Where on the common app does one describe one’s EC contributions as “key” or “important” or “moderately mediocre”? All I recall seeing on my kids’ CA were drop-down boxes for leadership roles and such, which are clearly lies or not lies (were you a captain or not? Did your band raise $1000 for a local kid with cancer or not?)
In essays and interviews, for example.
Activities list on common app:
"Please Describe this Activity
The second text field allows you to elaborate and provide more detail. “Please describe this activity, including what you accomplished and any recognition you received, etc "
^ thanks. Neither of my kids editorialized apparently, they just listed achievements/activities and any leadership role. Or used the space to combine things that wouldn’t otherwise fit…
They both wrote about ECs in essays but I don’t recall seeing anything like “I was a key member of my rock band” or “I made major contributions to the restaurant”. Seems a good essay would describe these roles, or some aspect of them, not put a judgement on the value of one’s role in them (show it don’t say it), but that’s a different discussion I suppose.
Maybe if schools weren’t handing As like free candy, it would be easier to differentiate applicants on the basis of academic ability instead of looking at ECs which a not insignificant number of students pursue in order to get into a good college.
But that’s just my $0.02.
Ideally, the criteria that are needed to receive any grade would be standardized across the entire school system so that these numbers would be much less questionable. Unfortunately, I see why good schools have grade inflation: grades are valuable internally for measuring knowledge, but also externally as a status signal, and universities (and high schools) would be doing their own ambitious students a disservice by giving them grades low enough that they would exclude them from GPA-sensitive career paths (college, grad school, law, finance, medicine, among others).
As Common Core has shown, however, standardization comes with its own set of demons that need to be addressed.
I think in general you are under no obligation to report cheaters and there are many reasons against it. First I’ll relate a story.
When my daughter was in tenth grade, she informed on a peer to her Latin teacher. Both my daughter and her Latin teacher hated cheaters to an unnatural degree. (I actually hate them too.) The teacher said he suspected it all along, and confronted the student at the earliest opportunity where the student confessed.
The problem was she had identified the student by his first name and there were two students with that name. So there are a myriad of ethical issues here. First, you have to be sure and not just suspect. And you have to identify your target clearly. One should also try to treat others as you would like to be treated. You may warn the student with, “If you copy my work on this test, I will turn you in” or just cover your paper so they can’t see it. They may not deserve this good treatment, but it is still a good turn. And you may not want to play the role of policemen. We all have different anxieties and needs. Turning in a peer would be a bad idea for most students.
The role of policemen lies with the institution. The universities should do a better job.
@NeoDymium The IB, for one, has done quite a good job of standardization. Nearly all IB students in a subject take the same exam (sometimes 2 different exams exist, for different timezones), and that exam is marked according to clearly defined criteria. A student’s grade is determined by a curve designed to ensure approximately the same percentage of 7s in a subject each year. Each year, about 200 students (out of 80,000 IB candidates) achieve a perfect result of 45 (scores of 44 and 43 number about 400 and 600, respectively), so there isn’t a glut at the top remotely resembling the glut of 4.0 GPAs in the US.
Since final marks are based on exams in May of a student’s senior year, universities generally see a student’s predicted grades rather than his/her actual marks. Schools (and teachers) receive feedback from the IB on the accuracy of their predictions - a HS handing out predicted 7s like free candy is liable to be rebuked, or even lose its IB accreditation if the problem isn’t resolved, while a teacher doing the same will be in hot water with school administrators after a time. Unlike the K-12 system, this creates a real disincentive to grade inflation.
Standardized yes, but I wouldn’t say it’s a particularly useful criteria.
The first problem is that it’s not an option for everybody - having an IB program is more a function of being at a wealthy school than aptitude, so it is tied more to social status than to merit.
Second of all, it’s a bit of a frivolous criteria to judge people based on their performance against arbitrarily difficult standards - what is the practical application of having a high “competitive” test score compared to getting an A in the class in college? Zero.
Third of all, predictions are no better than final grades, because honestly that’s all that a prediction can really be based on. AP serve a purpose in having a more nationally verified way of giving college credit, but to a large extent, it really should just be up to the teacher to decide what a student earned. They aren’t bad at it, they just have incentives to inflate grades based on how it affects their students (because GPA actually matters).
And finally, it just doesn’t tell you much. A transcript should be able to tell you how hard the student pushed him/herself, and how much they accomplished in learning the fundamental topics upon which you can add a specialty in college. If these grades were more indicative, as in if the material were standardized and the grading criteria were also standardized, that would really be the most useful means of differentiating students overall.
This is completely untrue where I live. Some of the IB programs are housed in HS’s in lower SES neighborhoods to attract out of district students.
And ESdad,
Congrats to your dau for doing the difficult but morally right thing and being a whistleblower. I think whistleblowers should be acknowledged for the effort to do the right thing. Not sure how (obviously it differs from the IRS whistleblowers) but they should.
jym626: Chocolate.
Esdad697: As in the community where one lives, the authorities rely on the citizens, residents and people of the community to participate in the process of calling out cheaters, thieves and other scoundrels. I think that when we ask institutions, organizations and industries to do a better job, we need to remember that “we” are, or can be, part of that better way of rooting out the tainted parts.
Chocolate! Perfect!
It would incredibly unfair if ‘your friend’ got away with an injustice as grave as that. Not only would he prevent a much more qualified applicant from contributing to the reputable communities at those universities, but the odds that he’ll actually have a chance at succeeding there and having the ability to handle the rigor after forging his entire self on paper are very against his favor.
Hearing this is extremely heartbreaking and infuriating especially because many students have pushed themselves to work as hard as they can to earn a place at a top university.
I hope ‘your friend’ gets caught and receives a rightfully-deserved morality check.
Odds are very high. Everything nowdays is checked and crosschecked. Jail could
Admissions officers weren’t born yesterday. They know their regions. So few international students are accepted to th top universities I would guess they check the info for all of them in some way. I know when my husband was in grad school his adviser was talking to him about a potential international student to add to the group but said it was a total crap shoot from that testing center because every applicant they ever had from that 1 test center in a particular country had a perfect GRE score that wasn’t realistically possible. Some would come and be fine and others would be horrific especially those that had cheated on the TOEFL. They did check but a few slipped through the cracks probably by having someone else do their phone interview.
My daughter’s tenth grade was a tale of two teachers: a Latin teacher and an AP European History teacher. Kids would cheat in both classes.
The history teacher would say, “Well, I am not a policeman.” Then he would turn his back and pretend not to see what was happening. The Latin teacher would say, “I am not a policeman. But if you force me to be, I will the toughest, most relentless policeman you have ever seen.” Before tests, he would have the kids hold their hands up for inspection. Once he said to a student, “Spread your fingers, please,” and caught a kid with writing on the sides of their fingers.
As for cheating amongst international applicants (and domestic applicants), it is difficult to gauge. There is certainly a white lie issue. I wish the universities engaged experts to weed it out. First, collect some data to measure the problem. Then add some machine intelligence (think SPAM filters) to find possible cheaters. Then follow up to see if they really did cheat. For example, if someone is suspected of cheating on their SATs, have them take an exam on campus and see how they do. (And hope their paid test taker does not look like them.)
Hello,
I am an international applicant from India and I know of schools who indulge in such practices. Everyone is in on it, the teachers, principal and counsellor. It is a practice in which the more popular schools, such as the DPSes and Amity’s indulge. I have seen students with a percentage in the higher 60s/lower 70s getting their scores hiked up to 90% easily. And these are schools which have high number of admits to Ivies and tier 1 universities. Grade deflation in India is very tough on the students and getting a 80-85% in high school is very tough and requires a lot of effort, let alone getting a 90%. I come from a school where they do not even let me round off my 85.8% to 86%, so competing with such inflated and hiked up scores genuinely puts me at a disadvantage and concerns me a LOT.
All of you seem to be very learned, could you please advise me on the steps I can take to stop such practices?
I’m very angry at this time. I work hard for my 86% and I have to compete with hiked up 90%s which are actually higher 60s/lower 70s.
@AmericanDream69 Your counselor will obviously explain the rigor of your classes and highest GPA. Besides thats what SATS and SAT IIs are for, to level the playing field.
@esdad697 If our was to take the SAT again without notice after a long period of not studying and practicing, pretty sure I’d get at least -200 points.
What would make such an “expert” and what makes you think that they don’t do this?