<p>Inside Higher Ed article on sociologist Mitchell L. Stevens' new book "Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites" in which shares what he saw behind closed admissions doors. Stevens argues that the biggest reforms needed in education arent in admissions.</p>
<p>Some comments by Monica Inzer, dean of admissions and financial aid at Hamilton College, where Stevens conducted his research:</p>
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...While some details wouldnt be the same today, I think the book does ring true for what selective college admission is like at many colleges, including Hamilton, ... I think the book portrays a positive place with good people who care about students.</p>
<p>What she most liked about the book, she said, is that although the admission process can be very numbers- and data-driven, he shows the human process that there are real people making real decisions who care about each individual applicant....most of admissions isnt about weeding out the qualified from the unqualified. I would guess that 75 percent of the people who apply to Hamilton would be really successful here, ....
<p>Thanks for the link to the article, asteriskea. There is so much food for thought that I am really tempted to quote extensively.</p>
<p>One discussion that bothered me was about AA and its effect on the application of immigrants from Eastern Europe. It acknowledged that they had overcome plenty (and by "plenty" I assume not only poverty, but also language barriers and culture shock) but the admission officers still went for the so-called "multicultural" kids. Huh? Are African-Americans more "multicultural" than immigrants? As a supporter of Affirmative Action, I found that particular rationale disturbing.</p>
<p>I agree with you. It's the rationale given that bothers me. To suggest that immigrants from Eastern Europe have less to offer culturally than students born in this country is weird.</p>
<p>I thought the most interesting snippet was the that the other reason for accepting the potential donor's kid was because they'd like to get more applications from the high school that kid attended.</p>
This, in some respects, is the problem. That is, given the applicants are statistically indistinguishable, admission will be a function of adcom advocacy, and will reflect their biases. For example, it always bothered me that in one of her books, Michelle Hernandez admires an essay by a Classics student but disparages another describing his National Outdoor Leadership School experience. (Particularly odd given she was an adcom for Dartmouth. Or maybe that is where she developed the bias). I suspect that adcoms do not exactly represent the interests/abilities of the applicant pool (e.g., I doubt there are many Physics majors in their ranks). And despite all the pious claims to "building a class" and seeing through the gamesmanship, I believe the process can be manipulated.</p>
<p>"There were many coaches he saw who put enough emphasis on recruiting the right kind of mental talent that their lists were people who would have been admitted without extra help."</p>
<p>In their dreams, except for, except for a few niche sports.</p>
<p>EMM1: Coaches who do not pay attention to "fit," academically and otherwise, when selecting athletes find themselves with a lot of unhappy, unseccessful athletes. They end up transferring out and damaging the coaches reputation in recruiting circles. Coaches are very hard pressed to explain to recruits when one of the of their current athletes becomes academically ineligible. It scares athletes away from the school. And now, the NCAA mandates academic performance meets certain performance goals by taking away scholarships and play-off spots for schools who do not measure up. My son was recruited by many, many schools for sports and at every single school, he was asked first about his grades and SAT/PSAT scores. If you read recruiting articles written about athletes, their GPA is nearly always mentioned. Coaches, like admissions officers, are looking for the people who fit best and will be high performers.</p>
<p>Coaches clearly look for students who meets the admission standards applied to athletes, which generally correlate to likelihood of being able to succeed at some level at the school academically. My quarrel was with the statement that a significant number of coaches at schools like Hamilton fill their lists with "people who would have been admitted without extra help"--i.e., if they were not athletes. That is simply not true at highly selective schools such as Hamilton.</p>
<p>A good word for the coaches: NESCAC schools, including Hamilton have caps on athletic tips (in a nutshell, students who would not be admitted without being on the coaches list of recruited athletes). The vast majority of coaches at NESCAC schools like Hamilton (except those in perhaps a couple of helmet sports) recruit far more real scholar-athletes than then get athletic tips. The number of tips in low-profile sports each year is often 1 or even none. The coaches are out there on the road, doing something very similar to the admissions officers, getting the word on the school out to all sorts of student-athletes, some of whom are top academic types.</p>
<p>How does the college know that the applicant's father is a big Dartmouth College donor? Also how does the college know that the sister of the applicant is a Dartmouth College student accepted with lesser credentials than the applicant?</p>
<p>There may be a public list of Donors but colleges do not share their applicants' stats or credentials. Privacy law?</p>
<p>ENMM1, I've posted this before but my D was "recruited " (yeah, right. LOL. In that special DIII recruiting yourself way- we send tape. They call and say -"why don't you come up and meet the girls at your expense?" Maybe it's best to say she was "wanted" or "invited" instead of recruited. ) to Hamilton and she was well above their 75th percentile in all categories. When she was there on her visit her report to me from the bball player's room she was staying with was that "Dad. Even the hockey players here are smart." She was excited. She stayed with these girls for one night and a couple of days and met field hockey kids, football players, and well....just about everybody. She was very impressed by the credentials of the girls playing ball for Hamilton and this was just two cycles ago. Some had turned down arguably more elite schools to be there. I remember Notre Dame and UChicago specifically. </p>
<p>I am with Marite -- that the dismissal of Eastern-European immigrants was chilling. I think that in preferring URM's the schools are chasing Federal funding.</p>
<p>The article did not discuss the barriers Northeastern girls, and I know about LI most directly, who are interested in the Humanities are facing being accepted to top schools. Boys and girl scientists with lesser credentials were accepted at many schools. D had already figured this out and was quite content with her acceptance at Barnard. (She did receive attractive offers from co-ed schools, but like Barnard best.) Most of her friends would never consider a women's college (were surprised that D would; D seems to have most interest in guys), and many attend colleges not up to the prestige of their male counterparts.</p>
<p>As an interesting contrast to sports: Amherst and Williams both told S that his music was a tip and department went to bat for him; Dartmouth said the music department has no influence on admissions decisions. I found this quite perculiar in Dartmouth's case because their own website lists only 18% humanities majors. DS listed classics and music as possible majors. Dartmouth was not interested; Brown was. I can't help wondering why Dartmouth is not more committed to growing its humanities departments.</p>
<p>No sour grapes; all's well that ends well -- just curiosity.</p>
<p>I base my statement on direct experience with the DIII recruiting process at highly selective DIII schools. In some cases, coaches called my S unsolicited after seeing him at mass recruiting events; in a few cases, we contacted the coaches first and then they looked at him. I am also intimately familiar with the academic standards for the admission of athletes in his sport (not a helmet sport) at the most selective LACs in the country. Based on this knowledge, I can say with complete assurance that the players on coach's lists (by this I took to mean the "tips" that each coach is allowed) typically do not have the same grades and test scores as those who are admitted without being on the list.</p>
<p>Are these kids relatively high academic achievers compared to the average graduating high school senior? You bet. But that is something entirely different from saying that they could be admitted without the coach's help--the claim to which I was responding.</p>
Well, mine was just "direct" ,too. ;) But what was your experience at Hamilton specifically? It sounds like it may have been much different than D's. D felt the same at Scripps (the Athenas - Mudd, Claremont McKenna, and Scripps) as she did at Hamilton. Several girls who attended Scripps invite only scholarship event were student athletes. They certainly needed no tip. </p>
<p>I guess I can't see how you thought "the coach's list" only applied to tips. Isn't that what the phrase means ? Kids who need the tip are "tips"? Kids who don't need the tip but are as highly desired ( or at least desired :)) don't get the tip, but they are still on the coach's list (at least they are at the schools that D was interested in). How did you come to the idea that the only kids the coach has on their list that goes to admissions are those that need "help" in the process? That doesn't seem to make sense to me and does not match D's experience at all. If the kid is obviously qualified, as I'm sure both of ours were, but knowing plenty of obviously qualified kids get rejected - the list serves a vital function even though it doesn't result in kids being accepted with lowered admission's standards. I guess if you limit the conversation to coaches " tip lists" then by definition you would be correct. I think we may have a different understanding about what a coach's list is. Mine is "These are the kids I'm interested in, and the ones circled in bright red are my tips".</p>
<p>I don't know how you could field a team otherwise.</p>