That’s pretty well established (i.e., the world is neither equal nor fair), no?
The point is not whether there will be teething issues in the beginning (of course there will be) but whether in the effort to make “learning” easier and more fun for young people, they have lost some important building blocks (e.g., persistence, resilience, willingness to put up with routine) that could underpin future success (however defined).
That’s a great point.
I keep reading the title to this thread and thinking “Isn’t it the AO job to pass judgment on character?” Aren’t they assessing whether the student studied hard, wasn’t arrested, participated in school, church, community activities? Don’t we want the student to have great writing skills and show an interest in learning? The AO may give credit for having a job while in hs, for being the captain of a team to show leadership (or a girl scout or church student leader or on student government).
It seems many AO bend over backwards to see if the student did as much as he could with the resources available at the high school, in that family, in that community.
Yes, I want the AO’s judging the character of my students (who weren’t perfect) and the character of those who my students will go to school with, share a dorm room with, socialize with.
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One of my sons has been involved with admissions and he relates a story of a candidate with “perfect” scores who was denied admission. In this system multiple people do interviews and/or look at the application and give a number without discussing it with others on the team. Obviously the candidate didn’t pass muster from more than one involved. There has to be something they all saw that made them feel this person wouldn’t fit in where they are.
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Out of 10 cases of this occurring, I’m willing to bet:
1 in 10: serious character flaw/issue is uncovered.
3-4 in 10: applicant isn’t demonstrating interest, generally revealed in essay quality/effort. Mailed in boiler plate essays. Including a different schools name or a unique program the school doesn’t have. Extremely obvious stuff.
3-4 in 10: applicant has almost nothing else. No ECs with leadership, inability to weave outside interests into personal narrative/academic pursuits, etc.
1 in 10: extraordinarily bad luck.
This may not apply to the absolute tippy top schools, but if a kid with academic rigor, top grades and a 1600 isn’t getting admitted at a Vandy, WashU, Northwestern, these are the likely reasons/odds.
All I can say for sure is it wasn’t your second choice down. The top and third were involved, but I only know it from one person’s POV.
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I also wonder if schools occasionally reject or defer someone who they assume will get offers at more prestigious schools and appear from an interview or application to be driven by brand or perception.
This wouldn’t be an Ivy issue (unless maybe Cornell knows they lose “this type of kid” to Harvard and Yale every year)…but more an issue where an AO at a top 50 school assumes they have little chance of seeing the kid on campus if accepted and they are trying to protect the yield?
Just a theory. I’ve known a few kids who were rejected at surprisingly less competitive schools than the one they ended up attending. Maybe the AO knew how it would end, and saved themselves and the student some paperwork.
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We’re all still using proxy data to try to figure out what our kids need to do to get into college.
That is exactly what I was getting at with point two. Some schools get hit with yield management accusations as if that is a bad thing. Two students equal in every regard but the following in RD:
A: 1580-1600 SAT, 4.0 UGPA, essays that suggest minimal effort/thought, no signs of interest in the school. Very much “going through the motions”.
B: 1500-1540 SAT, 3.9 UGPA, essays that suggest a lot of care went into them tying in the school and demonstrating a desire to attend, other forms of interest.
Schools that are 11-25 in terms of selectivity are still drowning in applicants from pool B. Why would they bother with A? One, the kid isn’t likely to accept an offer. Two, if by some stroke of misfortune, the kid ends up at the schools (choice #9), he/she won’t be happy to be there.
It’s kind of like dating. Someone can set you up with an intelligent and beautiful person with a great career, wit, amazing interests. But if that person acts like they’re doing you a favor by going out on a date the first time by not showing minimal interest in you, you shouldn’t go out with them again. It’s a waste of your time/resources.
Assembling a class is hard enough. Why bother with applicants that can’t even pretend to be interested?
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Of course, the colleges that really care about level of applicant’s interest may have already filled much of their classes with ED (the strongest possible expression of a high level of interest), so that RD applicants, even those who show other indications of high level of interest beyond applying, may only have a chance if they fit in niches that were not filled during ED.
I don’t think any school is going to completely fill a niche/need in ED even with >50% of their spots filled early. Some areas might be more competitive than others, but the top of the heap will at least find a way to be included for final consideration in RD. Take Vandy a couple years ago:
30,200 RD apps, 2450 admits, 750 enrolled.
After needs assessing various areas, they could chuck the bottom 60% of the apps in the trash based upon their holistic criteria. They could also toss 20% of what remains for indications that Vandy is way down those students’ list of considered schools.
There are still 4 apps left for every RD acceptance. And even if they miss the mark on needs on yield, they’ll have a sizable WL pool from the 7200 “final round” RD rejects to fill the remaining gaps.
There are “paper perfect” candidates who don’t get accepted due to unique circumstances. But the easiest way for those candidates to get rejected is to treat the school as a safety unworthy of the effort of putting your best foot forward. If someone is investing substantially less time on their app to school A compared to their top 2-3 target schools, this will be evident to admissions. They’ve screened hundreds of thousands of these things before.
T20 admissions is a seller’s market. Even for those candidates.
My D21 had BC Calc last year (Multivariable this year). She’s in Physics C and doing pretty well. But the kids who are in Calc AB or regular Calc right now are DYING in the class. So yes, the course and the schools ALLOW you to take it before you have advanced math, but at least at her school, they are NOT doing well at all. She’s actually surprised they even let those kids take it as she feels they are setting them up to fail.
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There’s merit in the holistic process. The traditional method of grades, SAT, and a laundry list of extracurriculars really encourages kids to be disingenuous. It’s doubtful any normal teenager is interested in starting nonprofit breast cancer awareness organization. Would they do it if they weren’t trying to get into Yale? Nope! My view is, if you have to go through all of this for a chance of getting accepted, it’s not worth it anyway.
Don’t see how to apply to STEM fields.
In any field, one still has to sell one’s ideas, or sell oneself for a job or contract.
If the awesomeness of your idea or yourself relative to a job or contract is obvious, then you may not need to do much selling. But it is not a given that anyone in any field will always have that level of obvious awesomeness that will sell without needing much selling or charisma.
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Prefer hiring engineers with critical thinking and execution ability. If that’s the “charisma”.
Put that under college admission context, If I teach, I expect the true problem solving ability. If that’s the “charisma”.
Nm.
It isn’t
Critical thinking and execution ability are not mutually exclusive to charisma.
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