Sunday SF Chron: Ivy League or Bust (yes, Thacker again)

Parents Forum
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<p>Ferny #36,</p>

<p>I agree with your point. Our son was also accepted at an elite college without any help and before we knew about places like CC. Still, the reality is that using professional help is becoming more and more common, and many kids and their parents know about and use places like CC to enhance their chances. I think the best thing to do is to make information as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. However, my desire for greater transparency in college admissions is a sore subject with many here at CC, so I will leave it at that.</p>

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<p>Thanks for that article - really interesting.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Testing only senior year is just plain ludicrous

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm glad I'm not the only person who noticed that aspect of Thatcher's silly proposals. For one thing, there are a lot of SAT-takers in middle school </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=40823%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=40823&lt;/a> </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=78732%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=78732&lt;/a> </p>

<p>and if those test-takers, who take the SAT for reasons other than college admission, are satisfied with their scores, why should they take the SAT again? And why shouldn't aspirants for the National Merit Scholarship, who have to take the SAT sometime after taking the PSAT/NMSQT, be able to take that test in the spring of their junior years? </p>

<p>My basic problem with most of Thatcher's proposals is that his audience is the anxious also-rans. The kids who are at the top of the top will go on doing what they enjoy doing and continue to get into the best colleges. The kids who just want to go to college somewhere (the vast majority of the college-bound) will go to one of the hundreds and hundreds of colleges that aren't selective at all. Only a limited group of families--but the group Thatcher has had the most experience with--has anxiety about what kind of college that Junior will get into, but hasn't planned ahead to build readiness for a really demanding college experience. He simply doesn't speak for the main constituencies of college-attending families in the United States.</p>

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<p>I agree with Soozie and Tokenadult. Students should NOT leave testing until senior year. We can all remember the debacle of the Dec. 10 SAT test for RD applicants. The test was cancelled because of snowstorm. while some districts rescheduled it for a week later, many others did not.</p>

<p>S took the SAT as a 7th grader and again as a sophomore. He applied to colleges in the fall of junior year, by which time he was all done with standardized testing.</p>

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<p>"all done with standardized testing"</p>

<p>'till GRE's, anyway!</p>

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<p>Marite, I forgot about my own kid in this until I read your post. D2 also took all the SATs and SAT2s in spring of tenth grade and applied to college in fall of eleventh grade and graduated a year early. Can you imagine if they wouldn't let her take SATs until twelfth grade? :D She would have been out of high school, lol.</p>

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<p>Ohio Mom, yeah, you are right...I should not have said "all done with testing" as far as doing it all in junior year of HS. There are GRE and MCATs and LCATs, etc. It never ends. I can say for D2, however, that tenth grade truly was the END of her ever taking standardized tests again as she is in a terminal degree program, a BFA, as an underagraduate and so this is it, I believe. I guess D1 will have to take GREs to go to graduate school for architecture, which is her plan but we're in a reprieve for now with applying to anything, LOL.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I think the best thing to do is to make information as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. However, my desire for greater transparency in college admissions is a sore subject with many here at CC, so I will leave it at that.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>DRJ, unless I misunderstood the comment about greater transparency, I'd like to advance that most people on CC welcome greater transparency. I know that I would welcome it, especially in tandem with more consistency from the schools. One of the reasons of my dislike for the EC and its clueless leader is that he refuses to recognize that without the "commercial" vultures we would have a LOT less information at our disposal, and that the bigest losers would be the have-not. Take away the books published by the College Board, the USNews rankings, or even a few from Princeton review or Kaplan: this would not hinder much of the graduates from Harvard-Westlake or Andover. However, for many, many students, the publications that do not cost an arm or a leg provide a substantial leveling of the field. </p>

<p>Speaking ill of the consultants is also very convenient as the egregious behavior of some are indeed despicable. However, Thatcher should attempt to single out the bad apples from the rest of the bushel, and not indict an entire industry by paintaing with the same thick brush. For starters, he might also recognize that the fact that a guidance counselor earns his or her paycheck at a school does not make them less part of the ... system. The biggest difference is that ineffective and incapable counselors in the private sector will have to close their doors, while avoiding the same treatment when working for a school. For every despicable Cohen or Shaw, there are hundreds of hard working and dedicated counselors who fill the gaps left by ineffective counseling within schools. Very little doubt is left where Thacker earned his stripes and where his obvious bias originated. </p>

<p>Regarding the schools, I am not surprised that they tend to echo the words of Thacker about the "packagers." However, should we not question a bit more the inability of the schools to recognize the frauds and fabrication of K. Cohen and R. Shaw and be gamed by the Kavvyas and Blairs of the world? After all, aren't the schools expert at evaluating the background and achievements of students? After all, aren't the packagers simply abusing a system that has grown overly complacent, and too easily gamed by fabricated claims of academic superiority. Reduced to its essence, if schools weren't THAT eager to reward the Intel and the multitude of other rigged an paid for "contests" we MIGHT see a reduction if the rat race to accumulate the biggest resume by the age of 17. Yes, we all are aware of the letters written by Fitzsimmons and Marilee Jones about kids claiming their summer back. Inasmuch as I believe them to be genuine, I do not see them accompanied by the annoucement of the closure of their VERY profitable summer programs, or the mere annoucement that the participation in summer programs, Intel, or RSI will NOT be acknowledged nor rewarded for admissions. In this regard, schools such as MIT or Harvard can and should send a clear message: go to your summer program for educational reasosn, but we do NOT want to hear about it. Mention it your application and it is disqualifies it. Too simple, I suppose?</p>

<p>Of course, should be expect Thacker to raise similar issues? Nope, he is too busy brown-nosing the exact people who CREATED the system, and claiming that his little secretive meeting represented a major breakthrough. </p>

<p>A major breakthrough would be to have the meeting open to the public and all notes made available by objective rapporteurs. Private schools are absolutely entitled to meet in private, but pretending that meetings such as this one, or the COFHE's, or the 568 Group's are for the BENEFIT of the students is jocular at best. </p>

<p>We DO need transparency from COLLEGES, but smooth talking snake oil vendors such as Lloyd Thacker are the last thing students and their parents NEED.</p>

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<p>Ohio_mom:</p>

<p>Unlike Soozie's D, my S is not in a terminal degree program, so you're right. He'll have the GREs to contend with!</p>

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<p>The SF Chronicle article makes it pretty clear that Thacker would like to eliminate SAT/ACT standardized testing altogether, as well as the merit aid awards that are tied to those scores. I think his point is that, if he can't persuade colleges to drop the SAT, at least have students take it senior year and have the scores be given about the same weight as the first semester grades are given. Not saying I agree with this, just that his stated goal is to "dismantle" the College Board and test prep industry and that he seems to acknowledge that this isn't going to happen in one fell swoop --- if at all --- so he is lobbying for this to come about gradually by marginalizing the test. </p>

<p>Thacker's goal to wreak an "admissions revolution" has been addressed in a previous thread: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=202106%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=202106&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p>

<p>Reading the first article in that OP shows that what he is trying to do is more along the lines of social engineering to boost the admittance rates for low- income students, not truly trying to reduce stress for the majority of students who will continue to aspire to attend very selective colleges. His agenda is about lessening the advantage affluent applicants have over lower-income applicants, from private test prep to private guidance counseling to ED considerations, etc. These are perhaps worthy, debatable goals, but I think it's disingenous to wrap them in a media story about the stress and "frenzy" of the college admissions process for students applying to top colleges because if Thacker's proposals actually did become the status quo, you would probably see even greater angst and anxiety since even more applicants would be pursuing the same number of slots and the admission process would be even more subjective and unpredictable. </p>

<p>It's tempting to bash USNWR for having the audacity to rank colleges or for flawed methodology, but for all the warts, I would not like to see the rankings or the "Best Colleges" issue disappear. The rankings have also spurred colleges to do the right things, in the name of competition, such as pay attention to student-professor ratios and to consider the quality of programs as assessed by peers. The numerical data isn't easily available anywhere else; I wouldn't want to rely only on the college guides that come out with the same info and comments year after year. I think that the majority of parents and students use the USNWR college issue as a guide, not as a tablet from the Mount, and it gives many people a starting point to explore colleges they otherwise would never have heard about. </p>

<p>Final thought: I think I will be skeptical of the results of a $1.5 million study of how the college admission process affects student attitudes and behaviors by a group that has a very specific and publicized ax to grind. Does anyone expect this to be an impartial study?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
His agenda is about lessening the advantage affluent applicants have over lower-income applicants,

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I disagree with his approach to lessening the advantage of affluent applicants.</p>

<p>Kids like mine, with two Ph.D.parents, with access to APs and college classes will do well in the admissions sweepstakes with or without the SATs. Kids from Andover/Exeter/ Harvard-Westlake and the like will do well, again with or without the SATs. Kids from an inner-city or rural background will have no way of showing that their As are as good as the As eaened by kids at top preps or top publics.
The SAT/ACT are not great, but they are a national yardstick. We may not like the yardsticks, but if they did not exist, another would have to be invented.</p>

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<p>"I think it's disingenous to wrap them in a media story about the stress and "frenzy" of the college admissions process for students applying to top colleges because if Thacker's proposals actually did become the status quo, you would probably see even greater angst and anxiety since even more applicants would be pursuing the same number of slots and the admission process would be even more subjective and unpredictable."</p>

<p>Thanks for agreeing with me, jazzymom, as I've said this elsewhere, too. Btw, I've never argued against equity & greater accessibility. But so often the arguments both for greater transparency and for less privileged accessibility have been made with the explicit assumption that it will make admissions to top tiers <em>easier</em> for all. No it won't, for precisely the reason you name: it will make it less predictable, as you say, and much, much more of an "odds" or a numbers game. That affects both those for whom College X might be a great two-way fit, as well as those who merely aspire to that same college, regardless of fit.</p>

<p>DRJ, soozie's post #30 nails it, regarding my own recollection of an extreme move that was narrated by a student or two on CC, by a determined family.</p>

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<p>Just to follow up on the internal contradictions in the Chron piece:</p>

<p>Good counselors help to reduce the frenzy, as they tend to really work on targeting particular appropriate colleges with the student/client. I personally don't know of any that advocate massive #'s of apps to similar colleges. If they're doing their job, they help the student & family think through the process carefully, advocating appropriate timing & even reduction & tailoring of the list.</p>

<p>The constant bringing up of the smug "we did it ourselves" comments was merely gratuitous, i.m.o. Ideally, great: I think all the adults in the process want applicants to feel confident about "doing it themselves." But again, most counselors already prefer that, at least in terms of essays. self-descriptions, self-disclosure. The counselor can be invaluable in providing details about certain aspects of admissions, certain campuses, certain programs that may or not be evident in the "college websites" one student says he relied on. And that counselor may also be helpful, yes, in presentation -- but not in a phony way, rather in a way guiding the student toward accurate self-expression.</p>

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<p>As a Norcal resident, I read this article this morning. I found this part about the Redwood valedictorian especially interesting: </p>

<p>"As for outside help, she and her parents nixed the idea of hiring a private counselor. And, unlike many public schools with a dearth of guidance counselors, Barr could turn to her Redwood adviser for expert -- and free -- advice."</p>

<p>This quotation gets it absolutely right. I don't think there is anything wrong with private college counselors nor with the families that hire them, but there are little resources for students who cannot afford private help and whose own school counselors are worthless. Redwood High is one of the best public high schools in Marin County, while many other schools cannot afford quality college counselors. It is difficult for students to build rapport with counselors who leave the school after 1-2 years and who only have time to deal with the troublemakers. </p>

<p>I think the California public education system should put more of an emphasis on hiring college counselors who can help the high-achieving as well as the wayward. Imagine if all those private counselors started working in public schools? Hehe just a thought ;-)</p>

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<p>Big Green Jen,</p>

<p>"I think the California public education system should put more of an emphasis on hiring college counselors who can help the high-achieving as well as the wayward. Imagine if all those private counselors started working in public schools? Hehe just a thought ;-)"</p>

<p>I've actually advocated something similar -- while not exactly "working" in public schools -- merely offering pro bono work periodically, & especially for lower income or those completely without GC's at their school sites. (There are some.)</p>

<p>As a public school teacher & resource person myself, I know that CA will not fund more GC's for publics in the near future. The reason is that the system is still so unwieldly that it almost cannot help but be inefficient. (Dollars are consumed due to efforts to manage the unmanageable from a single State agency with too many diverse needs to field.)</p>

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<p>Xiggi,</p>

<p>My pet peeve is with the lack of transparency in college admissions stats. I want a system where colleges have to post on their websites and put in all their mailouts the bottom line index that will result in the rejection of an applicant at the first cut. If a college rejects all applications that have an SAT of less than X and a GPA of less than Y, perhaps expressed as an indexed score of Z, I want those numbers prominently published so applicants who don't have a chance to get past the first cut and whose applications won't even be looked at (beyond the index score) will know this in advance. If those who have lower index scores still want to apply, so be it but most won't. </p>

<p>My suggestion may only affect a small number of applicants, although in an earlier thread it was estimated that 10% of elite college applications may be immediately rejected. Still, I think it's fair, even if it means reduced application fee revenues for some colleges. I'd be happy if this minimal transparency leads to further steps toward greater transparency but I'm not militant about taking those steps. (Actually, I'm not militant about any of this.) However, I do believe that greater transparency - such as publication of all admissions data in a composite format or as raw data with all personal identifying information redacted - is inevitable and we'll see it first at public universities, followed at some point by private colleges.</p>

<p>In the past, many have argued that this information is "basically" available and anyone can figure it out by reading this or that publication. Perhaps so, but to me that isn't a good argument to justify a failure to clearly and prominently publish this information. If it's so easy to find, why not publish it? If it's not that easy, then it isn't "basically" available.</p>

<p>The contrary argument was expressed in Northstarmom's "Lifetime Advantages" thread and tangentially by Epiphany above. Believe me, I am not trying to revive this discussion as I have no desire to highjack this thread or to go down that road again.</p>

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<p>DRJ, you'd be amazed that even with the data that is already published....such as mid SAT ranges of accepted students, class rank (percentiles) of admitted students, average GPA, and admit rates (selectivity), I still observe many who want to apply to top schools who are CLEARLY statistically NOT WITHIN range whatsoever. It is almost as if they are picking colleges simply by "where would I like to go?" without examining the stats of admitted students or the acceptance rate. I mean I have had clients who have had schools on their list that I cannot imagine they think are possible....ie.) kid with not even the required HS courses, GPA of 2.9, no Honors or AP classes, no foreign language, SATs in the 900's (V/M) who had Yale and Brown on her list.....another who hadn't gone past Algebra, no foreign language, one year of lab science, GPA of 2.7, SATs in the 900s, wanted NYU....another with similar stats just mentioned plus ranked in the bottom tenth of his class wanted Colorado College.....another with a 2.7 who wants Northwestern, and you get the picture. If these folks did not consult with me (or even if they did and proceeded against advice or the odds), they apply. So, there are candidates out there to very selective schools that are wholly unqualified even with the published data that is available! I think with the data that is available, a reasonable knowledgeable person should be able to assess their odds of reach, match, safety, I really do. And since elite schools go by much more than numbers, I don't think they can outline every other qualification in such black and white terms. They are also building a class and so that aspect of the process can't be quantified. If there are 50 applicants from Alaska one year, being from Alaska is not such a big deal but if only 3 apply one year, then those three applicants' chances just got a boost. (I admit to that example, as my niece is from Alaska and applying to college this fall!)</p>

<p>Epiphany, I just want to note that CC has a grant that it has had for a few years already, to work with a bunch of students at a school in Queens, where the applicants are first generation and so forth. I'm not on the team of counselors who travel to work with those students but I do think it is an exciting project and is ongoing. It is grant funded, and not pro bono.</p>

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<p>DRJ, I do acknowledge that some colleges are much more forthcoming than others, when publishing such stats, including helpful detail thereof. And I agree that in many cases greater detail would aid in the college search & reduce family/student time, economizing on the process & making efforts more realistic. And it is not necessarily you I'm referring to; could have been other posters who insisted that transparency would result in more favorable admissions <em>decisions</em>, so I'm not convinced that I was "tangentially" referring to you, even subconsciously:) I definitely so agree that the more information on the Admitted Freshman Profile page of a website, the better. However, I'll qualify that with some agreement with soozie's post that just followed yours. When I see that College X did admit some students just this cycle with scores below 550, but those admits were 4%, that should scream out to me that that 4% had something quite unusual going for them, and that it is highly unlikely that <550 will get me in. But, as soozie said, you would be amazed at the people who come back on this board (not necessarily you) & protest about the lack of transparency. That's obviously even more true for colleges which publish Profiles for the previous 2 years as well, & anyone can see upward <em>trends</em>, for heaven's sake. </p>

<p>So yes, percentages (esp.) are extremely helpful when refining a college list, as these are yardsticks. </p>

<p>Great idea about the grant, soozie. Wish all States had that!</p>

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<p>Most of my time is spent working with adolescents & their families. College counseling isn't the focus, but topic comes up often. I'm no longer surprised to hear parents talk of how brilliant their child is. They expect the colleges to love their child as they do, and to naturally want them. They also expect private couselors to guarantee admission to elite schools. Personally, I think that would be a tough field. I respect Sooz and others like her who try to convince parents and kids of realistic expectations.</p>

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<p>There is a direct relationship between "the frenzy" and Thacker's goal of more economic and social equity -- the more you increase the latter, the more the former increases among kids whose opportunities are being limited.</p>

<p>Thirty years ago, I knew I was going to be accepted by Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. I was the top student in a school that had not had a year in three generations without at least 3-4 kids being accepted at each of them. The acceptance rate was about 35%. The "weak" kids in my class went to Hamilton. If you were on the inside, the whole process looked supremely rational, and while not stress-free it was nothing like now.</p>

<p>A number of things have changed since then, but the main one is that the student bodies at those schools are much more diverse than in my day -- many more foreign students, many more URMs, many more kids from underprivileged backgrounds, many, many more kids from non-elite secondary schools. From a social standpoint, the admissions process has never been more fair (although it might be hard to say it is absolutely "fair" now). But what fairness means is that the population of kids who can aspire to those institutions is at least three times what it was then, and it would be seven or eight times as large if all the kids who were eligible then, and their equivalents, were still eligible now. I have a 17-year-old cousin who is a two generation Harvard legacy with 2200+ SATs, attending a top boarding school, thoroughly "packaged" for college admissions, with an unusual background (lived and educated in Europe through age 14). He does not even plan to apply to Harvard -- his school (a famous Harvard feeder) has told him he would be too far down the list for it to support. Because of my age and background, I know tons of Harvard- and Yale-educated parents whose children have been applying to college, and most of you would be surprised at how few have been accepted at their parents' alma maters. So of course there's frenzy. How would there not be? </p>

<p>But it's a much better world than it used to be. When I look around at what actually happens to these privileged kids who cannot attend their first-choice college, I see very little that looks remotely tragic. The American higher education system is awfully good. Kids go to great colleges and get great educations -- or at least have the opportunity to get great educations. And I am very aware that the college-admission experience I remember so fondly nevertheless was creating profound anxiety for previous generations of alumni, who fretted that people like me (over-intellectual, Jewish) -- or, worse, WOMEN!! -- were taking spots that should have gone to kids more like George W. Bush, or at least making their lives miserable once they were there. </p>

<p>(I hear through the grapevine that one can still buy a decently-qualified kid into Princeton for $5 million. Against that background, a $30,000 consultant looks positively democratic. But I'll take pot luck, thank you. There is nothing wrong with the range of outcomes my children face.)</p>