<p>Exactly, PG. So better to learn these interpersonal skills early, and perhaps likely that the holistic schools know this. </p>
<p>And spot on, Hunt. Very tactful way of saying that it may work for some, but for the general populus its bad advice.</p>
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<p>I didnât post about single motherhood being a hook, so this is not to defend it. But if I can trust my ears, which is more difficult to do by the day, the video linked belowâshowing snippets from the Amherst admissions decision-making processâindicates that the following may be an advantage:</p>
<p>-a girl learning the night before an AP Chem exam that her father had an affair with a 23 year old prostitute</p>
<p>This video also shows an admissions officer who says he often does not know why he votes to admit or reject.</p>
<p>I can understand why things like this would make some folks crazy.</p>
<p><a href=âhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-OLlJUXwKUâ>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-OLlJUXwKU</a></p>
<p>Hereâs another thought on the overall âcraziness,â especially with respect to admission to the most selective schools. In the past, most people who applied to those schools were (I suspect) people who knew quite a lot about themâi.e., they tended to be from high schools that typically sent kids there, a lot were legacies, they were more concentrated in the Northeast, etc. But now thereâs a more national market, and the internet makes getting basic info easier, and the growth of AP and IB (even if xiggi doesnât like them) makes kids from many more high schools plausible candidates for these schools. This may mean that there are a lot more people applying who donât have that familiarity with these schools and how their admission process works. So there may be more uncertainty and anxiety about it.</p>
<p>Well, yes, it makes the kind of folks crazy who want absolute guarantees - that if you do X, Y will happen. If I just ensure my kid gets scores of A, B, and C and does extracurricular activity D he will get into college E, which will ensure he gets a job doing F and make a salary of $G. Unfortunately for such people, life doesnât work that way. </p>
<p>But, see, thatâs part of what makes America great - and why so many of these immigrants sacrificed so much and work so hard in order to get and stay here - that there <em>are</em> opportunities and that your life trajectory is not determined by a Saturday your junior year in high school or even what college you go to. Isnât that why they are all here?? America wouldnât be America if we had those âclosedâ systems in place. </p>
<p><a href=âStudy: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy - BBC Newsâ>http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746</a> the U.S. is an Oligarchy.</p>
<p>Pizza, I love America, too, but part of contemporary craziness is the changes that America is undergoing. It is more closed than it once was and parents are reacting.</p>
<p>One other thought on âan objective admissions processâ. To me, when I see this I think the poster wants school to rank all the applicants on a quantitative measure and pick the students with the highest scores and work their way down until they have finished their admissions. Ignoring whether I agree or not as a quant jock Iâm at a loss how this system would work in a valid way that truly differentiates applicants. Some of the issues include âŠ</p>
<p>1) How does the system handle any inequality or biases in the system. For example, how to compare students at schools with no APs, lots of APs, or an IB program. Any sort of adjustments will include a subjective element to the process.</p>
<p>2) How are SATs, ACTs, HS GPAs, college courses while in college, APs, etc be compared to each other. To have one metric to stack there would to be weightings to each of these elements ⊠and these weightings are subjective</p>
<p>3) The biggest one ⊠given this contrived overall metric that has been stacked how much does a higher ranking pick out truly superior applicants. My stats training wants to conduct some significance testing ⊠(and Iâd guess most schools have done something like this) ⊠and I can guess the result of the significance testing also. The significance testing shows that the upper significance band of applicants includes many many times more students then needed for a class ⊠that this stacked META quant score does NOT provide any information that passes a significance test among top applicants. </p>
<p>The last comment to me is the biggest one and the one that resonates the most. I find it hard to believe that anyone with a lot of quant training really believes that a 98.45% on this META quant scale represent a significantly better score than a 98.43% on the META quant scale. So the question for the schools is how to pick among all the applicants with statistically similar applications.</p>
<p>The schools also know resorting to the âmore fairâ META quant score will yield a class that is dominated by upper middle class whites and Asians from the local states. I believe they also know that with a minimal affect on the overall META quant score ⊠a change within any significance testing (so not really a change) ⊠they can flip this profile and create a class that has much more variety and flavor to it.</p>
<p>As someone whose kids are all âhurtâ by these policies Iâm glad most top school follow holistic admissions policies. Iâm not paying for college for them to check off a bunch of classes and move on the their careers ⊠I want their classes to learning environments and for their campus experience also. During the whole George Zimmerman mess Iâd want my kids to be at a school with a wider variety of students ⊠both in their classes but also on their dorm floors ⊠as discussion on DWB (driving while black) is a lot different if âŠeveryone in the discussion is a local upper middle class white or Asian ⊠or if the participants represent a wider range of backgrounds and experiences.</p>
<p>@3togo Excellent post. </p>
<p>Quit being logical, 3togo :-* </p>
<p>Yeah! What @3togoâ said!</p>
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<p>Holy Holistic!</p>
<p>So let me ask you, or anyone else. Do you think the current college admissions process in the US is perfect and that it should be frozen in place forever?</p>
<p>I donât. At the same time, I donât have all the answers for how to improve it. Thatâs why I spend time on threads like this, to help inform my opinions. Swing the pendulum toward a more merit-based approach? Have a draft (is there something like this for med school admission, I could be wrong abut that)? Change the substance or grading scale of standardized tests?</p>
<p>I donât think any folks who have shared ideas about things like this are windbags or pompous.</p>
<p>One thing I am sure of. The college admissions process we see today on April 18, 2014 will not be the same process we see on April 18, 2024. How it will change, I do not know. But those who fully defend the current system will end up on the wrong side of history, I think. I hope more people post up their concerns with the current system and possible remedies</p>
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Is this a serious question? Of course its not perfect. But a slice-and-dice the top numbers students would be dreadful.</p>
<p>This thread is interesting and hopefully helpful because it addresses the reality that there are a lot of different types of students out there who can shine in their own right. For those who may, purposely or inadvertently, use it to brag about how their exceptional students donât need to take these tests or get college credits, well there is another thread for that. For the majority of families, telling them to skip the AP exam or standardized tests and CLEP out of a course (take a college level entrance exam) or meet with the department head to get exempt from a class is simply bad advice.</p>
<p>Calforniaa - hereâs an example from Duke, which is (even though you donât believe it, but whatever) a comparable university to Stanford by any sort of big-picture metric.</p>
<p>So youâre the adcom charged with admitting this yearâs class. You decide that you think that being a valedictorian is a quantitative measure worth ârewarding,â so you say - Iâm going to admit every valedictorian I can find, and then maybe go to the salutatorians to fill my remaining spots, and so forth.</p>
<p>So you look at your applicant pool. Only half your applicants came from schools that even gave a class rank. To heck with them, you just throw them out. So now youâre only looking at your valedictorians.</p>
<p>Duke had TWICE AS MANY VALEDICTORIANS APPLY as they have spaces in the class.
How are they supposed to choose? 1=1=1=1, you know. </p>
<p>âPizza, I love America, too, but part of contemporary craziness is the changes that America is undergoing. It is more closed than it once was and parents are reacting.â</p>
<p>Oh, puh-lease. Yes, you still canât break into a handful of jobs in investment banking unless you went to a certain handful of schools, but other than that? Are you serious? I look all around me and I see smart people making their own opportunities in life. If anything the pool of âgood schoolsâ has WIDENED versus 20, 30 years ago, not narrowed. And, of course, a perfectly comfortable upper middle class life can be had by anyone going to a state flagship or (gasp) even below that. </p>
<p>Do some of you live in areas where the only âniceâ suburbs are exclusively populated by people from elite colleges or something? </p>
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<p>Iâand I expect othersâwould be interested to know how you would propose to improve the current system. Not a challenge, a sincere question.</p>
<p>Whats your suggestion? A numbers driven computerized selection? </p>
<p>Hereâs a thread I started a while back suggesting how a university based only on stats might work: <a href=âModest Proposal: The Super-Stat - Applying to College - College Confidential Forumsâ>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/509446-modest-proposal-the-super-stat-p1.html</a>
I wouldnât want my own kids to go there, but maybe a lot of people would like it.</p>
<p>And all kidding aside, Hunt, your bringing back your entertaining 2008/2011 âadmissions solutionâ thread shows that we have been down this road many times before. The whining persists. Year after year.</p>
<p>âPizza, I love America, too, but part of contemporary craziness is the changes that America is undergoing. It is more closed than it once was and parents are reacting.â</p>
<p>Even in the prestige driven professions this is America and we love a âsecond actâ. Iâve written before about my acquaintance who is a personal injury lawyer. Out-earns the âprestigeâ type lawyers by several multiples. Went to a law school none of you have heard of. Never won Moot Court or was on Law Review; seems pretty happy with the hand fate has dealt.</p>
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<p>I have been stating that I see problems but donât have solutions. I have been stating that I see change coming in the next ten years but donât know what it will look like. I am looking to more experienced posters like you to help inform my opinion.</p>
<p>We know where californiaaa stands, and I am grateful that he or she has posted opinions. What are your suggestions for improving a system that you, yourself, acknowledge is not perfect?</p>
<p>I see a lot of unconstructive criticism and insult in this thread. Windbag, pompous etc. Here is a chance for constructive comments. </p>
<p>âIâand I expect othersâwould be interested to know how you would propose to improve the current system. Not a challenge, a sincere question.â</p>
<p>The things that are broken about the system arenât the admissions process. Theyâre the parents who narrowly exalt a handful of schools as being the only ones worth going to and thus overly-push their kids to achieve only those schools. </p>
<p>Iâd like to see less focus on athletics, personally, but thatâs just my personal bias. And thereâs certainly plenty of spaces being occupied at top colleges by kids who arenât athletically inclined. </p>
<p>It would be a âproblemâ if top schools didnât have stellar student bodies, but they do. </p>