@eyemgh and @mathprofdad – I get what you two are saying. The point remains though that even elite schools have to rely on TAs with limited teaching and language skills because our own kids won’t do it. Elite colleges want to avoid bringing in too many fakers. People that seem to care only because it is expected of them versus authentic, genuine students.
In the more desirable health care jobs, entering the profession is gated by:
- extensive (and often expensive) schooling
- highly competitive admission (and sometimes weed-out, like in nursing) barriers to such schooling
- external accreditation of such schooling with relatively high standards.
- “apprenticeship” requirements (clinical experience during schooling, or medical residency)
- licensing exams
In other words, the “eliteness preference / selection” in these health care professions comes at the schooling and preparation needed to enter the profession, not during the hiring for specific jobs in the professions. All US public and non-profit medical schools are effectively “elite” admission, for example.
Note that engineering has:
- rigorous schooling that deters weaker students
- external accreditation of such schooling with relatively high standards
- licensing exams for some type of jobs (most commonly for civil engineering)
It’s not xenophobic to say it’s difficult to understand someone who speaks with a heavy accent or to whom English is a second language. It’s factual. My kids have said the same regarding some of their professors.
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The “prestige” of one’s institutions, be it undergrad or beyond, has virtually no impact on one’s employability or success. No matter where they come from, competence is conferred by the degree/residency/subspecialty.
I don’t believe that to be the case. They bring in foreign students because they were the ones felt to be the best fit for the research the professor is doing. That is the primary objective in hiring graduate students. They wouldn’t get the job if they were not highly qualified in that regard. Teaching is simply a means to get paid while being at the institution to do research and ultimately gain a higher degree. They don’t use instructors with higher qualifications for discussions and labs because they don’t want to pay them.
Funny how this type of complaint (not necessarily in a TA context) tends not to be used to refer to regional American accents or dialects, except those like AAVE that are associated with minority groups.
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What I wrote is an explanation of why, which is that all schools/degrees for certain health care professions are effectively “elite” for various reasons.
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This bias exists in finance in two different ways.
The more meritocratic bias is that industry wide, these companies only need a few hundred employees each year for a specific position (investment bankers, traders, quants, etc.). Each company many only need a few quants or a few dozen investment bankers. Given that, there is no need to recruit anywhere except the top ranked schools as that is most fertile recruiting ground. With this bias, it is possible for a “non-elite” college graduate to get hired, but they just have to work harder at it because the companies don’t recruit on campus. In contrast, Google has to hire thousands each year and so they recruit at both Stanford and San Jose State.
The less meritocratic bias is that for some customer facing positions (such as portfolio manager), the name of the college still matters for some employers. I was once called by a recruiter but wasn’t interested in switching so I passed on the name of a very talented former colleague. When he asked where my former colleague went to college, I responded “William and Mary”. The response from the recruiter was “Thanks, but that’s not the pedigree the client is looking for.”
Besides the 1995 recentering, there may be another reason why more students are getting top SAT scores.
Some decades ago, it was typical to take the SAT once or maybe twice, with no or minimal prep. The amount of prep I did when taking the SAT (about 15 minutes at most doing the sample questions in the booklet with the sign-up form) appears to be only a fraction of what the “low end” of SAT prep time these days is for students aiming for state flagship or more selective colleges.
For Achievement / SAT II / SAT subject and AP tests, I just took them without any additional prep than having completed the associated course. Is doing so common these days, or are (were in the case of SAT subject tests) they also typically heavily prepared for these days?
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I want to come back to the title of this thread: “Why do we allow college admissions offices to shape and pass judgment on our children’s character?”
I can honestly say for me (and me alone) it was a belief that the brand name somehow equated with excellence. It’s in the last few years that I’ve done a 180 on that view. My DD just got her report card, and I am delighted that she has 4.0 + GPA (weighted and unweighted) in an IB Diploma program at a demanding high school. She’s a very good athlete and has excellent (for me) ECs. And you know what? I don’t care where she wants to go except where SHE wants to go.
My duty to her as a parent is to advise her and open doors and horizons for her by introducing her to new topics and people. But where she wants to go is her choice alone.
I chuckled when I read about kids setting up 501(c)(3) organizations as part of the EC polishing. Why do I laugh? Because, at one time, I was that kind of parent. Not that I’m great or anything like that, but kids should be kids, and I’ve moved a long way off from my previous narrow-minded view.
I would be very curious to see if the “top schools” have any studies showing whether their students continued their ECs after they got into college. Of course, yes, for many. But I think the numbers would be substantial for those who jettisoned the EC, since the main objective of college admission was achieved.
So for ECs, I am merely finding ideas for my D, and passing them on to her. In a few instances, she’s interested, but 99% go unanswered. And that’s fine, because she’s not passionate about it. And if she doesn’t love an EC, I ain’t gonna’ force her. The absurdity and danger of that is immense.
So, would I have fit the title of this thread just a few years ago? Absolutely. But, I’m trying “real hard” to get away from that, and I think our family, and our D, in particular, is far more sane as a result.
Just my thoughts.
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Do you view Vanderbilt University as one of these “schools that need to buy stats”? Here is the criteria for the Cornelius Vanderbilt full-ride scholarship, and it is TOTALLY merit-based:
“Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholars are selected on the basis of academic achievement, intellectual promise, and leadership and contribution outside the classroom. In evaluating candidates, the selection committees review the entire application for freshman admissions along with the Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholarship application. Audition scores are a factor in merit scholarship selection for Blair School of Music recipients.”
There are other “top schools” that award “merit money.”
Actually, I do. Maybe not like Alabama as there are only about 10 Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholarships given per year, but they wouldn’t give away money if they weren’t trying to attract students that might get into institutions that are perceived as more prestigious that do not offer merit money. That’s precisely why schools give money.
Vanderbilt is also notorious for spamming students with mailers. They started arriving at our house when our son was in 8th grade, presumably because he took the SAT that year for a study and scored reasonably well.
That is in no way saying Vanderbilt is not a good school. They are simply trying to increase their ranking. The Ivy’s, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, and Tufts along with a pretty substantial list of LACs do not give merit based awards because they can fully enroll and are content with their rankings without the enticement.
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I’d say probably. Vandy loves high stat kids. I’d also make a distinction between scholarships that you apply for and merit money given without additional information or submission requirements beyond the common app.
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Very interesting comments on Vandy! Just one question: what is the distinction you make on a separate application for scholarship as opposed to awards “just” based on the admission application. Is it the extra work? Or is there another deeper distinction?
That is fascinating! Just reading CC, I never would have gathered that about Vanderbilt.
And I certainly would never have known about the spamming. I haven’t had to worry about college admissions for decades, but DD1 is nearly ready to start looking at schools in a week or so.
It’s really good to have insights like this that you can’t get most other places. I truly marvel at how little I know about colleges these days.
Methinks many of these schools have external image consultants figuring out ways to hype the school, and I think that’s one of the reasons, among many, that there is artificiality to US higher education. It’s a business, and the business is education.
These admission rates of the “top schools” are something to behold, and I think that’s helping create this insane demand. I guess Alan Greenspan would call it “irrational exuberance”. And that ultimately goes to the title of this thread: why do we (or don’t we) put our kids through this?
On edit: I thought many schools do this like Duke, Northwestern, etc. They are few and far between, but I had understood that many “top schools” outside of the Ivies do give merit aid, albeit in very limited amounts.
Some schools award merit aid simply to entice the student to go there. For example, my son received $80k at three schools and $100k at another just by applying for admission. They just came as part of his acceptance letter. Some scholarships however are competitive, beyond the school application. They typically require supplemental essays and/or interviews and there aren’t many given out. they are also usually quite large. The scholarship you referenced is one of them.
The distinction is simply the work required and the amount of the award. When you’re going for a full ride or full tuition that’s a substantial prize vs merit that perhaps covers only R&B or discounts tuition $10-20k. Does seem like the more prestigious schools such as Vandy and UVA for example, require more hoop jumping whereas places like Alabama just use the common app or NMF information.
From the description of the CV Scholarship it appears the recipients could be determined by the common app but Vandy chooses to require jumping through another hoop; maybe that’s to help pare down the applicants through self selection so the AO don’t have to consider as many applicants? Or in the case of the music scholarship the extra work is linked to the audition because that’s not something easily submitted as part of the common app. Does Vandy give smaller merit awards outside the scholarships or is it only need based at that point? I don’t know.
The upside for the $200-300K family to live in the best district it can afford is access to a quality education, a college-going culture, many established paths to worthwhile extracurriculars, etc. The amount of need-based FA they’ll get at that income level won’t come close to offsetting the added expense of the housing, at least on the coasts, especially now that there’s no discount for having more than one kid in at the same time.
For every parent moving to suburbs with great public schools looking for merit aid at “elites” I would expect there are at least 2-3 doing so looking for bumper stickers. Won’t be the case in every suburb and will be more true in some than others. And many parents in those districts (ntoe I didn’t say all) buy into the top-x or bust myth (with many of those same parents complaining about all the stress junior is under to get into an “elite” college).
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I wouldn’t phrase it as “need to buy stats” as much as needs something to increase the chance of certain especially desirable students to enroll. Assuming a near 100% yield on ED admits, Vanderbilt only has a ~24% yield on RD admits. ~3/4 of kids who are admitted RD choose to attend elsewhere. I expect the yield rate is even lower among the most desirable kids near the threshold for scholarship. Without the scholarship, they’d be extremely unlikely to attend, but with the scholarship, I the chance of attending is far higher.
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