No, they’re looking for more than obvious (and deceased, except for McCartney, lol,) geniuses. And yes, they want nice kids, who interact well, join in, see life as more than one’s career, along with their intellectual skills.
Anyone who knows a great number of kids can see that some present this, naturally. And others don’t. WHen staring down a long list of hgih school top performers, a tippy top has the leisure to chose those who best meet the most of their expectations.
Sort of. That’s a very polite, vanilla way to describe a small portion of what they are looking for. The problem is the dishonesty inherent in implying that’s all…
Milee, I’ve worked with poor kids, kids from under-resourced high schools, etc. And one thing that stands out for me is that bright kids are bright, can be found anywhere. The driven low SES kids do find ways to pursue their ambitions. They stand up and take that shot at understanding what those colleges look for. In many cases, they outshine, in their actual efforts.
I feel like this issue of low SES is a challenge thrown up, sometimes at me. As if no poorer kid can possibly have goals, drives, challenge onesself and have successes. That’s not the world I see, both as an individual on CC and one who reads a lot of apps from kids who are in under-advantaged positions and in some of the poorest parts of the country. The whole reason I stand up for them and stand against stereotypes is their glories. These kids don;t get in because someone feels sorry for them.
But when the topic is a tippy top, or even a top, not all kids, rich. middle, or poor, are truly prepared, from the get go. And if the prep, the experiences, and life skills to take on a top college are not there, the best opportunity for some kids is a more gentle college experience.
So, I’d suggest the fact some underserved high schools don’t adequately prepare all their kids is separate from what can make a top college the exact right opportunity for those lower SES who are prepared.
It’s not a secret code to weed out the unfit. What’s that even mean? It should be easier to get into a top college? With 40k apps?
milee, I interviewed for years for my alma mater (Brown, not Harvard, so I recognize that the messaging is different) and I would defy ANYONE to come up with a single piece of evidence that their process was misleading, hypocritical, or patent nonsense.
I would love to see this evidence.
What I learned from my admittedly small role in admissions (and as a volunteer no less):
1- Most students easily grasp that a 10% admission rate (or whatever the number is) means that the odds aren’t good.
2- Most students do NOT understand the corollary- which is that 90% of applicants are going to get rejected.
3- Most students believe that the vast majority of the rejects are unqualified and are stunned to learn that based on their statistics- grades, scores, etc. they are absolutely qualified.
4- Most students blithely ignore any data which suggests they aren’t going to get admitted.
5- There is a lot of wishful thinking and projection which goes on in the admissions process by students, GC’s, parents.
6- Most people (in general) have a hard time understanding what a university is-- and that it’s just as important to admit students who are going to major in Classics (seen as an unpopular, easy major) as it is to major in Computer Science (seen as a popular, hard major). And that a university needs kids who will hang out in the rare book library and archive AND will go to football games AND will play at and attend symphony concerts AND will perform in and attend theatrical performances. Which is why the eternal quest for the “formula” takes up so much time- please, just tell me the six things my application needs to have and I will go quietly off to play the flute, study Latin, win an award for “volunteer of the year”, and submit my novel for publication.
I was never surprised by the admissions results of “my kids” after interview season. I was disappointed a few times but never surprised. And the only time I really went to bat for a kid (as in making myself a total nuisance calling admissions, begging the regional counselor to let me submit extra letters on a kid’s behalf) he was admitted (not because of me, I assure you). But he was both an intellect of an outstanding and unusual caliber, and as a first gen college student had a personal story which could move anyone to tears.
So bring on the evidence for dishonesty. And I know that at least Brown will tell you straight out that it’s worth having 100 sad and angry upper middle class smart kids who are befuddled by their rejection to get that one incredible admit, first Gen, dirt poor brilliant kid. And since those 100 sad upper middle class kids will end up going to a host of fine institutions, it’s not like society loses out.
“challenge thrown up, sometimes at me”
None of this is a personal challenge or argument with you - you are not making the behind the scenes decisions at all these colleges and blessing all the misleading marketing materials. We sometimes fall on opposite sides of this discussion because we view it through our particular filters - you as someone who is inside one of the systems and who sees the good things that happen and believe overall it is a positive system; me as someone who grew up poor, worked my way up the SES ladder and who now is catching glimpses of how things work in the elite schools, at the yacht clubs, in business, in government and is disgusted at how much the deck is stacked to keep the wealthy and connected wealthy and connected. I don’t hate the wealthy - I’m one of them now. But I think many wealthy people or people who are involved in the process and live in the bubble do not understand just how much the bubble excludes others.
And I’m genuinely struggling to figure out if some of these schools truly want to be inclusive but don’t know how or if it really is a somewhat machiavellian scheme to throw the masses a few scraps to misdirect attention while the college does whatever it wants.
In any case, I do not understand why the colleges are secretive or outright dishonest about portions of the process. IMO, they do more potential harm than good. The Harvard lawsuit is a good example. People might not like it if Harvard was forthright about their system that admits mostly athletes and the well-connected, leaving a very few seats for unhooked geniuses, but it would be utterly defensible and the truth. Instead, they have been purposefully dishonest about how much weight athletics, race and connections matter and now when they’re forced to disclose the facts, the show not tell, they look like charlatans.
“It should be easier to get into a top college?”
No, not at all. I’m OK with it being more of a Thunderdome, cage match type thing where the top students (and I mean that holistically, not just top test scores) rise to the top and are selected. My issue is that the current process at most schools claims to elicit and select from the best but in reality does not. Most of the top selectives take a few handfuls of geniuses but the majority of their students from other, favored groups. And a large part of the process is signaling who is one of - or could quickly learn to mingle with - the favored groups.
Let’s stop the posturing and pretending about it and be more open and honest about the process. I’m OK with my kids competing fairly in a game where the rules are known to all. I hate with every fiber of my being my kids competing in a game where only a few kids know all the rules, a few more know there are rules they can discover if they dig and research and the majority don’t even know most of the rules or that there are hidden rules so are playing blind.
Milee- does Harvard hide the fact that they have a football team? Since they don’t, it doesn’t take the cracking of a secret code to realize that they admit kids who can, and have, and will, play football. Does Harvard hide the fact that they have a department of Near Eastern Studies, and therefore, a kid who taught him/herself to read Akkadian and worked as a volunteer on a dig outside of Istanbul last summer, funded by working at a fast food restaurant all year, might just have the slightest edge over your typical kid from Atherton who logged 50 hours volunteering at an animal shelter and created an App to remind people when to walk the dog, and wants to study computer science?
What secret code? There is NOWHERE where any of the “hard to get into” colleges state “get good grades and high scores and we will want you.” Nowhere.
But this is America, and that nice kid from Atherton can go to any one of 50 colleges and have a great experience. And a reading of the course catalog at any single college ought to tell a kid (or parent) with reasonable reading comprehension that the college IS NOT just looking for kids who will likely populate the three most popular majors,and will get good use out of the university tennis courts.
Yacht clubs? Don’t folks realize most wealthy, elite-eduated kids make no more sense on their apps than anyone else? Blossom referred to the 90% who don’t get in. Too many kids past first cut still can’t present well. And that’s kids with the usual CC superficials, stats, rigor, some good ECs, etc.
Many on CC blatantly overestimate the “power” of the rich parent and behind the scenes machinations.
Don’t assume it’s Machiavellian. The effort to be inclusive is defied not by ignorance (at the colleges.) Rather, it’s that, in the end, kids matriculate at various colleges for various reasons. When you see class stats, you’re usually only seeing who enrolled. The proofs aren’t in that. It’s in the sorts of academic supports offered, encouraged, the fact that these top schools often have staff assigned to check in with profs and students to see if the student needs a proactive contact, and more. The level of support helping kids choose classes, rebound, and get linked with opportunities, research, internships and more. Summer or break housing. At the two colleges where I’ve worked, it’s a commitment. And they get the graduation stats for these efforts.
Btw, how secretive it is really, when you know about 200 athetes get a boost at H? When H has long stated they admit about 2-300 Bright Minds, it’s there if you google various sources, including Fitzsimmons, himself. Why assume race is a determinitive, that these kids otherwise don’t qualify annd it’s just some sham?
Anyway, this is the show not tell thread. For a top college, kids need to show more readiness than just stats and rigor, some hs titles. They need to think deeper than “crapshoot” or “dishonest.” How hard is it to look a little deeper, really? How any people even try? Believe me, this is NOT about marketing materials, the sort of kids who stop there.
“No, they’re looking for more than obvious (and deceased, except for McCartney, lol,) geniuses. And yes, they want nice kids, who interact well, join in, see life as more than one’s career, along with their intellectual skills.”
You keep digging a hole with this, the most popular major at the ivies is economics, the most popular destinations after graduation are jobs in investment banking and consulting, where the exclusive focus is on making money and building a career, not contributing to the common good. And IBs and consultants do not have the best interpersonal skills and are not known for working well with each other. Professors at the ivies have said these kids are just going through the motions, waiting to graduate and get the money.
@Blossom - completely agree with your bullet points. I see the same doing Cornell alumni meetings. (Cornell abandoned calling them “interviews”).
Again, looking at the results does not explain the attributes these colleges want to see you show. The fact some kids go off to IB does NOT mean the colleges are looking for kids who want wealthy careers. Bet you didn’t know that, in an app, over-emphasis on career goals can be an issue for one of these eholistic colleges that focuses on the four years.
How do you even assume folks in an intense post-grad career can’t have been relatively normal college kids?
What profs said that?
“Don’t folks realize most wealthy, elite-eduated kids make no more sense on their apps than anyone else?”
And how the heck would folks realize that? They don’t see the apps of those kids, they only see that the top colleges are populated mostly by those kids, which implies those kids’ apps must have something appealing on them.
Show not tell. If most wealthy, elite educated kids make no more sense on their apps than anyone else, why are they the majority of kids admitted and attending these schools? Hmmmm…
“Yacht clubs? Don’t folks realize most wealthy, elite-eduated kids make no more sense on their apps than anyone else?”
The numbers don’t support you on this:
From the Crimson:
“Harvard had the eighth largest proportion of students from the top 1 percent, with 15.1 percent of its undergraduates coming from households making over $630,000 per year.” The median family income for Harvard undergraduates is $168,800—more than three times the national median, according to a recent study.
And here’s the shocker, “Harvard’s median family income was the third-lowest in the Ivy League: Brown, with a $204,200 median family income, ranked first. The national median household income in 2015 was $55,775, according to Census data.”
Translation - you need to be wealthy to attend the ivies, if you’re not, you better have a real hook to be admitted to get their FA.
Please, do not argue that wealth is not included when adcoms make decisions, or is is it just random that wealth seems to be present at the ivies.
“Bet you didn’t know that, in an app, over-emphasis on career goals can be an issue for one of these eholistic colleges that focuses on the four years.”
This is a great example of the secret code or signaling that is used. Kids of families who already are “in the know” understand that it’s considered tacky to talk about money. It’s part of the code. Instead they talk about their community service or making a difference in order to be admitted, but then still get their economics degree once in. A few other kids who are lucky enough to attend schools or be in a region that the AOs visit might also have picked up on this if they’d been in a particular meeting or been looking in a certain way when an AO made a statement. For example, of the couple dozen AO talks my son attended only once did this subject get hinted at - an AO made a derogatory statement about the “high finance wanna bes” rolling her eyes. My son happened to be looking at her when she did this and put together the clues that when he applied to this selective college, it would be a faux pas to mention career goals (and this was important because this person does the first read of applicants from this region) but if he hadn’t been at that meeting or been talking to her when she said this it would have been easy to miss this clue. Lucky for my son - and he incorporated that knowledge in how he structured his app and describing some of his ECs - but unlucky for the thousands of other students who are just as smart and special as my son but who weren’t in that meeting that day. This is the exact type of secrecy that excludes poor/disadvantaged kids and it’s wrong.
Milee, you may have proved my point. People assume based on superficials but still claim the colleges are dishonest or manipulative. If you don’t see their apps, you don’t know why that kid, wealthy or minority or poor, did get in. You don’t know if it was qualifications- or something more devious and exclusionary.
Frankly, you don’t even know the proportion of wealthier who do apply, how that factors. Some tend to think that, wow, there are a lot of rich kids, being rich must be the determining factor. You dig your own hole.
And btw, that;s not the sot of thinking H is looking for.
But how did this turn into a ssurrogate thread about how H is some big bully?
“2- Most students do NOT understand the corollary- which is that 90% of applicants are going to get rejected.
3- Most students believe that the vast majority of the rejects are unqualified and are stunned to learn that based on their statistics- grades, scores, etc. they are absolutely qualified.
4- Most students blithely ignore any data which suggests they aren’t going to get admitted.”
Agree with all this, good post. Even if you told them that the chances are 1 in a 1000 after hooks, athletes, development admits, they will think they’re the one.
"Some tend to think that, wow, there are a lot of rich kids, being rich must be the determining factor.:
It’s not the determining factor, but it’s a factor. Do you look at the data that says 70% of Harvard students are in the top 20% income bracket, 15% are in the top 1%, 4.5% are in the bottom 20% and say that’s random? And random across all the ivies and other private selective schools like it?
I look forward to the day when Harvard shares the information about the percentages of applicants from families at each economic level and the percentages of admits of applicants from each economic level. Similarly, I look forward to seeing genetically engineered pigs fly.
It seems to me to be a question relevant to the topic of the thread: If a student thinks that he/she might possibly be one of the “Bright Minds” that Harvard is looking for, and crafts an application to enhance the chances in that direction (something that I would know how to advise a student to do, all joking aside), has the student basically torpedoed him/herself if it turns out that Harvard just sees an academic “2” there?
Also I am curious whether anyone else’s son or daughter wrote an essay directed at one of the top schools (not “I love Yalevardton,” but rather written based on the between-the-lines cues) and had it work for a different top school?
Thelonius, agree that the 1/1000 would hold just as well.
An acquaintance of mine bemoaned the fact that her son (double legacy to one of the HYP’s; AND generous and well-to-do but not endowing a lab anytime soon- so your average upper middle class kid, not uber wealthy) was rejected from this double legacy school. They were so upset they got the guidance counselor to paraphrase the HS teacher’s recommendations.
Turns out the likely well-meaning HS teacher wrote, “Little Johnny is so smart and gifted that he slept through my history class and STILL got an A based on his papers and exams”. And the second teacher took a different tack- but also noted how clever Johnny was at phoning it in, week after week.
OK. HYP doesn’t want kids who sleep through their classes. Gotta put that in the marketing materials, right? Gotta make sure that everyone- the upper middle class kids AND the uber wealthy kids AND the middle class kids AND the lower SES kids understand that sleeping through classes for your junior year is not a power move.
Really?
“And btw, that;s not the sot of thinking H is looking for.”
This is part of the fundamental disconnect, though. Students are supposed to show not tell. Harvard is showing through its admissions what is important to it - wealthy, connected, athletic - while telling something else.
And Harvard isn’t the big baddie here, it’s just one that is being used as an example here because there is some actual data available thanks to the recent lawsuit. So we’re actually able to take a peek at what Harvard is showing for a change instead of having to guess based on what it’s telling.
" looking at the results does not explain the attributes these colleges want to see you show. "
But it does expose what those colleges are showing. It’s a far cry from what they are telling. Hypocrisy.