<p>You wrote: “I don’t know whether it’s because I picked their most popular major, or low CR/W SAT scores, my B’s in English, and bad essays deem me unworthy of attending”.</p>
<p>The answer is: all of the above.</p>
<p>It is true that a college that is looking for a reason to turn down an applicant only needs one reason – but if the colleges were required to list reasons for applicants, then it would be in their interest to list every single deficiency they identified in the application. Why? So they don’t have rejected applicants calling up to argue the point.</p>
<p>I can imagine an environment in which the college rejection came with a checklist that looked something like a bad report card. Maybe the college will even find some reasons that you don’t know about. </p>
<p>But the point is, you clearly applied to a reach college. (No one applies to a safety “just to see” if they are good enough). So from the start, you could assume that you would probably be rejected. The college didn’t need any reasons to reject you; they needed a reason to accept you.</p>
<p>They probably sent you a vaguely worded email about all of the qualified applicants they got,etc. But it all comes down to the same thing: you weren’t as good, in their eyes, as the applicants they decided to accept. </p>
<p>Put it this way: my daughter was accepted to multiple reach colleges. Even though they accepted her, I could easily draw up a list of reasons why they could have rejected her. The only thing that would have been questionable in my mind would have been if a safety school had rejected her. If a student is rejected from a safety that he/she really wants to attend, then I think that student should call the admissions office and ask why.</p>
<p>Because in all this discussion about “transparency” I think everyone has ignored the fact that it is possible to make that call, and often the student will be given that information. For non-selective state publics – the type that are theoretically open to all qualified applicants – the reason typically comes down to lack of space – but sometimes it could be due to a mistake in the record.</p>
<p>Transparency is about being open about the RESULTS. </p>
<p>It’s easy for institutions to publish rules. Without any information about the results, how does anyone know whether the rules are being followed? </p>
<p>University of Illinois had lots of admission rules, but they were not being followed.</p>
<p>If public universities are ALREADY scoring applicants on their Personal Achievement and Academic Achievement, then what is the justifiction for not reporting the scores to the applicant?</p>
<p>But the experience of competitive students at elite private universities suggests this is not the case. They DO know how they will fare–in many cases, with a 90%-plus chance of rejection–and yet year after year they try the same things their older classmates have done.</p>
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<p>It is a bit strange to me too, until I view it through the lens of frustrated parents who are angry that their very bright kids are not getting into their home-state flagship at the expense of foreign or out-of-state students. Back in the day, being a smart, high-achieving kid from anywhere in a state was enough to get you into your flagship. Now, that’s not the case. Having said that, I think their anger is misdirected and should be aimed at the policies of the institution that have made the in-state pool smaller–not at the adcoms who don’t see their snowflakes as being that special.</p>
<p>I do think aggregate transparency is fine. I object to states wasting their money on individual communications to rejected students. Most schools require students to create accounts to receive admissions information everywhere. If their “dot” on a scatterplot could be posted after all the admissions decisions are made, I guess I don’t have a problem with that. I just hope it doesn’t open the floodgates to frivolous litigation on behalf of the rejected kids…</p>
<p>I think people romanticize public university admissions. First and foremost it should not be about institutional self-interest which to some extent “holistic” admissions is used for. It may be couched in terms of diversity but it is my belief that it is first and foremost self interest. Transparency in admissions allows the public to be part of the process of selection, afterall unlike a job, students PAY to request admittance and will be paying for the privilege of attendance. In a job hiring situation, the company is selecting and paying the employee - not the other way around. Net price calculators have become the norm with very little argument from the public. Public universities also receive federal as well as state funding dollars.</p>
<p>Well results are published in the CDS, second link. How many of the incoming class did have X scores and X GPA. However, their stated criteria aren’t rules by any standard, they basically said academic achievement is most important and then listed like 10 other things they take into account. They didn’t say “GPA/SAT is worth 50% of our “formula” and being from Montana gets you 5% and being a recruited athlete in football gets you 40% but in swimming only 20% etc etc etc”.</p>
<p>They basically said they want the smartest kids they can get and kids who are “smart enough” but bring something else to the table.</p>
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<p>I know why this parent looks at it - it’s useful to know if a kid’s GPA and test scores *from this high school * make a school a likely or unlikely admit.</p>
<p>I don’t think the CDS is either sufficient or necessarily accurate for non-stats detail, for the softer elements. And, I think the proponents of transparency are asking for definitions and examples, not the names of categories. What stymies me is, if across CC, folks can’t understand, how will this detail magically satisfy the public?</p>
<p>And, I do not think the Texas x% rule is completely fair, considering there is not standardization in how rank is determined.</p>
<p>But that really says nothing about how the students were selected or if the selection was fair and equitable which public education should be. But my “guess” is that it is not, that is far greater “self serving” than “public serving.” I could be wrong, but then again, we have very little data transparency for public universities.</p>
<p>Any time there are more applicants than slots, someone will be bumped. In practical terms, knowing your score, what the cutoff was, this year, and that, say, your essay didn’t reflect maturity and a flexible perspective-- still doesn’t educate you to how yours didn’t get max score, what was missing or what would have been better. No margin notes. </p>
<p>Again, public accountability isn’t achieved through informing individual students of some minimum info. It’s in educating the oversight committee and using a range of samples of applications to show how various are rated, among the several categories.</p>
<p>Ironically, it’s difficult for me to really latch on to this thread, being from Texas. Here, I guess it’s pretty simple because the criteria for being an auto admit are pretty clearly defined for all. Review slots for highly competitive schools are few. So…you just need to really do your best to be an auto admit.</p>
<p>My response to someone who says, “Why didn’t I get into UT?” is “Well, you weren’t in the top 8%.”</p>
<p>“Why didn’t I get into A&M?”, “Well, you weren’t in the top 10% or you didn’t score highly enough on your testing and missed the top 25%.”</p>
<p>“Why didn’t I get into Awesome Regional College?” “Well, you didn’t study for your SAT, OR, you really are better suited for trade school.”</p>
<p>I really completely don’t get what the proponents of “transparency” are after here, particularly when such selections are comparative and not quantitative - which is a sensible approach. It is sounding a lot more like the bizarre first-world entitlement phenom (tell our precious snowflakes why they weren’t selected!) than anything particularly meaningful or productive.</p>
<p>(Kind of like “But why are you breaking up with me” or “Why won’t you go out with me?” – How often has THAT ever helped ;)</p>
<p>Generally, schools are entitled to determine their own class makeups and balance their admits however they like (within the parameters of the law). </p>
<p>To suggest, for example, that University of Michigan is not entitled to its holistic assessment (the detailed criteria of which is published, BTW, so you can pretty much self-assess whether you’d be a High Admit, a Recommended Admit, and Admit with Reserve etc…) is pretty much crap. I am a taxpayer of Michigan and am acutely aware that our legislature has only actually funded SEVEN percent of annual operations at UMich. </p>
<p>SO HOW MANY COMPANIES LET A 7% SHAREHOLDER/INVESTOR MAKE THE RULES?</p>
<p>In the case of UMich, I’m entirely grateful that the entity is clever enough and beloved enough to fund its gargantuan operations independently of state funding And yes, that means relying on a proportion of OOS students and a loyal alumni for endowment.</p>
<p>To entrench some kind of individualized, regulatory selection criteria reporting in addition to the existent and time consuming reporting the schools ALREADY do just seems like more bureaucratic bloat to no particular good end where something more akin to an ad hoc investigation where allegations are made would seem to make the most sense.</p>
<p>I am curious to know from individual posters’ on this thread, what their personal reasons are for objecting to the disclosure of more information from public universities.</p>
<p>Additional bureaucracy and expense are not salient reasons; the applications are scored regardless of whether they are disclosed, so the work is already done. Public entities are entitled to charge for the full cost of reproducing documents, so expense is not in issue. They can require applicants to pay an additional $amount if they want their evaluation.</p>
<p>Fear of litigation is a red herring. First, because any university operating in a manner that causes it to fear disclosure is exactly the university that ought to be examined. Second, because applicants can sue universities already without the disclosure, although it is more difficult for them to do so. And third, it is expensive and next to impossible to file a lawsuit against a public entity for no reason. Plaintiffs suing for no reason must first go through the motions of exhausting all administrative remedies, which involves filing an appeal/going through a grievance procedure, then filing a claim which must be reviewed and denied, then filing the lawsuit which must withstand motions to have it summarily dismissed for being frivolous. If the lawsuit is legitimate, then why would you not support it being brought?</p>
<p>So setting aside those two reasons, why would any resident of a state <em>not</em> want to require its public university to provide the maximum information to its residents and applicants as possible?</p>
<p>To the original posted question, I see no benefit in requiring public universities to reveal why they rejected a given candidate.</p>
<p>However, I do see some benefit in providing meaningful information on how candidates are determined to be acceptable. Not the “Very Important, Important, Considered, etc.” rubric of the CDS (which I sometimes suspect are not quite truthful), but more along the lines of a disclosed “point system” where you know that 800 CR is worth X and 725 CR is worth Y. I strongly suspect that most universities rely heavily on the test scores and GPA to make the vast volume of their decisions without even looking at recommendations or essays, for instance, and would expect that such a disclosed point system would make the combination of scores and GPA well over 50% of the decision-making point possible. How much is being a recruited athlete worth, or a athlete who is not recruited but intends to try out for the sport? Maybe the need for financial aid is a negative score. There are innumerable categories that could be published along with a guideline that says that a total score of XXX will assuredly get you admission, between XXX and YYY may get you and admission, and below YYY you are not going to get in. And perhaps each year the school discloses that the cut-off was YXA (and I suppose that a rejection letter could give the applicant their total score).</p>
<p>But public universities do not want to disclose the “wiggle room” that they have given themselves for the admissions that are beyond automatic (or no-brainer) admits. They want to maintain their social engineering or they want to take OOS (or even better, internationals) who are full-pay to provide financial aid for IS students. Do you really think that the public universities are combing through the piles of non-automatic accept applications looking for diamonds in the rough? The more marginal the student’s academic scores, the more likely the admins are looking for another full-pay or the racial favorite du jour. I think it would be useful to know that being full-pay can make up for M points on your academic index or that wanting to be a “walk-on” in your sport may give you J points. The problem is that a public university can’t legally give points based on your race or gender.</p>
<p>A page back OHmom2 posted Ohio State CDS information. It had the usual CDS data, including SAT and ACT score ranges. What struck me was that 1% of the students scored less than 400 in the CR SAT and also 1% (not necessarily the same) scored less than 400 on the Writing portion. If I was a student who scored 600 or CR or W and was rejected, I would sure want to know what was so magic about the sub-400 students to warrant admission? Even if I were only a taxpayer, I would be really curious about how such poorly qualified students could be admitted to the state flagship.</p>
<p>Less than 400 on CR SAT? Probably a highly recruited athlete. Frankly, if so, that student may be bringing more to Ohio State than the average 600 SAT kid.</p>
<p>Bay, for me, the question should go the other way. You cannot have a new requirement without added expense. It just never works that way. </p>
<p>You are now doing something you didn’t do before. You will need resources to do this new task. Time, people, communication, etc. It’s easy for someone sitting outside the process to say it will not cost, but the truth is that it always does.</p>
<p>So I ask the other question. Because change just for the sake of change is fruitless. And new REQUIREMENTS should require a valid reason.</p>
<p>Except that it is 1 percent of the freshman population of approximately 10,100 full-time students and 3,200 part-time students. That means between 101 and 133 students who scored less than 400 of CR. Just guessing, but that’s probably more than just the football team freshman.</p>
<p>Well, not sure,Hat, but maybe 1% is the least % they can report, even if the numbers are actually less than 1%. Even so, it is a fairly small amount in the scheme of things.</p>
<p>Cross posted with barrons about the 1% issue. And I agree, let the pros handle it.</p>
<p>Bay. If I don’t tell you what you want to know, I must be hiding something wrong?<br>
Ok, your score is 5/6. Now what?<br>
Or, your score is 5/6 and the weak spot was your essay. Now what?<br>
Is the process now fair?</p>
<p>Ok, your score was 5/6 and the weak spot was activities, which did not reflect commitment over time. Now what?
(And, what if you think joining a walkathon, 2 years in a row, IS commitment over time?)</p>
<p>Or, if the process of assessing essays and activities, etc, is revealed to an oversight group, they come to understand what is expected, how kids’ components are evaluated, they dither over a few things and come to agreement- would that be actual “oversight?”</p>
And yes, that means relying on a proportion of OOS students and a loyal alumni for endowment.</p>