Ivy League Sweep: Applicant Runs the Table in Ivy Admissions

<p>^^ That is why stats and ECs should have been left out, and the focus on the high quality of his work in general and his qualities as a person.</p>

<p>I play viola and volunteer at a hospital too but sadly I am white and from middle class suburbia so I was rejected from Cornell</p>

<p>Re: Yahoo news - I do not seeing this being a positive once it hits national news. I do hope it dies down too for his sake. I can see the 20,000 kids and their parents who have done the same or better rolling their eyes. </p>

<p>Well, seems as @SupremeStudent beat me to the thought in real time. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes, but…according to the article, his “portfolio” is run of the mill for Ivy applicants also. </p>

<p>The unspoken lesson here–unfortunately–is be a black male. And no kid can change their race or gender for admissions. Well, actually, it isn’t even unspoken. And spoken in a way that denigrates African American males. </p>

<p>Does anyone seriously think that he would have “run the table” if his parents were immigrants from Romania or China who both went to college and became nurses? Based on what is conveyed here? He doesn’t sound like any Lloyd Chen.</p>

<p>As someone said above, he may be a wonderful kid who is truly loved by everyone who knows him. Too bad they didn’t write about that. This whole thing is distasteful, and confirms my impression that it is very, very unwise for students to cooperate with profiles in the press in most cases. Articles as well done as the one about Lloyd Chen are rare. Most of them are shallow and stupid like this one. Anyone remember the rather disastrous stories about the Chicago-area homeschooler who got into Harvard, or the Indian boy from TX who was rejected despite his 2400?</p>

<p>I’m happy for the kid having these choices. I’m unhappy for all of the kids with better stats and better ECs and real intellectual fire who are right now mulling over their elite school rejections.</p>

<p>Well, being Asian doesn’t help even if you’re doing others things + stats , so many Asian and they only pick few</p>

<p>Our high school, likely similar demographics, definitely reaches down to the 2% for HYPM. I know of plenty of Ivy admissions in the top 5%. (That would be up to #32 or so.)</p>

<p>@Consolation - That is because the Chen story was more of a human story, not a publicity stunt, which the 8 Ivy League one seems to be. But still, the Chen story makes me feel like an imposter into his life. </p>

<p>“This whole thing is distasteful, and confirms my impression that it is very, very unwise for students to cooperate with profiles in the press in most cases.” </p>

<p>This exact same thing was told to my DS by a Princeton admin officer. He said nothing good will come of it. Sure you’re not an admin officer? </p>

<p>@Hunt, Saw this story on GMA this morning. I agree that applying to all the Ivies and then some, is a bit over the top. Why wasn’t there any discernment about which schools would truly be a best fit for him personally and academically and stick with those? </p>

<p>I feel sorry for all of next year’s applicants who will look at his stats and say “mine are better”, and then kill themselves in the fall applying to all Ivies and many top 20 LAC’s. Then the rejections will start rolling in and they will wonder what went wrong. </p>

<p>I blame the Common App at this point for so many kids flooding the schools with applications because it is so easy just to tack on another school to your list. If one had to go to each colleges site and fill out an individual application, I think more kids would take the time to discern which schools are the best fit for them rather than trying to “run the table.” I also think more GC’s would discourage applying to 10+ schools if they had to manually submit each transcript/LoR. We would definitely see a drop in all the 30,000+ applicant pool for top schools. </p>

<p>The article made it sound like (and maybe it’s true) that if there were 10 more Ivies, the boy would get in all of them as well, which is what’s extraordinary about the story. As for its impact to future applicants, I think by now, reasonably sophisticated high schoolers should know the “winning strategies” for one may not work for another. Let’s just say - for a white girl or an Asian boy from NY with similar profiles, it would be their wildest dream ever to get in all 8 ivies. It just goes to show how “desperately” these colleges are seeking to diversify their student body. This candidate was just too perfect to pass without a “fight”. </p>

<p>I just LOVE that everyone is saying he only get into all 8 because he’s black. It’s nice to know what some people think -_-.</p>

<p>Give me a break.</p>

<p>I could understand this individual celebrating quietly for his good fortune…but, by publishing and highlighting this hogwash…they are pouring salt into the wounds of so many highly qualified students who also were immigrants (and many of them poor) who happen to be of Asian or European descent who got shut out from many of the top schools besides this athletic conference…</p>

<p>^^ Was that in response to me? ^ Trust me, those wounds were salted by their classmates getting in and posting their acceptances on social media. Ya’ll are overblowing this thing.</p>

<p>I love the different perspective of real world vs. CC in this story. All morning, on every news show, they mention his credentials and talk about his “near perfect SAT scores”. Every time I heard that I pictured the kids on CC with 2310’s acting as if they failed miserably and questioning if they should retake. </p>

<p>I agree that the story about Kwasi is a bit mis-focused and a bit over-the-top, but…</p>

<ol>
<li>How is it that some critics are hell-bent that he wouldn’t have been admitted, despite being a top 2% student, if he hadn’t been a black immigrant?</li>
<li>Like somebody else very wisely said, excellent grades gets you invited to the party; they (adcoms) decide later if they want you to stay.</li>
<li>I like Lloyd Chen’s story. The circumstances of his background are different from most Ivy League applicants and I like that. Similarly, I don’t imagine that immigrants from Suriname are over-represented in Cambridge, New Haven or Morningside Heights either.</li>
<li>@superstudent; I didn’t realize that the other 20,000 viola-playing minority admittees to Cornell kept you out.</li>
</ol>

<p>It is obvious that his race was his “hook,” which I don’t think is at all insulting, unless you think the fact that one’s race can <em>be</em> a hook is insulting. Nearly every admit to HYP et al. has some kind of official or unofficial hook. Meaning, there is almost always something unique and special about them, in addition to their grades/test scores. No doubt my own H/Y kids were described behind their backs as, “She only got in because of [insert <em>hook</em> here].” It feels like an insult when you first hear it, but really it is not. It simply means that their combination of characteristics are unusual, and others notice that. It doesn’t mean that the admission was not also hard-earned.</p>

<p>I always get a queasy feeling when I hear the phrase “it is obvious that…”</p>

<p>Like no other place I know, the CC community is remarkable for its eagerness and skill in pouncing on every high achievement any kid does and endlessly deconstructing it to “prove” to everyone that:

  1. It wasn’t all that great of an achievement
  2. It wasn’t deserved
  3. The publicity wasn’t warranted
  4. It wasn’t even all that unusual
  5. The kid was misguided
  6. The kid did it for the wrong reasons
  7. Or all of the above</p>

<p>I say congratulations Kwasi. Your hard work has paid off - big time. Keep up the good work, and don’t let others bring you down, because many will certainly try. </p>

<p>This thread is definite proof that we do not live in a post-racial society. </p>

<p>@coureur - No one said it is not great. What people said was for the Ivys and very top schools, specifically, it was nothing special. I do not take anything away from him, and it seems definitely well-deserved. But, in comparison to the rest of his Ivy peers, he is just another top student and to make this as something over-the-top is ridiculous.</p>

<p>@beachlover15 - Another perspective is that he is being truly reacted to by a post-racial society. Post-racial, to me, means equal treatment regardless of race. Hopefully, we can all agree on that basic definition.</p>

<p>Given that a white kid with the exact same profile would never get an article written about him as if he were about to cure cancer, this student in question is just getting equal treatment as if the article was written about a white kid with that same profile going to the Ivys; in the realm of the expected. A white kid going to the Ivys with that profile is par for the course. Thus in a post-racial society, this student should be treated as par for the course too. That, to me, is equality - view him just as a white kid would be viewed. Not sure you can get more post-racial than that. </p>