Oh subjectivity, you wile monster!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>I was looking over some Ivy League "official app results" threads and noticed that many of the people who got in, as expected, achieved something at a state or national level while having top grades.</p>

<p>I understand that the schools limit subjectivity in grades by using GPA and class rank. They see, for example, that someone with a GPA of 3.85 and a rank of 1 must have had more of a rigorous course load than someone of a GPA of 3.9 and a rank of 5 since the former is at the top of the class with a lower GPA, meaning that students at his school struggled more than in the latter's school. </p>

<p>But, how do the schools limit subjectivity in ECs? Just like taking an AP bio class in School X might be 29853847 times easier (easier teacher, less covered, etc) than taking an AP bio in School Y, leading to a better grade, the ECs can be more easily achieved as well relative to which school one went. If someone wanting to be a president of his class in School X, maybe all he had to do is notify the administration for, possibly, no one in his school is interested or hard-working EC-wise. On the other hand, if someone wanted to be class president of School Y, maybe he would need to fight tooth and nail, campaigning crazily, working 30 hours per week to attain the same leadership position the guy easily attained at School X. </p>

<p>Expanding this, one can even say that certain regions in the country, i.e. states, allow for easier state level achievement.</p>

<p>So, when the app process begins, the guy from School X might have easily gotten many leadership positions and used them to do good things, as well as achieve good things at a state level, while the guy from School Y did not do Ivy-league level stuff because it was a lot harder for him to do it (aka did not get positions/opportunities).</p>

<p>Both, however, had strong drives and, if the playing field was leveled, ability to achieve their goals.</p>

<p>How do they account for EC this subjectivity? Any ideas?</p>

2

<p>What makes you think that Objectivity is something Ivy League admissions puts much stock in? The very subjectivity that inevitably permeates the inclusion of “EC” in the admissions process is a desiderata, not a problem that need be solved, for admissions officers.
Why? Because it gives them license, more so it gives them the power, to impose their own judgement and own criterion on who is allowed in and who is not. Objective, meritocratic, means of so judging would give them a class different from their own preferences.
You do not understand this then you understand nothing essential about the admissions process to the “elite” institutions which serve as the guardians of the gates to Versailles</p>

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<p>I believe that applicants are intended to demonstrate what they’ve done beyond just listing positions. You’re right, “president” can mean very different things at different schools. But if you led a $20,000 fundraising drive as president of your UNICEF chapter, you should list that. No, the CommonApp doesn’t give you much space, but “President. Led $20,000 fundraising drive” doesn’t take up much. I don’t believe that applicants with long lists of positions and no explanation of their significance to the organizations in which they held those positions tend to do very well.</p>

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<p>I thought that too but I guess my question pertains more to the regions of US than simply to schools. I get that the titles don’t even matter to a certain extent. Raising 20 grand for something is a good achievement regardless if you were president or not and one doesn’t even need to be the “head” of something to do it. But make my idea a bit broader. If someone likes politics and wants to make a political contribution to his or her community, it is easier to achieve something liberal in the North East than it is in the south. So if the same two applicants achieved the same liberal objective, one in North East, let’s say Massachusetts, and the other in Texas, how would they see that? I mean the one in Texas might have had to work twice as hard and to gather support than the one in Mass. </p>

<p>The reason I ask is because I come from, what I would say, a great high school. I loved the classes, learned a lot, and, at the time, I thought our ECs that were up and running were great. But, after I graduated and found College Confidential, I noticed that Ivy-league students won these award in national and state level competitions no one even heard of at my school. The way people talk about ECs and things like that weren’t really known to students from my high school. Many of us had great drives to give back to the community, had great grades, and did ECs but our ECs compared to Ivy-league applicants’ ECs are mediocre. We competed in math competitions but only regional (we thought that those were the only ones available). We competed in engineering competitions but, again, they were school and regional. You could say that, if we had the drive, we should’ve had our own ECs and achieved great things but you can’t deny that going to school where the standard is to do state and national level work makes it possible for students to achieve that while going to a school where doing those things is unheard of/unknown makes it nearly impossible. It’s like expecting a mouse to walk upright though all his mouse friends and family walk on all fours.</p>

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<p>It’s all the internet’s fault. It’s raised the bar for everybody.</p>

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<p>Context. Google it.</p>

<p>:)</p>

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<p>I googled it :slight_smile: … No, but seriously. I find it unfair that someone who might have gotten 20 grand for an objective would be given more weight even though his parents and friends’ parents might be in the high income bracket and could’ve donated all the money while someone who maybe got 5 grand for the same objective is given less weight even though he had to work harder since his family and those around him come from a low income bracket. While some students were doing these great things, the students I know had family issues to deal with that made achieving ECs at state/national level, even if aware of them, unimportant. But, of course, someone who is a national math champion will pass more easily than someone who helped out with family stuff but had mediocre everything else.</p>

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<p>You can bet they are taking socioeconomics into account. I don’t agree that they are ranking candidates by how much funds they have raised. The question is what about students in a non-competitive school who haven’t done much outside of school because they didn’t know. I’m sure some of them get in anyway, but 25 years ago almost everyone was like that. Today there are a lot of really qualified (overqualified?) students to choose from.</p>

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<p>Going off on that idea, wouldn’t you think that someone coming from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background who has a high drive and desire to succeed would be more desirable than someone who had and knew his opportunities and won national/state awards because the latter seem as if they already maxed/burned out at an early age?</p>

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<p>If you make use of all of the resources available to you whilst still reaching out for more in order to seek a challenge. You will be a competitive applicant. However, remember that due to the selectivity of these colleges, being competitive is not enough. It is all you can do, but it is not enough. IMHO, there is an element of luck as well! There are literally dozens of qualified, competitive applicants and only so much space. :(</p>

<p>But you will NOT be at a disadvantage as long as you have taken full use of all the resources available to you. Hence, applications are read using context.</p>

<p>Note however, that I am not an admissions officer and all this, as well as most other opinions you will get in relation to this, is mere speculation, educated speculation, but still speculation. I was admitted into the class of 2015 though, if that counts for anything.</p>

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<p>This thread points to key realities of admission in the Ivies: </p>

<p>(1) it involves subjective multi-dimensional judgment</p>

<pre><code>You could eliminate judgment by using only test scores, but the test scores are weak predictors of college success, and even weaker for non-whites and non-traditional students. SAT’s slightly overpredict success for men and underpredict for women. Grades and class rank are better predictors, but there’s still a problem of how to adjust for differences in school size and quality. The Ives have a formula for this – the Academic Index (AI),originally developed to enforce standards in recruiting athletes. The AI works pretty well in the aggregate, but it won’t be right in every individual case. So, even using the most straightforward, quantifiable measures available, it still takes some guesswork to rank candidates.
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<p>(2)** the judgments reflect trade-offs among conflicting values**</p>

<p>If you used only the AI, you’d risk winding up with a dismal football team and a class full of reclusive nerds who all grew up in Brooklyn because you’re missing the natural leaders, all-state athletes, and world-class artists and musicians. As soon as you include those additional criteria, you’re in murky territory where you need to somehow judge the relative merits of school presidents, basketball point guards, world class violinists, science award winners, and so on. </p>

<pre><code>In some cases, the process is simplified by quotas. Every Ivy league football coach, for example, gets to admit 30 students. It works something like this: the coach develops a list of 30 top recruits based on his recruiting needs and his need to conform to AI requirements. The coach meets with the admissions rep who judges whether each student can be admitted. If any are turned down, the coach substitutes backups until he meets his quota of 30. The quota gets changed from time to time by the Ivy presidents – it was reduced from 35 to 30 in 2002. The quotas vary by sport, but coaches will generally get almost everyone on their final list admitted, and, for both men and women, most varsity athletes are recruits, who might add up to 15% of a class.

Coaches would like even more recruits, but they have to contend with many other claimants, like, for example, music. Who wants to go to a school where no one can sing or play? In music, there’s no quota, but the music department grades the quality of cd’s submitted by musician applicants, and provides a priority list of instruments for that year.
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<p>(3) the judgments are based on incomplete and sometimes ambiguous or misleading information</p>

<pre><code>Remember, the Adcom has never met you, and isn’t really judging you. They’re judging a stylized version of you depicted by your Common App. Applicants try to put their best put forward, and they have considerable leeway in crafting essays and presenting their EC’s. Some probably do a better job than others of telling a persuasive story or gilding the lily. Some receive more help from parents or paid professionals. Some students have fast computers and internet connections in their bedroom; others have to craft their essays at the local library. Some students attend schools whose guidance counselors are on a first-name basis with Ivy admissions officers; others are at schools where the GC couldn’t find Yale on a map. Adcoms try to see through all this and read between the lines to get at the truth. One reason regional reps are important is that it’s their job to try to get to know the schools and localities in their region so as to be able to put information in context. But a lot comes down to intuition and guesswork.
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<p>(4) the judgments are made not by a single individual, but from a complex set of interactions among multiple participants. </p>

<pre><code>You apply to Harvard and maybe three different people read your application and rate it from 1 (amazing) to 6 (not a prayer). If all three give low ratings, that’s pretty much the end of it – it would take a miracle to get you in. But if you survive that initial cut, your application goes to one of 20 regional committees. One of those committees probably has more than a thousand applications to consider, but they won’t spend much time on the lost causes or the sure bets (the superstars, athletic recruits, development admits, etc.). They’ll focus on the “maybes” – who have to be among the strongest in a strong pool. It’ll help a lot if someone really likes something about your application. If your app comes through the region in good shape, it moves on to the full committee of some 35 people, where the final decisions are made. In that group are more senior people and junior people – your regional rep might be in her first or her 20th year on admissions. Some are more persuasive, articulate or aggressive than others. In a context where everyone is outstanding, and the differences among them are often very subtle, all those things could make a difference, above and beyond what’s in your application – candidate A might get the nod over B solely because A had a better, more influential advocate.
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<p>All that is to say that kimathi is correct. It’s a serious and thoughtful process, but it’s not God at work, it’s a group of dedicated, hard-working but imperfect humans. There’s a lot of serendipity involved. One final thing to remember – the most recent research consistently finds no correlation between life success and the prestige of the college you attend, after controlling for ability. Equally talented applicants who go to Harvard and Big State U are likely to be equally successful in life. This is something that most Ivy applicants and alums probably find hard to believe. How could those big endowments, superstar profs and spectacularly talented classmates not catapult you to success? But, so far at least, that’s not what the research is finding.</p>

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<p>Wow! Thanks for the input OpenSecret!</p>

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<p>Opensecret: Great post! It’s great that along with everything else you also chose to mention the imperfections inherent in the admissions game.</p>