To those who were waitlisted

<p>I accidentally deleted it. Do you know where the option is to have it emailed to you? All I see is that if you forget your password you have to call the IT Help Desk at x2526.</p>

<p>456 confirmed students...even if the "summer melt" occurs, I dout enough kids will opt out to go to the waitlist...</p>

<p>Now up to 474 confirmed......it appears Middlebury has also exceeded its anticipated enrollment....</p>

<p>Do you guys think such a high yield is parly because they took a lot of underqualified low-income students and URMs vwho were rejected elsewhere?</p>

<p>Honestly? No. Amherst selected only a very low number of its applicants for admission, and I'd say they were, by and large, the most academically qualified applicants. They didn't accept any "underqualified" applicants, and I think it's a bit offensive to posit that they did. </p>

<p>I think the high yield is due to the particularly gorgeous weather we had during admitted students week, and perhaps to the good press Amherst has had this year (Nobel prize winning alum, basketball national champ) perhaps combined with some bad press from similar schools.</p>

<p>yeah, it was beautiful during admitted students weekend. I remember when I was there last year, it was raining the whole time, which could have negatively affected the yield. And the good press certainly helps, along with a Williams student hanging up posters of Hitler.</p>

<p>unregistered,</p>

<p>I don't think its offencive to suggest an alternative possibility to a high yield, especially when it is quite possible, considering Marx's grand plan to turn Amherst into a Community College lol</p>

<p>And, please, don't tell me that his plan is not actually to turn it to a community college, I am exaggerating. But still, consider amherst's black+latino population percentage (22 percent) I believe versus most other top-school's percentage (<15) uchicago, MIT, Yale...and with his new plan the school will be accepting more and more appplicants with "hidden" potential.., their risk, but those low-income applicants will certainly be glad to go to such a great school for free</p>

<p>"the most academically qualified applicants. " - definitely NOT..., that was probably less than 65 percent of the class considering recruitment of URMs, athletes and now low-incomers (like myself)</p>

<p>I am SO sorry that you are unhappy with Amherst, and it is a natural move to attack the school that you feel hurt you. I hope this helps you vent so you can move on and be happy wherever life leads you. You really are a terrific young person and deserve the very best. And while it is true that Dr. Marx has a goal of searching out academically qualified students who, due to finances, etc., could not ever dream of an Amherst education, he does not plan on doing this at the expense of the current numbers, but is adding students to each class to increase it over the next 5 years. So, the plan is that the same numbers of slots will be open for the other applicants, as always. And considering that even before this plan, D and many of her friends are on FA, they all had tremendous stats and ECS, came from public HS's, and can and do compete with the best. Merely being poor doesn't mean that you are not qualified. Lots of brilliant kids didn't have the counselors that could help or didn't even think about going anywhere because they had no clue regarding FA.</p>

<p>Ok, this discussion can go on forever, and I can tell you millions of arguments, why such a kid who had opportunities and took them should not lose a spot because of a kid who didn't have opportunity..as well as you can bring in many arguments supporting your case. this discussion took place on elphblog at williams and took me about 2 hours to read. this is not the point. We are talking YIELD RESULTS HERE, and not your personal feelings towards a socioeconomic issue in college admissions, so relax, buddy.</p>

<p>for the other part of your responce:</p>

<p>"I am SO sorry that you are unhappy with Amherst, and it is a natural move to attack the school that you feel hurt you. I hope this helps you vent so you can move on and be happy wherever life leads you."</p>

<ul>
<li>do not degenerate my argument to my personal feelings, thus taking away credence from and ignoring my argumentation</li>
</ul>

<p>"You really are a terrific young person and deserve the very best."
- I don't think you know me</p>

<p>
[quote]
Merely being poor doesn't mean that you are not qualified. Lots of brilliant kids didn't have the counselors that could help or didn't even think about going anywhere because they had no clue regarding FA.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>According to the long article on Marx's plan in Businessweek last year, the low-income admits would in fact be less "qualified" in the statistical sense than the standard Amherst admittee:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973087.htm?chan=search%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973087.htm?chan=search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Does anyone know whether the Marx plan was actually begun this year? I think that it's a great idea but it does look as though the numbers game that is the current rating system (USNWR) could cause some problems for Amherst.</p>

<p>well we got the yield going up...so that's good for USNWR </p>

<p>the plan began with recruitment of transfer students from Community Colleges, but that's just a small part of what's coming</p>

<p>torasee, there were a few things in that article which Dr. Marx believe might have given the wrong impression. His response is [url=<a href="http://www.amherst.edu/%7Ecap/business_week_response.html%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://www.amherst.edu/~cap/business_week_response.html]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;].&lt;/p>

<p>Yield is no longer factored into USNWR rankings.</p>

<p>I know a couple of URMs with 4.0s after 2 years of college in full academic honors programs (and a slew of academic awards to boot) who were not accepted as transfers. So it seems that Amherst didn't need to reach to find URMs who were qualified (and probably didn't accept URMs who are not qualified) to fill the class - as these 2 were certainly qualified - there just wasn't room this year for them as transfers.</p>

<p>I am one of those "low-income recruit" type students. I also had a 2300 SAT, an astounding academic and extracurricular background, and a number of other elite acceptances. Please don't make assumptions. Yes, Amherst is reaching out to low-income students. No, not one of them is "underqualified" (an underqualified student would never gain admittance to Amherst).</p>

<p>Oh I didn't mention that the 2 people I know who were denied at Amherst would also be considered low-income and URMs. Between them they have 3 Ivy acceptances, 1 Ivy wait list, 3 elite LAC acceptances and another college acceptance this year as transfers. 2 Amherst rejections (11 out of 200+ accepted) and 1 Bowdoin rejection (3 out of 200 accepted). </p>

<p>Amherst had its pick of great candidates and limited space, that's it.</p>

<p>"Bringing in more low-income kids would require added compromise. To meet Marx's 25% goal, Amherst would have to take more threes, says Parker, meaning those who may have straight As but SATs as low as 1360. Even though Amherst already does so for minorities, legacies, and athletes, faculty members are worried. "This could be a radical departure that fundamentally changes the character of our institution," warns physics professor David Hall, who heads the Faculty Committee on Admissions & Financial Aid."</p>

<p>If this is not lowering standards I don't know what is!</p>

<p>that business week article was lambasted by president marx for how inaccurate it was and how many liberties it took...for example, a "guess" as to the lower standards amherst would accept for low income students, which was completely fabricated seeing as the school has no intention of comprimising standards in pursuit of low income students.</p>

<p>they simply want to increase efforts to identify and recruit these students as a service to society as a whole.</p>

<p>believe it or not, there are kids whose parents are not wealthy, not even middle class, who are extremely bright and intelligent and DESERVING of the best education available.</p>