<p>I think that this opinion piece from The Dartmouth is unusually thoughtful.</p>
<p>I agree. Nicely done.</p>
<p>So funny! My S and I were just at Dartmouth TODAY visiting and he grabbed the Dartmouth newspaper. I just got a chance to read that article back in the hotel room… I thought the article was very good too. I think if they did choose to be admit based on character my S would be at the top… unfortunately they don’t… stats are still the #1 in admissions.</p>
<p>I demand that this be hot topic’d. God damn everyone needs to read this.</p>
<p>I think that top schools do take character into account. In fact, it seems to be one of the main criteria. Overcoming obstacles is another one, related to character. I think authentic motivation is important too, as mentioned in this article w/ a little different wording.</p>
<p>I think it is a weak essay and doesn’t offer anything useful.</p>
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<p>A university should be looking for the academically best students.</p>
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<p>You are going select students based the ‘sincerity’ of their admissions essays? Top-level sincerity can be faked by an applicant, or written by others.</p>
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<p>Why? If that’s what they wanted, they’d array all their applicants by SAT scores and / or GPA and select the very top ones. Obviously they don’t do that, otherwise no 2400 SAT kid would ever be rejected any place. Why can’t a private university set its own criteria? Why can’t they say their goals are diversity of experience, or who they think is most interesting? Why can’t they decide they want to reward athletes / dancers / musicians / legacies?</p>
<p>I agree that the essay says little.
Community and service are indicated by extracurriculars/community service. Intellectual challenge is indicated by difficulty of courses taken. So, what’s new here? EC’s community service, courseload–these are key elements of each application and of course are taken into account.
Impossible to tell if a student is self-motivated or the product of a “tiger mother”.
And how would this manifest itself in an application that basically asks for a list of a student’s accomplishments? Perhaps a new section for failures? </p>
<p>Finally, the author believes character can be intuited from the “sincerity” of the essay. I’m sure the Dartmouth admissions officers were all rolling their eyes over that one. You simply can’t assess someone’s character as part of the admissions process.</p>
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Maybe in your world. The fact is universities across the country value things other than academics in admissions. Even non-holistic public universities, who for instance will commonly admit high profile athletes with questionable academic merit.</p>
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I disagree.</p>
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Whether or not one can accurately asses character from the app, I’m sure many admissions officers try to.</p>
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<p>No, they should use all available measures of academic achievement.</p>
<p>The author of the article suggested using a threshold of scores based on expected capability to do the college course work. That doesn’t even prioritize getting the academic superstars first or at all.</p>
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<p>Of course they can, but they are going to get laughed off the world education map if they put their ‘feelings’ about the sincerity of applicants ahead of everything else.</p>
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<p>Right. Why should it? You seem to be under the delusion that every university’s goal is to get ONLY academic superstars. They want some of those, but they also want people who will contribute in other ways to the community, as evidenced by talent, as evidenced by leadership, as evidenced by having done interesting, unique things. Who are you to say what a college “should” do? At the risk of having this turn into a U Chicago thread, U Chicago prioritizes their more unusual, quirky essays highly. And why shouldn’t they? If that’s the community they choose to build, why <em>shouldn’t</em> they accept a lower-scoring (but can still do the work) kid who really grooves on the essay topic versus a higher-scoring kid who turns in a workmanlike performance on it?</p>
<p>I have never suggested that they should seek ONLY academic superstars. There is no need to make such a caricature of other people’s posts.</p>
<p>Also, when I say what they SHOULD do, it is clear that I am expressing my own opinion, a standard rhetorical device and normal procedure in a discussion forum. I could say ‘President Hu should visit the US more often’, would you say ‘Who are you to tell President Hu what he should do?’.</p>
<p>The writer offers a piece of advice that I think is of great value to applicants - “The first thing I’d look for in a candidate would be evidence that he shares our institution’s key values: community, intellectual challenge and service.” I think that students applying to highly selective universities can increase their chances significantly if they have legitimate reasons to consider the school to be a unique match for their interests, goals, and values. Those legitimate reasons need to be more than vague references, but concrete examples of programs at the university that address the relevance of specific programs to the applicant’s background or conversations with faculty in specific disciplines that have raised the applicant’s interest in the school. Tying interest in the school to shared values should also be a valuable approach, if the student can point to actual examples of how they have put those values into practice themselves. That approach has paid off for both of our students.</p>
<p>This makes me wonder if admissions departments are already doing some of the things Kornberg suggested.</p>
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<p>Well said, gadad. One thing I did (and noted here on CC) was that as I was keeping my own mental list about the colleges we visited, I tried to articulate what I saw as those colleges’ core values and guiding principles. In other words, what would be the best compliment you could give the college? “You produce students who are …” crusaders for social justice, serve the world, dig deep into puzzles no one has ever solved, combine high intensity learning with high intensity socialization, respect and learn from one another, etc. It’s pretty easy to get a sense of what those values are from visits and materials. </p>
<p>Here’s a thread in which I tried to articulate the values of about 16 or so schools we visited: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/901466-8-colleges-4-days-how-i-spent-my-spring-break.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/901466-8-colleges-4-days-how-i-spent-my-spring-break.html</a></p>
<p>Here’s a thread in which this was discussed with respect to women’s colleges specifically:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/909991-seven-sisters-question-asked-different-way.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/909991-seven-sisters-question-asked-different-way.html</a></p>
<p>I think understanding the core values is a real key component of trying to assess the proverbial and elusive fit – because values transcend things like city/suburb/rural, large/small, etc.</p>
<p>Obviously, admissions officers have already been trying to assess character in the best way they can, Dartmouth especially since they value the peer recs. This is nothing new. </p>
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Agreed. Sincerity can be faked, even more if Dartmouth spells exactly what they’re looking for, which the author did.</p>
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Obviously, they are already selecting whom they want based on a “holistic” criteria. Nobody is saying they’re only looking for the academically strongest students, although overall, Dartmouth and the vast majority of elite colleges do take an interest in upping their stats year after year.</p>
<p>Actually I would say that the essay consultant my kids worked with helped them to find even more authentic and sincere voices within themselves, rather than write essays that sounded like “telling the school what they wanted to hear.” They took risks in those essays precisely because they were both very sincere, heart-on-my-sleeve essays.</p>
<p>Well that is not an argument for professional editing services, since clearly even the author is against that. Besides, it’s misguided to suggest Dartmouth is ONLY looking for/should only be looking for certain characteristics, such as the ones the author mentioned. They want a diversity of people too. As you long as the applicant come across with a heart, I’m sure he will be fine on that front. There are other deciding factors.</p>
<p>Besides, many more applicants than can be admitted probably demonstrate the following qualities already (and many of them will have the best stats as well):
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<p>Now, will Dartmouth try to differentiate among them to try to discern who showed the most dedication to community, intellectual challenge and service? How exactly will they do that? Then this process becomes a game all over again as people try to one-up each other in community service hours or in the grandness of their community service plans. They will then write essays on how they want to change the world, as evidenced by their “self-discipline and internal motivation” to do great things. Their resumes will demonstrate successes and ways they overcame their weaknesses. All very BS-able.</p>
<p>I think you’re missing the point. My S got admitted to a top 20 university (not an Ivy, shudder!) in part by writing about a given community activity he participated in – but it was NOT an award-winning activity, he didn’t have an ungodly amount of hours participating in it, he didn’t travel to Guatemala to save the rainforest or Nigeria to save the natives. </p>
<p>Rather, he used this given activity to showcase his own values and why those were a fit for that college and why the characteristics evident from doing this activity would translate to someone who would add qualitatively to the campus. That is very different from playing the ****ing game of “how much money, how many hours, how many poor people helped, how many awards won in community service.” I note that acquaintances who had kids who raised a lot of money, helped a lot of poor people, traveled great distances, set up foundations, etc. didn’t have as good of a success as he did in acceptance – because those activities came across as “I did these things because they look good on a resume, not because they are an authentic expression of who I am.”</p>
<p>I think you’re missing the point. No matter how you look at it, sincerity is hard to discern. You never know which ones of the people who did 5,000 hours of community service are really being sincere or for that matter if those who did only 200. How would they make the distinction if everybody spells out how exactly their motivation and acquired skills will allow them to contribute to campus and how much of a “fit” they are because of their values/experiences?</p>