World Record for Number of Applications?

Applying to College
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<p>“Yes, I do believe college #3 is better than #13.”</p>

<p>You are implying that you agree with a bunch of magazine editors about what makes a college good.</p>

<p>Consider this:</p>

<p><a href=“Has US News Rankings Improved Higher Education Through Competition? - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>Has US News Rankings Improved Higher Education Through Competition? - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums;

<p>“My wife and I do not believe in fit and match, nor does my son.”</p>

<p>That’s fine for your family.</p>

<p>“Second point, fit is overrated.”</p>

<p>For your family.</p>

<p>“WE (no, I am not apologetic about parent involvement in the process) chose the top 14”</p>

<p>This is NOT parent involvement.</p>

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<p>one of my friends applied to 32 schools. o_O~~~</p>

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<p>Having to go to their safeties? </p>

<p>Does that mean they considered the top ones to be their match schools? Or were they also rejected by their match schools?</p>

<p>For some reason, it does seem so *pass</p>

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<p>Few years ago, I saw a website where high school seniors posted their list of colleges with acceptances, rejections, etc…along with their EC"s, GPA, SAT / ACT score…one could search by school or applicant name…a very useful website…self reported data…</p>

<p>Does anyone remember the website link…</p>

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<p>LOL moe-- seems like you’ve found it :slight_smile: (jk)</p>

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<p>where…i wish i found it…not the one in CC…</p>

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<p>google collegedata and tracker.</p>

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<p>I agree with xiggi on all his points. </p>

<p>If a kid doesn’t get into any of his reaches, that should not necessarily imply he/she has to attend a safety. My kid had matches on her list…Tufts and Smith, which both also came through, but so did some reaches. I’m not into “top school or bust”. There are many highly selective schools that are not in the top 15 on USNews. A top student should not have to attend their safety. </p>

<p>ramaswami…I don’t feel that I preached to you. I shared my viewpoints and experiences and you shared yours. </p>

<p>I agree with xiggi that there is a higher percentage of Asians at highly selective colleges than in the US demographics. Plenty of Asians are admitted. Is it hard? Sure! But one could say it was hard for my kid too as she went to an unknown rural public school and for example, was the only kid to attend any Ivy that year. Many of those schools don’t know much of our high school. </p>

<p>It is not that sports are important to us or more important than academics at all. Academics come first. But my kids are very engaged in activities outside of academics and continuing to participate in these activities is part of their college experience and so checking on which schools offer these particular ECs was one consideration. Also, many selective schools, while offering superb academics, would be poor fits if they do not offer one’s intended major. Many Ivies and other top schools did not offer my D’s major (architecture). To me, that would be a poor fit. There are plenty of top colleges that meet some specific selection criteria that she could not lose by eliminating Columbia or Harvard, for example. </p>

<p>I also think location, while not the most important selection criteria, of course, does matter. D1 wasn’t into living in NYC and Columbia is in NYC. She did get into Columbia for grad school, one of the tippy top programs in her field, but chose MIT, because not only did she like their program better, she likes living in Boston more than NYC. For my other kid, her life is in the theater, and so being in NYC for college opened many connections and doors for her both in college and now that she remains there post graduation. </p>

<p>Challenging academics were important to my kids but there are more than the top 15 schools that offer first rate academics and very challenging and motivated student bodies. </p>

<p>We could not be happier that our kids found the perfect fits for them. They were very lucky. As parents, we did not care where they went but just wanted them to be happy with their choices and they ended up having superb experiences and received wonderful educations. For that, we are grateful.</p>

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<p>Vossron, you keep repeating, for your family, etc. Whatever I wrote is for our family. We chose means a joint involvement, mutual discussion, back and forth, etc, and I find your statement, this is not parent involvement slightly condescending. </p>

<p>Xiggi, kindly don’t distort my point: Asians may or may not be disproportionately admitted to the top schools but certainly bright Asians are disproportionately rejected. I could recommend several books that deal with this issue. How can the Ivies all be a fit, you ask. I am sorry you do not seem to see the commonality: all in Northeast (if driving distance is a fit factor), all are neither too small nor too big and hence can accomodate diverse individuals and offer a wide array of college experiences, all emphasize a liberal arts non vocational curriculum, all have strong academics, all have a certain long history and tradition, I could go on and on.</p>

<p>I threw in Goldman, etc to make a point, not to be taken literally. People on CC are too literal, kindly read the overall message which I keep repeating, that choosing schools by selectivity, we chose the top 14, someone else may choose a different group, say the top 8 liberal arts colleges, etc is not a bad strategy.</p>

<p>I dont know where Aniger disagrees but he/she seems to identify with me. Back to Vossron, I am not saying no 3 is better than 13 because of some magazine editors. I have studied a no of rankings and the methodology as well as other factors. I do know a bit about American universities.</p>

<p>Yes bright Asians are disproportionately rejected, not with respect to their presence in the population but in head to head comparisons with other bright applicants. They are disadvantaged by roughly 200 SAT points.</p>

<p>I misspoke when I said fit is overrated etc. I think I did not clarify fit. Academic fit is important, very important. I do think fit in terms of rural/urban, sports etc is overrated. Again, Vossron, FOR US!. We Asians along with Europeans believe college is for academics and admission should not be based on whether you can throw a ball. The American idea would be laughable at Oxford or Cambridge or at the Ecoles but if it matters for sooz fine, I say enjoy but all of you seem to be so condescending to rankings. This in a country where everything, from TV shows to choosing the president is a beauty pageant based on appearances. At least USNews offers something substantial. Americans are so pretentious when it comes to houses, cars, where they vacation, the rank ordering of books on Amazon, etc etc etc but suddenly they bash US News.</p>

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<p>A bit defensive?</p>

<p>If your criteria is a well-respected school in the NE with a long history and where a student can be academically challenged and considered for prime wall street jobs, your list can be significantly expanded. If your criteria is simply the top spots on the USnews list, well, at least you are up front about it.</p>

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<p>“At least USNews offers something substantial.”</p>

<p>An appropriate summation, where some of us hold the opposite view, including college professors linked previously at <a href=“Has US News Rankings Improved Higher Education Through Competition? - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>Has US News Rankings Improved Higher Education Through Competition? - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums;

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<p>This was posted in another thread:
[5</a> Reasons Why Every Single College Ranking Is a Pile of Crap - The Consumerist](<a href=“http://consumerist.com/2010/08/5-reasons-why-every-single-college-ranking-ever-published-is-a-pile-of-crap.html]5”>http://consumerist.com/2010/08/5-reasons-why-every-single-college-ranking-ever-published-is-a-pile-of-crap.html)</p>

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<p>“Again, Vossron, FOR US!”</p>

<p>Your original words don’t suggest this. You didn’t write “Second point, as it applies in our case to our son, fit is overrated.” When you simply write “fit is overrated” you are judging, as you explain, the American system against the Asian and European systems. Yes, in Germany, e.g., entrance to university depends solely on the single score of a single academic test at the end of high school, the Abitur; that is not the American system. While you may want the American system to change, or wish it were different, I think it’s good that the world has different systems, indeed, that the U.S. has many varied schools where everyone can find their fit in a country of many adopted cultures. (Germany is somewhat more homogenous, although this is changing, and I think university entrance criteria are also changing somewhat.)</p>

<p>“[Bright Asians] are disadvantaged by roughly 200 SAT points.”</p>

<p>This is all the more significant when one believes that a single test score should determine university eligibility. At the other end of the spectrum, at our daughter’s LAC, class rank + GPA + test scores make up only 20% of entrance criteria; the rest is based on courses taken, recommendations, essays, community involvement and interviews.</p>

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<p>ramaswami wrote:</p>

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<p>This is a complete distortion of what I wrote and what I meant. I talked about my own child only. Her admissions was NOT based on how she did her sport at all. She was NOT a recruited athlete. I wasn’t talking about ADMISSION factors at all. I was talking about my child’s own COLLEGE SELECTION CRITERIA. I said that she wanted to continue doing her ECs in college that she had been participating in her entire life. She made sure that the colleges that made her final list would allow for opportunities to continue doing her ECs, which included sports. In fact, she was content if the school merely had a CLUB team in that sport. I believe of her entire college list of 8 schools, only TWO had a varsity sport team in her major sport (though she actually was a three sport athlete in HS). That was fine with her, as she simply didn’t want to give the sport up in college as it was a passion. It turns out that the school she did select to attend was one that had a varsity team and she was able to be on it all four years and was involved in other ECs in college as well. Academics was the most important factor in picking a college but since there are so many schools that offer top notch academics, she was able to refine the list by secondary criteria such as offering her major or her EC areas. </p>

<p>I happen to agree with vossron on the comment that I don’t consider the fact that was stated about parents selecting the list of 14 schools for the student constitutes when many of us consider to be “parent involvement.” That’s OK, as you did what you want and should. But for many of us, parent involvement still allowed for our kids to own the process and pick wherever they wished to apply and attend, and the parents were facilitators and supporters, but did not decide for the kid where to apply, attend, etc. A different view. It is not condescension but a different approach and viewpoint of what “parental involvement” means.</p>

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<p>Ramaswami, I did not distort your point. I quoted it as "“it is far tougher for bright Asians to get in to the top schools” and proceeded with a refutation. Now, you reintroduced a slight variance of the same statement, namely that “certainly bright Asians are disproportionately rejected.” Again, what you call “proportions” are in need of two elements, a numerator and a denominator. The disproportional result you perceive is mostly a factor of a greatly disproportionate denominator. Simply stated, you cannot use the higher percentile of the Asian applicant pool and ignore the bottom half which statistically HAS to be populated by lower performing students. Please take a look at the aboslute number of Asians who score above 750 or 700 on the VERBAL parts of the SAT. It is NOT as large as you might think! </p>

<p>As far as your offer to recommend several books that deal with “this” issue, I am always happy to add to my small library. Perhaps, I’ll need to make some room next to Jerome Karabel and Mitchell L. Stevens. After all, I’d be more than happy to replace the works of Daniel Golden and Joseph Soares with something of a higher academic integrity. So, please do not hesitate to share the titles of the books that covered this issue with actual research! </p>

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<p>Shall we assume that you’re quoting data from the seminal work of Prof. Espenshade? Or could it be from Russell Nieli or Ross Douthat? </p>

<p>Could it be along the following lines:</p>

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<p>Shall we also assume that you actually read Prof. Espenshade’s studies and were comfortable with his data pool? </p>

<p>And lastly, do you think that the following comments are genuine?</p>

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<p>Are your referring to [this</a> paper](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf]this”>http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf)? I would really like to know what is wrong with the data pool used in the study. And I hope that you can share with us your findings of the errors/mistakes in their analysis as well as the inappropriateness of the data pool. Thanks.</p>

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<p>Out of curiosity, ramaswami, I wonder how you respond to this scenario: In 2006, your child applies to the top 14 schools on US News, and gets into only one, Cornell. That’s where he goes. Fast forward to 2011. Cornell is no longer in the top 14! Oh no! What does this mean – that your $200,000 investment was wasted? Has your opinion of Cornell changed, just because it fell a few places in the ranking?</p>

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<p>fireandrain, I was thinking the same thing actually. The rankings shift over the four years of college somewhat. If I understand ramaswami, he is saying that he sees a difference between a school that is ranked 3 with one which is ranked 13 and he’d have his child attend the one ranked 3 over the one ranked 13, if offered acceptances to both. Thus, what happens when these rankings shift around during the child’s tenure at college? </p>

<p>My view is that there is little difference in “quality” or rigor between 3 and 13 anyway.</p>

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<p>To all of you, thank you for the discussion. Jym, yes the criteria re top schools in NE can be expanded, some of them were in NE, others like Stanford obviously not. There were slightly other criteria, offering of some kind of engineering science (this actually ruled out U Chicago). In typing fast and trying not to be very literal I did make some errors which I will attempt to correct in this post. First error: it was not the top 14 schools but 14 in the top 20. Vossron, I do understand the critiques of USNews including various college profs especially the beautiful one by the president of Reed. I concede that i wrote fit is overrated but did not mention for our family but I think (have not reread) rest of my post implied my family. In any case, let me attempt to restate. Fit as in rural/urban, sports etc is overrated for our family. sooz, in typing fast I did leave the impression your daughter got in for athletics. My apologies, no slur on your child. What I meant: elsewhere in the world the notion that sports ability would even be a factor would be considered laughable. This does not mean the American system is wrong and shd be discarded. It is good that there is diversity and plurality in the world. Again I have not reread my posts but must clarify another error I might have made: my wife and I did not select 14 schools and hand it over to our son. It was a joint process and actually started with my son pontificating on the signaling effect of rankings of top schools. Xiggi, thanks for showing off all your book knowledge, I guess I asked for it, I will concede, yes, those books and more. The data for Asian bias is not a smoking gun but can be inferred: observe Berkeley. Also, do not insult Asians by bringing in the softer variables. From admission officer comments and notes on candidates, cited I think by Karabel in the matter of admission of Jews, I can well imagine comments by school counselors and adcoms on Asians. </p>

<p>Now I will make one comment about my son: his school counselor typecast him for MIT which he did not want to go to, practically compelled him to apply to techie schools like MIT and Caltech (sorry, these were again not in our list of the 14 but counselor recs, so my original post on how the 14 were selected was not clear), told us that he was seen as introverted, etc. Surprise of surprises, he was the only one from his prep school that got into Brown (using that as an example of school that picks quirky kids with soft variables in addition to the usual ones) and the only one with the largest offers from the Ivies, 5 out of the 8 and rejects from the techie schools, MIT, Caltech , Stanford (someone will bash me for calling Stanford a tech school but that was what it was originally and still is to a goodly extent).</p>

<p>Fireandrain, I deserve some of the attacks since my phrasing was not clear. Yes, we chose 14 out of the top 20, all were within the top 20, some were chosen over our mild objections by the school counselor. I doubt the top 20 rankings change that dramatically, I did notice that many were within the top in the Shanghai listings (of course Brown is not there etc). But the no of schools was to get a good yield then make the decision. We did feel that for a bright Asian we ought to cast the net wide, then after acceptances then decide on The School. Yes, most probably my son would have chosen (at that point the parents would have said goodbye to the process) a school with a view to rankings. What if the school’s place changed? He would accept it with sangfroid.</p>

<p>I do apologize to all of you for not being very very clear. But I must say people on this site are TOO LITERAL . Thanks to all of you for clarifying my own thinking.</p>

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<p>Thank you for the clarification ramaswami. It did come across that you chose the top 14 on the list by number. </p>

<p>But to clarify my own point again, is that you are discussing sports in the context of admissions factors and I was not. This thread has been more to do with an applicant’s college selection, not the standards used to admit applicants. In that vein, my D’s EC interests were one factor in selecting colleges that offer her areas of interest and participation, and not a factor in the colleges selecting her. I happened to mention a sport (ski racing) but it could have been ballet, musical theater, debate, etc.</p>