In general, the European schools like Oxford and others seem to do a much better job with communication. Detailed information, frequent emails along the lines of do you have questions, re-routing requests. Perhaps they want the full pay students. I don’t think it has anything to do with URM. Or maybe there are separate programs broken down by demographics.
Most colleges won’t bother with faculty interviews for admission, since they are at most moderately selective, so typical academic measures (GPA, rank, SAT/ACT) are useful to them in distinguishing between applicants, unlike the most selective colleges which are overflowing with applicants at the ceilings of these measures.
Another question with using faculty interviews: how well would it work for undecided / undeclared students? Would the college have to move to a model where all students were applying for direct admission to a major, so that an appropriate faculty member could interview them?
As a person who attended Caltech long ago, and currently works as a computer programmer in mid-size dot-coms, I have to say that the best co-workers are people who can code well, yes. However, they also have certain “soft” skills that include negotiating both oral and written communications with peers, to convey meaning other than strict capabilities of a system as written or designed.
There is more to STEM than just being the best at math (or another science).
I think it is reasonable for schools to select for students who are just as good at HS level coursework as other people, who ALSO demonstrate the ability to persuade or negotiate with peers to achieve a desired goal.
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By “most” I meant the most “elite” colleges. They’re essentially competing with each other, not only for the best students, but perhaps even more importantly, for the best faculty.
No, I don’t think that’s necessarily required (even though Oxbridge obviously do), as long as it’s clear whether the students lean toward STEM or humanities.
The faculty that I know would not want to interview candidates. And since they control the committees that run the school, nobody would make them. I assume that the administration might have more control at some schools though.
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Among elite US schools, Caltech has by far the greatest amount of involvement by its faculty in admissions. It’s also a school where its faculty has greater say in how the school is run. You’re probably right that individual faculty members may not want to commit their time to this process, so the burden has to be shared and the number of candidates has to filtered down to a reasonable level prior to their involvement.
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And yet, according to not one but two people I know who were Caltech Professors, some of their undergrads end up pretty “pedestrian.” Not my words…theirs. This is not a knock on Caltech. It’s an acknowledgement that EVERY school, no matter how hard they try, can’t predict the superstars in advance. They come from everywhere, in spite of the efforts of the “elites.”
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There’re “pedestrian” students everywhere. Caltech probably has fewer of them than anywhere else.
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I would agree. But there are also fewer. The differences IMO come at higher levels.
As I said, every school has them. You can’t screen for curiosity and drive. That’s why one of them straight up said “It doesn’t matter where your son studies engineering.” Again, no bashing of Caltech. NO school has figured out how to mint the golden ticket (with maybe the exception of FinTech at MIT).
Everyone conjectures this, yet no one offers ANY concrete evidence of it. NO ONE. Wishful platitudes based on N=1 anecdotes are as good as it gets.
At any school, its students’ abilities are distributed. The distributions are wider with longer left tails at some schools than others. Caltech probably has the narrowest distribution among US colleges, but it’s still a distribution with a left tail.
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I’m not sure what you mean. All I’m saying is that many of grad students are good because I know they are personally.
However, it is a tiny outlier in many ways compared to other “elite” schools.
Heh. I’m sure I’d be one of those “pedestrian” types. With a career, a husband, 2 kids, a house, and looming retirement.
I’d be happy if my kids get that much out of life.
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They are public universities and pretty cheap compared to American ones, and their financial aid is substantially less. Unless one has a scholarship, max financial aid is something like $4,000 from a CoA of around $24,000 - $30,000 a year (depending on the college and on the meal plan). So “full pay” students aren’t really paying much more than the poorest students.
Yes, it’s an outlier in many ways. However, on a proportional per-student basis, quite a few other “elite” schools are comparable in terms of the resources they have.
That was these professor’s contention. It’s not abilities per se, but curiosity and drive that differentiates the best. That is HARD to screen for.
That’s the point. Most engineers are. There a notion that in order to have success you need to go to an elite school. You don’t. Then there’s a second notion that there are “tails” that are found more at some schools than others. But, they really aren’t, at least at the undergraduate level.
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Grad students are a different story. And, as long as we’re on the subject, “good” relative to what? LOTS of engineers are good, even really good. Great is rare and not strongly correlated to the undergraduate institution.
I know you believe that all schools are basically the same at the undergraduate level. But that’s not the reality. CP SLO may have some students as good as some students at Caltech, but that doesn’t mean the proportion of CP SLO “pedestrian” students is as low as Caltech’s.
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