I do alumni interviewing for college admissions, first in my former state that was 49th in educational rank, and now in the competitive area of DC. The private school candidates here in DC have such access to training and resources compared to flyover country. It’s a huge disparity even for wealthy families in both locations. I used to go to rural high school college fairs and not a single out-of-state college attended for a public school fair. Kids had never been exposed to the idea. I just wonder if that same realization has hit the college admissions offices, that it’s a lot harder to be a standout candidate when no one leaves a rural town.
I know my former flyover state has seen a sudden increase in acceptances to Ivy colleges in the last two years, while DC area has gotten much more competitive.
A lot of humanities candidates don’t even consider applying to MIT/CalTech. I would imagine the applicant pools are very different. My child’s CS class was 80% Asian vs other classes that were much more diverse. Additionally, with regards to humanity, diversity both in gender and race in creating tech algorithms seems to be a bigger problem these days, hence the push for AI and greater diversity in the creators.
See…THIS is exactly why schools should be prioritizing admissions to underprivileged or underrepresented communities. The kid from the middle of nowhere, whose single parent worked two jobs to put food on the table…when SHE gets into Harvard, life forever changes. When my D gets rejected from Duke…well, her life in ten years is likely not going to be much different than had she been accepted. Doesn’t make the process any less “fair” or “unfair”. It is inherently so. But your example is certainly a worthy defense of the system.
Additionally, I don’t believe MIT/CalTech have recruited athletes which account for roughly 20% of applicants give or take at the other colleges listed.
MIT actually supports a lot of varsity sports, 33 in all. However, their admissions office gives very little preference to athletes. I believe their recruited athletes and their coaches find out at the same time as their other regular EA applicants whether they received an acceptance from the admissions office
Personally, I think Michigan is the best public university in the country. Its academics are on par with Berkeley, but Michigan is in much better fiscal shape, and the school spirit is much better as well. Due to location, Cal has better weather, and better placement into Silicon Valley. For just about anything else, Michigan wins.
I wouldn’t put MIT in the same category as Caltech. MIT has recruited athletes and is quite successful in Div III sports. For example, in the final full year’s Director’s Cup, MIT ranked as the 6th best Div III college sports overall. During that season, MIT ranked 2nd in track and field, 3rd in cross country, 5th in tennis, 6th in swimming, etc. MIT seems competitive in a wide variety of Div III sports.
Caltech is lucky if they rank in a single sport. Caltech’s basketball team once had a 26 year conference losing streak that extended across hundreds of games. In contrast, MIT basketball had a 12 win / 2 loss conference record in their final pre-COVID year. The 2 colleges have very different degrees of athletic success and I expect notably different degrees of admission preference for athletes.
Not necessarily for the best. As with boarding schools, most prestigious is not always the best. It depends on fit. In my personal experience, students who gain admission despite academic issues can struggle mightily once actually in school, and would have likely been better off at a better fit for their academic level.
Prior to 2017, UChicago only had EA and RD, and if I recall correctly, its yield was a very healthy 60%+. After that Nondorf went crazy with a menu of EA, ED1, ED2 and RD.
Yield certainly went up, but did it help build a better class? I doubt it. But I suspect that the real benefit was getting a larger percentage of full pay students. UChicago has a much smaller endowment compared to the HYPSM schools, and this approach helped them financially, while simultaneously allowing them to promote expanded financial aid for lower income students.
That’s a huge assumption, that the kid whose Mom worked 2 jobs, is not at the right academic level, and will struggle mightily. No one has suggested that kid is gaining admission " despite academic issues".
Not an assumption at all. Sometimes the most prestigious university or boarding school is the best fit, sometimes it isn’t. The situation described implied that an important factor for admission would be family background. Super high academic ability was not mentioned. Just being able to get in isn’t the way to choose.
I think the part that cinnamon was referring to as an assumption was the comment “gain admission despite academic issues…”. I highly doubt these schools admit people with “academic issues”, setting them up to fail. And why, just because they don’t have money and mom works two jobs does that equal not qualified? That comment reeks of sour grapes and privilege.
I don’t think schools will knowingly admit kids who are likely to fail. That’s dumb. However, without standard test results, schools have to rely on GPAs, which is not a very reliable indicator of academic capabilities. Colleges have APs and research and other things to consider. Eighth graders don’t have those.
We are in a good school district in MA. DD said one could get an A by just doing homework in 8th grade. She also said a surprisingly large number of the 2025 class at her school are in Math I, and many kids are struggling this year. Could be a result of the tough learning environment in the last couple years, but also could be a result of TO.
I agree: coming from a single-parent home certainly does not equal not qualified. In fact, if I were an admissions person, I would favor economically disadvantaged applicants over ones with similar qualifications but “easier” environments.
The difficulty arises from defining what’s similar in qualifications. If the test scores, academic rigor/success and potential are basically the same, then it’s great to favor the less advantaged applicant. However, admissions committees do, in fact, require lesser objective qualifications for some applicants than from others. Once on campus, this can create difficulties both for some students and for the school as a whole.
But tippy tops are not admitting kids who are “just able to get in”. I am surprised you think this is the case. Tippytop schools are admitting kids who, despite tremendous adversity, have become high achievers. These kids are as good as those from more privileged backgrounds.
Your comment about fit being important is absolutely correct. However it applies to every single applicant, not just those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Finally, not sure why some are assuming that highly rejective schools are only looking at GPA and test scores to assess an applicant’s intellectual/academic chops. Because they are not. They are taking the totality of the application into account. (For all applicants, btw, privileged or not).
At high selective private colleges, being academic qualified enough to avoid failing out is generally not a noteworthy issue that admission officers need to consider. Nearly anyone qualified enough to be admitted would be above that bar. Some admits may get B’s or even a rare C, but essentially nobody fails out. For example, in the Harvard senior survey at The Harvard Crimson | The Graduating Class of 2021 By the Numbers , 92% of students reported a A-/A average (>3.5). All but one of the hundreds of students filling out the survey reported a >3.0. Nobody was close to failing.
Their overall 6-year graduation rate is 98%. Rather than failing out, I expect the 2% of students who do not graduating in 6 years have other reasons such as not being financially able to afford college, personal/family/medical issues, and choosing to pursue better opportunities (for example, pursuing a start up or job offer). Other highly selective college with excellent financial aid also report extremely high graduation rates.
Regarding not having test scores, test optional is not new. ~1000 colleges were test optional prior to COVID, so we have plenty of information on what happens when selective college admit students without scores. At selective colleges, test optional admits and test submitter admits rarely show large differences in either GPA or graduation rate. Some example numbers for Bates’ 25 years of test optional study at https://www.bates.edu/admission/files/2014/01/25th-Year-SAT-report-Stanford-6.3.11-wch.ppt are below. Other selective colleges generally show a similar pattern.
Students who Submitted Scores – Mean GPA = 3.16, Graduation Rate = 89%
Students who did not Submit Scores --Mean GPA = 3.13, Graduation Rate = 88%
One of the reasons why selective colleges generally show little difference in academic outcomes for non-submitters is because they consider may criteria in their admission process besides just GPA in isolation – course rigor, harshness of HS grading, which classes had higher/lower grades and how relevant they are to planned field of study, upward/downward trend, LORs, essays, ECs/awards, … The more criteria you consider, the less test scores add to that combination of existing criteria that is available.
Highly selective private colleges generally do offer programs to help students from weaker HS backgrounds catch up. Continuing with the Harvard example, , Harvard requires that all incoming freshman take a math placement exam to help better understand HS math background and help decide what math starting point is most appropriate. Based on placement exam score, HS course background, AP scores, personal goals, planned major, feedback from placement officer, and other factors; the student decides on which math course to choose. Harvard offers any of the following intro math starting points and sequence options – Math Ma,b; 1a,b; 19a,b; 20; 21a,b; 23a,b; 25a,b; and 55a,b. The lowest level (MA) is a half normal speed calc/pre-calc type class , while Harvard’s website describes math 55 as “probably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the country”. It’s not just a single uniform level of rigor in all classes for all students, regardless of HS preparation and background.