My point is that it’s easier for colleges to assess an applicant’s academic capability with TO. For high schools, it’s much harder. At many public schools, GPA is not a good indicator. At least it’s my experience.
I agree with your whole premise…except for this. The top schools admit quite a few students who have no business being admitted. They are overwhelmed and out of place academically. I would posit that this grouping shares very little in common with each other. Some may be hooked in one way or another, some may simply have skated in through the back door.
I also believe that the past two years will create a situation where there will be a ton of these students on campus. Test optional, combined with an online learning situation where many, many schools in this country simply handed out A’s like candy basically makes an AO’s job impossible. Most recs from teachers will be fake or not as in-depth, internships for many are either non-existent or exagerated, etc…
I really believe we’re about to enter a short period where tons of kids flunk out of college, as they are woefully unprepared after several years of remote/hybrid half-leaning.
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Many highly selective colleges were test optional prior to COVID. Many HSs had inflated grades prior to COVID. So it follows that this flunking out effect should have already happened to some extent. Can you name any highly selective test optional college where a noteworthy portion of students flunk out? Or even any highly selective college where the rate of flunking out has increased in recent years above their usual extraordinarily low levels? Or increased upon switching to test optional?
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It’s not about flunking out. Flunking out a bunch of students is not in the interest of the schools in question. They simply adjust standards to pass the students forward with decent grades.
Off the top of my head right now, I can think of two Harvard students I knew, one a wealthy legacy and the other a URM, who appeared to have been admitted for reasons other than academic prowess. Both struggled with self-esteem and afterwards at graduate school and/or their careers. If they had attended universities where their academic ability was in the mainstream, I suspect things would have turned out much better for them.
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Let’s get back to topic and refrain from debating test optional yet again. Or sharing the data point of one (or 2) students who struggled post-Harvard. Or other topics unrelated.
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This is the Malcom Gladwell big fish/small pond idea - often people do better in life if they attend colleges where they are ahead of the curve - better to be a rock star than struggling to keep up.
It is an interesting set of challenges for an AO - how much do you look at potential versus existing skills, and how well can you identify each and how much do you weigh each? And then, how much do you invest in developing raw potential as opposed to proven skills. And then, since existing skills correlates with SES and sub-cultures, how much adjustment to your formulas do you make for demographic backgrounds? What does it mean to “be qualified for” or “deserve” admission? What students “satisfy their mission”? Seems like an impossible set of elements to balance, and someone is always going to be unhappy with the choices.
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Only to answer this before shifting back to completely on topic (though I might argue that this does tie in to prep school matriculation, as it further distinguishes some schools in relation to non-peer schools)…
AOs had a very good idea as to the grading metrics of almost all of their covered high schools prior to the pandemic. They knew what an A in AP Bio meant, or a 4.2 total GPA meant against requisite rigor. That’s out the door for the current grouping. Every school was different, and while I imagine it might be possible to somehow parse through every single grade in a school…the AOs will not have any type of reasonable sample size to determine that. GPA for this current applicant pool is skewed due to the massive impact on teaching from the pandemic. It’s cut and dried.
My point was merely that a) there are lots of students at top tier colleges that are fish out of water academically and b) for this current crop of applicants, GPA is the least meaningful it’s ever been. Test optional is an extra data point that has been eliminated for colleges to pare lower stat applicants. I would argue that most TO schools prior to the pandemic had multiple additional barriers (at least the top tier ones did) that served as guardrails.
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I was replying to a comment that specifically mentioned “flunking out.” I agree that fit matters, and fit involves more than just choosing the most highly selective college that a student can be accepted to. One can certainly find arbitrary examples of particular students for which a highly selective college was a good or bad fit – both among students who were admitted with relatively weaker or stronger HS academic credentials. Some students are pushed to knew heights when surrounding by high achieving peers. Some students struggle when they are a small fish in a big pond.
Malcom Gladwell is an author, not a peer reviewed researcher. He incorrectly quoted some research to come to a counterintuitive conclusion, which increases his book sales. A more detailed quote from an earlier post I wrote about Gladwell’s claim that having a math SAT higher/lower than average for college largely determines STEM persistence.
The SAT numbers are from the 1980s and are for “Institution A”, which is not identified as Harvard in the paper. But the far more important issue is the percentages do not refer to STEM persistence. Instead they refer to the distribution of science majors at graduation across all students… not just those who intended to major in STEM. For example, suppose a particular college had the following SAT math distribution among science and non-science majors.
Freshmen Year: Planned science major average 700 math, Non-science averages 600 math
Graduates: Completed science majors average 720 math, Non-science averages 620 mathThe kids who complete a science major do indeed have higher math SAT scores than non-science, but in this hypothetical example, it’s not because they kids with lower SAT scores are “dropping like flies”. It’s because the kids who intended to pursue science majors started out with higher math SAT scores.
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I am No Malcolm Gladwell fan. Not saying I agree with it, just pointing out the similar reasoning.
I’ll only go so far as to say fit matters. People often chase the name of a school without really thinking through what it will be good for them when they get there. But that conversation is very tired around these parts. Moral of the story, back to the thread topic: Don’t go to an elite high school just because you want to go to an elite college.
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How do you know that there are “lots” of students at top tier colleges that are fish out of water? As it is, “elite” schools only have one enrolled class of students that were admitted under TO (and many admitted students were admitted with test scores) - who knows how those classes are doing compared to others. Putting TO aside, kids enrolled at top schools (or any schools, really), irrespective of their test results, had an abbreviated HS experience which probably has as much to do with any struggles as revised admissions policies.
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Can we at least stipulate that 50% of each class (prep school or elite university) has to be in the bottom half of the class? And, in the bottom half for the first time in their lives! It is understandable that some may struggle with self esteem issues.
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As they say - the bottom graduate of the medical school class is still called Doctor
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Here is a recently published article … Do ultra-selective colleges change lives?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/02/27/colleges-admissions-selective-schools/
I love Michigan but if we lived in CA there is no way to justify the price difference of going to Michigan over places like Cal and UCLA. UCLA has great school spirit BTW, Berkeley a bit less so and they are stuck in legal battle with the town residents at the moment, and the housing situation there is a bit of a disaster already. But if you want CS and/or career in Silicon Valley, it is the place to be unless you can get into/afford to go to Stanford.
This is pretty rare. Most of the wealthy legacies do just fine, pick an easy major if needed and then slide to jobs based on family connections. I actually think it is a balancing act for the schools because if they move too far in favor of first generation/unconnected kids they will have to work much harder to provide internship/career support etc. As it is half of the students attending have their own connections and sometimes also provide assistance to their friends which makes the school’s job much easier. And the alumni network support may become less enthusiastic if their own qualified offspring does not get in.
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Hadn’t thought about that angle. 
Yup most of the studies done at schools which’ve dropped legacy preference (e.g. JHU) show that it doesn’t necessarily impact giving but softer support of this sort - helping with internships, referrals, etc. - may be impossible to measure though presumably would come out in the wash in say 5 - 10 years based on average salaries or some other stat.
ETA: come out in the wash…or not which might then really put the nail in the legacy coffin
Yes, this. An old colleague of mine is a Claremont McKenna alum at a well-known consulting firm. He has consistently worked with the school to place 4-5 sophomore interns each summer, and many of them continue through junior summer and then full time positions. It’s a plum situation, and pretty much guaranteed because he loves the school and wants to keep giving back.
Two years ago they rejected his son, whose stats were above 50% for their incoming class. He cut not only his $ (which was significant on a personal level, probably negligible on an administative level), but he dissolved the internships. Petty? Maybe. He’s now offering them to the school that his son is attending.
Is this going to impact Wharton? Of course not. It’ll hit Wharton in the wallet (they’ll still be ok, lol), but not in placement. But it’s not the lack of legacy that might become the problem. It’s the anti-legacy approach some schools seem to be taking. THAT will impact in the soft ways as in the above example. I’ll be honest. If I was heavily involved in my alma mater- in ways that greatly benefited students and the school at large- and one of my children was north of 75% and was denied admission? I’d absolutely cut off my assistance. That’s not petty- that’s me recognizing that the school only desires a one-way relationship. It’d be different if my child were not worthy, or was borderline worthy.
So…yes. I think colleges are going to face a bit of a reckoning in the coming years as they move away from the old standard of generational attendance. The problem, in my opinion, is that most of these administrations are filled with aspirational thinkers who do not understand moderation. They’re “push the dial all the way”, which would make them horrible businesspeople and likely on a collision course with several trustee boards in the near future. Little Johnny with a 3.2, no ECs, and an 1170 SAT doesn’t deserve to go to Harvard. But Jane, with a 4.4, valedictorian, 1590, and leading a research team of 75 students in a biological experiment that has been published…well, she SHOULD get in to her daddy’s college.
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Totally agree.
It will be interesting to see if there’s any impact at all on Amherst that just announced they would no longer consider legacy in admissions.
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I don’t know any school that has an anti-legacy approach. AFAIK, CMC still gives legacies preferential treatment in admissions. Besides, wouldn’t that consulting firm (and the society at large) be better off if internships are based on applicants’ merit rather their relationships (just like college admissions should be)?