Controversial opinion: College and University edition

[Anonymous]

It’s frustrating that my DC is working her ass off the get straight A’s and good test scores but it’s probably it enough to get in to UVA or W&M because she’s a Asian female from Northern Virginia with little time (or money) to partake in any significant ECs.

[Anonymous]

The people who want to tell you how admissions works in an anonymous internet forum are mostly guessing or passing along third-hand information gleaned from a conversation with someone who had a tertiary role in an admissions office (i.e. a temporary reader or alumni interviewer) without a seat at the committee table where decisions are made.

[Anonymous]

"You probably have a nice life filled with leasure. You have time to post. Why not use your intelligence to earn enough to pay for your kids education."

Wow - whoever wrote this is a mean, sad and pathetically ignorant human being. Gross!

[Anonymous]

The vast majority of college students (70%+) aren't smart enough to be there and are trying to hide from adult responsibilities for 5 or 6 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"You probably have a nice life filled with leasure. You have time to post. Why not use your intelligence to earn enough to pay for your kids education."

Wow - whoever wrote this is a mean, sad and pathetically ignorant human being. Gross!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regarding how colleges read all those applications, the answer is that they hire tons of temporary employees as readers. You actually have no idea who is reading your child's application or what their training or background is. There's a lady in my neighborhood who was asked to apply as a temporary reader (focussed on reading and scoring the essays, and deciding which ones would move forward to an actual full time admissions person) for a well-known SLAC based on the fact that she was active in the parent association -- which is fine, except that she apparently thought lots of things were boring. She liked essays about TV shows, movies, etc. Not so big on history, classical music, etc. I think that the idea that Asian americans don't score high and are perceived as 'boring' might come out of this aspect of the process.

That's exactly right. At this time of year Princeton hires 35 contract employees to do the first readings. I've worked with them. They get bored reading essays. That's why they like the "I spent a summer working with a chocolatier in France essay" and "Black lives matters!" written over and over over serious essays.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Extracurriculars/activities/sports don't matter one bit. Grades and test scores are the only thing most schools really look at.

You've gotta be kidding. The first cut is race and gender. Even very high grades and test scores won't get applicants belonging to certain groups into a selective school.

Yes but hopefully the lawsuit against Harvard will end their despicable bias against Asians.

Don't make it about the asians....it's about the process and inherent bias. 30 years ago it was the jews, today it is the asians, tomorrow it could be any minority group that is outperforming their quota.

But the lawsuit may result in Harvard being 70% or more ASian American like TJ. If you want that, then fine ..........

I see we’ve found the racist imbecile on the thread

The Asian Americans as have significantly higher scores per capita than the other applicants. Same with the Jews who were cut out of harvard and the law school in the late 50s and early 60s. That was done away with so by the time I made it to Harvard my law school class was predominantly Jewish. The lawsuit is about AAs who have higher GPAs and stats than other applicants but are routinely cut out. The class action has demonstrated that the AAs applicants are marked down in character by the readers ("boring") whether intentional or not, conscious or not, and that their scores and GPA are higher per capita than others who were admitted. If Harvard wins at the trial level, which it will because it's an Obama appointee hearing it, then it will be appealed to the first circuit where it will be affirmed because ithe first circuit is the same, and then to SCOTUS where it will be reversed. The result will be far more Asian Americans in each class, just as at TJ right now, than before. And fewer URMs, WASPs, first generation, international, low-income, questbridge, etc. There are only a finite no. of seats. Read up on the case please.

They will just go test-optional.

How does that even follow from what was said about? Even schools that have gone test-optional really want to see the tests. They are going test optional just to increase the number of applicants in order to reject them thereby being able to claim they had the most applications ever, the most selective and report same to USN&WR. Once the schools going test-option have bettered their numbers, they will return to requiring SAT or ACT. Even when Princeton says SAT IIs are not required, everyone knows they want to see them. They just say that for marketing purposes because the p.c. crowd said some students couldn't afford the SAT IIs. But they really want to see them. So even if you're right (and I don't see that happening), so what? Asian Americans will still send in their terrific scores.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:College aren't behind the ridiculous AP expectations, parents are. Colleges admit the best of who applies. Parents are the ones pushing their DDs and DSs to have more APs than the last kid who got in.

Going to a school that limits how many APs you can take in a year is a great thing for stress and wellness.

I agree with what you said about the value of AP limits. (Though high schools get measured by AP participation so it won’t happen any time soon.) But when colleges give weight and actual credit for AP they are part of it. When you can load up on credits in HS and save a semester or two of insanely expensive tuition it’s hard not to try. My first made himself miserable with APs but it did probably get him into the school he really wanted. He didn’t make up the rules, nor did we. He heard ‘most rigor possible at your school’ and the importance of class rank and at his school that meant APs.

FCPS isn't even reporting the rank anymore. I know people here say admissions guesses or knows, but that can't be so for every college.

I interpret the rigor comment as get to the AP at some point in each subject. I don't think it means take all 5 history APs, 4 science APs, etc. [/quote]


There's a simple answer. Every year the high schools provide a "class profile" sheet to the universities and colleges. It's a bar chart showing where the rising senior class stands in terms of GPA (because not all high schools are equal as you know). So the chart will show that a 4.44 means that Largo is in the top 1% of the class or the top 25% of the class in the case of TJ. The first thing that the readers hired by college admissions officers do is pull out the ACT, SAT and SAT II scores and put them at the top. Then they align the student's end of junior year GPA across the class profile and figure out their class rank. Takes less than 2 seconds. In most large universities, if the student doesn't make that cull then the application doesn't proceed. Other facts that might be culled out at that point are URM, Questbridge (separate application program), first-generation, legacy if significant bucks and "development" if the dad is Steve Jobs and the University thinks a building in the future might be in the offing. Only after meeting the University's standards for GPA and class rank does the application go to the next stage for an EC check. Lastly letters of recommendations and the essay. When colleges are receiving 35,000 applications a year they can't read all of them. The average application at a SLAC gets 6 minutes of read time. Less so at a popular university. The bar charts are all explained in Dean J.'s materials at UVA. That's why they can tell you "FCPS doesn't rank!" but then when the class is formed, the President of the University will say that 94.6% of the admitted or incoming class is in the top ten percent of their high school class. Also, each FCPS counselor writes their own letter of recommendation and indicates where the student stands vis-a-vis their own class in their own statement.

Maybe you are one of the pessimistic people who think the colleges are lying about everything. I think that the schools that say they read the applications holistically are actually doing so.

Vanderbilt gets 35,000 applications.



Columbia gets 38,000.



Seems like they have enough people to read all the applications.

No, you are wrong. In addition to the director and assistant directors of admissions, there are multiple people assigned to certain geographical areas of the United States. Those representatives spend a great deal of their time on the road right now visiting the schools they are familiar with and touring the high schools they are not familiar with. They are giving joint presentations in their assigned geographical area with other schools. They are touring all the private boarding schools in the areas. They are visiting and meeting with your local high school student. Then there are the representatives assigned to the various countries. They, too, are out on the road this time of year touring and meeting with prosptective applicants. They are not back at home base reading essays. The first cull goes to the contract readers who are paid by the hour to pass through the EA or ED applications and mark the file with GPA/rank and test scores and whether the student is a URM, first-generation, low-income, legacy, "development case" (meaning parents have money that might inure to the school), etc. Only after passing a school's standards for GPA and test scores does the application go on to be actually read by the lowest member in the geographical unit. That person reviews only those applications that have passed the GPA and test score mark and reviews the letters of recommendations and looks for problems or issues. Only after that pass is the essay written. The average time spent reading by all the people in the admissions office is less than 6 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"You probably have a nice life filled with leasure. You have time to post. Why not use your intelligence to earn enough to pay for your kids education."

Wow - whoever wrote this is a mean, sad and pathetically ignorant human being. Gross!

+1

Plus they can't spell leisure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UDC is better than most think and can be a good (and cheap) choice.

The problem with UDC is not the education or the students. It's the utter incompetence of personnel who are so disorganized that they force students to flee elsewhere ... anywhere.

Not our experience at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:UDC is better than most think and can be a good (and cheap) choice.

The problem with UDC is not the education or the students. It's the utter incompetence of personnel who are so disorganized that they force students to flee elsewhere ... anywhere.

Not our experience at all.

Not picking on UDC but a graduation rate of ~15% indicates something seriously wrong. Not sure how that truly serves the community.

[Anonymous]

Many college students would be in a trade school if they were thinking about the future seriously.

[Anonymous]

No, you are wrong. In addition to the director and assistant directors of admissions, there are multiple people assigned to certain geographical areas of the United States. Those representatives spend a great deal of their time on the road right now visiting the schools they are familiar with and touring the high schools they are not familiar with. They are giving joint presentations in their assigned geographical area with other schools. They are touring all the private boarding schools in the areas. They are visiting and meeting with your local high school student. Then there are the representatives assigned to the various countries. They, too, are out on the road this time of year touring and meeting with prosptective applicants. They are not back at home base reading essays. The first cull goes to the contract readers who are paid by the hour to pass through the EA or ED applications and mark the file with GPA/rank and test scores and whether the student is a URM, first-generation, low-income, legacy, "development case" (meaning parents have money that might inure to the school), etc. Only after passing a school's standards for GPA and test scores does the application go on to be actually read by the lowest member in the geographical unit. That person reviews only those applications that have passed the GPA and test score mark and reviews the letters of recommendations and looks for problems or issues. Only after that pass is the essay written. The average time spent reading by all the people in the admissions office is less than 6 minutes.

Which schools does this apply to? Certain not all because the college rep schedule is pretty thin right now compared to what it looked like in September and October.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s frustrating that my DC is working her ass off the get straight A’s and good test scores but it’s probably it enough to get in to UVA or W&M because she’s a Asian female from Northern Virginia with little time (or money) to partake in any significant ECs.

I wouldn't worry about the Asian factor for UVA/ W&M. If she has a weighted GPA of 4.4 or higher and SAT scores above 1400 and has done some ECs she'll be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s frustrating that my DC is working her ass off the get straight A’s and good test scores but it’s probably it enough to get in to UVA or W&M because she’s a Asian female from Northern Virginia with little time (or money) to partake in any significant ECs.

I don't blame you for being frustrated based on what you read on the boards. However, I would suggest you take a look at the Naviance scatter grams for UVa and W&M if those are your goal. The very narrow distribution for these schools at NVa public high schools suggest that if your daughter has the grades and test scores, she is very likely to be accepted regardless of EC's. The reality is they reject almost nobody who is at the median for GPA and test scores.