NPR starts a series on college admissions

Parents Forum
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<p>From NPR's Morning Edition, February 22, 2007 </p>

<p>Although colleges typically accept more than two-thirds of their applicants — and two-thirds of students get into their first-choice school — admissions anxiety around a small group of highly selective colleges is more intense than ever. Students shoot for those schools because of what they hear from their parents and friends, and what they read in ranking systems by organizations such as U.S. News and World Report and the Princeton Review.</p>

<p>. . . </p>

<p>"Just because nobody knows about it, doesn't mean it isn't a great school and isn't the best place for you," she says.</p>

<p>A number of college presidents and deans agree with Selking and Wetzel. Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, says it doesn't matter where you go to college, only "what you do there." Botstein says American colleges and universities are among the best in the world.</p>

<p>"College is a chance to really make something of yourself," he says. "And you can do that anywhere, at a state university campus, or in a not well-known, small- or medium-size private institution."</p>

<hr>

<p>Resembles the mantra of "Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges" by Loren Pope, does it not?</p>

<p>Rest can be read at
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7384194%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7384194&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Actually, it sounds to me like so much of the great common sense college admission advice I read CC threads - admonitions not to fall prey to the admissions frenzy, the search for hidden gem programs, the mantra that "best" does not necessarily equal "highest ranked", and, of course, the concept of best fit.</p>

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<p>Stories in This Series</p>

<p>Series Overview — The frenzy about college admissions, especially at a small group of highly selective colleges, is intense and, according to some college deans, out of control. NPR explores the alternatives, from deciding not to apply to Harvard to deciding not to go to college.
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7535849%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7535849&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Part 1: Students Opt Out — Panic over admissions to the 50 top colleges has so increased the number of applicants that some schools accept fewer than one in 10. But some high-achieving students in excellent high schools are applying to places their friends have never heard of. Margot Adler reports.
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7384194%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7384194&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Part 2: College Presidents Opt Out — The overwrought college admissions scene is fueled by a multibillion-dollar industry of marketers, college consultants and test prep courses. Recently, a number of university presidents and deans came together to try to regain control over the admissions process. Margot Adler reports.</p>

<p>Part 3: Tufts Admissions — Tufts University outside Boston is offering applicants new, unconventional essay questions in the hope that students will offer better clues about themselves. Tovia Smith reports.</p>

<p>Part 4: Community College — Close to half of all college students go to community college. These two-year schools are playing a key role in educating millions of Americans who can't afford, or can't get into a four-year school. Larry Abramson reports.</p>

<p>Part 5: Historically Black Colleges and Universities — To some African-American students, the cutthroat competition to get into Harvard or another top school is unappealing. Historically black colleges are a way out — and up. Audie Cornish reports.</p>

<p>Part 6: Money — A college education is more valuable than ever, but millions of students will never get one because of money matters. New efforts are under way in a few places across the country to address costs and other barriers to higher education. Wendy Kaufman reports.</p>

<p>Part 7: Blue Collar and Proud — There's growing pressure on high-school students to follow the college track, even if they're not suited for it. Tovia Smith reports on kids who are saying no to college — and what it takes to get a good blue-collar job in the 21st century.</p>

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<p>"It's an illusion. The emperor has no clothes."</p>

<p>"A lot of students at my school will apply to a bunch of schools and then go to the one that is the best one on their list," she says. </p>

<p>"When you ask her what her friends mean by "best," she says "highest ranked." Wetzel says that many people at her school put image before learning. But she says she's looking for a place that is more intellectual, one that puts learning above getting "good grades, so you can apply for a high-influence job based on the name of the school you went to." </p>

<p>Many of her friends, she says, keep on telling her that she should apply to "better schools." </p>

<p>I wonder how people are so sure when they go to a top ranked school, that they are going for the education and not for the ranking. I wonder how they separate these two issues out.</p>

<p>Anyway, thanks for mentioning the npr series.</p>

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<p>The people on CC are part of the admissions frenzy. The people who are not part of the admissions frenzy don't take part in CC. </p>

<p>CC is like a bunch of drunks sitting in a bar, congratulating themselves on not drinking too much.</p>

<p>See my post count. :)</p>

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<p>I thought this story was way below NPR's usual standard. It's hard to believe that this was news to many of NPR's listeners. Seems like the audience is largely made up of college kids and their parents.</p>

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<p>

So true, but here is the mathematical model of why that is true.</p>

<p>Let S be the set of people interested in discussing college admissions, with members {s1,s2,s3,...,sn} (n = number of CC members) Note: Berurah is s4396 :) - j/k)</p>

<p>Let C be the set of colleges in the USA: {c1,c2,c3,c4,...cm}</p>

<p>Let Di be the set of colleges that member si is interested in discussing: {di1,di2,di3,...dim} when dij is in the set C.</p>

<p>For each person, these colleges would include the ones all have heard about as well as regionals, home-town favorites, legacies for that member, etc.</p>

<p>Now define a weighting factor Wi for each college ci as follows:</p>

<p>For each member i and college j, let the weighting factor Wij = pi * qij, where</p>

<p>qi= 0 if cj is NOT in Di or 1 if cj is in Di
pi= posting count of si.</p>

<p>(this says that the discussion will be dependent on a-whether or not the poster is interested in a particular college, and b-how many posts the poster makes - how "talkative" is the poster).</p>

<p>Thus, the total amount of discussion Xi a particular college ci will get on CC will depend on ALL the individual weighting factors for that college across all members in S:</p>

<p>Xi = SUM(j=1..m) Wij</p>

<p>So, all this only says that the discussion generated will depend on how many people are interested in that particular school and how much they like to blab on about it. Not so many will share the common interest in local/regional favorites, but almost all have the biggies in their interest set. **And since all of the BigBlabbers have all of the BigSchools in common, they will overpower almost all other discussion.<a href="Other%20discussion%20is%20there,%20but%20you%20have%20to%20sometimes%20search%20hard%20for%20it">/b</a>.</p>

<p>So there you have it.... and thus, adding to the frenzy...</p>

<p>And can you tell I'm bored...?</p>

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<p>It's surprising what some people don't know.</p>

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<p>digmedia, lol................</p>

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<p>I tell you, Bethie, it's great stuff like this that keeps bringing me back to CC - the learning just never stops.</p>

<p>Hanna, I have to agree with you - it came across to me as a bit stale, rehashed, old hat but then again I may be just a chatterbox poster on the anti-frenzy scale a la digmedia. That said, the web extras aren't too shabby.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7495614%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7495614&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>dig. My head hurts. No more. Please. You lost me at hello. </p>

<p>(Funny stuff, dig. Nothing new in Co?)</p>

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<p>"Resembles the mantra of "Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges" by Loren Pope, does it not?"</p>

<p>NPR has a series going on college admissions.
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=303509%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=303509&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>One piece on their website is written by the Exec. Dir. of CTCL
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7506102%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7506102&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It sounds like the CTCL people had a lot of input into the series.</p>

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<p>dig, wonderful reply! I loved Set Theory: "If the set of integers is infinite and the set of fractions between each integer is infinite and the number of real numbers between each fraction is infinite then what size is the cross product of these three sets?" Today I'm happy if I get the correct change back at the corner store. Sigh.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the links-- I listen to NPR in the car, yet never seem to catch this sort of thing.</p>

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<p>excellent use of the cronecker deta digmedia however do c and m have the same dimmension and are they isomorphic. Additionally u failed to use the concept of a dual space which is absolutely necessary in this situation and in set theory. Do C & D have the same cardinality which might be repetitive with the isomorphism statement</p>

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<p>

BETTER BE J/K BUDDY!!! Well, it's o.k., as long as I'm #1 on your personal list....<em>ROFL</em> :D</p>

<p>Your wit (and brilliance) never cease to amaze me dig! :)</p>

<p>~b.</p>

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<p>I did enjoy reading the NPR installment on Tufts which is quite a good update on Sternberg's Rainbow approach and his attempt to apply his theories of multiple intelligence and the different psychological components of knowledge skills to stimulate more creativity in the college admissions process:</p>

<p>
[quote]
The lack of distinction among essays is a big problem for Tufts, as well as for colleges around the nation. It makes it difficult to decide whom to admit from what Coffin calls the "qualified muddle" — the vast majority of students who have good grades, recommendations and extra-curricular activities, but who on paper tend to look the same.</p>

<p>So, Tufts has implemented a new idea: What if instead of writing an essay, students were asked to draw a picture? Or write a short story, about, say, "The Disappearing Professor" or "The End of MTV"?</p>

<p>School officials are now hoping that better questions might result in better answers — and better clues about who students really are...</p>

<p>the essays remain optional, but most students who answer them are letting their hair down, revealing that elusive leadership quality Tufts wants...</p>

<p>Tufts is the first to attempt to use the questions as a kind of scientific metric to gauge such intangibles as leadership. Tufts will be tracking students to see if those who write great essays do, in fact, turn out to be leaders...</p>

<p>Still, many schools are watching Tufts' experiment with cautious optimism. Marilee Jones, dean of admissions at MIT, says Tufts may be on to something — if not a silver bullet, at least a way to loosen kids up a little, and get them to write essays that are a little less safe and a little more inspired.</p>

<p>Jones says the the application process leaves many students looking "highly distinguished, but utterly lacking in joy."</p>

<p>She says that leads to more questions: "Is there some other way that we can find the essence of the human? Who is this being here? Not the doing, but who is the being in the application?"</p>

<p>Ultimately, better essay questions will reveal more than just what makes students unique, so that schools can decide whom to admit. They will also show what's unique about universities, so students can decide where to apply.

[/quote]
</p>

<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7384490%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7384490&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>I just finished listening to the same report and am putting it in the file labeled rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. No essay question is going to change the fundamental nature of the applicant pool or the admission process; any change in admissions decisions will take place only at the marginsFirst, whatever the essay prompt, applicants will continue to try to game the system. Second, the idea that from a single essay one can reliably predict leadership ability or (as the Tufts admissions officer suggests) the likelihood that one is going to make a real difference in the world strikes me as absurd on its face.</p>

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<p>reference in the Tufts story about Chicago making their quirky essay questions optional is an interesting development</p>

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<p>Actually, I just realized that this nonsense does have a practical value for Tufts. All of this publicity from the talking heads will boost their applicant pool and thereby improve their ranking in U.S. News.</p>