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I believe that intense competition creates a classroom where only results matter. It makes the stakes so high that students can't afford to take risks. Everything they do is calculated to produce better credentials -- high grades, great SAT scores, impressive extracurricular activities. They choose classes that play to their strengths, rather than those that might correct their weaknesses or nurture new interests.</p>
<p>As to their parents, they spend as much as it costs for a year at an elite college on test-prep courses, personal tutoring, and college counselors who help "psych out" the people in admissions. Parents write their children's college-application essays. Now on the scene: "getting into college" summer camps, costing as much as $3,000 for two weeks, to buttress the strategic work done during the academic year. Following the carefully crafted recipe begins so early that decisions about preschool are now made with an eye on the college-admission prize.
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<p>I feel sorry for Prof. Schwarcz if his students are of this kind. I know young people who have taken intellectual risks, who attend academic camps for the love of learning rather than to burnish their college applications and have not had recourse to college counselors. Starting with my S and continuing with his friends.</p>
<p>Who said "precise"? Precise is about "individuals" - not a class. Harvard used to pride itself on admitting a "happy bottom quarter" - since 25% of the class was guaranteed to end up in the bottom, they thought it important to select a fairly large cohort of students who would thrive there, and give back to the university, both in present, and in future years. Forget "intellectual curiosity" and "creative thinkers" - there are other worthwhile qualities, even qualities worth having at an elite institution. </p>
<p>The needs are, generally speaking, besides keeping the faculty relatively satisfied, include: making sure not to break the budget (i.e. 70% from the top quntile, and, if your Pres. is on a mission, enough poor ones, too); keep the alumni happy (legacies) so they keep giving money; keep the sports teams and orchestra stocked (there are no substitutes for quarterbacks and oboeists, but you want to make sure you don't have more than 3 of each); provide some face diversity; make sure the small departments don't go hungry; make the development office happy; get some prestige admits (offspring of congresspeople, senators, ambassadors, foreign heads of state).</p>
<p>For the rest, you probably could go random - or accept the "most intellectually curious" or "most creative thinkers". There aren't that many slots open. More is gained in prestige in rejections from these slots than acceptances. System works fine: what's the problem?</p>
<p>"I feel sorry for Prof. Schwartz if his students are of this kind."</p>
<p>um, you guys, idk if this is right, but this is how I saw the article:
the "picking out of the hat" thing was sarcastic...I believe the professor is implying that it wouldn't MATTER if they "picked out of a hat" because of the number of students packaging themselves to be admitted to elite colleges."<br>
Like..."what the hell...just pick out of a hat! it wouldn't make a difference! I bet 90% of these kids hate their lives and would never take this many AP courses if they didnt have to worry about college!"....rant, anyone?
I took it to be a bitter article, like the professor is upset that this is what college admissions has come to...to the point where all these kids end up looking good but actually just playing the game.
...</p>
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Fifth, what about students with special talents or personal attributes -- violinists, dancers, committed social activists, members of ethnic and racial minority groups, and, of course, athletes? That is a real problem. If people with special attributes are excluded from the lottery and evaluated in the old-fashioned way, then word will quickly filter down to high schools about the subset of activities likely to alter chances for admission. The set of activities that high-school students will engage in for the wrong reasons will shrink, but they will not be eliminated. Therefore, for the lottery idea to work, it must be adopted with virtually no exceptions. Criteria for "good enough" can be sufficiently flexible that applicants who are athletes, violinists, members of minority groups, or from Alaska get credit for those characteristics, but there can be no guarantees of admission. I know that many institutions say they don't guarantee admission. If that is true, it will make my proposal easier to put into effect. My suspicion, however, is that some special talents are currently weighted so heavily that it is hard to imagine what could possibly tip the balance against admission.
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<p>I expect that this what adcoms do already. They try to build a class by filling niche slots (the soccer goalie, the tuba player, the kid from Appalachia or Alaska and so forth). For the rest, which may not be so many slots after all, they agonize over each one, recognizing that they could make different decisions and still have wonderful students. Would the system be any fair? I don't know. It might make life easier for the adcoms not to agonize over the applications, but Prof. Schwarcz is not making this proposal with the intention of making life easier for them.</p>
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I took it to be a bitter article, like the professor is upset that this is what college admissions has come to...to the point where all these kids end up looking good but actually just playing the game.
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<p>I don't think so. Rather I think it's applying his particular academic "schtick" ("the paradox of choice") to the task faced by admissions offices.</p>
<p>There is one assumption apparently made by elite college admissions officers that I'd like to challenge. I think the article touches on this when it discusses factors that can't be predicted. Top colleges like Swarthmore claim to want passionate learners, risk-takers, students willing to try new and different things. They want the intellectually curious kids who achieve and excel because they are truly brilliant and engaged--not because they're nerdy grade-grubbers building a resume for an elite college.</p>
<p>Why, then, in these discussions of admissions do we always assume that just because a "good enough"-to-be-admitted kid played the oboe in high school, he will do so in college, thereby fulfilling that institutional need? Why do we think a high school newspaper editor will fall right into that niche and work for the college paper too? Won't these intellectually curious kids be the kinds of students who will look for new challenges and opportunities? So, given the rich environments provided by schools like Swat, isn't it difficult to predict what will happen once these gifted children arrive? Don't we hope they will take off in all kinds of wonderful ways that surprise us? Thinking that way, the "pulling out of a hat" from the pool of qualified students doesn't seem ignorant at all.</p>
<p>As a personal example, my son who attends an elite college, is now an editor of a campus publication. Never in high school did he participate in any endeavors like that. He spent a lot of time running track, which he is not doing at all now. The point is, we only need to select for qualities like intellect, initiative and motivation. The rest is unknowable, really.</p>
<p>"Why, then, in these discussions of admissions do we always assume that just because a "good enough"-to-be-admitted kid played the oboe in high school, he will do so in college, thereby fulfilling that institutional need?"</p>
<p>You can't be sure on the individual level, of course, although you can make a very good guess when someone's been playing oboe for twelve years and says that he wants to continue. But when you're putting together a class of 1000 or more, you can make decent predictions that X number will try out for the newspaper, etc. That being said, there's a reason that athletic departments try to recruit specific individuals for specific goals. Speaking as a former officer of singing groups, some freshman classes just don't have the great basses other classes do.</p>
<p>I like his schtick, too - and the fact that he teaches and preaches his schtick from Swarthmore, which is without a doubt a college with a strong identity and equally strong self-selecting application pool. Which brings up the notion of what Schwartz means when he talks and writes about the "good enough" and uses the metaphorical notion of random selection from a hat. Who are these random students anyway? Well, in the case of Swarthmore, they are culled from the larger pool of applicants who applied to Swat in the first place and are in the admit pile. They are precisely those kids who took the time and reflective energy to answer the "why Swarthmore?" and all those other questions, of course, they also have the credentials to make it into the "admit"/possible admit pile(s) in the first place. Not so random, seems to me. High school transcripts, personal statements, essays, recommendations, even propensity to enroll, are all factors that give adcoms basic information to sort applicants into those neat, or maybe the whole point is not so neatly, stacked piles - since there will always be a fuzzy line when it comes down to filling out "a class" and that, includes those pesky borderline decisions and the "good enough".</p>
<p>You're right about the probability aspect, Hanna. However, I imagine these elite schools as places where students will be exposed to a sumptious banquet of delicious possibilities. They might not permanently abandon a favorite endeavor, but I can envision many students temporarily reducing participation in a cherished hobby in favor of several exciting new ones that were never available to them in high school. I'm counting on that to happen with my son and that's why we opted to pay the big bucks!</p>
<p>asteriskea has it right. By the time the admissible pile has been constructed and the special niche applicants (the athlete, oboe player, Appalachian or Alaskan ) have been identified and set aside, the randomness factor has greatly diminished. (see my post 46).</p>
<p>Hanna is also right. The quality of orchestras, choirs, etc..., varies from year to year. But a student who has played the oboe for ten years is more likely to want to play the oboe in college than one who has never done so. The college probably admits a number of potential oboe players, knowing that not all will continue playing in college.</p>
<p>EDIT:
The GFG: This is precisely what's happened to my S. He's gotten involved in ECs that I would not have imagined he would be interested in while in high school. Part of it is the mix of friends he's made, part of it is the huge resources available to students, and part of it is knowing how easy it is to launch new ECs.</p>
<p>GFG, regarding the predictability aspect, I don't think it necessarily translates quite as directly as that, unless the student is in fact an outstanding musician, declares early as a music performance major, etc. However, in the few cases I know of personally from my D's h.school (those attending Elites right now), there has been that carry-over, and then some. Those admits have continued with either the same or very similar e.c.'s, and in some cases have intensified the commitment in the level of seriousness, and/or have branched out to related e.c.'s (added other kinds of music, etc.). Students who have not continued the exact e.c. have substituted a campus involvement of similar dedication/commitment.</p>
<p>I don't think that colleges are just looking for college e.c. niches when they look at high school e.c.'s. They are looking for students who choose to contribute to campus life in a complex way, who actually like those e.c.'s (& thus can be predicted to do that or something else with enthusiasm in college). They are looking for people who will continue to develop in areas outside of academics, and for people with enough maturity to manage both. </p>
<p>There are many facets to e.c.'s beyond "filling niches." If there has been a great deal of achievement (esp. over a long haul) by h.s. graduation, it's an indicator of drive, as well as persistence. That is also a broad sign of probable career success later, which matters because it affects that college's overall public profile.</p>
<p>"a sumptious banquet of delicious possibilities"</p>
<p>A succinct summary of what those big bucks pay for!</p>
<p>There are always a few surprises in every class when a prodigy in some field (including a recruited athlete) decides to take off in a different direction. One of my closest friends from my a cappella group is an example. He was such a serious piano prodigy (we're talking Carnegie Hall at age 11) that Harvard actually put a Steinway upright in his freshman dorm room. He played it maybe twice; he decided he wanted to try singing instead. </p>
<p>A few years later, a fantastic bass who'd been in the Krokodiloes for a year auditioned for the most selective classical choir, but broke our hearts when he decided not to accept the spot he was offered; the choir conflicted with his travel schedule for Ultimate Frisbee.</p>
<p>I agree with the following from epiphany : "There are many facets to e.c.'s beyond "filling niches." If there has been a great deal of achievement (esp. over a long haul) by h.s. graduation, it's an indicator of drive, as well as persistence. That is also a broad sign of probable career success later, which matters because it affects that college's overall public profile." </p>
<p>I think this is what Schwartz is getting at when he says "picking a fifth of the 8,000 at random might be just as good a way of producing a great class as the tortured scrutiny of folders that is the present practice." Remember, that the randomness he advocates only comes after a preliminary selection (and self-selection) process. Thinking of mini's comments, I wonder if that final level of randomness would allow for a few more "good enough" kids to get in over some of the "best." Could it be that the only difference between the two groups may be minor inequalities which stem from economic and social advantages more than from true differences in ability or potential? Maybe the difference between a bright, well-groomed prep school kid and a bright, lower or middle class public school kid?</p>
<p>"As a personal example, my son who attends an elite college, is now an editor of a campus publication. Never in high school did he participate in any endeavors like that."</p>
<p>Try it with football quarterbacks. ;)</p>
<p>"Could it be that the only difference between the two groups may be minor inequalities which stem from economic and social advantages more than from true differences in ability or potential?"</p>
<p>The article I posted previously on the admissions process at Williams had the Admission Director counting the "socio-ec" (low-income) admits. Far from being "need-blind", they clearly had a target, the idea being that they didn't want too few, but likely not too many either. They have a budget, and they intend to stick to it.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I know Schwartz. He's a great guy, but something of a gadfly/iconoclast. I think he's taking something from his academic work and having a little fun poking people with it.</p></li>
<li><p>This is what the Director of Admissions at Yale says as part of what I assume is the standard stump speech [approximate]: "At least 3/4ths of the students who apply are fully qualified to attend Yale and to take advantage of what we offer. That's 15,000 applicants. We believe, on the basis of our experience and study, that we can identify about 5,000 super-qualified applicants from that pool, students who really offer something extraordinary. However, we have no confidence in our ability to distinguish among students in that group, and we can still only accept about a third of them. We don't stop trying -- we take it very seriously, and spend a lot of time on it. But if you took the class we admit and replaced it with our waiting list, no one but their parents would notice any difference." When you cut through it, he's saying the same thing as Schwartz, except he doesn't want to argue his job out of existence.</p></li>
<li><p>College football coaches usually over-recruit for specific positions, to handle injuries, academic issues, and changes of heart. I think the same thing happens with college orchestras, too. There were three serious harpists in my college class (and none in the two preceding and two following classes).</p></li>
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<p>Granted, but I've heard a lot of young athletes say they plan to leverage their talent to get into an elite school, but that their main goal once they arrive will be to focus on their education and other endeavors. Actually, I attended a seminar recently in which the coaches in the top high school program for a particular sport actually told us that they advocated that approach to their kids. So that quarterback may need to be replaced after a year! </p>
<p>And while the star oboe player may indeed continue in musical pursuits, like in the example above s/he could also decide to take up singing instead. </p>