What should be (or not be) in this year's Chance Me template

[ucbalumnus]

@AustenNut

Barring an auto-admit/guaranteed admit, nothing is certain.

Lots of posters do have auto-admit (for their stats) schools on their lists.

[tamagotchi]

A poster may also already have an admission in hand for some schools on the list (Pitt, etc), while they are still working on the rest of the list.

[me29034]

That categorization only works for top students. My son, an average student, had two reaches where his stats were below 25% but the schools had acceptance rates in the 50% range.

[tamagotchi]

Sorry if my post was unclear. I’m not suggesting that CC should use the system used by our HS counselors. I was primarily giving a data point about the use of the term “Match” to imply more likely than not, in response to @AustenNut.

[circuitrider]

@mynameiswhatever

More generally and in terms of the responses CCers make, is the Harvard litigation dispositive of the “Asian penalty” for all top schools? Are we able to make that conclusion?

That was my concern, too. Reposting here what I wrote on the other thread:

I’m beginning to question the wisdom of eliminating the race/ethnicity box for Chance Me threads. I mean, why should the 100 or so other rejective colleges and universities in the country be penalized because of alleged racism at one university?

A generation ago, all non-whites were considered one big “diversity” bucket at Wesleyan. And the evidence that it may still be true is that Asians and Asian Americans are still included when calculating the total student of color (SOC) enrollment:
Facts & Figures, For the Media, University Communications - Wesleyan University

What school wouldn’t want more full-pay, high stat students who also make them look good on their non-white enrollment? Might we consider that Harvard is the outlier and just move on?

[tkoparent]

Although I came into this discussion feeling it might be better to eliminate the “Gender/Race/Ethnicity” line, I am persuaded by your logic. However, it would still be better if we could find a way to get beyond the overly broad “Asian” label. As @mynameiswhatever summarized the questions that kicked off this whole discussion, ". . . I asked, in effect, a two-part question: (1) Isn’t the term “Asian” far too broad to be meaningful; and (2) are we sure that being pigeon-holed into an apparent “Asian” bucket is a negative in all or most circumstances when kids apply to “top schools”? I think the answer to at least the first question has to be “yes,” but even since this discussion started, there are more chance threads with “Asian” in the title. As others have suggested, wouldn’t it be helpful to have posters add a little more detail, along the lines of the drop-down menus on the Common App?

[Lindagaf]

@tkoparent

As others have suggested, wouldn’t it be helpful to have posters add a little more detail, along the lines of the drop-down menus on the Common App?

100%, this would be helpful. If only Common App got the message!

[DadOfJerseyGirl]

I like the idea of calling “safeties”, “extremely likely” because I agree safety often has a negative connotation among highly accomplished kids.

I am actually fine with leaving “likely”, “match”, and “reach” unchanged, because these terms are widely used and their meaning is clearly understood by most.

I would add an “unpredictable” category for the Ivies and other highly rejective schools because they truly are unpredictable for the majority of students who apply to them.

[VisibleName2]

I would ask for gender, because from the common data set information some schools seem to favor a gender, while others do not. And for program entry it makes a big difference. Engineering is a tougher admit for men, but they’ll have an edge at the small SLACs and theater programs. And of course there are still women’s colleges.

Race/ethnicity is a tough one, I would leave it optional as a possible hook.

[ucbalumnus]

@circuitrider

A generation ago, all non-whites were considered one big “diversity” bucket at Wesleyan. And the evidence that it may still be true is that Asians and Asian Americans are still included when calculating the total student of color (SOC) enrollment:
Facts & Figures, For the Media, University Communications - Wesleyan University

What school wouldn’t want more full-pay, high stat students who also make them look good on their non-white enrollment? Might we consider that Harvard is the outlier and just move on?

Wesleyan differs from Harvard in that it is still majority White for undergraduate enrollment. Harvard probably has some concern about the White enrollment dropping too far and too fast to the point that it becomes less attractive to future White applicants (though being Harvard still gives it some buffer here).

[ucbalumnus]

So what is the best way to push back against the popular perception (based on thread titles) that the most important college admission characteristics are (in order):

1. Gender.
2. Race and/or ethnicity.
3. Test scores.
4. GPA.
5. Everything else.

?

[circuitrider]

List them in reverse order?

[DadOfJerseyGirl]

Are the thread titles really based on perceived importance, or simply a result of posters mimicking the titles of other chance me threads? I think it’s more likely the latter.

[blossom]

I don’t think we can solve the ills of college admissions here.

We’ve already seen our drumbeat of “rigor matters” result in kids posting that they are in 9th grade and are DYING from the workload of 3 AP’s (the max their HS will allow) and then 3 DE at a Community College “to get a jump on Diff Eq”, and self-studying for AP Psych and Econ which their HS does not offer. Yikes.

All we can do is to point out that affordability matters upfront; that rigor won’t help if you’re too exhausted to function by junior year, and that “finding something you’re passionate about” doesn’t need to mean skydiving or juggling or unicycling.

What else can we do?

[Alqbamine32]

@blossom

We’ve already seen our drumbeat of “rigor matters” result in kids posting that they are in 9th grade and are DYING from the workload of 3 AP’s (the max their HS will allow) and then 3 DE at a Community College “to get a jump on Diff Eq”, and self-studying for AP Psych and Econ which their HS does not offer. Yikes.

All we can do is to point out that affordability matters upfront; that rigor won’t help if you’re too exhausted to function by junior year, and that “finding something you’re passionate about” doesn’t need to mean skydiving or juggling or unicycling.

I don’t think that I have participated in any of the chance me threads --mostly because I don’t really feel qualified. But also becuase it is the above rat race vibe described by blossom that just feels wrong to me. And to some extent the listing of identities (racial and other) plays into that vibe. When I read some of those posts, it feels as if posters are seeking the magic formula. X number of APs + Y number of National Awards + Z SAT score = high chance of admission at Q school. And we can add more and more variables including E race or M ethnicity to make the prediction more accurate.

And maybe that works for auto-admit schools or ones with a clearly published table for entrance requirements, but when I look at the real life kids whom I know, their college acceptances and rejections do not follow such clearcut patterns or formulae. I’m particularly nervous when race is used as a factor becuase at least in my observation, students’ results are not as predictable as posters seem to hope. For holistic schools, I think that statistics and characteristics can give a sense of whether or not an application will be read seriously (vs. thrown in the flush bucket and never make it through the first round), but beyond that sort of gross sorting, I really have not seen any evidence that it takes a perfect combination of stats and characteristics to result in admission to certain schools. I see a lot of non-perfect kids of all backgrounds and races that are both happy and disappointed with their college results. And if anything, the greatest disappointment seems to come from the families that thought they had already figured out the winning formula.

I guess that I agree with the idea that the information would be better if entered in a different order with 1) a focus on fit, affordability and academic profile coming first and 2) resume stuff coming second and 3) finally race/gender/socioeconomic background last. Reading about who the kid and their interests or hopes before reading the stats and then having the last item be demographics might help reduce the impression that there is one clearcut “right” path (or college) that can be deemed as a successful result.

[Lindagaf]

That seems the most logical explanation. Kids are trying to get a little bit of info in their title. Otherwise, every post would simply say “Chance me.”

[CC_Jon]

I’m going to try to summarize what I’m seeing in this thread. I’m certainly going to miss a few things, but I’ll try to hit the highlights. (This is turning out to be really long! Maybe not so helpful either?)

@Lindagaf

But as long as it remains a separate question in the common app, it will continue to be considered. Don’t think for one second that colleges are not absolutely factoring in this info.

This is a compelling argument. If we could say that race is a non-factor, I’d consider removing or downplaying it more.

@Lindagaf

It already says “optional” so I don’t see the issue. Maybe none of us LIKE this reality, but that doesn’t make the information uneeded. Perhaps a better option is to state clearly at the top of the chances forum that digressing into side conversations of race and gender are not allowed in the Chances forum and that such posts are subject to removal. As a user and a moderator, that’s what I personally would prefer.

Agreed. Not that people always read these things, but it doesn’t hurt to remind people.

@Mwfan1921

I strongly dislike the term ‘chancing’ because no one CC can accurately ‘chance’ students.

Agreed again. For better or worse, this is one of the primary things CC is known for. We have some language in that direction in the instructions, but it might help to reemphasize this point.

@thumper1

Maybe make “optional” bold face.

Good idea.

@blossom

I think we need to move Budget to the top, and to clarify “This is my parents budget and this is what the NPC shows”. The kids who think they are getting a full ride when the maximum merit award is 5K (or the college typically Gaps for need based money) seem to chew up a lot of energy on CC!

Moving it up to above Coursework seems reasonable. I’m not sure I understand what the difference is between what you wrote and what we already have. I want to make sure students have a clear idea what they need to provide.

@mynameiswhatever

I would also suggest using the exact options on the Common App for all three categories

I think there is a logic to this. But I also think we are trying to solve for the problem that students over-estimate the impact of these categories on their chances. Locking people into these limited options reinforces the idea that this is important.

@tamagotchi

Maybe it would help to have some guidance in the Chance Me template regarding the subject line of the post, specifically instructing posters to include the most important factors in the subject line, such as budget, primary academic stats, and desired major?

I’m not a fan of the subject lines students tend to pick but I’m not sure putting the stats in there will be much of an improvement. (Plus, I don’t think people will be consistent as we’d like!)

@DadOfJerseyGirl

Good to be inclusive, but I wonder if it makes a difference for admissions?

Agreed. Not sure we want to prompt for it since it opens up all sorts of worm cans.

@ucbalumnus

I would change this to the following, based on the frequency of certain types of followup questions based on incomplete information:

These seem reasonable. I wonder if it might help to have even more detailed instructions to link to?

@BKSquared

In Other Special Factors, agree adding “recruited” to athlete is important. I would also add “low income” using a figure of less than $65,000 household income as a cutoff. This can lead to suggestions on considering Questbridge, Pell and reminding them to use the net price calculator for seemingly expensive schools who offer good aid.

Excellent suggestions.

@BKSquared

EC’s: we often get a long laundry list of activities.

I’m looking at the resumes from students and I see this too. I understand the instinct (I’ve written that sort of thing in resumes too), but it’s hard to imagine the 5th most impressive award anyone has earned will matter in a selection process. I almost wonder if saying “top 3” or some such would be better.

@BKSquared

Essays/LORs/Other. Always thought self assessment of essays useless.

Makes sense. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Dunning-Kruger problem with even asking.

@ucbalumnus

The reason why is that some student posters do not disclose their divorced parents until later, making many of the previous college suggestions and chances unaffordable due to an uncooperative non-custodial parent.

Oh. Tricky. I’m starting to worry that this template will be challenging to fill in with all the special situations we are trying to account for. I’m also reluctant to ask students about this. Gotta think about this one some more.

@Lindagaf

We users here on CC can help mitigate this by making students aware of realistic college options and giving suggestions of how to improve their applications. So many people just apply to the colleges they have heard of, or the colleges that their parents want them to apply to. There are hundreds of selective colleges that would love to have the students that make an effort to seek help here.

Yes! This is a useful perspective. Thanks for the reminder!

@mtmind

Perhaps there needs to be a template, format, or guidance for how one should respond.

I’m starting to think in this direction too. In some ways the value the community brings is asking questions the students hadn’t ever considered rather than any solid answers. Where there are solid answers (such as how to calculated GPA or what the requirements are for a Pell grant) it would be useful to collect those answers so we can link to them.

@mynameiswhatever

I had made a PM suggestion yesterday to @CC_Jon yesterday about perhaps using the CC college calculator (with appropriate updates/revisions) as the first step for the kids, and then, if they want, they could have the option of sending it to the Chance Me forum for more detailed analysis.

I do think there would be some value in that approach. I also think we’re going to have people wanting to post on the forums first. I don’t want to lock people out of the conversation if they don’t want to do the calculator. That said, I really like the idea of giving people who find us via https://www.collegeconfidential.com/ more ways to come to the forums. If they come better prepared to ask interesting questions, so much the better!

@AustenNut

It may not surprise others, but since the Chance Me template is up for discussion again, I’m going to mention the possibility of renaming Safety & Reach.

I tend to agree with @thumper1 's point on the other thread: it’s a much bigger problem to get all the other people who advise students to change these terms. They have a long history. (I considered George Mason my safety school because it was close and easy to get into. I think it’s become more selective since then.)

Ok. I’m going to take all this feedback and make some modifications to the template. I’ll try to post a draft to make sure I haven’t made any dumb mistakes.

[Lindagaf]

@CC_Jon

I almost wonder if saying “top 3” or some such would be better.

Good idea.

@BKSquared

Essays/LORs/Other. Always thought self assessment of essays useless.

I agree with this and suggest leaving this out entirely. Firstly, students are notoriously bad at judging their own writing and their friends are even worse. Secondly, in theory NO student should know what their letter of rec says because students are never meant to read them.

[mynameiswhatever]

@CC_Jon, as always, your transparency is amazing! Thank you for putting all this together.

One thing that I would note is that I think all of us have great affection for the website. I will totally defer to you and others as to what are the best fixes for Chance Me. Given that it’s already late September, are the changes best suited for a year from now?

But, putting aside all the changes, CAN SOMEONE PLEASE FIX THE 50x ERRORS? That’s got to be a priority on the tech side!

We all stand by to assist. Again, thanks so much for making all of us feel a part of these changes. CC is a great website even today (so long as CC fixes the 50x errors!)

[twoinanddone]

Have a closing question of issues that are important to the kid/family. Race may or may not be important; my Chinese daughter was not looking for a certain percentage of other students who looked like her, but some students may be. What are the deal breakers: religion, race, sex, red/blue state, athletics, size…

One I learned tonight for my nephew is a large marching band. He doesn’t care about football, but wants the marching band. He’s a twin and his brother couldn’t care less about a marching band but wants a hockey team. These are important to 17 year olds, but in the end they may be out the door if the college isn’t affordable or they don’t get in, but they are important in drawing up the ‘chance me’ suggestions. Sometimes the fates do align and the student can find the school with the big band and the right academics and the parents can find the money.

It doesn’t do any good to suggest Fordham if the family doesn’t want a catholic school or LSU if the south is out. Some Asian kids will be very happy at the U of Maine and others would do much better at a Cal State school with many more kids who look like them.