I am sorry, but none of that should matter. If you have physical disabilities for example, you have a different pool to compete in for the Olympics. To compete in the main Olympics, you have to make the cut. You have to be really good. Where you came from, How you got there, what your family story was, none of that matters. Only how you perform matters. The top 20 schools in the US (just to keep this argument simple) have around 30,000 slots for freshman. Who should get these slots is what we are discussing here. I am saying, they should go to the most academically gifted kids we can find. They can be gifted in Humanities, Arts, Science, Language whatever (based on their interests), but must be extraordinarily gifted and this gift must be measured on a national scale based on testing criteria that is meaningful, tough and challenging.
If we want to give lower SES kids a chance (an admirable social goal), then lets invest public money in giving them a good education, giving them special training, I am ok with that, but the rules of the race have to be the same for everybody, once you get to the start line.
OP, I actually agree with you that there should be more emphasis on academics, and that college admission testing should be improved and also made more difficult so that it’s a better test of knowledge and problem solving rather than a race to answer a bunch of easy questions as fast as possible without making careless mistakes. I also agree that colleges should get out of the business of professional sports and that sports involvement shouldn’t be treated as any more important than other activities.
But I think you are overly optimistic about the extent to which testing can identify talent and potential. And those do matter. You keep going on and on about pro sports and how they select their players, but you’ve ignored my suggestion to read about how sports are missing a large fraction of their talent pool because of the way they evaluate players. Read, for instance, the wikipedia article on relative age effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect which applies not just to sports but also to academics. If a simple thing like being a few months younger has such a noticeable effect, what about the larger challenges many young people face?
In my opinion the Universities should be looking for talent, both academic and in other, less measurable spheres, and in order to do this, you have to take a holistic approach or else you will miss many promising candidates.
I also think that there is a great benefit to diversity on campus and to a vibrant campus life. That experience is an important part of the education at an elite US college and if you cannot understand or value this, you don’t really belong at such schools because you wouldn’t benefit from it. If you base admissions solely on scores on very difficult tests, you will select for students who do little but study. That’s clear from the situation in China and other countries you cite. I also know well-educated immigrants from these countries who experienced this system themselves and would never subject their kids to it.
The experience in US grad schools is in fact that foreign students coming out of the type of systems you idolize are often not the best thinkers in terms of creativity and tend to struggle more with open-ended research such as is encountered at the frontiers of knowledge, though they certainly put US students to shame when it comes to solving clearly defined problems well.
All of this is related directly to the ability of the player to play at the highest level. Yes, you can check whether a kid who scores well academically has a criminal record, is a cheater, you can administer a drug test, etc etc. but the selection criteria has to be academic, just as the criteria for a player is “ability to play at the Highest level”
Imagine if whites or Asians started suggesting that the NFL or NBA should have affirmative action, because they are a URM in that area. Imagine also if a former NBA player’s kid got into the NBA, just because his Dad played. Imagine if the NBA tried to get some geographic diversity in its team and recruited with that in mind.
We would all laugh at these requests, but don’t bat an eyelid at similar practices in our educational institutions.
Well, there you go, apply to McGill. It’s a fine school. I know a very bright US student who chose McGill.
People with the OP’s viewpoint don’t want to go to McGill though. They want the US holistic schools to turn themselves into McGill, and nothing else will satisfy them.
^ This is a marvelous example of why OP’s assertion is false. She(?) declares that the “elites” are a precious resource. Says who? They’re only precious because of the nos. of kids who want to attend them. I firmly disagree. Examples like McGill and Caltech and other top end schools which admit kids solely based on academics EXIST and are performing magnificently.
But kids/families are voting with their feet. THEY are the ones who stream towards these schools who CLEARLY say they admit holistically.
OP simply doesn’t like the fact that they’ve built a better mouse trap in a sea of mouse traps. And that’s why they have record breaking apps year after year.
Why isn’t the beauty school at the local strip mall one of the most sought after institutions of higher learning in the country? Because they offer something that only a few people want. The holistically-evaluating schools are so “precious” because of what they stand for – which includes holistic admissions.
In the end, this is simply a debate exercise. No one, no entity – has the right to tell a private institution how it can admit students as long as it falls within legal bounds. Call for the torches and pitchforks and attack the castle keep, OP. You may find yourself with a small company of fellow mobsters.
“academics should be the single most important criteria for selection in highly selective undergraduate institutions”
It’s one of those views that’s more theoretical and less about the real purpose of these elite holistics. It’s also one person’s opinion. Ever read what MIT has to say about unilateral?
You would take an unbalanced kid based on scores? Skip teacher comments, that essay about how her cat is her best friend (real,) or that engineering wanna be who, outside taking high level math and physics and placing well, has no collaborative skills, no hs or other related experience-and doesn’t know what engineering does? Etc.
You are mistaken, as others have pointed out, if you think that athletes and musicians are chosen based on pure ability.
In the United States, elite college admissions is like casting a play. Yes, academic achievement is important. But beyond that, the admissions committee is forming a class. That’s the system.
By the way, the system you propose is exactly the way it works for admission to the three elite NYC high schools – Stuyvesant, Bronx HS of Science, and Brooklyn Tech. Admission is based on a single test. Current demographics at Stuyvesant are 73% Asian, 19% White, 3% Hispanic, 1% Black. Overall, 70% of NYC public school students are Black or Hispanic.
I think it is very unlikely that the average underpaid, young inexperienced Admissions counselor at most University undergraduate admissions offices is able to identify potential any better than an objective test could. They don’t have any magic crystal ball here. Often they just fall victims to their unconscious biases in identifying what they consider potential.
Besides going down the slippery slope of potential will get us to all kinds of strange places. Potential is all in the eyes of the beholder. It is a highly subjective criteria and any kid can be termed as “having potential” by any adcom. In today’s admissions universe, I contend it is just a “hollow platitude with absolutely no meaning”
We are better off waiting for the potential to mature into performance before rewarding it prematurely IMHO.
Again with the assumption adcoms are underpaid, young, and inexperienced. Imo, you can’t base your position on an assumption. Nor on a declaration it’s that way at “most.”
Now chew on this: it’s not so much about future potential (CC thinks it’s about what happens after college graduation.) It starts with the four year experience at that college, during those 4 years, based on what the kid has taken on, to-date, what that actually shows. Really, read those MIT admissions blogs.
Filter to your heart’s content. Get teachers to write a recommendation or five. But use it to filter out, rather than filter in. We are not at a stage where the talent pool is too thin to need to filter in.
Total red herring. Unbalanced in whose eyes? A twenty three year old Admin counselor’s? Who’s probably in her/his first job and is very likely to apply her own racial/ethnic biases to judge an applicant?
This argument is pointless. There are indeed colleges in North America that admit based on academics only, as has been pointed out. If you prefer them, apply to them.
CC is not a debate society. Everyone has made their position known numerous times. VLP thinks the system should be changed away from holistic admissions, others disagree. Nothing really additional to add after 5 pages, it seems. Closing thread.