small fixes to make this process more sane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys, please... if you can tell kids whose resume entries are faked, you don't think the people who do this for a living can?

They can.

Stop worrying about that. It's not a thing.

I really don't believe this is true. 15 years ago, AOs loved those kids going to Kenya working in orphanages before they decided, wait a minute here ...

And now they LOVE the podcasts or YouTube channels or foundations. Those "passion projects" you don't know about because a student really only spend 4 days over the summer building that passion. It's kinda impossible to go through for a year or two not to see this play out.

I don't think it will last forever, but it's a thing now. The example about elephant helper given in the Jeff Selling book is real. And if you read that book at the same time they rejected a lower income applicant who had working 20+ hours a week as an activity, an amount of time the AdCom thought was not "realistic". Which is so crazy to me. Lots of kids do that. Both these examples would have been easy to dig into if a reader had 15 extra minutes.

But neither of those kids were faking.

"she caught the admissions directors’ attention when they learned she was a certified mahout, a trained caretaker for elephants in Thailand."

https://nypost.com/2020/09/12/colleges-reveal-the-secret-formula-for-deciding-who-gets-in/

I am not saying the adcom made the right choice between the two - that's the prerogative of the college. We are speaking of lies for applications, and none of your post illustrates any of that.

It's not a thing. Certainly not in any consequential volume.

I didn't say she was faking. I'm just saying I recently got an email from a teen tour company celebrating their 20th year taking kids to Thailand - where kids will get to become a certified mahout after a morning with the elephants. I was like .. where have I read this before? It happened and .. it's not impressive imo. It's just a different version of digging wells in Africa kinda thing

No, you did say they were faking in the context of the earlier paragraphs. He responded to a post that explicitly said, faking. Go back and read them. Maybe you just wrote poorly but that was the implication.

Adcoms can tell if kids are faking better than any of you here in this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I like those rules, OP! I’ll add:

For application, these 2 questions:
-did you use ChatGPT for your application?
-did you hire an independent college counselor?
-did you SAT/ACT test prep services
-remove letter of recommendations

Plus:
-remove activities from 10 to 6 in CommonApp
-increase auditing of Applications due to rampant lying & cheating

I'd like to see some of this. Colleges will audit parents financial statements, but not this.

What I would propose to colleges: once you'd made your final admit list, audit 10-15% of them. Dartmouth admitted 578 kids. This wouldn't be hard. Audit 100 of them. Dartmouth has a staff that's over 10 people, so what I'm proposing is to spend 1-2 days on this. An hour per app. Just google. Maybe make a couple calls. And if you're finding a lot of information like (example from Who Gets in and Why): "Oh, that young woman we were impressed by who was a certified elephant whisperer [I forget the lingo], that was just something she got on a 6k tour of Thailand. [I know because I recently got an email promoting that teen tour]. Are we still impressed?"

And if what you find is you are throwing half these applications back into the WL pile, you need to rethink your process. At this point, I'd email the counselor that there was one application from their school that was initially passed and then failed upon review. Build the reputation of checking this stuff.

If you want to be bad ass - and I do - I would admit the 578 pending authorization of data and THEN email 10-15% that their app has been chosen at random for verification. And then rescind when appropriate. I think after a year or two you'd get much more honest data from the students.

I dont see this as such a big problem for big state schools, but .. maybe verify 2% after admissions to keep things honest.

I went back and I think it was pretty clear. It happened but without the context of an organized teen tour or time involved. Which makes it less impressive IMO

[Anonymous]

The application process was WAY easier than I thought it would be. My son's school limited him to 10 applications. He had the list by mid-summer before senior year. He filled out as much of the CA in August before school started. He went TO. He submitted everything by the first week of October. He got in everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Just do what GMU is doing for Alexandria City Public - automatic admit for anyone with just a 3.25 gpa (don't know if that's weighted or unweighted). No test scores, no recommendations or essays required.

[Anonymous]

Some colleges audit applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to make things saner, do the following:

1. Get rid of Test Optional. A school should either require the test or be test blind. TO all of a sudden makes a school's average SAT score a 1550 when it was 1470 the year before TO came into existence. So much stress and strategizing over whether to submit or not;

2. Make every kid check a box Yes or No...did you use a college counselor or any 3rd party help outside of your family or school. If you check Yes, your application will be subject to a more stringent standard. This would decimate the 3rd party college counseling business and make it more sane for all. Sure, some people may lie and click No, but they could say they conduct random audits (even if they don't);

3. Same disclaimer for any NPOs or businesses that the kid claims to have founded on their own. Your application will be subject to a random audit where the AO will ask pointed questions on how you incorporated it, why did you have to create it (vs. volunteer or work at an established company), how did you create the Board, what is your transition strategy when you get to college, etc.

Those are my 3 suggestions.

To #2, one of the supposed values of the college counselors is their access to non-public information. They go to various conferences where they talk to the admissions people, schmooze with them after hours, etc.

Stop that crap from the colleges end. Require all the counselors to provide a complete list of clients as a condition of attending the conferences. Make the conferences proceedings public, possibly with a fee.

Whoever told you this is wrong. If you have a private counselor telling you they are getting special access to admissions deans and they weren't one themselves in that role at some point, they're lying or exaggerating. A few might be former directors who went private in retirement, but the ones that have no experience in education aren't schmoozing with anyone but each other. I work in the industry and private counselors are viewed as an unpredictable group at best and charlatans at worst. There are offices that forbid staff from talking to them completely. Some colleges do not allow them to attend events.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s definitely not a small fix but here’s what I would propose: make colleges more like high schools, in that people go there locally for the most part.
Each big city has a college or university or several, that are essentially commuter schools. Only those from rural areas live on campus.
Bam, a big chunk of cost is gone as many kids can stay with parents or they can rent if they’d like and can afford it.
Eliminate personal essays and demographic info. Make admissions based on grades, SAT scores, and maybe an in person exam or interview. Stop worrying about the class composition since everyone is local anyway and they can socialize outside of school.
Of course no one is prohibited of going to a far away great college but for most people it wouldn’t make sense.

You're describing community college.

[Anonymous]

I'm familiar with one college's audit process. They randomly select a percentage of the incoming class. The staff selects a few details from the application (awards, activities, certifications) and ask the applicant to submit documentation that proves those things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm familiar with one college's audit process. They randomly select a percentage of the incoming class. The staff selects a few details from the application (awards, activities, certifications) and ask the applicant to submit documentation that proves those things.

I guess that is something...but seems like the audit should be more targeted. Put every kid that claims to have founded a non-profit, started a business or similar into one pile and then randomly audit that group separately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The process is crazy. And the kids are suffering. I sometimes wish there was more groundswell for small fixes.

Would you agree to any of these? Or something else?

You can't apply to more than 20 schools via common app.

or

You can't sit for SAT or ACT more than twice (each, if you must). Nobody is up in arms that you can't take the AP exam over and over. you take it, if it's good you include it. if not, you move on. I know seniors who are waiting for scores from their Oct exam to see if they should include in their ED. These are kids who took it several times in Junior year. It's too much. I'd really be fine with a one and done SAT. or just use PSAT data.

or

Colleges must disclose Athlete and Legacy numbers in their ED data. I don't think ED is as beneficial for unhooked kids as we've been led to believe. But kids think they have to play this game

Of all the fixes, none of these are ones that will hugely affect the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The application process was WAY easier than I thought it would be. My son's school limited him to 10 applications. He had the list by mid-summer before senior year. He filled out as much of the CA in August before school started. He went TO. He submitted everything by the first week of October. He got in everywhere.

This was our experience as well. The time was put in ahead of the application deadlines (August), then it was confirming all the parts were in place like teacher recommendations etc. Applied to 8 - got into 8 good merit at 6 of the 8. The harder part for him, deciding where to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The application process was WAY easier than I thought it would be. My son's school limited him to 10 applications. He had the list by mid-summer before senior year. He filled out as much of the CA in August before school started. He went TO. He submitted everything by the first week of October. He got in everywhere.

This was our experience as well. The time was put in ahead of the application deadlines (August), then it was confirming all the parts were in place like teacher recommendations etc. Applied to 8 - got into 8 good merit at 6 of the 8. The harder part for him, deciding where to go.

If your 8-10 schools are a balanced list, you will get into most of your targets and safeties and maybe one or more reaches. The people in angst typically want to apply to only reaches and cannot seem to find targets or safeties their snowflake would be able to happily attend because they would be "academically above everyone there". My kid got into all of their targets and safeties and WL at 2 of their reaches and First year abroad at one Reach and Deferred/then rejected at their ED/top reach. It worked out exactly how I thought it would---they didn't get into schools with single digit acceptances. But with a great list of well researched targets and safetie they actually liked and wanted to attend, they had excellent choices to make.