<p>
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how about we use "F'-ing Goofy".
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<p>Or as Micky said when asked about why he broke up with Minnie: "I didn't say she was crazy, I said she was ..."</p>
<p>sjmom2329, I do have the added benefit of my daughter loving 4 of the schools a slice or two (or three) down from the AWS HYPSDMC bunch where she is a very attractive candidate for medium to large merit awards. Those are the schools cangel speaks of. They aren't being dropped off. Quite the contrary. They remain very viable.</p>
<p>I am really enjoying this thread...perhaps it is because of the quality of the posts...and the occasional challenge or two.... that said, here are my musings from today....</p>
<p>first off...I agree completely that this process is not random to the admit officers.....especially at the top schools.....they have a process that is well honed.....new deans can potentially introduce nuances in the outcome....but overall, I think they all have objectives they are looking to satisfy come 11/1, 12/15, 1/1 and 4/1 and 5/1......there are numerous stops along the annual cycle where they pause to snapshot what do we have.....are we on target based on what has happened before and where we want to be when done. Statistical significant deltas are key here.......I have to believe they watch all the numbers, the # of apps, overall, by state, by each category they measure and or recruit for etc at each stop along the way... are we within the statistical objectives we have... are we on track, do we need to adjust.... those adjustments could appear random to us.... but they are not.... at least not at these top caliber schools... the other variable is who is the admissions officer for your child's region..... here is something I just copied off of the Yale Alumni Schools Committee site (someone posted a link to it the spring or summer of 2004, a tremendous site to see behind the curtain, so to speak) anyway:</p>
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<p>There are 20 professional staff members who recruit and evaluate applications from specific geographic territories. Area assignments are announced each year in the Fall newsletter. The area person spends approximately four weeks in the territory between mid-September and the end of October conducting programs with students and counselors and meeting with ASC members.</p>
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<p>Now, I am not exactly sure how often Yale shuffles their area assignments, if they shuffle them....or do they just announce a new slate each year due to turnover? I think we definitely know that in Berurah's son's experience, his area person did not get who he was (IMHO)... other admission officers at other schools did....so that type of situation is seen as "random" but actually it is a function of human nature. You give 20 people a stack of 1000 apps, and told to pick the best class of 90 apps from the stack of 1000, the likelihood of them all arriving at the same mix of class is slim to none. (the link mentioned 20 officers, avg # of overall apps = 20,000, divided by 20 means they each review on avg about 1000.....1800 out of 20000 get accepted so, that means they have to accept 90 out of 1,000, just want you all to know my choice of numbers that I used in my example were not random, ie goats are not puppies!!)</p>
<p>We as parents have to accept the fact that admissions officers have their own filters...and those filters may or may not be receptive to our kids.......I doubt that who gets what territory is random either... I suspect where the officer lives might actually be a great indicator of which territory they are assigned...especially as gas/fuel prices rise.... a repeat officer could be good news cause they know your school and your area.... a new officer could be good news if the past trends are not what you are hoping for with your child..... blah blah blah....</p>
<p>I know that one of the most important "dawn over marblehead" moments for me, personally, was when I finally understood that the essay was my child's chance to represent himself. I wanted him to represent his "best" self.......so, I totally agree with and loved Alumother's comment about finding the best PROMPT to write to.... that is a very important subtlety.......my child just wanted to write what he wanted to write.....if he had listened to my input, then he would not have come across..... maybe he and I would have come across, but it would not have been his voice and his voice alone. My H did assist with guidance on grammer edits, but content was our son's. </p>
<p>I think the better way to view this process is thru the eyes of an experiement and variables.....controlled and uncontrolled variables... toughest courses, high scores, leadership and sports and recommendations and essays are all semi controlled variables, but we have seen and heard stories on CC where the opportunity for leaderships slots are not available for many many kids.....so that might be an uncontrollable variable, yes??</p>
<p>to those who have challenged the purpose and length of this thread... what I can only presume based on my own experiences with this process is that it is extremely easy to be objective when not in the thick of the actual experience.... in the heat of the race I guess one could say.... again, a parent wants the "best" for their kid....but how each parent defines best can vary by date and time, by their own child's resilience.....a new award can awaken higher ambitions... the dare to dream stuff.... and CC parents forum is the perfect place to give the light of the cathode ray tube to those dreams...... again, we don't know one another in person, but we do all have our own projections about who we all are and some of the posters in this thread have been sharing with one another for a long time.... I don't post a lot, I have made a few mistakes..... I have been encouraged a few times too.....the truth is that I like the voices here.... there is a lot of intelligence, good humor, honesty and kindness here.....there is also rancor and some animosity.....but, one can switch to "go previous" or "go next" if it gets to be too much.....</p>
<p>finally, I think we all hate the thought that money could limit our kids dreams.......I know I am working hard to contribute to the tuition payment.... I would love a real vacation..... I have made some of the college visits a vacation....but, they are not lying on a beach vacation.... nowadays I get a big kick out of visiting the libraries and/or art museums on these first class campuses.....I have seen all of the original founding documents for the US of A at the Williams Library... I saw a Gutenburg Bible this past weekend, along with an original of the Audubon Double Elephant Folio.....my point is that financial aid is crucial and logically we may know it, but emotionally we do not want money to impede our child's options..... not saying we are not realistic.. it is just that CC may offer up a nugget about a program or a scholarship that may be unknown to Texan goat herders (LOL, hope you will too Curmudgeon) that someone from Kansas may divulge, perhaps even inadvertently.......</p>
<p>I do know that my son, who was NEVER a writer, when he got his SATII score for writing, we were GIDDY it was soooo good..... what previously had loomed as a limiting factor was now a strength.... who knew? to this day I believe he was fortunate because his prompt was something that leveraged knowledge he had, that he was able to connect in cohesive paragraphs and viola, in less than 3 weeks a school like Middlebury (who prizes writing ability) became a viable option. It can be that simple and that life altering...... one of his peers who won writing contests cancelled their SAT II writing scores twice... the third shot had to be the charm....imagine the pressure that child felt?? </p>
<p>a final thought about athletics... be careful about too many eggs in the sports basket.... one kid who chose a school (recruited for baseball) was surprised to find the coach left before freshman year even started.. he is now at his 3rd school.....he lasted at the first school one full year, the 2nd school a week and is now at his 3rd.....still on schedule, but lots of angst for that family..... and my freshman niece who won a sports scholarship for a top California University had her hand stepped on in an exhibition or a preliminary game....... may be out for a while and may lose her position on the field, not on the team overall......</p>
<p>so, enough random musings..... for the mudgette, the Bowdoin mascot is the black bear, Bowdoin won best food award in PR rankings.....they have oceanfront property for kayaking etc......never mind a great BB team... skiing and snowboarding is awesome.... and you will get a top notch education.... I have several friends who are graduates and they are extremely happy, proud graduates.....(note: not so subliminal marketing!!)</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Bowdoin won best food award in PR rankings...<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>And Olympic gold medalist Joan Benoit is an alumna.</p>
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The process certainly has an element of good fortune -- good fortune that your app went to the adcom in good mood instead of the one with a migraine.
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Well, coureur, then our difference in opinion appears to be largely semantic to me because what you are terming "good fortune", I am attributing to a certain random element in the process.</p>
<p>From the very moment an applicant's materials land in the hands of a specific adcom, the random nature of these events begins to come into play.</p>
<p>Adcoms are PEOPLE. There is no special training which qualifies them for the job. They bring incredibly diverse educations, interests, backgrounds, "agendas", biases, opinions, and ideas, and levels of maturity to their jobs. There may be little to NO consistency from one adcom to another, even within a single school setting. Therefore, into whose hands one's application happens to fall is a random event in and of itself that can have a significant impact on a student's results for a certain school, NOT because the whole school sees the app. one way, but because ONE or TWO adcoms do. If THAT does not demonstrate an element of randomness, I don't know what does.</p>
<p>We actually had a VERY unique and enlightening experience that I am assuming very few applicants experience. My son received EXTREMELY valuable feedback (granted, after the fact) from the school he chose to attend. He was being heavily recruited there, so he shared many email and phone exchanges with the person who was primarily responsible for reading his application. S/he told my son that his application was VERY compelling and was highly specific with regard to the parts of it that appealed to him/her. I will not disclose any more specifics about it, but suffice it to say that it became totally apparent to me that the chance happening of his application ending up in the hands of that particular adcom was crucial. S/he was experienced (over 20 years as an adcom), highly intelligent, and committed to the school in a unique and compelling way (not using the job as a step-up or temporary stop on the way to someplace else).</p>
<p>By contrast, the adcom who first read his app. at Yale was young, inexperienced, and had NOTHING in common with my son...S's fate was sealed there. Nevertheless, if his app. had gone through the hands of a different adcom, his Yale result may have be vastly different. Who knows?</p>
<p>There are just too many applicants for too few spots at the elite schools for there to be NO random element to the process. That adcoms make their choices for THEIR OWN reasons does not mean that there is no randomness involved. The randomness is INHERENT in the choices. The fact that their reasons often defy logic to the outward observer only serves to heighten the perception of the random nature of these events, but the reality is there regardless.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>CMU ? They are chronically short girls. Easy to get a internship or assistantship with a top prof. When she is done with CMU she can walk next door to PITT Medical.</p>
<p>I haven't read all the comments-just too many. </p>
<p>Our kid knocked on a few doors of his major profs as soph. Got a job with prof that day, doing biomed-mechanical-robotics stuff. He hates biology, and only moderately interested in robotics. Still working with prof for credits and experience only (no pay) but gets great recommendation for past summer (paying) internship and expects glowing rec for grad school. </p>
<p>CMU is Div 3 and plays against JH, Chicago, NW among other top caliber schools</p>
<p>Curmudge, I just got back on the site for the first time in days and found your thread. Many congratulations to curmudgeD!!!! I think you know how similar our D's are. She's not an athlete (though has been captain of the varsity golf team for the last 2 years is not interested in playing in college), but is also interested in science. She, in fact, did not take the SAT because she scored less than she expected on a practice test. 1st go on the ACT with no prep got her a composite 35 (she's strong in math and science) though her weakest score was a 33 in math. She wasn't happy with her essay score (a 10), so decided to retake it in Sept, and increased her Math to 36 and got the 12 she wanted on the essay. And, yes, that kind of score opens up a lot of possibilities as it does for your D. Kinda hard not to think about them, isn't it?</p>
<p>Anyway, best of luck to your D. Since our Ds have similiar interests, you might consider some of the schools my D looked at...Wesleyan (SUPERB in neuroscience with beaucoup research opportunities for undergrads), Brandeis (same same and has decent merit $$), Wellesley (the BEST undergrad science program at a LAC for women, in my opinion....they have more Fulbrights than any other college in the USA), Amherst, Vassar.</p>
<p>Back to statistics. Agree there is some randomness. But I would guess it is more in the 9% level than the 30% level - amongst those who meet the openly communicated criteria.</p>
<p>"Wellesley (...they have more Fulbrights than any other college in the USA)"</p>
<p>Unless one makes a subtle difference between universities and colleges, that statement is a tad misleading: </p>
<p>2004-2005 </p>
<p>Columbia U. 31<br>
U. of California at Berkeley 26<br>
Yale U. 24<br>
Harvard U. 20<br>
Brown U. 18<br>
Stanford U. 18<br>
U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor 18<br>
U. of Texas at Austin 18<br>
Duke U. 17<br>
U. of Pennsylvania 17<br>
Pennsylvania State U. at University Park 16<br>
Princeton U. 16<br>
U. of Chicago 16<br>
U. of California at Los Angeles 14<br>
Washington U. in St. Louis 12<br>
Boston College 11<br>
Johns Hopkins U. 11<br>
U. of Wisconsin at Madison 11
Wellesley College 10 </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/04/chetable.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/04/chetable.html</a></p>
<p>For 2005, Mini has reported -in another thread- that Smith has surpassed Wellesley with 14 Fulbright Awards.</p>
<p>Xiggi wrote:
"Not being accepted at a particular school does not mean that the student was not good enough to attend that school. On the other hand, it is huge leap of faith to intimate that the "lucky" ones were only admitted by random or "better luck."</p>
<p>Xig...I really like this one of yours!</p>
<p>Berurah -- Just want to say that I agree with your post.</p>
<p>sillystring~</p>
<p>Thanks! :) ~berurah</p>
<p>All this talk about the question of logic vs. randomness when it comes to admissions reminds me of a thread awhile back started by a student who was accepted at multiple ivies. S/he came off kind of self aggrandizing, but the point s/he made was that the students that s/he knew who had those kinds of multiple HYPS acceptances all had some something or several things that made them stand out in some very major way. Rather than random, this student thought the process seemed more predictable. Anyway, I'm remembering that this poster was received really badly...most on this forum were very turned off. I think that as this process has moved forward for many, similar ideas are being considered here and don't seem so outlandish.</p>
<p>Donemom~</p>
<p>I, for one, certainly don't dispute the existence of a handful of "automatic admits"--those who are SO extraordinarily accomplished or so utterly unique in their passions/interests that their acceptances are never in question. I definitely think those kids exist. But that tiny group does not account for the majority of admits to any school. It is the group a small step "down" from those kids to which I was referring....in the distinguishing between two kids who both got a 1550 SAT I score, both play the oboe, and both did 53 zillion hours of community service. Clearly either one might be able to "fill the slot" successfully, but a random event (like which adcom was the first reader of the app.) may lead to one student's acceptance and the other's rejection. ~berurah</p>
<p>No answers - a couple random thoughts -
If admits were truly just random or lucky, then us parents are spending way too much time on this board, trying to hedge our bets. :)</p>
<p>I think the part we end up calling random is actually simply unknown to us and/or out of our control. </p>
<p>Personal experience with S1 - (we didn't know CC then, so we didn't follow "the rules" and didn't know enough to be nervous.) 1550 SAT, 750, 780 and 800 SAT IIs. White, male, non-athlete. Ranked 4th of 760. (In his words, perfect spot - high enough to be impressive without having to speak at graduation.) Language heavy (clubs, offices, Governor's program, etc in Latin, German, English). Lots of extracurriculars (music, theater, editor of school magazine, economics award, etc) and community service. </p>
<p>Heard lots of people assuring us that he could go anywhere, and schools would be happy to pay to get him. (Like I said, we didn't know CC then.)</p>
<p>He applied to UGA, UVA, GA Tech, Duke, Cornell, and Penn. We considered UGA to be the safety, both admit-wise and money-wise. We did expect him to wind up there, but decided to see if we would get enough money to make any others viable (he was competing for various school and non-school scholarships). He liked Penn and Duke best, in that order.</p>
<p>Results: UGA - admitted to Honors College, nearly full scholarship. Expected to attend. Went on one last visit, and had a terrible experience. (Example: S was considering International Business, and asked about why no study abroad in Germany. Direct quote from assistant director of business school: "You live in GA, you attend a state school in GA, we expect you like GA and want to stay here. We teach you to work in GA.")
UVA - accepted, no money.<br>
GA Tech - accepted, no money (except that it's really cheap for GA residents.) Applied when he wasn't sure of major, but decided this wasn't best school for what he wanted.
Duke - waitlisted, no money
Cornell - gave him $500 ???
Penn - accepted, Ben Franklin Scholar, Financial aid in form of grant, guaranteed all four years. He went here, got a great education, and graduated last spring.</p>
<p>We were bemused by the Duke waitlist, and disappointed by the lack of money offers elsewhere. In hindsight, we figure Duke had too many white male non-athletes with great stats from GA. I guess they either didn't know how much he liked Duke (he interviewed, visited, etc), or he just didn't stand out. I do think he could have "fit" at most of the schools on his list, but we ultimately made our decision based on the fact that not only did he think he fit at Penn, but clearly, Penn wanted him badly and was willing to put up the money. We liked the idea of our S spending his time somewhere where he was truly wanted, and not just "Oh... okay... we'll let you come here."</p>
<p>So the process is random in the same sense that a dog show is random. Certainly the dogs that make it to the final round are outstanding represenatatives of their breed by any measure, but there is a certain amount of subjective judgement involved in selecting "best of show," and there is often room for argument about that final selection. Now I understand: goats are not puppies! :)</p>
<p>I did a google search for "goat raising" in Texas. Apparently it is pretty common. I actually found an article entitled "Kids raising Kids". It seems that there are lots of goats in rural Texas. In fact, one article (albeit a bit dated) stated that 700,000 out of the country's 800,000 meat goats are raised in Texas. So, while many of the goat raising kids may not be applying to top colleges, the activity itself may not be as unique as has been painted. In fact I am not sure it is a hook after all.........I think someone raising Golden retriever puppies may have the same advantage.</p>
<p>So, the moral of the story is that the goats are not a hook, it still goes back to the place of residence that may give an applicant the edge ---- rural Texas. :)</p>
<p>Berurah; I totally agree with everything you said. My point is that 4 months ago, even tossing around some of these notions could get you badly flamed (as was the idea that if you have the stats, you'd almost reflexively start to want and maybe even pine for a highly selective school). But, if you notice, most of the people participating in this thread have kids who are in that super high-stats bracket, so suddenly, it seems okay to explore these ideas a little more fully.</p>
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So, while many of the goat raising kids may not be applying to top colleges, the activity itself may not be as unique as has been painted.
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<p>Possibly, but I bet not too many kids in Short Hills, NJ or Scarsdale, NY or raising goats.</p>
<p>I still think that there is a most compelling essay within the goat raising/milking/feeding/cleaning/slaying? experience that will really set this accomplished girl apart.</p>