<p>Yes and no, I ‘get’ that states have diminished funding to their public universities to the extent that public universities are creeping up their admit rates to full or almost full pay out of state kids and internationals, but on the other hand there is a need for some degree of accountability when instate kids are rejected despite having the academic horsepower. If that means telling a top 10 or 15% kid why they can’t go to their public, than so be it perhaps. It happens in Michigan every year. Granted it pushes kids into other system options increasing their selectivity but to what end? A state educating 30% or more of kids that have no interest in remaining in the state for employment. I would hazard a guess that MSU does a far better job at a very high caliber educating in-state students who stay in-state and contribute back tenfold the miniscule dollars that the state gives the university. Definitely the onus is on state legislatures to decide where their dollars are being spent, but the transparency issues about who is given admittance and who is not is an interesting one. I do feel sorry for people who live in states where are is only one viable option for a selective college experience at a public university.</p>
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The colleges think they are finely tuned enough to admit or reject you-- that’s how they decide now how to admit or reject you. Putting you head in the sand about it doesn’t make it any finer tuned. Don’t you want to know how the college scored you?</p>
<p>No, I don’t need or want to know how a college scored me or my kid. Got in/Didn’t get in is enough. A “score” is useless to for most people because the application is an unrepeatable event.</p>
<p>Only if the “scoring” system will not vary in future years AND if there are well-defined steps that a student can take during a gap year would it be worthwhile to give this kind of information to the failed applicants.</p>
<p>No. Many top public schools receive an ungodly amount of apps. To write an explanation for each of them would be a complete waste.</p>
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<p>Why would they have to write an explanation? When you get your SAT scores in the mail, do you get a long explanation? No, you get three scores and a brochure.</p>
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<p>Not everything needs to solve a problem. Sometimes you do things simply because it’s the right thing to do. If a mission of a uni is to educate the best and brightest in a state, then there is perhaps some moral obligation to explain to an 18 year old why they were rejected while Suzie from NY was accepted. 18 years have an uncanny ability to tell when older adults are talking out of the side of their mouths. Universities can “man up” and be honest with the kids if they are going to reject a high percentage of qualified in-state students because they need to line their coffers with out of state and Intls to offset state funding. But they don’t, so I have little sympathy for the unis. The trade-off for playing chicken with the state legislature is to perhaps have to tell kids why they can’t go there.</p>
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Score cutoffs vary every year for National Merit. Students accept that.</p>
<p>Re " first world problem"
Only about 1/4 of USA residents have a 4 yr college degree, so the " problem" of not having it spelled out why a student was denied admittance to a particular school is not even going to come up for most people.</p>
<p>It seems much more proactive to put the legwork in beforehand to identify schools where they had a good chance of being accepted, but I * do understand* that for students who overestimated their chances re: college admissions and were left with a very limited selection of acceptances, that they would tend to react emotionally and want to have a specific reason why they were rejected.</p>
<p>That wasn’t ever a concern for our family however as our kids were accepted to all the schools they applied.
:)</p>
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<p>Then how would you explain to the applicant why he/she was rejected? Most schools AFAIK do not “score” applicants. It’s a holistic process.</p>
<p>I had a LOT of friends rejected from U of M and a few rejected from MSU. Yes, they were bummed but I don’t recall anyone going around saying things like “WHY ME?!” or wondering why they got rejected. Most knew and understood that some just get rejected. I had a friend who got rejected from MSU with a 32 ACT and a 3.3ish GPA- scores that probably should’ve gotten him in. He didn’t really understand why he got rejected but he certainly didn’t care all that much. He went to a school that accepted him and moved on.</p>
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Students would be better able to identify the schools where they had a good chance of being accepted if they ACTUALLY KNEW what the bar was, instead of the opaque game we have now.</p>
<p>COMPLETELY agree that there should be transparency around the “quotas” of OOS or international students and that residents of a state should understand why the university system needs and wants them. Hopefully educating people beyond the state’s borders is a defensible part of the university system’s mission–or if not the mission, or the policy, should be revised.</p>
<p>I don’t think revealing details of every applicant’s decision is worthwhile, though. Plenty of kids get rejected the first time, go to a non-flagship in the system or community college, and then get in as juniors. Our state guarantees admission the second time around if the student has met a certain grade threshold in the system school or CC. So that’s the remedy right there. The student can’t recreate his or her high school history, but he/she can jump through the hoops to get the desired result after that.</p>
<p>No, as long as applicants are informed of the admission rubric and historical admissions data is accessible–armed with both pieces of informations, applicants can self-score their applications to reasonably assess how competitive they are. (OP, as you cite in the Fisher vs UT thread, this level of transparency exists at UT.)</p>
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<p>It sounds to me like you are looking for a stats-only policy. It’s not as opaque as you say. There are ample data points from previous years, and as in Texas’s case there ARE auto-admits within certain criteria. To bring back Abigail Fisher, there was NOTHING “opaque” about what she needed to do to get into UT. She knew what the requirements were to meet the auto-admit threshold and she failed to achieve them.</p>
<p>No, I think the problem occurs more often in the state flagships that are admitting higher and higher percentages of OSS kids and Internationals to fill perceived gaps in state funding. It’s akin to giving the finger to kids that for all practical purposes should be admitted so it’s not a matter of a kid not “targeting” or over-estimating their ability to be enrolled at the uni…it’s a problem of seats being identified for other kids that fulfill a perceived financial need for a different set of reasons than being in-state and qualified.</p>
<p>^But remember in many states the mission is at the SYSTEM level, not the flagship-only level. Most states seem to be able to offer a four-year degree and a decent if not better education to most of its residents who apply. There are plenty of seats at the “lesser” schools, at least in my state.</p>
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<p>How did you think the holistic process works? They score their applicants in their holistic process. When you pour your heart out in the essay, it gets read and it gets scored.</p>
<p>They score the essay
They score the recs
They score the ECs
They score whether you are a legacy
They score if you are the first in your family to go to college</p>
<p>They add up the points to determine a Personal Achievement Index and plot it against your Academic Achievement Index to make a scatterplot or matrix.</p>
<p>I don’t think so, </p>
<p>THOUGH I am extremely curious why I didn’t get into my state university with a donor parent, yet got into Vandy and Georgetown.</p>
<p>True Sally, but why should a qualified kid have to ‘settle’ for a perceived lesser uni simply because seats are being given to out of state and international kids, that is the point that I find somewhat disturbing and it’s often couched in rhetoric that doesn’t pass my personal “smell test.” You can argue that it strengthens the “system” but I don’t totally buy into that philosophy and perceive it as unis manipulating an existing system for their own financial need. In Michigan, the UofM meets need for in-state kids, MSU does not so not only do the qualified kids that are pushed out of the University of Michigan system end up at the other flagship…it costs them MORE to get pushed out since their need is not met. And there is effectively no state aid like in Georgia and Florida. Who is the “winner” in this outcome - the system. If it was cost neutral, I’d probably have slightly different thoughts.</p>
<p>I hear you. But isn’t it better for universities to develop a more national or international reputation? Using your example of Michigan–the state flagship is extremely prestigious and respected worldwide. Because of its reputation the state benefits from research dollars, business investment, and so on. Do you think the people of Michigan would rather make sure all qualified Michigan kids could attend even if that meant having NO OOS or international students?</p>
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Then the “lesser” schools are off the hook by default, since they have nothing to report about their admissions results.</p>
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It fine if the schools see a need to manage int’l reputation-- that is a valid reason. But don’t the taxpayers deserve to know what they are getting?</p>