"You Never Know"

Applying to College
1

I’ve been thinking for a while about this college admissions process, holistic applications, elite universities in America, and how it gives students an idea of “Who Knows?”.

I believe this has a big effect on the perceptions students may have:

  1. Students with lower stats and poorer academic track records apply and get in, at many times blinding students from really great opportunities, safeties, and other schools within their grasp that would’ve otherwise been perfect for them.

I’m not sure if the above is really accurate, I’m curious as to know why some of the top schools don’t have an SAT/ACT cutoff or a GPA cutoff of some sort? I know it’s such a holistic process and that some schools like the University of Chicago are going test-optional, but that brings me to the point:

Test-Optional meaning people with “poor” testings scores can apply with just their grades, extracurriculars, and essays, which sounds good, but I personally think puts a false idea in many student’ heads that as long as they can “hide” their poor test score, the other part of their application will get in, which statistically, probably isn’t the case.

Would it be better for colleges to get a cutline so they would have fewer applicants and more “qualified” (if that’s even quantifiable) so that they would review the applicants with more care and time? I feel like, after watching videos or hearing experiences with what goes on in the actual admissions office, the majority of the decisions seem to be based on whim, an officer’s mood during the day, and many miscellaneous things that really shouldn’t factor into the process.

2

Where would you have them place a hard cut-off? What about conservatories within universities? Both of my kids have been below the 25th percentile in scores of schools they’ve been admitted to. My daughter who is already in college seems to be an excellent fit for the school. The academics aren’t too hard, the environment is right, and she’s integrating so well. I would hate to think a door could’ve been closed over a few ACT points. Younger daughter has some acceptances that don’t make very much sense academically, if we are honest- but she’s a dancer and are academics equally important for a performance BFA? I’d argue not really, as long as she’s capable of taking the required courses, and of course she is. I think schools would miss out on some kids that enrich the school as much as the school enriches them if they were looking solely at individual metrics.

3

Well, that might be helpful for students, but who said it was all about them?

It’s about rankings, at least right now. The game is rigged so that the more students you turn down, the more selective you are, which is a factor in raising your school’s rankings. So it doesn’t benefit them to set a cut-off.

Also, they can charge an application fee and pocket the money, even if it is a computer doing the initial sifting. We know that computers are already doing some calculations on each application to determine likelihood of attendance. It’s only a matter of time before they’re doing more. And the automation will cost the college a fraction of what it costs them to pay an admissions officer a salary to sift and sort. So at some point, the application fees could very well be a moneymaker for some highly desired schools - maybe it won’t amount to a big revenue source, but admissions could turn out to be a profit center nonetheless. If they announced cut-offs now, they could be loosing that revenue stream just as machines take over more of the admissions process, and that profit becomes possible.

4

Some public universities publish one or both of the following cut lines:

A. Criteria for minimum eligibility for admission.
B. Criteria for automatic admission.

5

Colleges should not be required to take the most “accomplished” students any more than students should be required to attend the most prestigious school they get into. This is a process where both sides have a choice. What if a school wants to accept the brilliant poet with bad math grades? What if they want to create a student body with a certain “vibe.” and that means rejecting some highly successful applicants? We talk alot on here about how “fit” matters. What happens to a colleges ability to maintain a certain atmosphere when they limit the kind of students they can accept?

6

One of the problems of High School GPA, compared to college, and then, further on to grad school, is that each focuses on an increasingly narrow set of academic subjects, which is understandable, however, this does not reward the students who are really talented in those fields.

Basically, the system is set up to produce specialists, but recruits generalists. You would expect the top graduate programs in math to look for the best kids in math. However, to get there, one first has to be accepted to the best math undergraduates programs, which are inaccessible to kids who aren’t also very good in everything else. So even if a kid is a math prodigy, if their language and history, and biology skills aren’t that good, their GPAs and SAT scores will keep them from many, if not most, of the best undergraduate math programs.

Since academia is as prestige-ridden as anybody here on CC, the top math graduate programs will almost never accept a student with an undergraduate degree from a “lesser” undergraduate program. Moreover, not having the resources that a “better” math program has will also stymie the development of a top student, putting them at a disadvantage, relative to a student who may have less talent, but has had many more opportunities and resources.

This is true for almost every field.

By allowing for a range of SAT scores and GPAs, colleges can accept kids who are really good at a small number of things, but weaker in others. Great writers who are bad at math and math-based sciences, physicists who don’t do well in the social sciences, etc.

Then there are kids who do not do well in high school because the way that they are taught does not work for them. Because of things like NCLB, and other standardization, kids who think differently are often at a big disadvantage in high school. Many of these, though, do much better in a college setting.

Finally, all that GPA actually indicates is the ability to do well on exams. Since a very large number of these exams require nothing more than memorization and regurgitation, many of the more creative and inventive minds get lower grades. These students are not encouraged or supported, and rarely attend the colleges with the best resources.

I think that, as competition increases to get into colleges with more resources, and there is an increased reliance on GPA and SAT scores, the quality of research, and of researchers, will drop.

An A in history says that a student is able to remember what they learned in class, usually memorize dates and names, and repeat the analyses done 30 years before. The kid who is able to perform a new and deeper analysis and puts that in, instead of what they learned in class, will not get that A+.

In most high schools, kids get As by doing things the way that they were taught. However, innovation and creation are achieved by not doing things the way that they were taught.

The major achievement of limiting access to college to kids who get all As and top SAT scores is reducing creativity and inventiveness in those colleges. Since those colleges tend to hire from themselves, in many fields, I expect that this will hurt them in years to come.

Many of the math and science Olympiads are driving STEM in the same manner - they don’t really reward innovation and creativity anymore, they reward speed and repetition.

7

I agree with you sort of. It would be hard to just auto-filter on GPA without knowing the rigor of both the high school and the courses. SAT/ACT, maybe. But then everything everyone said above also applies. I really think this is on the prospective student and (hopefully) their parents and GCs to rein in. Every school publishes its common data set. It’s fine to apply to a school or two for which you fall below 25% stats-wise but don’t get your hopes up. Students need to be practical and reasonable and realize they may not be as special as the world has been telling them for 18 years. Dream, but have a happy backup plan.

8

I think things are just fine as they are. You can get a good idea where your test scores should be to have an average chance of admissions. If you are in the lower 25% of the reported test scores, unless you have one helluva hook, it ain’t gonna happen. Being in the top 25% usually means you are in. Of course for ultra selective schools those ranges can be quite skewed but we are talking very very few schools.

Yes, Fairtest schools will give you a shot without test scores. I have a kid who applied to 4 of them sbd was accepted to all 4. They never saw his test scores. Holy Cross, Fairfield, Gettysburg and Dickinson. Not the most selective schools, but not open admissions either. I’ve known many others who report the same. So, yes, you can go that route with such schools if you have abysmal test scores.

For those few kids who do apply to selective schools, (most students, the vast vast majority do NOT), it’s a good idea to have a cAriety of selectivities in the mix, especially safety schools. Those are the most important ones. The affordable schools that are certain to accept you.

No big deal applying to high reaches as long as you know they are lottery tickets. Yes, sometimes , very rarely, but sometimes you may get a winner there.

9

GPA issues discussed above.

Re standardized testing, that’s also distorted by how competitive schools have become. Here’s a hypothetical example. Maybe 10 years ago, someone with an ACT of 28 successfully gained entrance and graduated from a school where the middle 50 is now 31-35. The college curriculum has not got harder, but the applicants are gaming the system more, using more tutors, etc. So should someone with a 28 ACT but an otherwise outstanding application now be denied entry when the college knows that person can both handle the work and bring something special to the student community?

10

Ah, I see what everyone is saying; mea culpa.

I guess the universal issue is stellar students who just don’t have either a stellar academic track record or standardized testing score may be thrown under the bus with this kind of system.

11

“building a class” isn’t just “stellar students”. It’s a combination of “students who can do the work at the level expected at this university” AND “who will contribute to the university community/fulfill an institutional need”.

“to do the work at the level expected at this university” isn’t the same as " the absolute most rigorous curriculum with the highest grades". This would encourage an unhealthy arms race, decrease diversity of thought, and obscure various skills and knowledge (for instance, students who drop band because they think they need one more AP class.) As skieurope put it, there’s no “super duper rigorous” curriculum for instance. After 8 Ap’s, the law of diminishing returns applies. 10? 13? 15? It’s all the same - clearly you could do the work with 8 as with 10 as with 13. Then, there’s the fact high schools don’t all offer the same opportunities. You can’t fault a kid in a rural county where the high school offers only 5 APs but mostly regular classes because the senior class has 68 students, especially if they tried to take all Ap’s and did try to enrich their curriculum with whatever was at their disposal.

Most moderately selective universities have a system such as the one you advocate. Say, if you have a 3.3 GPA and a 24 ACT, you’re in. If you have a 2.8 GPA and a 20 ACT then other factors are looked at.

12

I agree, and will take it one step further. There are literally thousands of schools outside of the population centers with no AP or honors classes available. This also means that there’s no such thing as a weighted GPA. These kids have a lot to offer, but locking them out due to “lack of rigor” would be to the colleges detriment.

13

Sadly, there are a lot of kids who do not get to check out and apply for opportunities because they have no clue where to start and have no guidance.

You, @HKimPOSSIBLE , went to a great school that offered all of the bells and whistles, but your guidance counselor did not recommend Questbridge to you. Another kid currently on this forum with zero EFC whose GC also did not bring up this resource

One of top independent schools in Pittsburgh failed one of their scholarship kids who lived in West Virginia because the GC there was not aware of WV Promise.

I see this way too often. Too focused on the set track , like auto PSAT when the chances of getting a NM full scholarship very small and schools participating diminishing each year.

The greatest resource kids have are use of their own research abilities and having a proactive adult in their lives that can assist them.

14

The age group most CC parents fall into seems afraid of the notion of conformity. For some, doing it “my way” was a breakout concept.

But imo, it pays to consider what the standards and expectations are, when asking for something. A life lesson. Triple that, wherever the competition for an admit or job or project funding is excruciating.

You don’t get to ‘make it up as you go along.’ Yes, it’s nice to be the great poet, even if poor at math/sci. But that’s not enough, when thousands around you are great “somethings,” but also have the solid record.

And who determines what a great 17 y.o. poet is? An example is all the kids who do NANOWRIMO. 50k words, uncertain quality. A typical book is 80k, and “quality” is in the readers’ eyes, more than family and friends, teachers or a few contacts. Just doing it isn’t it. Claiming “passion” for writing or poetry or “helping people” isn’t it. Show, not just tell.

There are bars. Some colleges don’t publicly name them because they can be flexible. But with thousands of kids exceeding those bars (and other expectations,) you can imagine where they lean, when making final decisions. The surer bets, more than the dreamers.

You need to be able to translate the info you do get. MIT, as one example shows stratospheric 75th percentile scores. Not because that’s a primary selection goal, but because they get so many at that level, plus all the rest of what they want to see, and can choose among them, fill the class with that level.

Before the New SAT, MIT casually said, ‘Anything with a 7 in front, and we know you can do the MIT level of work.’ But that alone isn’t how they select. It’s more. (And now that bar is higher.)

Unfortunately, it’s on families to figure what that “more” is. For a mega competitive college, it’s not extra incidentals.

Not just doing what you want.

15

What would make a student with lower grades and lower test scores a “stellar student”?

Being bypassed for students who have shown a track record over 3+ years of higher achievement and higher potential isn’t exactly being thrown under the bus.

Is it perfect? No. But if you don’t think testing and academic achievement in HS is an appropriate basis for college admissions, what do you suggest?

Btw, what does “ at many times blinding students from really great opportunities” mean? Why would letting in a student with lower scores who meets some need of the school cause other to not even see opportunities?