I truly have no idea if a holistic process is the best way to evaluate STEM candidates for top universities. However, there does seem to be a check & balance - transfers.
If undeserving kids get in to a top 20 or 30 university, if they can’t cut it, they will fail out or transfer out.
I have noticed that, while many factors are considered in evaluating transfer candidates, the top universities REALLY focus on your current college GPA. Let’s say a student is an Engineering major at a top 50 public flagship (perhaps in their Honors program) and has a 4.0 after their sophomore year. They will have a solid chance at transferring to a top 25 school. The transfer process does seem to be more meritocratic.
But would automatic filters be enough to reduce the volume of applicants down to a number that can be reasonably interviewed by the faculty in question?
US medical schools do a three step admission evaluation, where only applicants passing the step go on to the next step:
Automatic screen by such things as college GPA and MCAT.
Human reading of applications with holistic evaluation as to whether the applicant should be interviewed and at what priority.
Interview.
It is unlikely that a US prestige private university that wants to do faculty interviews for admissions could skip step 2 to get the number of applicants down to a reasonable number for step 3.
College GPA is considered more predictive of future college performance than high school GPA or SAT/ACT. After all, college (even a different one) is much more like college than high school or SAT/ACT is like college.
After automatic filtering, multiple layers of manual filtering are likely necessary, with perhaps faculty members performing the last layer of filtering with or without interviews.
A lot of kids and parents don’t know about these schools. The processes and applications can be very different. Dates can vary a lot and the baseline expectations for APs/other can be tough to meet. Not only that but a kid and their parent has to know these options are available, meet the various deadlines and also have the financial resources to pay for them. Many kids in the US get FA aid and that may not apply elsewhere.
And the UK, for example tests specific subject knowledge which not a lot of US kids have given the differences in the systems. You have to know what you want to study at U and you have to already have a background to meet the bar.
It’s a great option for some but not really a thing for many. Might become more popular as acceptances get lower and people look around for more options.
Multiple “top 20” universities have the most rampant grade inflation in the nation. It would be difficult for a student who got in to actually fail out. Caltech and MIT are a different story. It’s about pace more than complexity and they are exceptions.
Why, though? Is the system broken, so that schools are admitting material numbers of unqualified kids? Are the schools’ graduates flaming out?
No, no they are not. So what would a threshold/filter accomplish? (And, btw, wouldn’t you agree that there already is a threshold/filter at T20 schools?)
Yes, I think the system is broken. Too much resources have been wasted in the process by all involved.
I agree that all “top” schools have some threshold, but that threshold is too low for those schools and it’s lowered nearly constantly. I’ve personally met a few really underqualified students at a couple of the most prestigious (supposedly) schools.
^ This. I was shocked when I logged in and found 75+ replies to this thread, which I thought would die after a few responses. And after reading through, I still don’t understand the OP’s point … at all.
So there are X spots for X+Y people, and controlling for traditional academic evidence criteria, schools with the luxury of strong market demand look for other things when deciding who amongst X+Y gets a spot. IOW, it’s harder, not easier.
But don’t you think that if Stanford, or MIT, or Harvard thought the system was broken they would make changes? That if a material number of students were underperforming – I chsnged your word, because I believe the schools are far better placed to determine if a candidate is “under qualified” than you are – they would make a change? Especially if the change is as simple as a threshold. If they wanted to they could require 800’s on the SAT math section. Or perfect 4.0’s, or you name the benchmark. But even though they can, they don’t.
In a world where there’re lots of “easy” majors (MIT is one of the few exceptions) to hide behind, and where grade inflation is rampant, most students do appear “qualified”, if the benchmark is graduation rate and college GPA.
A threshold, whatever it is, doesn’t mean automatic “qualification”. Far from it. When you have too many applicants, there needs to be some mechanism to reduce their number to some manageable level in order to vet them more properly.
Because we don’t currently have a mechanism to do the filtering in this country for the “top” schools. 4.0 HS GPA or 750+ SAT Math doesn’t really mean much. Oxbridge, for example, wouldn’t rely on these stats for American applicants.
