<p>bandit_TX
I define diversity to not only mean URM's, but also development cases. You have to have a certain number of URM's and you have to have a certain number of people whose parents buy buildings for the college. :) The GC probably wouldn't have been so furious if it had been a URM selected over the higher ranked student instead of someone with money. However, if the high school had been more important in terms of regularly sending a lot of strong candidate each year, Yale probably would have accepted the higher ranked student too, just to keep the GC on their side.</p>
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They can't take the applicant ranked 15th without taking the 6 applicants in front of him/her, or unless they can explain it to the GC at the school in terms of diversity.
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<p>Yes they can and will because grades and ranikings are one component of the application. It will be the subjective items; recommendations, interviews, essays, ECs maybe along with other factors such as first generation, lecacy, URM, background that will differientate these students.</p>
<p>"The Gatekeepers" (Wellesley) and "Admissions Confidential" (Duke) specifically addressed this issue. Of course there is apparently no standardized way of doing things. I'm sure that different colleges do things differently and there is always anecdotal evidence that doesn't fit the pattern. I try never to say anything just because it makes sense or because I would prefer it to work that way. All I know is what I read in the guides. The fact that so many of the guides agree on almost everything is amazing to me.</p>
<p>The furious college counselor sounds vary naive or inexperienced.</p>
<p>they definitely dont have caps on schools. elite universities accept as many as they want from a single school, my school sends a number of students to the same universities each year. they also dont care wat rank you are. 2 years ago the 3 students that went to harvard weren in the top 10 ranks, while those in the top 10 werent accepted.</p>
<p>Stuyvesant H.S. in NYC Class of 2005 had the following admits;</p>
<p>7- harvard, 12- Princeton, 30-Cornell, 29-Columbia, 16-Dartmouth, 6-Penn, 8-Stanford, 9 wash u, 7 williams, 4 -amherst, 4-brown, 4-cooper union, 8-georgetown, 8-Jhu, 11-MIT and mutltiple admissions at chichago, wes, wellesley, vassar etc. with a large number of ED admits in each school.</p>
<p>"I define diversity to not only mean URM's, but also development cases. You have to have a certain number of URM's and you have to have a certain number of people whose parents buy buildings for the college. "</p>
<p>Diversity refers to far more than those things when it comes to elite colleges: ECs, parental income and education, religion, political orientation, sexual orientation all come under "diversity."</p>
<p>If there's a choice between a valedictorian, aspiring doctor/biochem major with excellent, but typical ECs among the applicant pool and a 5th ranked student with similar SATs, but stellar ECs and interest in , for instance classics, the adcoms may choose the latter.</p>
<p>If the GC becomes "furious" so what? The adocoms make their decisions in the interest of the college, not in the interest of pleasing high school GCs.</p>
<p>Everyone at the most competitive (top 20, not 200) high schools knows only a certain number will get into each top school. Some years my high school gets in more than others to a specific ivy, but you know it's not going to gop past a certain number.</p>
<p>I wanted to post a correction to something I said about "A is for Admissions" and this issue. Actually, Michelle Hernandez says that the number of students applying from a specific high school doesn't affect admissions. However, the book was published in 1997 and I think it may be out of date. The other books I mentioned are by adcom members who sat in committee and wrote about how they approached high schools with many applicants as a unit and decided how many they could accept. It is hard to argue with that, or at least that it happens at some extremely selective colleges. There have been at least three articles in the Wash Post in the last 9 months discussing how magnet school applicants are at a distinct disadvantage. These articles have many anecdotes about students/parents who felt that they would have gotten into an Ivy if only they had stayed in their original high school. I don't like anecdotes, of course. An anecdote might say that gambling is a great investment since someone won $100 last night. The only numbers about Stuyvesant H.S. that surprised me were 30 for Cornell and 29 for Columbia. The other numbers actually sounded in line for that school. There might be a special relationship between Stuyvesant and Cornell/Columbia, but I'm guessing.</p>
<p>I really have a lot of issues with "A is for Admissions" anyway. In her first chapter, the author explains to the high schoolers that the people on the adcoms are not all Ivy-graduates and so the students have to understand that they are being judged by people not as smart as they are. (almost a quote) She is a strong proponent of Social Darwinism.</p>
<p>Northstarmom: It is in the interest of the colleges not to upset the GC's at their feeder schools, or else they lose the feeder school.</p>
<p>Lets face it, the whole thing is a lottery at this point anyway. People, branch out and apply to some other schools! The Ivies are all different from each other. The only thing they have in common is their brand-name prestige. There are other factors that should be important in selecting a college other than its brand-name.</p>
<p>Dufus, do you really think top colleges need to keep counselors happy to keep apps coming? That's just not true. For lesser known or desireable schools, sure they get more apps if the counselor is in the loop, but you think it will stop anyone from applying to Harvard?</p>
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The only numbers about Stuyvesant H.S. that surprised me were 30 for Cornell and 29 for Columbia. The other numbers actually sounded in line for that school. There might be a special relationship between Stuyvesant and Cornell/Columbia, but I'm guessing.
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<p>No special relationships other than Columbia and Cornell have been morefamiliar the education and the students at Stuyvestant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech for over 50 years as they have always been the top public high schools in NYC. </p>
<p>I have heard for many years (from the time D was in kindergarten) that Cornell does love Stuyvesant students and it is not unusual for them to take a large number of students. For a long, Princeton had a backlash when it came to stuyvesant students and they could not get admitted at a rate of more than 1 or 2 on a bet.</p>
<p>zagat: I just repeat what I read because I have never been on an adcom, much less all of them. A GC can guide students towards Yale instead of Harvard. Also, the GC's that Harvard would take care to be nice to are the GC's who are supplying Harvard with the really quality applicants. Of course, Harvard doesn't need more qualified applicants, but they certainly market themselves for more and more each year because of the effect of the USNWR rankings. "The Gatekeepers" is particularly good to read on this subject. I agree that it is insane that colleges who turn away 70-80% of the completely qualified applicants would still be trying to get more people to apply. It is said that for every applicant accepted, there are four or five denied who are practically identical to the ones accepted. Another thing I've read several times is that the extremely selective schools could throw out everyone they accepted or waitlisted, start over with the remainder, and still have the same statistically strong class that they originally had. </p>
<p>sybbie: I suspect that Stuyvesant is a strong feeder school for Cornell and Columbia and that the adcoms at Cornell and Columbia are particularly nice to the GC's at Stuyvesant. Also, how can you argue that your hs doesn't affect admissions and then say that Princeton had it in for Stuyvesant?</p>
<p>Well my school has one of the worst guidance departments and its quite clear that we have no relationship with colleges since our whole department is new and unexperienced. However we had about 15 accepted to Cornell, 3 to Yale, and many other acceptees to the top schools. I would also like to note that gpa had very little to do with admissions in our school because the acceptees had a very large range of gpa (from 90 to 99.5) while the rejects had some of the highest averages (98 - 99).</p>
<p>I'm curious where people are getting their numbers for people accepted to the different schools. If you say that 5 to Harvard, 4 to Yale, 6 to Princeton, 15 to Cornell, then I suspect that only 15 people are going to Ivies (not 30) because of overlap. Getting into an Ivy is now a crap shoot. I don't think adults should be setting up unrealistic expectations for high schoolers. (Normally when I say this, I'm accused of not encouraging kids to strive for all they can be. Go ahead, buy a lottery ticket.)</p>
<p>this isn't true</p>
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If the GC becomes "furious" so what? The adocoms make their decisions in the interest of the college, not in the interest of pleasing high school GCs.
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I never implied otherwise. Just pointing out that there are a lot of reasons that the original statement was untrue, and many of them will seem very unfair to the students and GCs.</p>
<p>no usually people are saying "plan to enroll" it really isnt all that uncommon for big name schools in NYC like stuyvesant. my school isnt a big name school but for arizona they get a lotta acceptances and have high enrollment in the ivy league. but schools like stuy, bronxscience, thomas jeff hs have extraordinarily high college enrollment.</p>
<p>I don't know how different schools do the count. This year, my local high school had one URM with a 1590 SAT. The school normally publishes a list titled "College Acceptances - 200x". The school never has anyone go to an Ivy, but this year the list included Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, and Brown among others. The school is trying to make itself look good for teacher/parent morale. I don't know to what extent other schools do that.</p>
<p>college acceptances dont matter, its college matriculation that the school should be publishing =P they cheat :D</p>