<p>"Well you can't have it both ways Interestdad. Either we don't know the stats or we do.... if a kid can find out that Swat's acceptance rate is 22% except if your Af-Am it's 46% and Asian it's 35%, what the heck are you talking about? "</p>
<p>I'm not generally in the habit of answering for other posters, but I think Swathmore is one of the only schools that does provide the statistical transparency that i-dad is calling for.</p>
<p>Just further evidence that Swathmore, like Mary Poppins, is practically perfect in every way.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, Swathmore is great. Love the International admissions person there(whom we met when that person was at another school), one of the best...school is great, best friend's sons love it, son's best friend loves it... We couldn't have cared less about the details of admissions stats...</p>
<p>As far as Swat and the other small schools are concerned, often the local applicant pool matters the most- who else from your school is applying. In our case a legacy with similar stats and the Val with higher grades. Full stop. Didn't bother to pursue any further. It just wasn't happening. OUr school is small, Swat was not taking 3 kids...</p>
<p>Both I-dad and I would agree, given that my son could only apply to 8 schools, Swathmore was not a good 'admissions value'. No big deal, didn't waste time on it (or HYP or a few others...) Didn't let son fall in love with it. There were too many other great options.....</p>
<p>Statistics are neither necessary nor sufficient in making common sense judgements.</p>
<p>"Is the higher admissions rate for students who then may not graduate only an admissions game, masking the reality of what is best for the students?"</p>
<p>No, it is simple the reality of students whose families in one way or the other require them to be home. The best thing for the STUDENTS is to be provided the chance to make it at MIT or anywhere else, with the best supports that are available to them, and then let the chips fall. Some will walk through unscathed; others will fall by the wayside (and often end up graduating from elsewhere, just years later, as family and home situation allow.) Whether that is the best for the school is another matter.</p>
<p>It doesn't take a heck of a lot to graduate from a top flight school if all you have to worry about is your courses. (Last time I looked, most schools would graduate students who never received higher than a "C" in a single course.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm not generally in the habit of answering for other posters, but I think Swathmore is one of the only schools that does provide the statistical transparency that i-dad is calling for.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, they don't provide any more transparency than any other school. Those percentages were available by a fluke -- comments the admissions dean made to a student gathering that just happened to be reported in the daily news digest.</p>
<p>Brown probably provides the most transparency I've seen with their breakdowns of acceptance rates and yield by SAT range and class rank. But, that data still stops far short of what is needed to figure out if you really have a serious chance in any given "slot" category.</p>
<p>oops, sorry I-dad.</p>
<p>In thinking through whether the arguments as to whether a more finely tuned stastistical breakdown would help a student better determine where they stand in chances for admission, consider my daughter, who went to Brown. Had I looked at those statistics (which would have probably been only very slightly different in fall of 1999 when she applied EA), I would have found that with her verbal SAT taken alone, she'd have a 26% chance of admission; with her math SAT, a 16.6% chance, and with class rank a 33% chance. So, what would I have concluded: no matter whether it's one in 3 or one in 4 or one in 6, still seems like a reach to me. Then I would have factored in that she had no hook, in fact, a white non-athlete, non-legacy, non-oboist from a prominent NY suburb was the greatest "anti-hook" ever. Conclusion: major reach. Well, we knew that anyway. Those numbers made little difference...it was a long shot, and despite her accomplishments--of which we were duly proud, we consider it a miracle that she got in. So, I have to conclude that all this transparency made little difference in our outlook. Now, had she been a URM, with everything else being equal, we would have perhaps allowed ourselves to be slightly more hopeful---didn't need further statistics to tell us that.</p>
<p>I'm all for getting more information, but, like Donemom, I don't really know whether more information would have made a difference in how my Ss made their decisions or how they chose their courses or ECs. We were told S1 would have had a greater chance of admission if he played the oboe instead of the piano (quite indifferently). It did not inspire him to change instruments. His GC told him he should take AP-Calc; he did not. Granted, he did not aspire to HYPSM, but he did get into several top 15 LACs.We did not know about CC when S1 applied to colleges. It was a blessing, actually. It saved us a lot of anxiety!
Many CC posters know that the odds of getting admitted into HYPSM are highly unfavorable. It does not prevent them from applying and asking what their chances are and speculating about why some get in and some don't at colleges where the admit rate is around 10%.</p>
<p>The link below shows the admission rates for blacks and overall for the top-ranked universities in the US, it is again from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Some of the Ivies did not provide data, apparently. The universities and LACs data are listed in 2 separate tables in the article. It is a comprehensive review of admissions data, published recently:</p>
<p>Please let me know if the link doesn't work.</p>
<p>Marite, what did you mean by the following sentence?</p>
<p>"No, it is simple the reality of students whose families in one way or the other require them to be home."</p>
<p>Collegialmom:</p>
<p>I did not make the statement. Some other poster maybe? EDIT: It was Mini.</p>
<p>Sorry about that, Marite!</p>
<p>Mini: </p>
<p>Could you please clarify what you meant by the statement below?</p>
<p>"No, it is simple the reality of students whose families in one way or the other require them to be home."</p>
<p>Thank you, I did not understand it in the context of this discussion of graduation rates.</p>
<p>I may be looking at this too simplistically, but to me the value of "transparency" or more detailed statistics, is that it would help the student know how many matches are enough. If you define a match as a 50-50 shot, and you can find 4 match schools that you like, the odds of striking out are low enough to be acceptable to most of us. Anything that improves a student's ability to define matches would be helpful. </p>
<p>But are these numbers a close enough approximation? For example, if the college is small, and 5 students in your class just happen to be applying this year, then you could calculate your chances very precisely, but still be totally wrong, because of the random influence of 5 kids applying this year instead of the normal 2. Maybe this is where a good GC comes in.</p>
<p>CollegialMom - I'm putting words into Mini's mouth, but what I think he meant was that often poor kids, regardless of race, have a hard time graduating from residential 4 year universities because their home situations are such that they are needed at home - for income, to navigate health or welfare systems for family members, as caregivers, etc. They are also a lot more likely to have children of their own. Their graduation rates may not reflect their native intelligence or high school preparation as much as their home circumstances.</p>
<p>If you refer back to the article about black graduation rates in the "Journal of Blacks in Higher Education", you will find a detailed analysis by them. They are a strong advocate for blacks in higher education. The summary is:</p>
<p>"This journal has always placed emphasis on financial pressures as a major agent in producing low black graduation rates. But, clearly, cultural and family issues bear a huge responsibility. Invariably, the critical problem is that a very high number of young blacks are entering college with wholly inadequate academic credentials, ambition, and study habits.</p>
<p>We accept the view that a very strong black student graduation rate is a good indicator of institutional success in racial integration of a given campus. But readers are cautioned that a lower graduation rate can be a positive indicator of a college or university's willingness to take a chance on academically dedicated young black students with substandard academic credentials."</p>
<p>The main factors they cite for black graduation rates are nurturing, supportive environments, geographic location, racial climate, curriculum differences, family college tradition, academic preparation prior to colleges, and financial issues.</p>
<p>Here is the link again:</p>
<p>So it would seem reasonable for individual minority applicants to continue to explore these factors as they make college choices. The goal obviously would be higher graduation rates, which would combine the resources of schools with realistic college choices by individual applicants.</p>
<p>Blossom and InterestedDad - MIT is one of the very few schools that has no athletes who are recruited and tipped; or, if they are recruited (which in fact some may be in the literal sense - in that they are encouraged to apply) - they get no break from admissions. I think that the lower end of the SAT scale at MIT (which is still pretty damn high - the 25th percentile for Math is 730!) probably serves other institutional needs, like racial, gender, and geographic diversity.</p>
<p>DoneMom and Marite, I feel as you do. No more statistics were needed that would have affected where my kids applied. Reach schools were reach schools no matter how it could be broken down. They knew it, they didn't expect to get in, but were qualified.</p>
<p>Until I started reading CC 3 1/2 years ago, I didn't realize all these things people "orchestrated" to "get into a selective college". We just never thought that way. The ONLY thing I think my kids ever did related to "going to college" was to do well in school. Everything else they did, they would have done whether they were applying to college or not. They took challenging courses because they did not LIKE courses that were too easy. They did ECs they chose when younger, loved doing them, never wanted to give them up. Never was a discussion about "hmm, what should I do or pick to do in order to get into an elite college?" They wanted to go to good schools and so worked hard in school to do well but otherwise, their choices were made out of interest, be it academic interest or outside interests. When it came time to apply to college, they documented whatever they had done. When they picked schools, they estimated their chances. They were realistic that reach schools of the highly selective sort cannot be counted on but knew they were appropriate candidates. They put their all into their applications and that was that. They were actually quite successful in their college admissions processes. My older chlld had no true hook and was not a recruit or anything. Actually she was the proverbial well rounded kid and even had an essay on being well rounded. My other child applied to specialized programs in her field which were ALL reaches which is not the normal way I would advise anyone, as reaches, matches and safeties are needed. Her BFA process was very different. She had no "hook" either because everyone applying to her BFA programs had the same "hook". </p>
<p>I did not need any more information than we had at our fingertips. My kids would not have done anything differently because not only didn't they orchestrate their plans to fit anything on their journey up to the college app process but they did not orchestrate the apps to really be any different than who they were anyway. They picked schools that met their college criteria; they showed who they were on the apps, they expressed interest that was genuine in each school, and the rest followed. </p>
<p>I don't live in a community where all this strategizing goes on, nor where there is all this "competition", nor where talk of college starts in elementary school and so forth. The only talk of college with my kids was that they had long range goals of going to college, good ones, and that was about it. And they did.</p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>I would like to see a statistical breakdown of those students wait listed. I sometimes believe some of the "match schools" use it to test whether or not a good-stat student is truly interested in their school, a kind of gentler Tufts syndrome, particularly if their has been little contact with the school (which would be another interesting piece of data; that is, the frequency of visits or contact of admitted vs not admitted students across categories).</p>
<p>Agree with the previous poster. We started supporting our D's love of art with external activities by third grade. This was not part of a grand plan nine years down the line: we did it because she was so interested. </p>
<p>If things hold, she will be graduating valedictorian. She took no SAT preps. She took the most difficult classes her school offered because she liked the challenge. She applied to no Ivies or prestigious LACs. She is only applying to BFA Fine Art programs, with our support.</p>
<p>I am just happy she has found something she is so passionate about. Took me unitl my mid-twenties to get there.</p>
<p>It's not all about the stats...</p>
<p>Regarding visits/contacts and breakdowns of those admitted or not....I would never need that information. First of all, expressing interest is always a good thing. But most of all, all my kids's visits, meetings with faculty, as well as those in their EC interest areas, were ONLY done because they WANTED to explore the schools for THEMSELVES to see if they would want to go there. When writing the Why X college thing on applications, they did mention such visits or contacts but it was because genuinely they realized the school was a good fit via those visits and contacts and simply related that as part of their reasons for wanting to attend. Even if they were not allowed to write a single thing on their apps about wanting to attend, they STILL would have done the visits and meetings with people on campus. This was for their own benefit to decide where they wanted to spend four years. It was not part of ANY strategy to get in.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>do you really know a kid who can't identify their reach, match and safety schools based on the available information? I find that hard to believe. The kids who can't do this are either naive, hopelessly uninformed, or delusional</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Actually, there are lots. (I hope there are quite a few less, though, due to College Confidential! :)) Across the country, guidance counselors and teachers in "average" high schools are telling kids, "your stats are in the upper quartile for Harvard, you'll be accepted wherever you apply." I can guarantee that come April, we'll have more than one "I got rejected everywhere!" post. Some schools rarely send students to highly selective schools, and just don't have the experience to provide good feedback on what's a reach and what isn't.</p>
<p>I think the availability of web resources like CC and coverage in the popular press has gotten the word out about insanely low acceptance rates at the top schools (and the resulting unpredictability even for superb applicants), but not everyone reads here or really gets it.</p>
<p>Roger, that is SOOOO true!!! </p>
<p>At my D's school, guidance counselor and teachers were all of the ilk "you'll be accepted wherever you apply" to both my D, the valedictorian, and to my D who exceled at Musical Theater going for BFA programs. It was US who had to keep telling the educators, that ain't necessarily so! We knew what the situation is at elite colleges and also at BFA in MT programs, to know that they were unpredictable reaches and could never be counted on and the odds were very tough. But there are SO many people who do not seem aware of this AT ALL ! (of course most of them do not read CC, LOL). </p>
<p>In my work now as a college counselor, I have people contact me all the time with VERY VERY low stats, and telling me their college list where I can determine they have NO chance of admissions. Many do NOT get it, as you say. And even on CC, there are kids who post their stats and then their college lists and either their stats don't really match the list or the list is so top heavy with no match or safety schools and their so called "safety" is a reach in many knowledgeable peoples' view. </p>
<p>CC provides an education, if nothing else, in the realities of this process. Not everyone researches or reads things like CC. And as you say, some who do, still do not realistically get "it". </p>
<p>Susan</p>