<p>Thanks so much to JHS for putting things into perspective.</p>
<p>I see two recurring lines of argument on CC:</p>
<p>SATs are not everything: my kid's brilliant and has lots to offer but doesn't test well.
I have the SATs. Why didn't I get admitted into HYP?</p>
<p><a href="I%20hear%20through%20the%20grapevine%20that%20one%20can%20still%20buy%20a%20decently-qualified%20kid%20into%20Princeton%20for%20$5%20million.%20Against%20that%20background,%20a%20$30,000%20consultant%20looks%20positively%20democratic.%20But%20I'll%20take%20pot%20luck,%20thank%20you.%20There%20is%20nothing%20wrong%20with%20the%20range%20of%20outcomes%20my%20children%20face.">i</a>*</p>
<p>Now there's an interesting arbitrage proposition. Compare $5M in today's money to the (discounted by inflation) lifetime earnings boost that a kid would get by going to Princeton. At first glance, I definitely feel as if the benefits i've gotten at Columbia will, over the course of my lifetime, be worth that - but probably only because I not only got in but succeeded. If you're not good enough to get in in the first place, will you really take advantage of the connections and prestige enough to get the top jobs available there, drive yourself through (say) a top law or business school, and push yourself to a life of high pressure and high rewards?</p>
<p>I doubt the average "Developments Office" admit kid gets as much value out of the education as it costs his parents. But it's probably close, and not entirely worth laughing at.</p>
<p>Now you'll have to excuse me, I have to go back to earning money to pay off my student loans. :)</p>
<p>-Steve</p>
<p>JHS, I agree with you. I think one of my problems with Thacker, who nevertheless makes some important points, is that he focuses so much on the negatives (i.e., the ill effects of marketing). But a market economy is 2-way, in that the "commodities" (students) have something extremely valuable to offer. If they didn't, colleges wouldn't be marketing to them -- & they're marketing not just for their dollars, but for their talents & brains. Combine that fact with the democratic values to which you allude (& which colleges have increasingly embraced), and it seems to me that opportunity has increased, not decreased, over the past 30 yrs.</p>
<p>The point about "the game" that both the article & Thacker decries, is that it exists because of greater opportunity and because of recent population pressures -- not because colleges are evil, & not because college consultants are evil. All of our industries, including higher education, are tied in some way to our capitalistic structure, with all that implies. Just as we hopefully teach our children how to be smart consumers, how to read messages, how to interpret statistics (deceptive or not), it's mostly up to parents & others advising college applicants how to be a smart applicant.</p>
<p>Excellent post, JHS. I think we're better off with a more open and competitive system.</p>
<p>As long as admissions counselors continue to give weight to form over substance, the gaming will continue. </p>
<p>These endless and often vapid lists of activities, clubs, and saving the whale and save the world and everybody in it entities - as long as they matter - students will continue to collect them.</p>
<p>Affirmative action for non-Type A's might be what they call this new approach</p>
<p>I have been reminded by recent visits with friends that there are a LOT of American parents, certainly the majority, who just don't worry about this issue at all. Correspondingly, a lot of American students also don't worry about where they go to college, or even whether they will go to college. </p>
<p>Thacker is part of a minority of persons associated with private high schools who worry that the private high school selling point of "Going here will help you get into a good college" is no longer as convincing as it used to be. Well, SO WHAT? </p>
<p>There is still a public high school, available for "free" (that is, with substantial taxpayer subsidies) for students in every part of the United States. The only colleges that admit students "by the numbers" are state colleges with a rather broad range of eligible SAT I scores. All other colleges claim to practice "holistic" admission, and empirically pass over some applicants with high SAT I scores to admit some other applicants with lower scores who have other desirable characteristics. In America's pluralistic nonsystem of higher education, anyone who really wants to get into college can get in. So Thacker's advice will continue to be ignored by the great majority of applicants (and the great majority of colleges) because it is not relevant to them.</p>
<p>I don't know about others here, but personally I never thought that Thacker assumes he is speaking to that vast majority of students, parents, college administrators. I think he is speaking to the most vocal & active segment, which is also the most invested, interested segment -- the segment to which rankings, etc. are targeted. He obviously believes it is that population which most affects and is affected by "the way the admissions game is played."</p>
<p>interesting</p>