<p>No one is wholesale gaming - If they were, they would admit solely on the statistics that USNWR uses, SAT and class rank.</p>
<p>Kfc4u, American colleges didn't ask for ECs for a good couple hundred years, but then Jews came, and well, the WASPs in power didn't like those 'lowly' immigrants, so they devised opaque admissions processes to limit their enrollment. Thus questions asking of your character, your athleticism, your religion, whether your father was a Yale man, ad infinitum. In short, much of college admissions is a relic of antisemitism.</p>
<p>yes, as an Education minor, i understand and have been exposed to the history of college admissions. </p>
<p>but well-roundedness does not have the same meaning today as it did back then. my problem is the double-standard that colleges say they place to much emphasis on well-roundedness and that many of their admits have more than just numbers, but when it comes down to it, scholarship offers are given to mostly the students with the highest statistics.</p>
<p>look, i dont have a problem with most of what WUStL does really. there's nothing wrong with some of the tactics that it uses (marketing for example; i never said it was wrong), because hey, those are the ways to improve the quality of the student body, with or without US News. what i do have a problem with is using a massive waitlist that 'artificially' keeps its selectivity low. THAT is gaming US News and creating a perception of selectivity when it really might not be as selective as it is. sure, one could say there's nothing wrong with this tactic, but i say it is still guilty of gaming US News.</p>
<p>People on this board say that colleges now want someone has a special 'niche,' not one who is well-rounded. </p>
<p>Also, that whole waitlisting technique shouldn't help that much - the pure acceptance rate counts for only 10% of the selectivity score.</p>
<p>I take issue with your (and many others') caricature of students who have high SATs/GPA as almost non-persons, that they had to have done exctracurriculars, possibly as superficial as volunteering at a hospital, to 'contribute' to the atmosphere. I take a more laissez faire position - admit the smartest kids according to the standard measures, and let the chips fall as they will. For the essay, I would probably look for a general interest in learning, critical thinking (maybe something instead of a personal statement), and creativity.</p>
<p>The whole USNWR issue could be resolved by implementing a make your own type of rankings, where after signing up for the service, the user selects what factors to consider and what weights to give them, and forming a ranking based on that. It should include, obviously, any factor that a decent number of people are interested in using. But that doesn't give you one ranking to 'rule them all.' Either USNWR could continue in its current fashion, or use the most popular or average somehow of the weightings selected by users.</p>
<p>"No one is wholesale gaming - If they were, they would admit solely on the statistics that USNWR uses, SAT and class rank.</p>
<p>Kfc4u, American colleges didn't ask for ECs for a good couple hundred years, but then Jews came, and well, the WASPs in power didn't like those 'lowly' immigrants, so they devised opaque admissions processes to limit their enrollment. Thus questions asking of your character, your athleticism, your religion, whether your father was a Yale man, ad infinitum. In short, much of college admissions is a relic of antisemitism."</p>
<p>Has Hilary Clinton and every liberal democrat have you brainwashed?</p>
<p>i was also taught in a college Education course that one of the reasons why colleges started changing their admissions standards (way back then) was because of "too many Jews."</p>
<p>dont forget that a sizable portion in the USA supported eugenics (maybe even more so than germany did) prior to WWII.</p>