It’s true they performed the duties described in the essay. I think it is entirely different situation from owning a BnB and working as a minimum wage housekeeper at a low budget motel.
My children could write a lovely essay about their lifelong tradition of making tamales with our family at Christmas. I think that would be disingenuous. Is it true? Absolutely yes, each and every year. But our family is 99.5% Irish and Northern European. I just love to cook and adopted this tradition from a coworker.
@lookingforward tons of schools administer literacy exams after admissions - and then place students in remedial/foundational courses if they are found to not be ready for college work. I have never heard of a student being unadmitted based on those tests, but schools sure do that.
The problem is, 95% of people follow the rules and the rest see a way to cheat an obviously flawed system and do so. They continue this throughout their lives. Even in grade school there were kids who were complaining based on various biases. Most of it came from the parents. Sad.
People get away with cheating on their taxes every day. But appearing before an IRS agent and stating, “Thousands of people do what I did and don’t get caught” is not likely a winning strategy for getting out of a penalty.
Making tamales on Xmas eve? What’s wrong with an essay about that? If a kid states that it’s the family tradition ever since Great-Grandpa Hector emigrated from Mexico in 1899-- and that’s a lie- then no, not right. But to write that the family adopted the custom from a family friend- if the essay is truthful and honest and insightful? That sounds beautiful to me. My family has dozens of traditions we’ve adopted from newcomers to the family (love it when my nephews and kids show up with their friends and wives), neighbors, etc. It’s not dishonest- we don’t pretend it’s our ancestry, but it can still enhance a family get-together.
My kid went through Ivy admission process just last year and it makes me really proud that no matter how much any school have had tried to convince him to brag, fib or exaggerate, he wouldn’t have played along, let alone agreeing to outright lying or fabrication.
I doubt any young person with intelligence and integrity would do otherwise.
@NorthernMom61 I don’t see how fake it until you make it is a sad reality. If advantages are mostly going to the privileged due to preferential treatment and just outright nepotism, why would anyone disparaged one showing ambition and fighting to achieve?
"The harder a kid tries to fake, the easier to slip. If the one kid had triumphed so after his mothers death, dont you think an adcom would look for reference to that in the GC letter? "
Wow. Add one more way kids who go to an average public school are disadvantaged in the app process for top selectives. I have experience with the guidance counseling at three of the largest public schools in our county and it would be possible for a GC to know of a mother’s death, but highly unlikely. GCs in our area are assigned to hundreds of students, often have never met the students until the student is applying and even then the meeting time is extremely limited. I’m not sure the GCs could pick half of their assigned students out of a photo lineup, much less know a scintilla about a particular kid’s home life.
@milee30 yes, my daughter’s HS had three counselors for 2500 students. And the school was really mostly only interested in kids going to top schools. She did have a great relationship with hers who was fabulous, though.
@milee30 Another reason why guidance recommendations are fairly useless. If the kids have done well, have EC’s and good recommendations from teachers why is the guidance counselor recommendation even needed.
@ShanFerg3 Yeah, and don’t forget to add in all the kids who don’t have the hooks of URM, economic status ( high or low) and are just plain in the middle in terms of where they live. They’ll have very few things to tug on the heartstrings of AOs who are looking to diversify the class. These kids are really behind the eight ball. No chance of scholarships(which are based on income), no money to pay and they are looking at ten years of big loans when they graduate. Honestly, I think it’s time we drop all of the hooks. Every. Single. One. And rely on stats only.
My boss at the time was an active interviewer for MIT and knew the admissions staff well. When the news about Marilee Jones came out, many in the admissions office were wondering whether to continue to back her anyway, because they really felt she had done a lot of good for MIT admissions. My boss was vocal that everyone in admissions should abandon her immediately, as anyone who continued to support her would be tainted by association.
"As college admissions become ever more competitive, with the most elite schools admitting only 4 percent or 5 percent of applicants, the pressure to exaggerate, embellish, lie and cheat on college applications has intensified, admissions officials say. The high-stakes process remains largely based on trust: Very little is done in the way of fact-checking, and on the few occasions officials do catch outright lies, they often do so by chance.
A recent New York Times investigation found that the leaders of T.M. Landry College Preparatory School, a private high school in Louisiana, doctored transcripts and fabricated up-from-hardship stories on college applications in a systematic effort to land students at selective universities. The revelations have highlighted critical vulnerabilities in the admissions process and cast doubts on a system that some officials and consultants say inadvertently invites exploitation." …
@Happytimes2001 are the hooks all that hooky? I used to work in college access with a lot of students who have “hooks” towards the sob story end of the hook scale and, honestly, I never noticed it outweighing the factor of bias in favor of the traditional admitted student that look more like the admissions officers than like most of America. I think it’s a myth that people like to tell themselves that “everything will work out in the end” and a product of media sensationalism. The deck is solidly stacked in favor of middle class dominant culture applicants. Some schools have opened up in a big way but I believe most remain out of reach for people who have had tough breaks regardless of how much they have thrived and overcome because they simply don’t fit the mold. Or they get in but get zero aid regardless of very low parental ability to pay. One of the principals here completely blew his top to the media a few years’ back because his HS which is national recognized was getting tons of very low-resource students into selective schools but most could not attend due to cost. The myth that low-income underrepresented group are advantaged in college admissions just kills me. They used to blame the high-achieving students and parents. “Oh, they just never APPLY to selective schools.” But that’s BS. They apply and they either don’t get in or they can’t afford to go.
When you have kids saying they are hispanic and getting accepted to Ivies -even though they are very wealthy and have a parent that is say a wealthy spaniard or venezuelan you know the system is broken.
Cupcakemuffins- “My kid went through Ivy admission process just last year and it makes me really proud that no matter how much any school have had tried to convince him to brag, fib or exaggerate, he wouldn’t have played along, let alone agreeing to outright lying or fabrication”.
I don’t think any colleges (Ivy or otherwise) convince or compel students to fabricate their histories. You seem to make it sound like a deceptive student is being forced into deception (playing along). Is that what you are suggesting?
Maybe I am naive but I don’t think a significant number of applicants fabricate. Some don’t because they fear getting caught but my eternal optimism suggests the vast majority (like your son) simply have integrity.
@Center or schools that use international applicants to boost their “diversity” rankings. I notice that people generally don’t love actual diverse schools as “top” colleges, though. There is a huge amount of tokenism. If you look at the department pages for the programs I’ve been pointed to here for my daughter, they are overwhelmingly white and male. All of the diverse departments that she’s drawn to aren’t “highly ranked”. Despite what anyone wants to admit to, that is still what many applicants, parents and colleges consciously or subconsciously aspire to. Which is really too bad.
It’s OK for someone to call themselves “Hispanic” and get into an Ivy despite having a privileged background. The problem is not that person getting in. The problem is when schools use it as an excuse not to admit true underprivileged students.
@CCtoAlaska Yes, I have nearly a dozen nieces and nephews who have taken on huge debt for college. They are middle class. Funds and money is no longer dependent on what you did, but on family income.
When I was young (100 years ago), you earned money for scholarships by being the best candidate. I was low income and competed against others who were not. The essays or interviews were fixed. Usually you sent things in via mail so no one say you, you had to go out and apply for things. Sometimes I’m sure someone gave me an advantage but I had to have the goods ( grades and SAT scores).
Now the hooks aren’t based on what you did, but how you “define” yourself. Why should someone jump to the front of the line because of a hook they had no control over (legacy applies here too). I would not even let my kids apply to my Ivy league alma mater. They have to find their own way. Actually, yes most schools today that are highly competitive spend most of the money on a small portion of kids and leave out an entire group.
Look at scholarships. A tiny fraction are based on merit. Most are based on income. A family making $75-150K in many places, has zero chance of paying $70K in college costs for their child. Yes, we have left the middle class behind. The lowest income kids have venues. There is less money because college costs so much even upper income people can no longer afford to give back in significant ways.