<p>Throwing a little fuel on the fire, New York magzine's 11/27 issue contains this article. The "teaser" on the front cover says, "Would Albert Einstein Get Into College This Year?" </p>
<p><a href="http://nymag.com/news/features/24398/%5B/url%5D">http://nymag.com/news/features/24398/</a></p>
<p>Couldn't they find a few stronger candidates? Most of these kids are pretty ordinary by CC standards! ( LOL) Only one 2400 in the group. Most should be retaking and retaking to improve those scores!</p>
<p>Also, Katherine Cohen's comments are pretty lame. I guess if you want some insight it's gonna cost you!</p>
<p>For the students' sakes, let's hope the adcoms aren't reading the article and looking to see where each student applied early (first choice.)</p>
<p>NJres- Agreed! In reading Cohen's comments, I was thinking back to American Bandstand days, as the kids evaluated new records. "I thought the lyrics weren't so hot and you couldn't really dance to it, but it might make it onto the charts." (I know, I know, I'm "dating" myself.) Talk about waivers and disclaimers!</p>
<p>I could have easily evaluated these candidates with as much insight as Cohen did just based on my experience here on CC! I loved Cohen calling the 700 (I think) math score "not high".</p>
<p>Guess what is one of the comments on the asian girl with 2400?</p>
<p>"While she may be admitted to MIT early, I am not convinced shes a shoo-inId want to see more evidence that shes giving back to the community."</p>
<p>What a crap! No such comments on any other students! It is another example to set a higher standard for Asian kids.</p>
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[quote]
Guess what is one of the comments on the asian girl with 2400?......"I’d want to see more evidence that she’s giving back to the community."</p>
<p>What a crap! No such comments on any other students! It is another example to set a higher standard for Asian kids.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>As I said on the other thread, some folks will never get it. A 2400 is just not the end of the story , however much somebody wants it to be or thinks it should be. Neither is Val. In the face of indisputable evidence to the contrary, people just don't want to believe it and immediately scream "unfair". </p>
<p>This is not a question of who is "BEST" qualified or the "BEST" student and the sooner folks understand that, the better for them and their kid. Equally and better qualified students are rejected all the time. Elite colleges are not trying to find the best test taker/grade maker. They are trying to shape a large group dynamic, a mosaic if you will. </p>
<p>BTW the sufficiency of other's EC's were brought into focus by Cohen with this one being my favorite :</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, he seems to be a serial joiner. A red flag is the Ping-Pong club, given the fact that he has little community service.”
[/quote]
Ouch!</p>
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<blockquote> <p>What a crap! No such comments on any other students! It is another example to set a higher standard for Asian kids<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Wrong. She also commented negatively on Vadim Shteyler's lack of community service.</p>
<p>I am not saying that she should be or will be accepted by any college. I completely understand that the test score alone or even in combination with grade is/or should be THE factor for college admissions. </p>
<p>It is just the comment that I think it is out of the line. It gives the impression that she is not contributing to the society and she is a girl who just cares about her grade and test scores.</p>
<p>zzz, let's all hope admissions will spend more time finding that out than Ms. Cohen had. Remember, she didn't have the full package to work with in making her comments.</p>
<p>curmudgeon, certainly. Peace!!!</p>
<p>Is it me, or were there some glaring disconnects between GPAs and SAT scores? I also saw disconnects between SAT scores and apparent involvement in "research". Maybe I have been reading CC too long :-)</p>
<p>Note that all but one of these kids applied somewhere ED or SCEA.</p>
<p>They know how the game is played.</p>
<p>I also suspect that most of these kids will not get into their first choice schools but will end up somewhere lower down their lists -- like Georgetown, Middlebury, or Cornell -- which is all the more reason why kids who actually want to go to Georgetown, Middlebury, or Cornell feel that they have to apply ED/EA to distinguish themselves from the superstars for whom those schools are third or fourth choice.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I also saw disconnects between SAT scores and apparent involvement in "research". <<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>I'm not surprised. You don't need top SAT scores to get into student research. What you need for research opportunities are connections -- you need know through your parents or teachers about a lab or an organized program that will take you on. SAT has nothing much to do with that.</p>
<p>Now, with respect to whether Al would have made it into any of the top colleges today...frankly, I think some of them might be a reach especially were they to look only at GPA, class rank and SATs. Although he would have aced the math SAT and math/science APs (he did self-study geometry, calculus and physics) he was a classic under-achiever when it came to liberal arts--just didn't like the way they taught those classes. Might not have even gotten a 700 on the SAT verbal. But this may no doubt be due to his learning disabilities which hoepfully would have been diagnosed today (reseachers believe he had autism/asperger's syndrome). Or just a bad public school...</p>
<p>Of course, he did come up with his basic theories of relativity by the age of 16 (even if it took a few more years to prove them) so I expect he would have won tons of science and math awards and competitions during high school; he certainly would have demonstrated a great deal of passion in his ECs. And even though he might not have gotten stellar grades in English and History, I personally think he would have written an awesome essay! Certainly, some of his quotes suggest this: </p>
<p>"You spend 30 minutes with a beautiful girl, it seems like a moment. You spend a moment sitting on a hot stove, it seems like 30 minutes." (giving the most practical, understandable explanation of the Theory of Relativity; how time can expand or contract)</p>
<p>"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."</p>
<p>"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives."</p>
<p>"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."</p>
<p>"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."</p>
<p>Much of research involves hours of grunt work - involving methodical work and precise and accurate record-keeping. I know there are many brilliant scientists out there - but I don't believe that one needs to be brilliant to be a scientist. One DOES have to have a great deal of perseverence, enthusiasm and interest in a topic, a strong organizational ability, and desire to do the work. Not needed are high SAT scores! ;)</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Of course, he did come up with his basic theories of relativity by the age of 16 (even if it took a few more years to prove them)<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Not really. At age 16 he began wondering about interesting questions to do with how the world would look at the speed of light. He didn't really begin to develop the math and formulate the formal theory of special relativity until his mid-20s, after he had finished his Ph.D. in physics and begun his day job as a patent clerk. The theory of general relativity came even later. The proof of these theories came from others over the next several decades. </p>
<p>At age 18 Einstein would not have looked to an adcom like much anything beyond a bright high school kid. Sure he could have written a killer essay as an old and famous scientist, but none of his famous quotes come from his teen years.</p>
<p>I was sorta intrigued by the ping pong club.</p>
<p>Coureur and anxiousmom - lol!!</p>
<p>What I meant was if one was churning out great stuff, good enough to be first author on a paper (this was implied because the piece said that the student "wrote" the paper), one's writing score would be expected to be higher. My comment was slightly tongue in cheek - having read CC for some time now, I know the different ways kids can get into research :-). I was thinking about the writing and critical thinking part of research, not so much the bench work (grunt work). Hey, you can teach almost anyone to do the bench work:-)</p>
<p>It's pretty well-acknowledged that Einstein was a late bloomer. </p>
<p>Philosopher/logician Saul Kripke is a more apt example. He wrote important papers on the semantics of modal logic at age 16. Reportedly he was offered a job by Princeton but told them his mother said he had to finish high school first. </p>
<p>After high school, he went to Harvard where he majored in math. By his sophomore year, he was teaching logic to graduate students at MIT. He was also a Harvard Junior Fellow by the time he was a sophomore. (This is a very big deal prestigious honorary fellowship, which often goes to postdocs these days.) He never bothered to get a PhD, but became a distinguished professor, ultimately spending most of his career at Princeton.</p>
<p><a href="http://goinside.com/01/2/kripke.html%5B/url%5D">http://goinside.com/01/2/kripke.html</a></p>