On Sour Grapes

Colleges & Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>The Fox and the Grapes. Aesop. 1909-14. Fables. The Harvard Classics<<<<</p>

<p>Maybe you want to insult those kids and get their responses to generate more hits to CC ($$$$$) as the high traffic period is over for this year. I hope it is worth it</p>

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<p>I don’t get any $$$ from College Confidential at all. I do get information, some of which is very valuable, but you see all of that information too, so you are just as well compensated as I am here. </p>

<p>I just happen to think it is very poor netiquette to come to the Harvard Forum, or to any other college-specific forum on CC, and specifically disparage Harvard ON THE BASIS OF FALSE OR INCOMPLETE INFORMATION. Note that I don’t have any problem with people saying negative things about Harvard (or about any other college) in any of the general discussion forums or on any of the college-specific forums as long as that negative information is accurate. </p>

<p>The statement has recently been made in a thread that has been open on this forum for a while that Harvard </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060460504-post1493.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060460504-post1493.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>“rejects top applicants, accepting only the students likely to enroll.” I don’t believe that statement is an accurate description of Harvard’s admission practices. I believe it misleads young people who are trying to decide where to apply to college, and where to enroll if admitted to more than one college. </p>

<p>There is a thread elsewhere on CC </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/483754-harvard-yale-princeton-stanford-mit-cross-admit-stats-class-2012-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/483754-harvard-yale-princeton-stanford-mit-cross-admit-stats-class-2012-a.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>asking for self-reported information about where students enroll if they are admitted to more than one highly desired college. I have stated the view of statisticians in that thread that such a procedure is futile for gathering accurate information about which college is most preferred among students admitted to more than one college. The procedure is futile, because </p>

<p>a) there is no way to know whether the truthful respondents are a representative sample of the population of interest, </p>

<p>and </p>

<p>b) there is no way to know which respondents are even being truthful. </p>

<p>Colleges surely do study the issue of where cross-admits enroll, as best they are able. Colleges too have to rely on self-reported statements, which may not be accurate in all cases, in gathering such data. All published studies of the college admission process I have read, which are many, suggest that Harvard is second to none in its ability to win over cross-admits from the other mostly highly desired colleges in the United States. That was the finding, for example, of the revealed preferences study working paper, summarized in an interesting New York Times graphic. </p>

<p>[The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html]The”>The New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices) </p>

<p>The revealed preferences working paper is, according to an email I received last year from one of its co-authors, now being prepared for formal, peer-reviewed publication. If anyone else has good, verifiable data about current preferences of students, it would be a good idea to analyze those data and submit the analysis for peer-reviewed publication. </p>

<p>I will note for the record that I am acquainted with several students who (according to their self-report to me or to my son :slight_smile: ) in the last few years have been admitted to Harvard and to other fine colleges, and have preferred to enroll in another college. I know several young people who preferred MIT to Harvard, and one young man who preferred Notre Dame to Harvard. It’s great to have good choices like that. </p>

<p>Congratulations to everyone this year who was admitted to some college desired by the applicant. Best wishes to all the students who will be in enrolling in college this fall, wherever they will be enrolling. My condolences to those who won’t be enrolling in their first-choice college. I think you will find out that the college that admitted you will be a place where you can thrive and succeed. My sympathies are with all the parents still trying to figure out the admission process now that this year’s results have mostly been announced. I don’t think it is wholly possible to reverse-engineering the college admission process. None of us ever have access to complete college application files unless we work in a college admission office (as I never have). Even experienced college admission officers from a few years ago are surprised sometimes by each new year’s results. College application is more competitive than ever, </p>

<p>[University</a> admissions | Accepted | Economist.com](<a href=“Accepted”>Accepted) </p>

<p>but there are a lot of good colleges available for bright, motivated students. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/437362-looking-good-college.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/437362-looking-good-college.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I would like to add that the only person with whom tokenadult argued – without being insulting – was not a kid, but a parent.</p>

<p>The level of bizarre paranoia about Ivy League admissions, and Harvard in particular, gets wearing sometimes. It is just silly to make all these conspiracy theory arguments. (Although, in this case, I can’t tell whether it’s silly or not, because I can’t even tell what the argument is.)</p>

<p>Last year, molliebatmit wrote about tracking results for the MIT admissions office. They did not rely on self-reporting. They relied on Facebook. I think she said there were something like 14 admittees in the class of 2010 as to whom they couldn’t determine a definitive college for which they had turned MIT down.</p>

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<p>Facebook is an interesting way for colleges to gather data. Once upon a time, having a Facebook page was tied to having a .edu email domain, but those days are long gone now. I don’t know a lot about Facebook, but couldn’t a student totally make up a report about where he was admitted to college in what he posts on Facebook?</p>

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<p>You can certainly make up your list of acceptances, but you can’t (anywhere as easily) make up where you attend, as your school networks are still tied to your .edu e-mail address.</p>

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<p>Oh, okay, then I understand the usefulness of Facebook in figuring out where students have enrolled.</p>

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Well, they started out with the self-reported chosen college of the students – MIT has a line on the admitted student reply card for the student to write where they chose to enroll over MIT. The vast majority of admits were categorized in that way, not via Facebook. :)</p>

<p>Facebook was useful for that purpose for people who had relatively unique names. For people with common names, it was not useful – I think that probably all of the small number of people I couldn’t find were people with common first names and surnames.</p>