<p>Marite,</p>
<p>be careful of what you wish for. A beginning student on gamba is one thing, but what if he had picked sackbut, shawm or rauschpfeife?</p>
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I'd love to see what she actually does about all her new found wisdom..... my guess? Absolutely Nothing.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>First of all, I agree with an earlier poster that one institution, acting unilaterally, is limited in the effect it can have on the overall incentive system for high school students.</p>
<p>And antitrust law limits the extent to which colleges can mutually agree to change the system. </p>
<p>That said, I think MIT has done an exceptionally good job of marketing itself honestly. </p>
<p>Their student and staff admissions blogs strike me as honestly getting across a message--MIT is a lot of work and a lot of stress--and they don't claim "We're the best for everyone." </p>
<p>They make clear that MIT is a good place for people who like lots of extremely challenging work and working together with others on those challenges. It's a good place for people with offbeat ideas of how to have fun. </p>
<p>As molliebatmit said, it's also a good place for people who know how to fail, because just about everybody fails at some point at MIT. (That's what science is about, right? Trying lots of things, dealing with lots of stuff that can go wrong, lots of failure, it's all part of science. Research is an important part of the undergraduate experience at MIT, and research is all about failure as well as success. Not every experiment works. It takes resilience. It takes willingness to embrace one's mistakes and learn from them. It's not a place for perfectionists.)</p>
<p>Beyond that, it's not clear to me what MIT can do. They've tried to get the word out that scores and infinite APs are not what it takes to get into MIT. What it does take is something harder to define, which is why robot-computers don't admit people to MIT. </p>
<p>Instead, those decisions get made by thoughtful flesh-and-blood human beings, who agonize and try to do their best to select a diverse group of students who will thrive and support one another in the MIT pressure-cooker environment.</p>
<p>MIT has done an outstanding job of putting a human face on the admissions process. And it IS human, not infallible. And they try so hard to communicate that students should not take rejection by the committee as some kind of divine, infallible judgment on their worth as human beings, nor does it mean that they are doomed to an unhappy, unfulfilling lot in life.</p>
<p>Indeed, MIT adrep Ben Jones makes clear that he himself wouldn't have been admitted to MIT and yet he has a happy, fulfilling life.</p>
<p>MIT adrep Matt McGann did go to MIT, but he has often used his blog in the past to promote a diverse set of "other cool colleges." He talks a little about them and puts in links to other colleges' websites.</p>
<p>(This kind of very specific and gracious acknowledgement that there are lots of other great colleges with much to offer is something I haven't seen on ANY other colleges' websites!)</p>
<p>I think it's a step in the right direction.</p>
<p>Bassdad:</p>
<p>I picked the viola da gamba because my brother learned to play it at university and I love the sound. But the sackbut? Ugh... Even if colleges had advertised a need, I think I would have discouraged my kids from taking it up.</p>
<p>The thing, though, is that, even if a college suddenly finds itself in need of brass players, how many does it actually need that it should advertise the fact? And of course, next year, it won't need so many any more. </p>
<p>My feeling is not so much that we need more information but that we are so drowning in information that we don't have the time to keep up with it and digest it. And sometimes, we disregard it anyway. College apps are a bit like second marriages: the triumph of hope over (other people's) experience.</p>
<p>I totally agree with Wisteria's post # 102</p>
<p>I totally disagree with Wisteria's post # 102</p>
<p>it takes true strength to lead and to take the steps off the beaten path</p>
<p>MIT should start leading the charge and others may follow</p>
<p>I agree with Wisteria as well. I don't follow MIT very closely, but I think they have done a better job than most at putting a human face on admissions and communicating what they are looking for (very high levels of math/science competency PLUS a quirky self-starter interest).</p>
<p>
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MIT should start leading the charge and others may follow.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think MIT ** is ** leading the charge.</p>
<p>Their adrep Ben Jones has come on the cc forum to make clear that MIT is not looking for applicants with 16 bazillion APs. He said the typical successful applicant has 4 or 5 APs and that the kind of applicant MIT is looking for is a kid who is just naturally going to take these classes because s/he enjoys challenging work. And a kid who doesn't enjoy challenges in high school is a kid who shouldn't be at MIT.</p>
<p>Marilee Jones has been using her bully pulpit for several years now to say that students need to convince MIT that they know how to have fun and balance in their lives. Hard work is an important part of the MIT experience, but so is creative fun of all sorts.</p>
<p>MIT's IAP (Independent Activities Period) in January is an incredible model for other colleges. A whole month when students can explore all kinds of interests, without the pressure of exams and problem sets. The kind of community-building experience possibilities there are amazing.</p>
<p>Then there's MIT's Open Courseware. No, MIT can't admit everyone to live and study as MIT undergrads, but anyone in the world with an Internet connection can access much of MIT's curriculum--for free. In some cases, you can even watch videos of MIT professors' lectures. There are also class notes and references and outlines and problem sets and more.</p>
<p>MIT is indeed leading the charge. It remains to be seen whether others will follow.</p>
<p>In case anybody's interested in links to the information wisteria summarized so well:
Open</a> CourseWare -- even includes videos of some lectures
Independent</a> Activities Period
Ben</a> Jones' excellent post/blog entry on AP courses
MIT</a> staff and student admissions blogs</p>
<p>I am admittedly an MIT partisan. But I think there are a lot of things we're doing right, both as a group of students and as an institution led by administrators.</p>
<p>Though numbers analysis is important, I'm not sure that, at the margins, given the similarity rather than differences between students, the process does not become much more subjective than anyone would like to admit. Something stirs the admit committee or an advocate, and that is likely what tips the scales. It may be more important to have an idea of how one communicates a "stirring" than a numbers analysis (though important). It might be fun to see a compilation of "what turns me on when I read a student application," from admissions decision makers. </p>
<p>I think this excerpt from an article on UChicago admissions (<a href="http://www.scfun.net/sceduc-cl-newsweek.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.scfun.net/sceduc-cl-newsweek.pdf</a>) kinds of sums it up:</p>
<p>Do we really want Rebecca? Almost any college would offer a seat in its honors program to lure such a talented applicant. But this is the choosy University of Chicago, where the 12 members of the admissions committee can't even decide whether to let her through the door. With seven applicants competing for each of 1,011 slots in the class of 2003, Chicago clearly doesn't need Rebecca. Rick Bischoff, her advocate on the committee, argues that she has strong leadership skills. He recalls being so impressed when he first met the young woman that he muttered, "I sure hope she's smart." In fact, her transcript is very good. And yet Chicago has already rejected hundreds of applicants with better grades. Bischoff tosses on the cluttered conference table a Kelly-green folder that sums up Rebecca in 32 pages. "Look at the way her teachers write about her," he urges. "Plus, she doesn't like 'Dawson's Creek'." </p>
<p>Around the room, brows furrow. This is a zero-sum game: accepting Rebecca would mean curtains for yet another of the nation's most gifted high-school seniors. One committee member complains that the girl's answers to application questions don't echo the lofty academic ideals that Chicago projects in its literature. "Yes," a pro-Rebecca member fires back, "and don't you get suspicious when they do?" Bischoff, his arsenal nearly spent, launches what Chicago admissions counselors call "the don't-give-a-s--- argument." So what if Rebecca will get only C's in math-she, and not some higher-scoring robot, is the provocateur we want sitting in class. Dissenting voices crackle, but fall silent when Ted O'Neill speaks. O'Neill, 52, is a machinist's son who came to this work after years devoted to the study of Romantic poetry. As dean of admissions, he has spent a decade urging his staff to look past grades and test scores. Yes, other kids appear more deserving. "But we are the University of Chicago," O'Neill reminds his colleagues. "We can do what we damn well please, so long as we have good reasons." Moments later, Rebecca is admitted.</p>
<p>Sorry guys but all these stats you're looking for won't give you what you want, i.e. how can my kid buck the system. You can't tell from looking at the stats where the overlap is.... how many of these #1 ranked kids are also award winning flautists or fencers or debaters; whether the 1600 scorers who got rejected did so because they had a B average and their teachers implied that they were slackers, or if they were solid A students who came off as robotic during the interview. </p>
<p>Further, I think it's a solid business practice for these schools to cast as wide a net as possible, and I can't imagine for one second that these $75 fees turn admissions into a profit center.... it screams cost center to me, given the amount of travel and dog and pony at the local Holiday Inn the elite schools end up doing. If you want a class comprised of Exeter, Andover, and Horace Greely High... then sure, go publish your stats, tell everyone that it's next to impossible to get in, end up with a class that looks just like Harvard class of '51 (i.e. White, Protestant, Rich, according to Karabel's book). OR-- use test scores to help you ferret out kids from unknown or undistinguished HS's; develop a holistic application which allows kids who are first generation college, immigrants, poor, or otherwise disadvantaged to share their "voice"; cast a very wide net so that you're not just enrolling viola players but the very best combo of viola player and scholar or potential scholar; make sure that you mail applications to kids in the score band who live in Iowa or grew up on a ranch in Texas to know that not everyone at Harvard is rich and lives in Greenwich CT.</p>
<p>Sure, let's go back to the good old days where the smart kids went to City College or their local commuter school because the elite colleges couldn't or wouldn't find a way to identify talent.</p>
<p>Well said, Blossom.</p>
<p>All of that is very true, as I have seen personally in my work with teenagers, per the spark and applications, etc. But I still think it would be helpful to know if at Harvard, white males from NJ have a 2% acceptance rate, and from South Dakota a 40% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I guess Harvard would then be afraid that enough white males from NJ wouldn't apply if they revealed a stat like that (I made it up). Somehow I would think that the supply would still be there of these applicants, but then they at least could decide whether to pay the application fee or buy lottery tickets (or take their Mom out to dinner).</p>
<p>Soozievt: Per your post to me:I don't think that it is realistic to think that all or even most parents and students can do such involved research as many of the parents on this website. That is why, if more detailed information were circulated, then at least GCs could disseminate it to students. The colleges are trying so hard to attract 1st generation college applicants. Many of the parents of these students don't have the financial or language resources to do this kind of research. Nor do they have the money to spend on multiple application fees or the wherewithall to find fee waivers. Somewhere between most seniors in a HS deciding to go to community college, and nearly everyone in another school thinking they should apply to an Ivy, must be the answer. I think, as in many other decisions, the more facts the better.</p>
<p>Collegialmom:</p>
<p>I doubt that colleges operate along the lines you suggest. If there were quotas, you can be sure that there would be lawsuits. Geographical preferences are just a tip factor, not a hook. If two applicants have exactly the same profile, then the applicant from SD will be given a tip over the applicant from NJ at NE colleges. I expect, though, that in Midwestern colleges, the tip would go the other way. But it would only be a tip.</p>
<p>Idad is also right. A lot depends on individual adreps reactions to different applicants. But isn't that true of everything in life? I prefer a particular brand of toothpaste over another, the voice of a particular singer over another's. A high school teacher is an easier grader than another; and so on so forth. Why should the admission process be any less subjective? Should we leave it all to machines? Ten from SD, if you please, 20 from NJ, 30 from private schools, 40, from public magnets, and so on down the line. Is this what we want?</p>
<p>
[quote]
But I still think it would be helpful to know if at Harvard, white males from NJ have a 2% acceptance rate, and from South Dakota a 40% acceptance rate.
[/quote]
But I can't see how this could help in the slightest (even if such a thing were being propagated intentionally, which I doubt). First of all, from year to year such figures would vary all over the map. And second of all, if I look, for example, at all white or all Asian males from my son's HS who applied specifically to MIT last year, and then look at who was accepted, the actual percentage wouldn't mean a thing. The kids were so different from each other that having some false statistic in-hand wouldn't have changed anything for any of them. They were admitted as individuals, not as examples of their ethnic or geographic categories. (And yes, I truly honestly totally believe this, at least in the case of MIT. You are free to think differently, of course.)</p>
<p>I also want to add a bravo for your post #110, blossom, and your #107 and #102, wisteria. As marite said, well said.</p>
<p>Mootmom: "They were admitted as individuals, not as examples of their ethnic or geographic categories."</p>
<p>That was well said...</p>
<p>It is just a matter of numbers applying, and they do want diversity, this is not a negative thing. If stats were consistent over the years, then each year would not be considered as a random anomaly, but as a trend. Looking at the data of admissions rates for blacks vs whites at universities clearly shows a higher rate for blacks, just look at the link I cited before. This is currently, in most states, not seen as illegal, because it promotes diversity, ruled to be a a worthy goal.</p>
<p>OK, I am clearly outnumbered here, and will sign off, as majority rules. I just really believe that knowing if there is a significantly higher rate of acceptance for a particular group, and less for another, would be useful when making an educated choice for admissions applications. I do believe the touchy-feeley/cuddly part of admissions holds true to a certain extent, but when it comes down to it, some groups will have an edge, so why not know in advance? And if it makes so little difference, why not publish it with a disclaimer that in the end, the subjective will win out?</p>
<p>
[quote]
But I still think it would be helpful to know if at Harvard, white males from NJ have a 2% acceptance rate, and from South Dakota a 40% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I guess Harvard would then be afraid that enough white males from NJ wouldn't apply if they revealed a stat like that (I made it up). Somehow I would think that the supply would still be there of these applicants, but then they at least could decide whether to pay the application fee or buy lottery tickets (or take their Mom out to dinner).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Consider two canonical cases for your hypothetical NJ white male.</p>
<p>Case I: student attends a high school where students rarely apply to highly selective colleges. In such a case, by definition of the case, there is no problem of too many delusionally optimistic students applying.</p>
<p>Case II: Student attends a high school where lots of students apply to highly selective colleges every year. Perhaps such students are delusional about their chances, but their guidance counselor has statistics that are far more relevant and specific than the statewide statistics. Many schools maintain scatterplots showing their students how former students fared at different colleges, broken down by GPA and SAT scores. (Of course, those statistics don't show race, athlete, etc. But when you are talking about a college like Harvard, it's a good bet that this year's seniors know such attributes about the students who were accepted in the last year or so, and can factor that in.)</p>
<p>It's not obvious to me how a student in a Case II high school would learn more about his chances from statewide data than from data specific to his school in recent years.</p>
<p>QED</p>
<p>EDIT: By the way, some high schools publish their scatterplots on the Internet, making the data easily available to their students and parents. </p>
<p>Colleges do not have a monopoly on the information about who has been accepted and what their statistics are. If students are systematically overoptimistic at a given high school, guidance counselors have the right incentives to provide the relevant information to them.</p>
<p>Blossom, what has anything to do in your post 110 with the simple request to want more disclosure? </p>
<p>It is the same disclosure that allows someone to realize that a statement like this: "But this is the choosy University of Chicago, where the 12 members of the admissions committee can't even decide whether to let her through the door. With seven applicants competing for each of 1,011 slots in the class of 2003" is factually correct but *MISLEADING. * Why is it misleading? Because Rebecca does not compete for one of 1011 slots but for a number that is at least THREE times larger, due to the Chicago yield because much lower than Harvard or Princeton, where students DO have a 1 in 7 chance. </p>
<p>Frankly, I do not understand the repeated statements that having more information could be detrimental or irrelevant. Since when is a lesser educated consumer better equipped to make correct decisions? </p>
<p>And for what it is worth, the success in avoiding the situations you describe in your post --in more recent years than 1951-- is a direct result of more openness and accountability.</p>
<p>And, lastly, this is not about slotting or handicapping the odds of a particular student. While each student remains a collection of his individuality, the patterns of admissions are not THAT nebulous, and lessons can be learned from the analysis of the data. At least for some of us who believe the winning numbers are not culled from a donkey's hat!</p>
<p>Xiggi: you say "And for what it is worth, the success in avoiding the situations you describe in your post --in more recent years than 1951-- is a direct result of more openness and accountability."</p>
<p>I think the changes in student body at the elites is due more to changes in what the schools now VALUE (racial, cultural and socio-economic diversity) rather than greater openness about their admissions processes.</p>
<p>And secondly, if the use of the data is not for "slotting or handicapping the odds of a particular student", then what is it for? I assumed that this is not for the purposes of a sociological study, but rather for use by individuals in making informed choices.</p>
<p>The question is, if students learned that the typical white NJ/LI/Westchester Co. male has between a 2 and 5% chance of admission at the ivies, would that decrease the number of students applying? (Harvard is one of the few schools with a lower number of EA applications this year...maybe that's because their published acceptance rate dropped to a new low of 9% last year). Well, I don't know the answer to that, but the 2-5% was what I was figuring with this time last year.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. I like numbers. Numbers don't lie, but numbers change. If there are 150 more applicants to Harvard one year from South Dakota because they see the 40% admit rate, there goes the admit rate, doesn't it....does that change who Harvard has admitted? Nope. </p>
<p>Furthermore, all those poor souls who do not 'know the score' about the most elite schools to the extent the information is now available, are certainly not going to be the ones reading the new matrices.</p>
<p>I just don't see how gathering more statistical and objective data about who gets in and who doesn't changes what an already knowledgeable person knows....which is that there is always going to be something subjective which for MOST KIDS makes all the difference. Rebecca didn't win an Olympic medal, publish a novel or win Intel. There was a quality of Rebecca that was hard to define...wasn't there?What cell in the spreadsheet does it go in?</p>
<p>Each person's tolerance of risk and the potential of an undesirable outcome is different. This was a signficant factor for one of my kids- beyond what any data would say, in terms of his list...</p>
<p>Look, colleges and universities have one agenda (or several agenda items). High schools, especially those that charge gobs of tuition and use college matriculation lists as their key tool in advertising, have another agenda. </p>
<p>Parents and children have to know their own agenda, too. I'm sorry, but I think if the parental agenda is 'I am a failure as a parent if my kid doesn't get into....' or the kid agenda is 'I am a failure as a kid if I don't get into....'-- this is not a problem that more numbers and data about elite college admissions can solve.</p>