Isn't College Admission supposed to be Getting Less Competitive?

Parents Forum
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@CaliDad2020 - Okay, it looks like we’re talking in parallel: “who” constitutes the 25th percentile vs. less impressive or impressiveness of the 25th percentile.

This brings me to a story of this high school 3-sports superstar who was admitted to Harvard with a shocking GPA of 2.7 or 2.9 or something like that (sorry, this is, again, top of my head but not a made up story) and with equally unimpressive SAT score. I forgot whether he even graduated from Harvard or not, but he later went on to play professional baseball with the Red Sox. So, yes, candidates with scores like these do get in from time to time.

By the scores alone, this athlete is “unimpressive.” But Harvard saw his unique talent enough to bet on his future “impressive” growth. Sure, the bottom 25th percentile could outshine the top 75th percentile post-grad, but that wasn’t the original point.

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@TiggerDad

yes. among other things I’m arguing that if you start from the premise that <25% SAT/ACT scores = “Less Impressive Applicant” you are starting with a flawed premise, and one that does not fit “holistic” admissions philosophy.

Really, the argument should be "if you passed X school’s holistic admissions test, you are in the “top 100%”’. It would only be if the school were consistently admitting student who did not thrive that you would need to examine other metrics.

But for most “elite” schools “getting in” IS the metric, hook or not.

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And someone from my public magnet HS graduating class in the mid-'90s was admitted to Princeton as a legacy* with an 88/100 GPA and similarly lowish for HYP SATs(usually required high 1300s at the least…not 1200s on the pre-1995 SATs). Normally, such a GPA and SATs would have gotten one shut out of all Ivies except possibly Columbia SEAS if one’s HS GPA/SATs were strongly lopsided in favor of math.

  • The GC report on lowest and highest GPA/SATs admitted used the "Special Admit" notation to signify a legacy which is defined as not only one whose parents/grandparents have attended, but also donated more...often much more than a few hundred or less each year.
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Tigger, you are moving the goal posts. I thought that 2.9 GPA admit was a legacy, no work ethic, and no accomplishments whatsoever except for winning the genetic lottery with a parent who went to Harvard. Now you’re talking about a kid who went pro.

Which is it- lazy and dumb legacies who get into Harvard (which I don’t believe, absent a 7 or 8 figure development potential in the pipeline) or a high potential athlete with a bad HS GPA?

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The direction of the latest exchanges, I’ll note, are part of why I asked for real data, not just anecdotes upthread.

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It seems to be human nature to value anecdotes over data, even if the anecdotes are exceptions or unusual cases.

Perhaps that is why news articles about data include anecdotes as examples. For example, an article about rising student loan debt may include an anecdote of a NYU graduate with $100,000+ in student loan debt that s/he is having trouble paying off.

Of course, when actual data is not released (e.g. college admission data stratified by multiple types of applicant characteristics for super-selective colleges; note also that some applicant characteristics, like essay and recommendation quality, are nearly impossible to observe by outsiders), people believe the anecdotes that much more.

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@blossom – I don’t get your point or the question. Again, read my post #54, which was all about what comprises the hooks of which legacy is just a part of that 60-70%.

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I’ve seen admissions data from Brown (volunteered as an interviewer for many years) and it seems pretty conclusive that just being a legacy gets you squat. A second read, yes. Maybe a more polite rejection letter. For sure some handholding by your local alumni association before you get that polite rejection letter. And since many of these rejected legacies are ending up at peer institutions (Cornell, U Penn, Swarthmore) it ain’t like they were applying with 500 SAT scores and topped out at pre-algebra in HS.

I think it’s harder at Princeton and Harvard. Harder to get into for anyone, and harder to make the case as a legacy that you bring something else to the table.

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Well, here’s one, about SUNY-Geneseo:

http://www.thelcn.com/lcn01/feeling-the-squeeze-at-suny-geneseo-admission-rate-at-odds-with-colleges-ivy-league-luster-20160822

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@blossom - But don’t data show that legacy admits are somewhere around 30%+ at Ivy League, particularly Harvard and Princeton? That screams advantage.

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Advantage in the admission reading, or advantage in growing up in a probably-highly-advantaged family headed by a HYP graduate? Perhaps both, but it may not necessarily be clear how much of each type of advantage a HYP legacy applicant has (and the HYP admission offices certainly will not say).

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I think your argument ends up being an empty tautology, @CaliDad2020. If the “most impressive” are just those who get in, then it tells us absolutely nothing about the criteria on which those decisions are made.

I completely agree that holistic admissions policies allow schools to place greater weight on criteria other than GPA, class rank, and test scores; that’s pretty much the point. But the question then becomes, what other criteria do they use? And the answer is pretty clear: it’s (at least in large part) a number of familiar hooks, those that are being discussed here.

To be clear, the evidence seems to suggest that GPA, class rank, and test scores are very important admissions criteria at the most selective schools using holistic admissions—for most applicants. At Brown, one of the few that gives us any kind of breakdown, valedictorians are accepted at twice the rate of those who are “merely” in the top 10% of their class, and at 10 times the rate of those who are in the second decile or below. Those scoring a perfect 800 in SAT CR are admitted at nearly 2 1/2 times the rate of those who score “only” in the 700-740 range. Those scoring a perfect 36 on the ACT are admitted at 4 times the rate of those scoring “only” in the 29-32 range. This all suggests that Brown values top test scores and top class rank a great deal.

Yet Brown nonetheless rejects 81% of valedictorians, 77% of applicants scoring a perfect 800 in SAT CR, and 72% of applicants scoring a perfect 36 on the ACT. So who are they admitting instead? Now it could be that some vals don’t have strong test scores—though it’s doubtful that it’s 81% of them. And it could be that some applicants who ace the ACT don’t have a strong class rank—though again, it’s doubtful that it’s 72% of them. More likely, some fairly substantial number of vals with strong test scores are rejected in favor of other applicants who are favored on the basis of non-numerical criteria. Like the ability to throw a football 60 yards with pinpoint accuracy. Or being first-gen low-income. Or being a double legacy who happens to (not coincidentally) share the same last name as the new neuroscience building. Or being an international celebrity by virtue of having starred in a series of Harry Potter movies.
That’s not to say that all these hooked admits are in the bottom quartile in numerical stats—and in fact, they can’t be, if we believe the quoted statistic that 60% of the entering class are hooked. More likely they can be found at all levels of numerical stats.that are within the range of those admitted. But it also stands to reason that for unhooked applicants–those relying primarily on numerical stats, plus the usual essays, teacher and GC recs, extracurriculars that don’t count as hooks, etc-- admission becomes extremely unlikely if their numerical stats fall into the bottom quartile on pretty much any measure, while for hooked applicants—those who stand out on some highly valued criterion apart from or in addition to numerical stats—falling into the bottom quartile on one or more quantitative metrics is likely to be less disqualifying. And if that’s the case, then we’d expect to find hooked applicants more heavily represented in the bottom quartile than the unhooked (even while many other hooked admits are in the middle 50% or top quartile in numerical stats). At least, that is my understanding of how holistic admissions works.

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“The direction of the latest exchanges, I’ll note, are part of why I asked for real data, not just anecdotes upthread.”

Data over anecdotes is exactly why I mentioned Hurwitz. He has the best data on this stuff. By an overwhelming amount. 133k actual files of applicants from 30 of the 31 COFHE member colleges for one admissions cycle. You could also look at Espenshade and Bowen, who found the same things as Hurwitz.

According to those studies, the hooks (in order) are African American, recruited athlete, Latino, legacy. [UCB – there’s no data on the less frequent hooks (like celebrity or major donor) so I won’t discuss those].

The studies confirm that stronger hooks result in the admission of kids with lesser stats. So the 0-25 band is going to have more kids with stronger hooks. The 25-75 band will be where you’ll find many kids with the weaker hooks. And 75-100 will be where the kids with no hooks will gravitate towards.

For this discussion, I’d also add in ED as another weaker hook. The studies also point out how hooks get stronger when they overlap, like ED+athlete+legacy.

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“I’ve seen admissions data from Brown (volunteered as an interviewer for many years) and it seems pretty conclusive that just being a legacy gets you squat.”

The studies say you are wrong on this. Especially Hurwitz who (unlike all of us) had access to cross-applicant data. He was able to see how Brown legacy kid did at Brown versus Columbia versus Penn. Same credentials to all three schools. And the conclusion was…legacy is bigger than you think.

But it is true that these schools vary in their policies. I think it is fair to say, for example, that legacy at Brown is a lesser hook than legacy is at Penn. And legacy at Penn is a lesser hook than legacy is at Notre Dame.

Second, big/small boost depends on how you look at it. Let’s say garden variety legacy status boosts a particular Brown kid’s chances from 10% to 25%. You could say that means squat – the kid still has a 75% chance of being rejected. But it is fair to say that the boost is actually huge – 2.5X more likely to be admitted.

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If my memory serves me correctly, my aforementioned book, “The Price of Admission,” has an entire chapter devoted to discussing Brown. Very interesting stuff. Have you ever wondered why Brown went “Open Curriculum”? It’s basically to accommodate the children of Hollywood stars and celebrities to ease their graduation. At least, that was the implication. I would be surprised if the Pulitzer-winning author, Daniel Golden, hasn’t had any physical or legal threats for revealing so much stuff that go behind the admissions walls since the book was published 10 years ago…

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Ira Magaziner and the other campus leaders who were the proponents of the open curriculum didn’t give a fart about the children of Hollywood stars. Tigger, you are conflating two different and distinct eras in Brown’s history. This may have been the author’s implication, but the facts are otherwise. Magaziner graduated in 1969, at least a decade before anyone at Brown cared about celebrities and their spawn.

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Northwesty, we are essentially saying the same thing.

"Second, big/small boost depends on how you look at it. Let’s say garden variety legacy status boosts a particular Brown kid’s chances from 10% to 25%. You could say that means squat – the kid still has a 75% chance of being rejected. But it is fair to say that the boost is actually huge – 2.5X more likely to be admitted. "

What do these statistics mean over time? Lots and lots of Brown legacies getting rejected. And I’ve seen (and interviewed) some of these kids so to maintain that they are all bottom quartile kids is fallacious. And although I don’t have access to the Harvard data, I still maintain that Tigger’s dad who knows lots of dumb and lazy legacies getting in is surely missing some developmental admits in that very, very small pile of the dumb and lazy.

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Well, one thing for sure, Brown’s Open Curriculum AND its “Ivy Prestige” certainly attracted lots of children of Hollywood celebrities and others AND helped them to graduate with greater ease regardless of how its Open Curriculum started. This attraction, by the way, wasn’t one-sided. Brown actively cultivated them with the middleman.

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@bclintonk

Since this is going well off topic, I’ll try to keep my response short: Harvard, Stanford etc. claim that among the 30k+ applications each year they could admit 2 or 3 or more entire classes of outstanding, qualified students. Indeed as there are between 30 and 36000 HS in the US, Harvard could admit 15 - 18 classes of just #1 GPA HS students every year. (without admitting a single homeschooled or international kid!)

Given that much evidence suggests the small range of test scores and GPA we are talking about at “elite” colleges are not highly predictive of college success, and given that colleges themselves state they have many times more qualified applicants than they can take, it’s pretty hard to argue they are taking applicants who AREN’T qualified.

So, I don’t think it is tautological to state that, unless Harvard’s admission standards are flawed (and they don’t seem to be, as far as I know) the students they admit - with or without “hooks” - are worthy of admission. If students with hooks were failing out at a significantly higher rate or getting significantly lower grades, job acceptances etc. then my premse would be flawed.

I think the disconnect here is some students and parents believe or want it to be that “elite” college admissions should be able to be “won” by getting top board scores or grades. But as our 36000 top HS students show us, that is simply impossilbe, even if were a good idea. Some want 36 ACT to mean “better” or “more deserving” than 34 ACT. “Elite” colleges, it seems to me, look at +/- 32 ACT (or whatever each school’s number is) as “good enough” then look: next metric! Oboe players - cool. What else?

What, in my exprience and understanding, “elite” colleges do is look for students whose academic career, comprised of GPA, course rigor, high school attended, standardized test scores achieved, etc. etc. etc. suggest a student can both surivive and thrive at a particular school AND contribute to an interesting, eclectic community. “Hooks” (except legacy, that’s just about keeping the donation tap on!) are part of quantifying that contribution.

anyway, I think I made my POV pretty clear across these posts so I’ll try to leave this thread to get back on topic…

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@TiggerDad, have you demonstrated yet what proportion of legacy admits are taking slots that they wouldn’t take anyway? If not, your continued trotting out of what percentage of admits are legacies is demonstrating precisely bupkis.