Once again Google a great starting point…
The fact that we make this data seem hard to find or inaccessible is demeaning to kids.
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It is not too surprising that districts with mostly students from low SES families spend more to get less, since they have to deal with lots of issues of inequality in addition to their supposed core mission of education. Of course, it is a vicious cycle where high SES families leave (for private schools or other areas with public schools that can focus more on education and other extras like college admission preparation), leaving the district with an even higher concentration of students from low SES families, etc…
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It isn’t analogous to buying lottery tickets. For the vast majority, that is a minimal expense of a few extra bucks and no extra work, the equivalent of buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Extremely unlikely odds do not influence the buyer’s lifestyle-few quit their jobs in the hope they will win the lottery, and their investment is the lottery is de minimis. Tens of thousands of kids remain in extracurriculars they dislike, sports teams they hate, or classes they aren’t suited for, in the hope of an Ivy admission. The investment is huge.
There are 2 separate threads on this site from an Ivy alumnus and a professor at a prestigious public university on planning to apply to selective institutions which appear unsuitable for their offspring, so perhaps the system is not so clear after all.
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Conceptually, the easiest way to make Harvard like Oxford in terms of competitiveness for domestic applicants is to make it about ten times as large. To make Harvard like University of Toronto in terms of competitiveness for domestic applicants, make it about eighty times as large.
Of course, both UK and Canada also have greater comparability and trustworthiness of high school credentials, something that the US is very far from. UK relies on standardized course final exams for grades, while Canada has reasonably trusted-to-be-comparable course grading (a portion, but not all, of which may be based on standardized content matter exams). That is very different from the US, where high school records are not fully comparable or trustworthy, and the most common external standardized tests are still often seen as “aptitude” tests.
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https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/facts
I went to Fast Facts and discovered in about a minute that Amherst thinks that the number of NCAA titles won is the 2nd most important fact to share under student life.
Student Life
- Student organizations: 150+
- Number of NCAA titles won: 76 Division III individual titles and 11 team championships (and our Athletics program is the oldest in the country)
- Alumni who self-report that they have attended graduate or professional school: 80%
- Size of campus: 1,000 acres, including a Wildlife Sanctuary of about 500 acres
- First-year retention rate: 96%
- Students who live on campus during a typical academic year: 98%
That would indicate to me that athletics was pretty important to the school, and I would also think that athletes had to be pretty important to the school if they are winning that many titles.
https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/health-safety-wellness/recreation
I then found this page (under sports and recreation in the student life section) where the 1:45 minute video on the main page says the school has 27 varsity sports and 30% of the student body participates in a varsity sport, 50% in varsity or club sport in the first 40 seconds.
Amherst isn’t hiding this, and I would think highly qualified students looking at a small liberal arts college would take the time to “really dig” into the colleges website to be able to find the school’s fast facts and at least investigate the student life sections, including the sports and recreation section to see if such a small school will be a good match/fit for them.
Again, my big question is why are these students applying to small liberal arts schools without understanding the culture and makeup of the school? If a highly qualified student wants to go to a highly selective school with an 11% acceptance rate, why shouldn’t we expect they can do basic research on the schools website beyond the academic offerings section?
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Ironically, you proved my point. You did a Google search on Amherst, and no mention at all that it stacked the deck towards athletes. Even if you read the link you posted carefully, still no indication that it favors athletes that much.
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Also in Canada, the GPA is reported in terms of percentages and not letters. There is a big difference between kids with 92% GPA and 98% GPA, and kids fight for every percentage point. Here are McGill’s cutoffs for Engineering (2020).
Whereas in our US school, all grades above 92% are an A, 90-92% is an A- except in science where there are no minuses and so on. In the other HS in the district, 90% is an A and 88% is an A- and so it goes in endless tweaking by the administration and the parents to water down academic achievement.
| Bioengineering | 96.5% overall | 92% in each prerequisite math and science course |
|---|---|---|
| Chemical Engineering | 91.5% overall | 92% in each prerequisite math and science course |
| Civil Engineering | 91.5% overall | 92% in each prerequisite math and science course |
| Computer Engineering | 94% overall | 94% in each prerequisite math and science course |
| Electrical Engineering | 93% overall | 93% in each prerequisite math & science course |
| Materials Engineering | 90.5% overall | 91% in each prerequisite math and science course |
| Mechanical Engineering | 94.5% overall | 91% in each prerequisite math & science course |
| Mining Engineering | 89% overall | 87% in each prerequisite math and science course |
| Software Engineering | 95.5% overall | 96% in each prerequisite math and science course |
You are not recognizing your bias, which is that of a person who understands that athletics is critically important to LACs. For an academically strong student who is not into athletics (and there are plenty), that doesn’t become obvious at all. Would it become obvious during a campus visit? Probably, but then again Amherst, MA isn’t the easiest place to get to even during non-covid times.
Remember, there are plenty of other reasons why a student could be attracted to a liberal arts college, most notably its emphasis on undergraduate teaching and stronger relationships with professors.
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There were three articles specific to the subject. One authored at the request of the administration, one in The NY Times and a link to the exact subject on CC.
It required putting in the words “for non athletes”. My photo editing skills stink but google abilities are top notch.
This popped up when I googled “how hard for non athletes to get into lac”
You can go further than that. The teachers themselves didn’t understand the standards, and not just in secondary ed. You need a kind of education few schoolteachers get to be able to work with those standards even without the whole reticule of mandates they work within, and even without the problems/challenges their kids bring to the classroom.
If your school requires the ISEE, Common Core is for you. Otherwise, unfortunately, probably not.
Okay, but most Canadian kids have no intention of trying to get into McGill. Or UT, or the other handful of top schools.
You’re reading this like someone who does marketing and understands why anyone advertises themselves in a particular way. The number of 17-year-olds who understand how the sausage gets made: few. Consider the trouble most have in writing applications for anything because, despite very clear instructions and explanations of what’s important, they’ll read half a prompt and make a snap connection to something they care about, and they’re off.
You really have to recall that these are still half-children. Which is why this insane process the industry puts them through, and we collaborate in, is so awful. I’m not a bit surprised that any sense that adults might actually be trying to help young people in life is eroded to almost nothing by the time they get to sophomore year.
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Sure we do. That’s why it’s called the “stupid tax” or the “poor tax”, depending on how nice you are or aren’t, and why theoreticians and social activists have for years railed against states for balancing budgets on the backs of the poor, who’re more likely than anyone else to play the lottery and can afford it least… It’s also why people who work in addiction would like very much for states to be out of the business of promoting gambling.
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And you also need some considerable bread in your wallet unless your kid’s a superstar. They will look, and no, they’re not going to spend their fin aid dollars on anyone who’s not an EA or Questbridge-type stats enhancer.
It would be very helpful, frankly, for counselors to have one of these meetings for all the parents once a year about how college and admissions have changed since they went to school. Because honestly a lot of the changes have come very quickly. I’ve worked in higher ed for years, but not in admissions, and I’ve seen a lot of change, but even I didn’t appreciate just how much things had changed until we went through it – my head was stuck somewhere around 2005. Will parents be upset, yes, but they might also be more inclined to believe the kids when the kids bring them the news, and they might also be more active about shielding the kids from the onslaught from the universities and the social media culture with the admissions photos etc.
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For the vast majority of high school students nothing is done with respect to Ivy’s because they have no interest in them.
Seems likely there are more gambling addicts than tens of thousands. Destruction in their lives and those of their families are huge.
And watching the Olympics, for every person who wins a medal or even makes an Olympic team, how many people dedicted their lives to a given sport only to fall short? Huge investment. And for every kid playing college athletics, how many spent countless hours training/practicing playing those same sports only not to be good enough. Or college athletes not good enough to go pro. Huge investments.
Same is true for aspiring doctors, vets, dentists, etc. Not all of them make it. More huge investments.
There are a whole host of things that 17 year olds don’t understand. Big reason vast majority still live with their parents.
This is some hyperbole and drama that you can only find on this site.
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No, this is actual things said by actual students in actual college classrooms while discussing college costs. It was shocking to me, then not shocking but obviously bad. No, they do not expect adults they don’t know to do anything but try to prey on them, if they notice them at all. They figure that’s the name of the game. And they’re a little heartbreakingly grateful if they come across actual help that isn’t essentially selfish in nature.
If Harvard were to sized 10-80x larger, it would have to change its admission practice, wouldn’t it? It isn’t just a matter of increasing staffing 10-80x fold.
I would say those college kids learned what the vast majority of people learned in high school (if not before). But they should be thankful, some people never learn that (or at least learn much later in life). And hey, college isn’t just about book learning, right?
Through a good chunk of our history, the entire point of having state universities was indeed to help young people. Older people helping young people get their start in life and build a good and well-educated society. That’s why people didn’t wind up deep in debt by going there. It’s why the universities were primarily tax-supported, not tuition-supported.
When students learn that adults they don’t know are there to prey on them, they carry that into their own lives as reasonable ways of behaving in the world, and this helps nothing. No, college is not just about book learning, but we do control a good deal of the non-book-learning curriculum, too.
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Yes, it would have to deal with issues of scaling. It would also not have to slice and dice an applicant pool where the number of applicants at the top of the (“ordinary”) stat range greatly exceeds the number they will admit.