Anyone else thinks the whole college admission process is a total farse?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the process is easier if you have a medium-achieving student with medium goals. So, instead of a 4.0UW GPA with 10 AP tests with all 5s (and that's before senior year), varsity sport captain, etc, etc, you have a regular kid with a 3.5 GPA, a couple AP classes, a regular sport or EC or job. That first kid is qualified to go to any college or university but could get shut out, and the second kid knows they're aiming lower, probably picking schools with 70+% acceptance rates, and getting in most places.

+1. My kid was in the second pot and has been accepted everywhere they applied.

These are really first world problems.

+1 my kid was the second pot and is in a great situation - accepted everywhere applied with good merit scholarships.

[Anonymous]

Funny how the DCUM posters railing against "discrimination" in college admissions didn't give a rat's a** about systemic discrimination across numerous sectors in the U.S. against people of color and blacks specifically - before Johnny or Larla became a HS senior. And the demographics complaining are STILL overrepresented in most colleges today!

I guess the issue is the deferrals and rejections. It's triggering grievance and resentment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Why don't parents understand that? The first kid will get into just about all of the places the second kid got into to, plus has a shot at the highest tier schools. The issue is the parents/high achieving kids want the same acceptance rates as the second kid, but at the most selective schools in the country. THAT's what they are complaining about!

Except that's not true. I know plenty of kids like the first kid who have NOT been accepted to the schools that the second group of kids have, because the first kids run into yield protection.

The yield protect thing is terrible. It's become about status and money, rather than actually about academics. The cost of colleges are insane, and you have to jump through hoops to apply.

Please explain how it's about "status and money"?
If anything those with money have the resources to test prep, hire $10K college counselors to help prepare this applications, hire the right private tutors for academics, etc..

And why is "yield protect thing" terrible?
Colleges are a business. The admissions office job is to end up with a class of X students who matriculate in the fall. To do that they must offer spots to Y students. It's a challenging job to determine what percent of those Y students will "say yes" and matriculate. Especially when they know that a certain percentage of their applicants (if they areranked 20-50) are definitely using them for a backup school. Get it wrong and you either have overcrowding or a small freshman class. The same ones complaining about this would also complain if their kid had to dorm in a "forced Triple", couldn't get the freshman classes they need to be on track for their major, have to wait an hour to get food at dining hall, can't find anywhere to study in library cause it's too busy, etc.
It's your job as an applicant to show demonstrated interest and make them think you are their top choice in colleges (fake it until you make it), especially if you are above 90% scores for the school. This can be done in many ways---but it's up to you to demonstrate this.

I know of one school who is known to yield protect, as it's known as "Ivy/T20 reject school". Some years they calculate yield right and nobody gets off the waitlist. 2 years later, the CDS says that over 1000 students were offered a place off the WL (that was for fall 2020 so pre TO)---the freshman class had ~1350 students. So while we don't know how many took the WL offer, they had to dig deep into their WL to fill their class. But that means that they miscalculated their yield---many students did NOT accept their offer, likely because they got into a "Better School". They would much rather have the instance where they offer nothing to the WL kids, or only to 10-15 kids to backfill the slots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will admit we are not happy with the results of the early rounds. And I hope anyone reading understand it is not coming from a place of bitterness but from a place of helplessness. It is hard to digest how the most venerable institutions of this country peddle and getaway with blatant lies year after year and demolish the spirits of a vast majority of kids.

I am trying to understand how any of their claims add up?

"Application are reviewed holistically & We also like receiving 50,000 applications


They never explain how they manage to read 50k+ apps and how spending 2-5 min per app allows holistic evaluation is beyond me. This is total crap!

There's got to be a better way. I don't know why no journalists have covered this. We are fighting about diversity/discrimination but the issues with college admission is more basic. The college admission first need to stop lying to the kids, period!

Holistic is code for 'we'll do whatever we please and let in whoever we please without the need to justify it to anyone and, oh by the way, here's our tax bill, please take care of it although your kid will never get a chance to walk through these doors'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bottom line: The system is fine tuned for the colleges to build exactly the class they want. If you want to change the system you'll have to start by convincing them to not do that. Unlikely to ever happen, and with good reason.

The mistaken assumption is that elite colleges simply take the X best candidates and offer admission to them. Completely untrue and it has never been that way. They build a class to accommodate a long list which makes up their institutional mission. And in the current system they do it extremely well, test scores or no test scores.

No. Private colleges, maybe.
But not publics. Giving undue weight to race is illegal as we will soon find out from the SC

No one but you is talking about legality. That change will only make a minor adjustment to the process and affect a very small change in the admitted students at very few schools.

Despite your sock puppetting and attempt to change the OP's topic, people only care about this with the most elite colleges, really just the top 50 anyway.

The top 50 will always be able to pick whoever they want to build the class they want based on their mission, regardless of any supreme court decision.

I haven't sock puppeted anything here. And you are wrong. If the colleges are required by law to eliminate consideration of race, the percentage of Asians will zoom to 75-80 percent of the elite colleges admissions. Guaranteed.

Ridiculous statement.

Most Asian Americans live in California. This isn't even the case at the elite CA publics or CA privates. And overall, they are only 7% of the U.S. population.

Get real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so my good/not perfect kid got into every school ranked 60-150 that she applied to. and they are all great, and she will get a good education and job from any of them.

maybe you need to chill out and accept the reality.

the system is nuts- maybe they should allow just 2 total applications per kid to top 50 schools, instead of letting all the high performers in the county blast off 12+ applications to the same top 50 schools. Recipe for heartbreak for those who don't recognize the craziness of it.

I agree---my good/not perfect kid got into all schools ranked 75-150 they applied to. Got a great education, has a good job and is fully adulting. That's the goal. They are happy---process was not too painful/stressful.

My really smart (but not perfect) 1500/3.99UW kid had a very balanced list with 3 reaches, 3 targets and 3 safeties. Got into all 3 targets and all 3 safeties (with a decent amount of merit at most), got WL at one reach, first semester abroad at 2nd reach, ED deferred then rejected at the T10. It played out exactly as we expected (but we still hoped to win the lottery). The 3 reaches had admission rates below 5-9% that year. My kid knew it was a crap shoot, worked hard on applications but also focused on the other 6 applications---the ones they knew really mattered and wanted to ensure they got into. Interviewed, did the supplemental essays and did everything possible to ensure those schools knew they wanted to attend. Now it helps that for the reaches my kid was at 75-80% (not just 50%+) for scores (and acceptance rates in the 35-35%). But that's because they were the right fit schools for that kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bottom line: The system is fine tuned for the colleges to build exactly the class they want. If you want to change the system you'll have to start by convincing them to not do that. Unlikely to ever happen, and with good reason.

The mistaken assumption is that elite colleges simply take the X best candidates and offer admission to them. Completely untrue and it has never been that way. They build a class to accommodate a long list which makes up their institutional mission. And in the current system they do it extremely well, test scores or no test scores.

No. Private colleges, maybe.
But not publics. Giving undue weight to race is illegal as we will soon find out from the SC

No one but you is talking about legality. That change will only make a minor adjustment to the process and affect a very small change in the admitted students at very few schools.

Despite your sock puppetting and attempt to change the OP's topic, people only care about this with the most elite colleges, really just the top 50 anyway.

The top 50 will always be able to pick whoever they want to build the class they want based on their mission, regardless of any supreme court decision.

I haven't sock puppeted anything here. And you are wrong. If the colleges are required by law to eliminate consideration of race, the percentage of Asians will zoom to 75-80 percent of the elite colleges admissions. Guaranteed.

Ridiculous statement.

Most Asian Americans live in California. This isn't even the case at the elite CA publics or CA privates. And overall, they are only 7% of the U.S. population.

Get real.

we're just talking about the top elite universities. I doubt it will be that high at say a Penn State

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will admit we are not happy with the results of the early rounds. And I hope anyone reading understand it is not coming from a place of bitterness but from a place of helplessness. It is hard to digest how the most venerable institutions of this country peddle and getaway with blatant lies year after year and demolish the spirits of a vast majority of kids.

I am trying to understand how any of their claims add up?

"Application are reviewed holistically & We also like receiving 50,000 applications


They never explain how they manage to read 50k+ apps and how spending 2-5 min per app allows holistic evaluation is beyond me. This is total crap!

There's got to be a better way. I don't know why no journalists have covered this. We are fighting about diversity/discrimination but the issues with college admission is more basic. The college admission first need to stop lying to the kids, period!

Holistic is code for 'we'll do whatever we please and let in whoever we please without the need to justify it to anyone and, oh by the way, here's our tax bill, please take care of it although your kid will never get a chance to walk through these doors'.

Everything you typed is sock puppet BS. Try and be thoughtful and understand that what colleges want is what's best for the colleges and admit that what you want is what's best for you.

The tax thing is a non starter, unless you support removal of tax exempt status for all nonprofit organizations across the board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will admit we are not happy with the results of the early rounds. And I hope anyone reading understand it is not coming from a place of bitterness but from a place of helplessness. It is hard to digest how the most venerable institutions of this country peddle and getaway with blatant lies year after year and demolish the spirits of a vast majority of kids.

I am trying to understand how any of their claims add up?

"Application are reviewed holistically & We also like receiving 50,000 applications


They never explain how they manage to read 50k+ apps and how spending 2-5 min per app allows holistic evaluation is beyond me. This is total crap!

There's got to be a better way. I don't know why no journalists have covered this. We are fighting about diversity/discrimination but the issues with college admission is more basic. The college admission first need to stop lying to the kids, period!

Holistic is code for 'we'll do whatever we please and let in whoever we please without the need to justify it to anyone and, oh by the way, here's our tax bill, please take care of it although your kid will never get a chance to walk through these doors'.

This "code" as you described has been happening for centuries. Surprised that it's happening in higher education?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not really. If a kid wants to go to college they will be able to go. It may not be their first choice but that is life.

We have much bigger issues in this country than whether Larlo gets into the state flagship her parents think she deserves bc she had x EC and x stats.

This is mostly a UMC class anxiety issue.

Agreed. In other countries, if your kid does not have top test scores or is not in the top of the class, they don’t go to college. Period. Americans are so lucky they live in a country where even an average student can go to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will admit we are not happy with the results of the early rounds. And I hope anyone reading understand it is not coming from a place of bitterness but from a place of helplessness. It is hard to digest how the most venerable institutions of this country peddle and getaway with blatant lies year after year and demolish the spirits of a vast majority of kids.

I am trying to understand how any of their claims add up?

"Application are reviewed holistically & We also like receiving 50,000 applications


They never explain how they manage to read 50k+ apps and how spending 2-5 min per app allows holistic evaluation is beyond me. This is total crap!

There's got to be a better way. I don't know why no journalists have covered this. We are fighting about diversity/discrimination but the issues with college admission is more basic. The college admission first need to stop lying to the kids, period!

What are you droning on about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really. If a kid wants to go to college they will be able to go. It may not be their first choice but that is life.

We have much bigger issues in this country than whether Larlo gets into the state flagship her parents think she deserves bc she had x EC and x stats.

This is mostly a UMC class anxiety issue.

Agreed. In other countries, if your kid does not have top test scores or is not in the top of the class, they don’t go to college. Period. Americans are so lucky they live in a country where even an average student can go to college.

+1000

And our kids are not pigeonholed into the COllege/non-college track in MS ages. Or within the College track, set to STEM vs Humanities at a young age. Our "late bloomers" (defined as anything past age 12) are allowed to grow and thrive and be what they want to be thru hard work. Not the case in most of Europe and India.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really. If a kid wants to go to college they will be able to go. It may not be their first choice but that is life.

We have much bigger issues in this country than whether Larlo gets into the state flagship her parents think she deserves bc she had x EC and x stats.

This is mostly a UMC class anxiety issue.

Agreed. In other countries, if your kid does not have top test scores or is not in the top of the class, they don’t go to college. Period. Americans are so lucky they live in a country where even an average student can go to college.

+1

Interesting perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UChicago has sent a LOT, LOT, LOT of mailers.

+1

We’ve also gotten a lot of random mail from their business school over the past decade or so, too.

They clearly spend A TON on marketing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I totally agree. Although it seems rough, I think countries that base it all on one exam have a system that makes more sense. Set a lower threshold for kids from below a certain income level to ensure parity.

Except for the kids who happen to be sick that one day, or the total amount of street placed on the activities around that one test.

No, the US system is better, but it still could be cleaned up.

My husband grew up and was educated in Europe. Now knowing the US system he has said that he would never wish his and his peers' experience on our own kids. He has said that the pressure and stress to outperform his classmates (for there are only a certain number of university seats) was horrendous and really pitted each student against one another in a way that makes the system here in the US seem like preschool playtime. Then those that outscored their peers went off to university where the ones who missed did not attend.

The grass is not always greener.