The point was to show that Vanderbilt averages higher scores than typical among colleges with similar selectivity, which is consistent with other information suggesting that Vanderbilt places a greater emphasis on scores than other similar highly selective colleges, including GPA/score admission scatterplots and NMS. I haven’t seen much information about legacies at Vanderbilt, but the little I have seen suggests legacies compose a similar portion of the class to typical Ivy-type colleges, which is a little under 15%, so it doesn’t suggest that legacies are a key reason for Vanderbilt’s higher scores ranges than similarly selective colleges.
Given this typically <15% of class being legacy, it seems unlikely that a CS class (lower level CS classes are often very large) would be almost entirely composed of legacy students, although if you TA’d decades ago, things could have been quite different. If the students really are unqualified, then I wouldn’t expect that they’d gravitate to CS majors in far higher numbers than the rest of the student body.
MS admission often does focus on different things than bachelor’s admission, including placing less emphasis on hooks, among many other differences. However, this does not mean there is a sharp distinction between MS students being “smart students” and BS students not being as smart. I did 2 co-terminal masters at Stanford. In my EE master’s welcome introduction, the professor giving the welcome was quite explicit that he thought the bachelor’s students in EE were higher quality than master’s kids because undergrad admission is far more selective than master’s admission (in Stanford EE).
None of those schools are “for-profit.” Also I am an attorney, how is this borderline legal? What law is being close to violated?
It is an open secret that masters degrees (and law degrees) are profit centers for universities, especially if in the humanities. A masters program in creative writing, international relations, British history, all have few fixed costs.
The assertion legacies take CS, qualified or unqualified, in those numbers is ridiculous.
If it’s small and not selective, it is possibly fighting for financial life year after year, especially now when many are cutting majors, looking to merge, or seeking alumni bailouts. At worst it’s budgets are stretched to the big merit they have to offer to keep their ‘value’ in line vs more selective schools.
If you said highly selective, I’d understand your point about the essay whether I agreed or not. But when you say not highly selective…I’m sure as long as you meet the minimum academic requirements they’ve set, you’re getting in.
I’m talking about the schools that admits 65% +. The Linfield, Guilfords, Juniatas, Washington College.
My son got a handwritten note on his formal UAH Honors acceptance about his essay - what’s your favorite word and why ?
Call me cynical but that’s just good ol’ marketing….come to OUR school. Likely every kid got the same one sentence handwritten comment on their letter.
I’m a late 80’s graduate of Vanderbilt and on our class FB page a survey found that very very few kids of our class have been accepted to Vandy over the last five or so years. We are a few hours away from Nashville and it is nearly impossible to get accepted there now. Kids with 36 on ACT and captain of everything kids are getting rejected. Triple legacy, full pay, high stats kids - rejected. We are a very good private school and all our scattergram shows is red triangles.
Need-blind admissions are not a government law or policy, they are the choice of a college. Colleges already have the information they need if they want to determine whether a student’s family can afford to be full pay. So they don’t need to use crude guesswork based on whether an applicant is a legacy or not.
Seriously, if there is one thing that colleges are pretty certain of about their applicants it’s how much each can afford to pay.
Most engineering masters students are not doing research, since most masters students are doing a non-thesis masters degrees.
The reason people with high stats/rigor and “captain of everything” get rejected is because the “captain of everything” is the tell that the ECs as stated lack credibility. There simply are not enough hours in the day/week/month to pursue an EC with sufficient depth and substance as to really make an impact. So, it comes across as resume padding. Better to have high-quality (fewer) ECs with true longitudinality and depth vs many superficial things simply to fill all the lines on an application (that’s the trap people fall into)…
Also, there should be documentary evidence to back up the impact the applicant had in an EC (e.g. in the form of a letter of recommendation). Anyone can start their own club, but does anyone else in the community really care?
I disagree. My son started an aviation club at school. It shows leadership. But he defined what he accomplished. How many members. What type events (I.e. control tower tour), etc.
If you can quantify anything is good.
I think where people miss is colleges are looking to assemble a wide body. So a kid in theater is great but 100% of kids not. Athletes great. But 100% not. An oboe player for the orchestra. Golden. Someone from Wyoming. Golden. It’s why schools always say - all 50 states.
Most don’t get letters from ECs. They are from teachers. Some allow another.
I agree with you on resume padding but I would not dismiss starting a club. It takes a lot of courage and effort. But for any EC, one should quantify.
That’s me exactly. I was deferred by Duke (ED), Chicago (EA) and MIT (EA), but got into Hopkins (ED2). I think Chicago and MIT sent a lot of deferrals though, but Duke’s deferral indicated that I am among the top 40% among their ED applicants. If we exclude the donors, athletes and legacies, I am probably among the top 30%. I applied to 15 out of the top 18 schools on US News. I had to withdraw the rest, and will never find the outcomes. I am still happy with Hopkins, it’s just that I want to see all options (including some BS-MD programs that I applied).
Adcoms, even of selective colleges, have said by themselves essays don’t get an applicant in or keep them out, unless they’re really poorly written. This was before Covid though, maybe as another poster wrote, the essay could be more important until ECs resume as they were.
I think the operative words in the quote are “by themselves”.
From what I gather, there are so many students with exceptional grades, test scores, and ECs, that the essays are, for many, extremely important for admission committees. It is the only way to really know the student, along with the LoRs, given that the stats for many students in the applicant pool are extremely high. Conversely, if you don’t have the stats and ECs, you’re unlikely to get in on the essays alone.
They are important for sure, but do they change the direction an application is going, if you assume they’re read later in the process, which is reasonable since typically transcripts, rigor, gpa, scores, ECs, awards, demographics are noted before essays and recommendations.
Once a student is vetted and hits a schools academic criteria the differentiating factors are essays, LOR and ECs. While they cant serve to overcome a perceived inability to thrive academically they provide the AO with the narrative to argue for the selected students once in front of the broader adcoms.
As mentioned up thread we had several experiences with AOs at accepted student events at elite schools where they referenced specific excerpts from essays or ECs. They clearly had reviewed those elements of the application thoroughly and it had been meaningful in their advocacy for acceptance.
I would not underestimate the importance of your essays! They may not get you accepted in the absence of academic credentials but a poor or non bespoke set of essays may be the reason for rejection in spite of great credentials.
Exactly my understanding. If a student doesn’t have a hook, and the other stats are high, there has to be a differentiator. And the essays are a key one.
Shotgunning sounds fine in concept, but time needs to be built in for the essays. While some essays can be “copied and pasted”, I think the really good schools do look at the essays to see if they find the real person through those words.
I guess my point is that you need to build in significant amounts of time in your apps for the essays . Shotgunning for reach schools like the ones listed by the OP is fine if you have the money and the time (you certainly have good grades and test scores). And that time is largely on the essays to tailor to that particular school. Don’t underestimate the temporal aspect.
Plan ahead and you should be fine. If you’re just going through the motions in your essays and changing a few words here and there or randomly combining essays, you’ll probably get concomitant results.
I was primarily referring to essays as that was the adcoms were quoted as saying about them. Yes for accepted students, they call out a personal thing, as opposed to saying you were accepted because of your scores or gpa or your race or your state of origin say. It is definitely the right thing to say.
In reality the essays, ECs and LORs all should interconnect and support one another. Once again this story is what differentiates some students from an enormous pool of similarly academically qualified students.
@theloniusmonk I would be interested to know on what basis or experience you assert AOs reference such things purely based on it “being the right thing to say”. Is that just an assumption or based on something tangible.
In my kid’s case the AOs were clearly interested as follows…
Duke- AO at event introduced us to faculty members who she thought may support an entrepreneurial interest my son had written about.
Brown- AO discussed specific aspects of the same project and encouraged us to contact the head of entrepreneurship center.
Harvard- son was waitlisted and then offered gap year acceptance. The discussion with the local head of alumni interviewing and AO centered around the chance to use the year productively to advance something discussed in essays.
Georgetown- alumni interviewer called up post acceptance and referenced ECs (not sure if was aware of application)
Notre Dame- Awarded merit largely based on essays.
Hamilton- Acceptance letter detailed part of an essay as what AO found compelling.
Yes they were being nice but they also seemed very focused on what made my kid stand out which was largely essay related and supported and substantiated by LORs and ECs.
What I said back in November still holds true. Essays are important, especially the Why us essays. Unless you’re hooked, you aren’t getting into a highly selective college if you aren’t able to explain WHY that school.
Out of curiosity, I looked at the CDS of some of the most selective colleges in the nation, including HYPSM, SWAP, and others. With the exception of Harvard (everything is merely “considered” or “not considered”), all colleges indicated essays as “Very Important” or “Important.”
I wouldn’t disregard the college’s common data set. Essays are just another facet of holistic admissions, but they are important nonetheless.
I do know that some colleges put a personal point in their acceptance letters, Georgetown is one as you mentioned. I knew one kid that got in a few years back and they mentioned his EC and not anything about his scores (he had a 12 in the SAT essay e.g.).
“Yes they were being nice but they also seemed very focused on what made my kid stand out which was largely essay related and supported and substantiated by LORs and ECs.”
I think that note taking part is done for everybody or at least everyone that gets past the first screen, even if they’re not accepted. This way, they can go back and get the information they need to highlight.