<p>As far as the main topic, the HS that my kids attend/have attended does not exhibit admissions frenzy. This public HS has a wide spread between the top and bottom students (on ALL measures), but the high performing kids are quite middle class (by Atlanta standards). Most of them end up at Georgia Tech or UGA because of finances. Many of them are admitted to presitigous schools, but don't receive enough financial aid to compete with the flagship state universities. For this reason, the students and their families here are really quite sane. Thank goodness. On the other hand, I do think that the number of schools to which they apply have increased, for the simple reason that the odds are worse.</p>
<p>atlantamom: I don't think that "undetermined race" means mixed-race. I think it means kids who have declined to identify a race for themselves on their applications. In my experience, mixed-race kids (and lots of us are, to some degree, mixed-race kids) tend to feel identified with one or another race primarily (and are treated by others that way, too), and to check the applicable box on their application forms. (And, of course, one of the choices is Hispanic, which covers an enormous range of racial, ethnic, and cultural territory, so that confuses everything.)</p>
<p>So, why would some one decline to identify a race? Do you think they are caucasian and want to "hide" that? My son had an interview which certainly would have identified him. I am curious what you think.</p>
<p>I believe my S did not identify his race. He did not want to hide it, just thought it should not be a factor (none of anyone's business would be his way of putting it). I also know a Hispanic kid, very wealthy, very highly educated parents, who agonized over what box to check and decided against checking any.</p>
<p>We're at Pomona now, visiting (is it the last minute yet?). They admitted 15.9% of applicants this year, with median SAT: R-750, M-740, w-730, median ACT: 33. Really nice diversity too. Almost 6,000 applicants, a record year.</p>
<p>I just tried to send a response (long) that got lost in transmission. Now, I don't feel like composing the response again. The gist of it was that I hope the admissions staff everywhere looks beyond SAT scores and class rank. I would expect that there will be year-to-year fluctuation in those numbers. Otherwise, why not just take students with the best of those numbers? That is obviously not what is happening. </p>
<p>I agree that selectivity may not be greater, just % accepted lower because of the greater number of applications to multiple schools. I should not have responded to the use of Swarthmore as an example. I think I had a knee-jerk defensive reaction to "the numbers." Shame on me.</p>
<p>
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I hope the admission staff everywhere looks beyond SAT scores and class rank.
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</p>
<p>Guaranteed that they do. In fact, if you could go inside the admission process and know what the institutional goals are for their entering class in terms of recruited athletes, ALANA students, international students, gender balance, in/oos, % admitted ED, maximizing standardized test scores, advantage given to legacies, need to admit full-freight payers and self-help only admits, the process would seem pretty predictable.</p>
<p>I agree with marathonman completely about the process being more predictable than ever...if you have access to the information that he/she posts above. I think some are forgetting just how the nature of the applicant has changed and swelled and this is causing a large part of the unpredicatability. For a national high school graduating class of 3.4mm, there are 340,000 Top 10% scorers. That is a lot of top students, a large number of whom are trying to find their way into selective schools. GPA definitely is not enough of a defining statistic. For the most selective schools, SATs may be better, but still only one data point. For publics, the quantitative measures probably permit greater predictability. The "holistic" approach of privates and their desire to create a class of diverse interests and backgrounds is probably also contributing to the lack of predictability.</p>
<p>"For publics, the quantitative measures probably permit greater predictability".
There are notable exceptions...just look at OOS admits for UVA, W&M, or UNC. We know kids who were accepted to Ivies and rejected from one of these three. Our son, with a great combo of GPA, SATs, class rank and ECs was waitlisted at one of these schools. Very little predictability there. Contrast that with PSU - admissions are based on 2/3 GPA and 1/3 SAT. Easy right? But if you applied late this year (after Sept/Oct) - you may have been waitlisted or deferred to another campus (another surprise for many students).
Somebody said parents and kids should refocus on top 40 - not top 20. Well, we know quite a few rejects/waitlists from BC, Wake Forest, Lehigh, Bucknell. Good students too.<br>
Too many kids...too few spots.</p>
<p>"I hope the admission staff everywhere looks beyond SAT scores and class rank."</p>
<p>Just to clarify that earlier comment. Of course the most selective institutions look beyond. I meant to say that I personally think that there is no difference between SAT scores of 2300 and 2250 or between a class ranking in the 10% decile vs 12%. I hope and believe that many admissions staff do not worry about certain stats, like average SAT score and what % of admitted students were in the "magic" top 10%, to the extent that they consistently choose one student over another on the basis of those numbers. Those numbers are just not meaningful enough for that. That is why I think that at least the top institutions have variability to some extent in those stats. I would not consider a school to be experiencing selectivity deterioration or improvement if the avg SAT scores changed by 30 points or the % of top 10% class rank changed by 10 points. Unfortunately many people do; therefore, the pressure is there to pay inordinate attention to such numbers.</p>
<p>If we do view these numbers as that important, the schools have a whole lot less freedom to pick the "best" class.</p>
<p>As far as predictibility goes, imo there is no way a specific applicant has a better chance of predicting outcome than in the past. With the acceptance percentages what they are now the predictibility is less.</p>
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I agree with marathonman completely about the process being more predictable than ever
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</p>
<p>There are schools like Brigham Young whose readily understood mission creates a self-selected group of applicants. Hence it has a relatively low number of applications, high acceptance rate, and high yield. Shouldn't a predictable process mimic those characteristics? I would think clarity of mission and clarity of process would both tend to create self-selected groups that limit the number of applicants without affecting the quality of the incoming class. Unfortunately many applicants may not have a good understanding of the process so they apply when they really have a minuscule chance of admission. It could also be that the current surge in HS grads is masking any improvement process clarity has made.</p>
<p>At a small non-elite private day school where DS1 graduated last year and DS2 is a sophomore it was a banner year. Graduating class is about 90 students.Top kids are going to:
Williams
Amherst(2)
Middlebury(4)
Haverford(2)
Another is going to Yale and one to Princeton (on a full ride!).
And it didn't go down much from there with others going to Vassar, Mt Holyoke, Kenyon, WUSL etc.
Almost all the kids (and they are a very nice bunch) got their first choice.
It was a nice surprise for the college advisors.</p>
<p>Quite rankly, there is a HUGE difference between the top 2% and those below. Generally, at our school, it isn't a matter of .0001 difference, or so, but as a teacher, I can see the difference. So far, I have predicted (accurately) the val and sal each year. They really do stand out. Sometimes, it is 3-4 that can place, but last year our val had the highest GPA ever, and sal was .8 behind. So saying there is no difference in the top 10% isn't accurate. I wouldn't put most of the top 10% kids in our school up against the top 2% (15 kids).</p>
<p>I think the differences within the top ten percent vary greatly with each school. My oldest two went to a very large public high school where they started with 1,200 freshmen and finished with less than 800 seniors four years later. Although the GPAs might be close, there was a huge difference between #1 and #75 in terms of classes taken, test scores, and desire to apply to four year schools. My youngest two attend a smaller, rural school. Top ten percent cuts between #7 and #8 each year and the difference is negligible. There are about seven students that hang tight in the advanced classes, and generally one or two that have managed to keep very high grades in the regular classes. Then of course you have places in the more metropolitan areas of our state that have 35 4.0s all ranked #1, and #2 will be in the top 11 or 12% with a 3.9. This is where colleges that can use the more holistic approach can at least attempt to decipher the differences.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if that top ten percent cap at 50% for any state university 's freshman admits passed in the Texas Legislature?</p>
<p>Texastaximom- see this link. The house did not approve 10% cap
<a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/4840767.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/4840767.html</a></p>
<p>ejr1,</p>
<p>I suspect your experience reflects your school. What you say would have been true, for example, at my brother's rural high school. Not all schools are the same, however.</p>
<p>At my kids' high school, I think that it is not true at all that there is a significant difference between the top few and everyone else. I have watched (and known) five years of graduating seniors at this high school. The kids in the top 20% are often equivalent in terms of intelligence, talent and creativity. There is no hard and fast "rule" that there is a real difference between the top 10 and the rest, except the grade motivation of many of those at the very top. Although, every year some kids rise to the top because they are just very interested in what they are doing academically and excel because of it, sadly, many of the kids at the very top have watched their grades very closely, most of them from middle school, doing whatever they could to eek out that extra point. Some have gamed the system, making sure that they didn't take the class where the highest grade is usually a 91 and loading up on as many easy extra-point classes as they could. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that there are not plenty of great kids at the very top. I am just saying that not all of them are and that there are plenty of kids in the general top pool, that are "equal" to the others. </p>
<p>The more we look beyond labels and artifical cut-offs, the better information we get. This is very difficult for admissions officials, but
imo, many of them are trying. They aren't always looking for the most competitive kids. They are looking for kids with diverse talents. I think that is why we see so many vals and sals and perfect SAT scorers being skipped over in favor of kids with other things going for them.</p>
<p>I respect your opinion and your personal experience, but I think that there is too much variance between high schools for artificial percentages and rankings to have the importance that some folks attach to them. That is why I dislike rating systems like USNews.</p>
<p>Reply--thanks perfect. There has been no mention in our local paper of any of the ed bills. :(</p>
<p>I don't know what Texas is going to do because the freshmen classes are being squeezed at the flagship campuses, with little room to look at outstanding out of state students or those that fall just below top ten percent but either come from a very small school, or a very tough one, or both. Top ten percent really has not done much for the diversity issue. It has allowed a lot of majority flotsam and jetsam to slip in, at least in the case of our large public school. There are very few minority students in the top ten percent at mega high, but there are many students that end up dropping out of the flagships within two years because they were ill prepared but made the top ten percent. (example students with no physcis, minimum lab sciences, only two years of a foreign language, and a heavily weighted AP system where the AP test takers--if they take them at all--have very low scores.) Again, the candidates vary so greatly from school to school, that not being able to consider other factors and go straight by the ranking is very restrictive.</p>
<p>I did wonder how they would be able to work the cap, it seems like just saying top 5% or 7% get auto admits would fare better. If lawmakers leave it at top 10% then perhaps they should do what California does, and offer admission to one of the public universities, but not guarantee admission to a particular university.</p>
<p>TTMom, the 10% revision is dead. Same-old same-old for two more years. The legislature is over.</p>
<p>"House defeats attempt to dilute top 10% law
Bid fails to let colleges admit half of freshmen based on class rank
08:25 AM CDT on Monday, May 28, 2007"</p>
<p>
Another is going to Yale and one to Princeton (on a full ride!)
roberthhid, what scholarship provided the student with a "full-ride!" to Princeton?</p>
<p>Actually I don't know the name of the scholarship. Family income is about 75K.</p>