<p>In the past weeks, we have had discussions about groups that campaign for a return to "normalcy" in the college admissions' process. One group - Education Conservancy- has published a book that offer many supporting opinions. Carolyn has posted an exhaustive review of the book called College Unranked. </p>
<p>I do not profess to have a definitive answer to the question, "What does it really take to get accepted at a top school". I do, however, think that it is worthwhile to find out the extent to which aggressive families are prepared to go to earn one of the precious letters of acceptance. I think that this information is important because the "competition" is not slow-moving. Inasmuch as some might despise the interferences of professional experts, we may have to recognize that they are measured on a hard to achieve success rate. As usual, I do not agree with all the conclusions offered by the founder of the "expert" company, especially on his racial analysis of SAT scores. </p>
<p>A few excerpts: </p>
<p>"Forget "The Apprentice." For real competition, check out "The Applicant" - a contest in which high-achieving Asian kids from New Jersey's moneyed suburbs jockey for the Ivy League. Consider the case of a Chinese-American girl at Holmdel High School. Her grades and test scores were top-notch, she ran cross-country and she was an accomplished pianist. Still, her prospects seemed uncertain. The problem: her all-too-familiar profile.</p>
<p>She didn't, and couldn't, stand out among her peers. She ranked in the top 20 percent in the highly competitive school where nearly a fifth of the students are Asian.</p>
<p>"We needed to get her away from the other Asian kids,'' said Robert Shaw, a private college consultant hired by the girl's family.</p>
<p>Shaw advised bold steps: The family got a place in Keyport, a blue-collar town near their home, and the girl transferred to the local high school. There she was a standout: The only Asian kid in the school, she was valedictorian for the Class of 2004.</p>
<p>Next came an extracurricular makeover, one a bit out of character for a Chinese-American girl, said Shaw. "We suggested some outrageous activities, like Miss Teen New Jersey,'' where she won a talent competition playing piano.</p>
<p>"We had to create a contrarian profile,'' Shaw said. "We put her in places where she could stand out."</p>
<p>The girl was accepted to Yale and to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is now a freshman.</p>
<p>Shaw helped the family play the admissions game. The ethnic, geographic and racial profiling that goes into assembling classes at the nation's top-tier colleges and universities is the worst-kept secret in American higher education.</p>
<p>With a huge pool of outstanding applicants, admissions at the top schools long ago stopped being about the numbers.</p>
<p>Good statistics alone are not the key to the Ivy League, said Willis J. "Lee" Stetson Jr., dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania. "In a really competitive pool, it's the extracurricular stuff that makes the difference."
"If you give me a Hispanic kid with a 1,350 (SATs), I can get that kid into every Ivy League college, or an African-American kid with 1,380 to 1,400,'' Shaw said. "But give me an upper-middle-class Caucasian or Asian with a 1,600, and I can't guarantee anything."</p>
<p>Recently, an Asian client of Shaw's from suburban Philadelphia got "wait-listed" at Yale despite a 1,600 SAT score and a 4.1 grade point average.</p>
<p>Shaw, a partner in the Long Island-based Ivy Success, honed his pragmatism while working in the admissions office at Penn. *He recently changed his name from Hsueh to make it easier to pronounce, he said, but allows that a less Asian-sounding name may be an advantage when his young daughters reach college age. *.</p>