show promise in their abilities. However, those should be the criteria: race is a completely irrelevant and superficial concept – indeed, it may be extreme, but I’d venture to say the process furthering the idea that race can be a differentiating idea between people as a whole.</p>
<p>@classicgirll How does one measure intellectual ability? Sure, a high GPA is strongly correlated with intelligence, but it is also a result of hard work. The SAT (and other standardized tests) give an indication of intellectual level, but there are a number of problems with using it as a fair marker of intelligence. First off, many people take extensive courses to “learn” the test and have an obvious advantage over those who haven’t studied. Add to this the fact that many people (often URMs) can not afford or make time for such classes. Also, what is the intellectual difference between someone who scores a 2350 and someone who gets a 2300? Is the first person neccessarily more intelligent? The obvious answer is no. The SAT, while one of the best indicators we have, does not accurately represent intelligence.</p>
<p>Different people are presented with different opportunities and therefore a rich white or asian kid with educated parents and a poor inner-city kid whose parents never went to college can not be expected to have the same academic merits. Everything should be taken with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Harvard does not admit unintelligent individuals who can not keep up with the workload. They simply don’t. Intellectually some students are platinum, others are gold and silver, but it is also important to note that intellect alone does not determine a person’s worth or outcome in life. Social skills, cultural beliefs, and intangibles play just as important a role. Holistic admissions try to take everything I’ve mentioned above into account. The idea that a student is admitted solely on the basis of their race is foolish and has been shown, within this thread, to be patently false.</p>
<p>If I had an answer for you, I’d give it to you. Even I, the critic of this process, have trouble imagining an ideal admissions process. Perhaps we could start with addressing more aspects of an applicant’s personality – the simple optional essay of the Harvard supplement is simply the bare bone minimum, and gives little to no extra information about what makes the applicant tick, and what sort of viewpoints and perspectives the applicant has gathered over the course of a lifetime.</p>
<p>Or maybe the admissions committee should look for particularities about the applicant that is unique to only him/her… I know that the admissions officers normally have to describe an applicant in nothing more than a minute when presenting to the committee, and there’s no doubt in my mind that many applicants come across the same by this method. If there was required additional information, perhaps the committee could gather implicit information about the applicant’s intelligence and prowess, based on more than just numbers and leadership positions that mean next to nothing.</p>
<p>But I’m a whole mess of jumbled ideas. I don’t have a clear-cut solution to this problem, unfortunately. As the acceptance rates continue to dwindle, it’s all just a roll of the 20-sided die anyway. So many deserving people don’t get a slice of the Harvard Pie. C’est la vie.
I’m Class of 2016 – maybe after I’m done with this process, I’ll have something nice to say about it. If I don’t, well… nothing changes, does it?</p>
<p>The bottom line is - Harvard wants a student body that will take advantage of its opportunities/resources and develop the capacity to make a difference in the world. Prior academic success is “one” of the indicators for that capacity.</p>
<p>@5amriser
perhaps you should have used a _ instead of a hyphen there
Sorry, couldn’t resist :P</p>
<p>And yes, I agree… but how does Harvard do that?</p>
<p>Classic,
That is for them to contemplate and decide, not you. They have been doing this for a while so I am sure they have a pretty good idea.</p>
<p>By using a holistic admission process that aims to find intellectual minds that are curious learn more. They don’t want students that will live in the library 24/7 and won’t take advantage of the opportunities Harvard has to offer. That is why Harvard may admit someone with a 2100 SAT student full of personality over a 2300 SAT student that lacks personality. Harvard’s admission process isn’t perfect, but it does a pretty good job most of the time. A rejection is not a reflection on a student when there are 35,000 applicants fighting for 2100 acceptance letters.</p>
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<p>What planet do you live on?</p>
<p>Ahhhh, it’s a Harvardian!
Jokes aside, I’m from Earth and I come in peace.</p>
<p>I just meant that by distinguishing based on race (rather than something like socioeconomic status), the admissions process is furthering the concept that people can be differentiated by the color of their skin. It is very superficial - one of the most superficial things, in fact. And it’s completely irrelevant… how does race factor into intelligence, prowess, motivation, or the myriad other things colleges claim to want?
Sure, it leads to some diversity, but I’d argue that diversity of viewpoints and perspectives, based on differences in location, culture, and passions, is far more important than the diversity of skin color.</p>
<p>I’d argue that they very much do base it on culture rather than race, which is why the bland Asian candidates who all have the exact same resume–and who probably wouldn’t have much/at all higher chances if they were white!–don’t do as well as Asian candidates who are actually in touch with their own cultural heritages.</p>
<p>Also, I used to think the socioeconomic thing, but then I decided to carry it to the extreme and posit a school of all white kids who cover the full socioeconomic spectrum. Would that school be very much missing something in terms of diversity? Oh, yes.</p>