<p>1 - “Likelihood of enrolling” is as important a variable as is “Recruited athlete status,” each being weighted 7% among the Most Important Variables in Determining Institutional Fit for Those Who Start With Focus on Fit [21% of the 63 responding schools]. </p>
<p>Question: What is “likelihood of enrolling?” Is it code for one thing or is it a catch-all? Factors that come to my mind that might be included are legacy, anti-Tufts syndrome, demonstrated interest, ???</p>
<p>2 - Transparency - The researcher was conflicted about applicants knowing the details of a school’s holistic review process. "I always think more information is better and transparency is better, but I worry applicants might tailor their applications too much if they knew more, she said."</p>
<p>Question: I don’t see how tailoring comes into play with too many of these categories–you either are or aren’t a URM, athlete, talented person, development case or an applicant for FA. The only thing I can come up with relates to the tip given to full pays after FA runs out (which some schools already publicize, more often in the waiting list process, I believe). I guess if I’m applying to a <em>need blind</em> reach or high match and I need FA, it’s to my advantage to “tailor” my app to include indicators of my socioeconomic status with the hope a reader who likes my otherwise borderline app will “improperly” use my “improper” tailoring to push my app while there’s still money. ??? Is that even close? Can someone enlighten me?!</p>
<p>TXArt, that’s how I took likelihood of enrolling. It also made me think that perhaps it’s to an applicant’s advantage to not list all the schools to which he/she is applying. I know people say that that info is just for institutional research, but …</p>
<p>About the tailoring … yeah, maybe that’s the wrong word? Maybe it’s just about overthinking it?</p>
<p>I found the emphasis on “exceptional talent” at 42%, equal to the URM 42%, surprising and vindicating for serious arts students with an academic spine.</p>
<p>I’m guessing “exceptional” means more evidence than, “I starred in Guys and Dolls for my h.s. play” but can be less than “I am Daniel Radcliffe.”</p>
<p>I mentioned this in another thread, but it’s good for this thread, too. I just finished reading the novel, “Admission” by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It gives a fascinating look into how decisions are made at Princeton; the author actually was part of the school’s admissions team a few years ago (I believe it was 2006). The fictionalized story is one thing, but the chapters where the team is actually voting on applicants were real eye-openers. For example, the music prof who has let the admit staff know that all of his sax players are graduating, so he desperately needs them to look for applicants who can play the saxophone. If you have high test scores, high GPA, and good but not truly unusual ECs, you don’t have much chance of being chosen unless you happen to play the sax (or you excel in a position the baseball coach needs to fill, etc.). The protagonist at one point notes how awkward it is to have to tell alumni that 2/3 of their kids will NOT get in, even with high scores/GPA. I really recommend this book.</p>
<p>I think exceptional talent (in any area) is big in elite college admissions when there are tons of applicants who meet the academic criteria for acceptance. I felt almost badly this year to keep advising a top student of mine who truly did everything “right” in having excellent grades and test scores and extremely demanding curriculum, accelerating substantially in math with college courses for years, and having very decent extracurriculars…that it might not be enough sad to say, because nothing stood out as truly exceptional beyond the “norm” of VERY strong for elite colleges. He had no hook and not really exceptional talent (though is a math “genius” of sorts, but not tippy top in the nation sort of way). And indeed, he did not get into his top schools (the most selective in the land), though he is going to a truly very selective college next year. This is just the reality of it and I knew this from day one but is hard to explain to even top students who have done all they could. Between low acceptance rates and the issues of either hooks or else exceptional talent or something else exceptional, it is so difficult to get into elite colleges. I do not think you have to walk on water (my kids didn’t) but the odds are even longer if you don’t!</p>
<p>And figuring out what might count as exceptional talent is tricky. In our high school for years it seemed like kids demonstrated exceptional math/science talent by getting involved in the science research program, but my son did not like the teacher at all and dropped out of the program. So the big question was whether the sort of stuff he did with computer science would be just as good. As it turned out what he did was good enough for some elite admissions and several elite rejections. But most important, he got to enjoy his high school years learning what HE wanted. Anyone who thinks a student is a shoe in just because their stats are in the top 75% of a college with a less than 10% admissions rate is dreaming. It was easy to see from Naviance that you might have double the chances of someone with lower stats, but twice 10% is still only a 20% chance.</p>
<p>“Exceptional Talent + Very High Stats” = Still a Crap Shoot.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, you may be the exceptionally talented, brilliant sax player who just happens to apply the year AFTER the 3 sax slots were filled.</p>
<p>Probably the more common scenario is thousands of piano and violin playing tiger children from the same overrepresented minority group from a small number of major metropolitan areas all applying to the same highly selective schools that want to “build a diverse class of unique individuals”.</p>
<p>I wonder how many of those “exceptional talent” applicants are athletic recruits; the researcher herself said “exceptional talent” could include things like “lacrosse recruits, flautists, etc.” And to the extent “exceptional talent” can be a catch-all category that includes recruited athletes, the 7% figure for “recruited athlete status” is artificially and misleadingly low; it could be that most or all of the 42% of elite colleges that say they use “exceptional talent” as the “most important variable in determining institutional fit” are putting a heavy thumb on the scale in favor of recruited athletes, but are doing it under the broader banner of “exceptional talent.”</p>
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<p>Maybe. But we don’t know from this data whether those colleges value talent in the arts equally with talent on the lacrosse pitch. It could be that those with talent in the arts get some added weight, while those with talent in lacrosse get a lot of added weight. Or the reverse, I suppose, but my guess is that’s the unusual case.</p>
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<p>I suspect it means different things for different schools. LACs, especially, want demonstrated interest, because they know a lot of people use them as back-ups. But ultimately, the way you show your love to a college–and boost your “likelihood of attending” rating–is to apply ED. There is a relationship between legacy status and likelihood of attending, and colleges use that as one justification for using legacy status as an admissions criterion. As for “Tufts syndrome,” that’s really just one version of yield management, which a lot of schools do; their yield models tell them certain categories of kids are likelier to enroll if offered admission than other categories of kids, so they’ll adjust who they make offers to in light of that; or in some cases they’ll adjust their FA or merit aid awards to optimize yield. (Even a school that meets 100% of need and gives out only need-based aid can do this to some extent by adjusting the relative sizes of grants, loans, and work-study in the total aid package). In Tufts’ case they just know they get a low percentage of the best-qualified applicants, so they don’t even bother offering. It’s perfectly rational from the school’s point of view. And yes, I know we’re all individuals and they say they examine each application individually and holistically, but don’t kid yourself—they keep pretty careful stats on who attends and who doesn’t, and they can pigeonhole each “individual” applicant seven ways to Sunday.</p>
<p>Similarly to judging a book by its cover, there is a danger in forming an opinion about a research effort through the report of a journalist. In this case, one could hope that there is a LOT more in the research than what has been discussed in the article. An anonymous survey of admission officers is a remarkably low standard. The author’s conclusions on the legality of the admissions seem overly naive and speculative. </p>
<p>All in all, based on the report alone, this research hardly qualifies as groundbreaking. It also seems to be very much in line with the usual depth and quality of the research on admissions. And that is not a compliment.</p>
<p>You’d hope that students making application lists would be able to figure out that a college listing “level of interest” as an admissions criteria in its common data set section C7 should not be used as a safety, or that their high school counselors would inform them of that.</p>
<p>Public universities are less likely to care about such things (they may be more concerned about predicting the yield, rather than keeping it high), but some do (e.g. Michigan).</p>
<p>“You’d hope that students making application lists would be able to figure out that a college listing “level of interest” as an admissions criteria in its common data set section C7 should not be used as a safety”</p>
<p>You can still use it as a safety, you just need to do an overnight visit, etc.</p>