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<p>POIH, do you have any evidence that the hooked applicant is not MORE qualified than the non-hooked applicant? Didn’t think so.</p>
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<p>And you know that the non-hooked applicant is more accomplished than Legacy A or Legacy B HOW? You keep insinuating that ANYBODY with ANY hook is not as deserving, and it is down right insulting, not to mention ridiculous.</p>
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<p>That sounds like a Sherlock Holmes mystery or a Perry Mason episode.</p>
<p>Agreed GA2- So many bashers assume the hooked kids are not as qualified. Let them read through Ivy League team rosters and see how many NMFs, Presidential Scholars, & AP Scholars there are. Plus they can set state records, throw passes, pitch no-hitters and row fast 2Ks. </p>
<p>It is why, as seniors, athletes often are hired by the finance and consulting firms. As one recruiter recently said, we like athletes because if they experience failure they can cope and move-on, they don’t fall apart.</p>
<p>ParentOfIvyHope – I’m not trying to make you a daemon and I’m aware that you’re taking a lot of abuse.</p>
<p>You say you want to help us, let us help you. Have you ever questioned whether it is worth it to aspire to the Ivys? I get that for some kids it comes naturally. The Olympiads is something they would participate in without a goal of an Ivy admission at the end of the road. It is how they operate, it is at a high level.</p>
<p>What I have a problem with is tailoring a high school career with the thought of getting into an Ivy. I don’t think that is worth it. I think a kid should be the best student they can be and participate in the extra-curriculars they enjoy. For most kids that isn’t a ticket to the Ivys and so what? There are so many great schools they can go to that are a better fit for them anyways.</p>
<p>marite said:
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<p>^^^Yup. Exactly what happened at our house. He wanted Chicago’s strong theoretical math grounding for UG vs. Mudd or MIT math/CS, which are a bit more applied. For someone who comes into college with a clear focus and significant in-depth study, the college decision may look odd to the outside observer, but in actuality reflects considered evaluations of the strengths and weaknesses of the various schools’ departments.</p>
<p>This was how it shook out for S1.</p>
<p>To POIH, I really think you (and most posters on CC) are WAY overestimating the impact of hooks. I had a 34 ACT, was number 13 out of like 500, did research on quantum mechanics, was captain of my debate team (the #5 in the state of Texas), played trumpet, was a linebacker for the football team and an officer in two clubs. And had several awards in every thing that I did, but I still got rejected from Harvard and Princeton. So hooks obviously only get you so far.</p>
<p>Nicely put, Dbate. That was what I was trying to convey with the story about my son’s URM classmate. By the same token, some of his legacy+URM friends were also stellar and I would defy anyone to argue that only their hooks got them into their schools. Congrats to you, by the way!</p>
<p>Countingdown: This is precisely why I am so against POIH’s notion that only “Ivy+” are worth considering as top schools.</p>
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<p>Once again, this thread is not about the merit of aspiring to the Ivies or the elite schools in general. It is about building the profiles or “Ivy caliber” students. I think it is actually good to have folks focus on different strata of “Ivy caliber”. I sense many posters here are interested in the profiles of students who have good chances of being admitted to a tippy-top. This is what I started this thread with. Then there are a few who are interested in building the profiles of students who should be admitted to either all tippy-tops or a particular elite college. I’m increasingly interested in the latter too. In fact, that’s why I talked about the “overlap” profile with the 12 criteria upthread.</p>
<p>We should just let each group have its fun. To each his own, right? I think we can work on this problem a lot more efficiently via divide-and-conquer ;).</p>
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<p>I know and I don’t mean to be insensitive to that. But when one reads about the extraordinary accomplishments a high school student must have acheived, and I’m not the one who suggested they cure cancer, it becomes pretty hard to not ask yourself if it is worth it. It’s like the elephant in the middle of the room that no one mentions. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>We are maneuvering around two core issues on this thread, neither of which has anything to do with the original title of the thread (what is the profile of an Ivy-caliber student) or where it inexorably went (please help me devise a model to increase Ivy acceptance so that I can optimize my kid’s education to meet the only worthwhile goal of college: Ivy acceptance):</p>
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<li>Ivy admissions remains a black box that routinely produces confounding results, and there is no way anyone can gather data needed to devise a model that will significantly increase chances; for example, you can look at the matriculation data for a particular high school; that data set excludes almost all admissions data, and the schools aren’t telling; more discussion of other confounders here is met with . . . argument?</li>
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<p>pretend away, if you will, at this “chance my model for an Ivy” game</p>
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<li>Optimizing a student for Ivy admissions is morally questionable behavior by a parent, since it’s NOT based on the student; that’s the source of the reaction against POIH; that parent appears to be primarily interested in fitting the student to the school, not school to student. Too bad one of the Ivies isn’t named “University of Procrustea”; that’d be a perfect fit.<br></li>
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<p>Kei</p>
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<p>Why such conclusion? The profiles help parents and students in many ways. For one thing, applicants can use the info to create a more targeted college list. Why waste time if I’m clearly not the type? Or, oh, I didn’t know I have a good shot…</p>
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<p>Same as above - we are not necessarily looking at increasing chances. Some still believes we can build a reasonable set of profiles. I think this exercise can be fun and interesting, even if it is just an intellectual exercise.</p>
<p>re post #401 “lose on acceptances to Stanford to many schools [huh?] only because of this hooked Legacy or URM status.”
Sigh…Once again you are making assumptions, and then declaring them as FACTS, as if you alone are the only one who has ALL the information. But be that as it may be, the other factor to keep in mind, is that local HS’s close to Stanford have many Stanford faculty kids attending. Those kids are more likely than almost any others “tips” to get a “finger on the scale” when it comes to acceptances at Stanford, not only because of the faculty connection, but because they too, are often very smart. So they very well may be just as qualified as a non- faculty applicants, but obviously Stanford wants to keep it’s faculty members happy. </p>
<p>It becomes impossible to tease apart or separate all the various factors in trying to compare why one candidate who lives near a college and many or may not have some sort of “tip” was accepted and another wasn’t. This continued attempt to “micro analyze” acceptance patterns is a waste of time, imho.</p>
<p>“Ivy admissions remains a black box that routinely produces confounding results, and there is no way anyone can gather data needed to devise a model that will significantly increase chances”
agreed</p>
<p>PaperChaserPop–the gentleman doth protest too much. In the last few weeks you have posted that your son’s GPA took a hit because of a bad grade in gym; that he won various awards or placed in various contests all of which should/could be hooks which would mitigate his grades; you have started multiple threads asking where high scoring/below 3.8 GPA kids end up in college.</p>
<p>I find it tough to believe that your motivation is intellectual inquiry. You devote far too much time trying to parse the tea leaves of your son’s profile (and posting way too much personal information in the process) to allow any of us to really go along with the “not necessarily looking at increasing chances”.</p>
<p>So folks like POIH go along, since you play into their greatest anxieties as well (i.e. that if their kid is neither a legacy nor a significant development case, helmet athlete, URM, geographically desirable-- pick your poison) that they are destined to attend the University of Lost Chances along with the other 3.4 GPA/high scoring kids in America.</p>
<p>Some of us are just pointing out that all of this focus on building an algorithm is neither predictive nor helpful. Better spend the time enjoying your kid before he moves out than trying to game the system.</p>
<p>My opinion only of course. Have at your intellectual exercise if it brings you joy.</p>
<p>blossom, when I first discovered CC, I was very interested in how high S1 can reach and I started multiple threads before I learned how to be more efficient with my questions. </p>
<p>Yes. I learned that I need to be careful with personal stats along the way. It was difficult at times for me to discern how much to reveal and still be helpful, and I may have erred on the wrong side more than a few times. Guilty as charged.</p>
<p>S1 is all set with his apps since the mid-term reports were sent two weeks ago, and now we are just waiting for the results. Even if I want to I don’t think I can apply what I learned here to make an iota of difference in his outcome. As I said before, maybe I can help my other youngsters with what I learned here.</p>
<p>I have read through all of the post, and PCP I think the part that you are not getting is that there really is no real “profile” of “Ivy Caliber” student. Are they smart kids, yes, but you will find a lot of smart kids in the Honors and non-honors programs at the local state U. It not about whether they attended a particular private school because about 65% of them admitted students hail from public school. </p>
<p>Selective schools also operate on the premise of to those whom have much been given, much is required. So if the school were to choose between a student who has been given every opportunity their parent’s money can buy ; a house in a good school district, homes where one or both parents are college educated and instill the value of a college education early on, access to test prep, travel, certain ec’s and a student with little or modest means and has managed the close to the equivalent of feeding the multitude wth 5 loaves and 2 fishes, guess what student is going to be accepted?</p>
<p>Colleges look to build a community of learners . It is just as important to the college to have a kid from Exeter as it is to have a kid from Rural East Podunk High. A few years ago there was a young woman poster who worked on the family’s roadside vegetable stand who was accepted to Colgate, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Hamilton, Harvard, and Princeton (she is probably now a senior at Princeton). There is much to be learned from the people who may be sitting on level 4 of maslow’s heirarchy as well those who who may not have gotten pass level 2.</p>
<p>We must remember that the college admissions process is never going to place everyone on equal footing as there will always be hooked applicants in the admissions process (legacies, developmental admits, URMs, athletes, celebrities, etc) and schools build their community of learners differently. Colleges look to admit flesh and blood people who can function both in and outside of the classroom. A varsity athlete will bring skill sets to the table such as motivation, team work and working collaboratively with others; all which are important as the lone soilder who gets an Intel. Campuses wants scientists, musicians, dancers, athletes, debaters, good deed doers, and athletes because the world as a whole has all of these people licing in it.</p>
<p>I am going to recommend that you read the linked artlice, the recipie for success, about how the admission committee at Williams tires to balance the scores of priorities from the campus community. (they admit that the process is not purely based on numbers). Their process is really no different than that of their peer as elite colleges who are trying to craft a community of learners.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.williams.edu/alumni/alumnireview/fall05/recipe.pdf[/url]”>http://www.williams.edu/alumni/alumnireview/fall05/recipe.pdf</a></p>
<p>In defence of POIH</p>
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<p>PCP, you do see that your questions here-- motivated by your striving to see, as you put it, “how high” your S can go–betrays your bias? You seem to value “how high” so much that you spend hours and hours on cc trying to improve your game. Some of us get irritated with the underlying anxiety here which buys into the status-ization of college, where kids (and their parents) define their own worth by a Ranking number–hence, aiming “high”.</p>
<p>When posters point out that an “Ivy” is not an interchangeable quantity, and that other top universities often offer equal quality educations, you agree cheerfully here, but you aren’t listening. You should.</p>
<p>When kids pick up how important it is to their parents that the kid get into prestige college A, rather than best department in their major college B, they feel your disappointment in them, no matter how much you tell them you don’t care. You care pretty darn much, and they see how much time you spend obsessing on it. </p>
<p>All these pages later, I still don’t think you are being honest here, PCP.</p>
<p>Kelowna:</p>
<p>Your cut and paste is misleading. If I were Dbate, I would take offense. The actual sequence of quotes is as follows:</p>
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<p>Dbate is saying that he tailored his APPLICATION to the suggestions by Hernandez; he is not saying that he tailored his “high school CAREER with the thought of getting into an Ivy.”</p>
<p>For the record, my S’s application was about math, math and more math. And we did not even read Hernandez’ book.</p>
<p>^^ you are right Marite, now that I am re-reading it…sorry.</p>
<p>But I am angry when people are picking on someone who is trying to be honest just because our views “do not match” so to speak.</p>
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Strong words. I was not trying to be mean</p>
<p>MPM:</p>
<p>Just for the record, I think that being a facbrat is a far stronger hook than being a legacy, a URM, or almost any other kind of hook. In fact, at some schools (not top tier), it used to be practically an automatic admission with free tuition to boot. It may still be. One Ivy prof once told me that her university was her child’s “safety”. She was only half joking.</p>