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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm still waiting for someone who is willing for their white son to live the rest of his life as a Black man just so that he can get that amazing bump in admissions.

This is obviously sarcastic but my DS swears that some of his friends claimed to be LGBTQ+ while applying to college. Writing made-up essays about their struggles and lack of acceptance with the thought that, once they were on-campus, nobody would be knocking on their door checking their sexual identities.

[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.

You're right. It'll probably only be 50%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

NP here: Did you read the Students for Fair Admissions brief? Obviously, you didn't because their experts AND Harvard's came to the same conclusion that wouldn't happen at Harvard or the elite schools. According to their predictions, Asian American percentages will be 35-50%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

NP here: Did you read the Students for Fair Admissions brief? Obviously, you didn't because their experts AND Harvard's came to the same conclusion that wouldn't happen at Harvard or the elite schools. According to their predictions, Asian American percentages will be 35-50%.

No I didn't. So 50% seems more likely. OK

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep. 100%

The amount of lying and marketing oneself and trying to show you have some trauma or special adversity or belong to some outlier group so you can curry favor to Admin officers. It's gross.

And the fake non-profits and the no standards at times with overinflated gpas and no test results.

It's really gotten so out of hand given the sheer volume of applicants universities now face.

I swear it should be changed to this:

Everyone that meets certain requirements all get put in the hat and then they pull out admits like a lottery. At some point it's just too much.

All of these actions are based on heresy, mostly from parents who are just as clueless as the next person. I've never heard an AO say they want trauma or non-profits. Stop believing random strangers for something this important.

Not true. The heart-string stories. A friend was an AO at a top state university and the discussions were often said of very qualified kids from MC/UMC/!% that they never had to experience adversity. They were essentially penalized for coming from functional, normal backgrounds and being neurotypical 'normal' , but exceptional kids.

Yeah WTF a major goal of mind as a parent is to ensure my kids DO NOT experience adversity and now I’m hearing I shouldn’t have done that.

So you would trade places with my kid who has experienced adversity, right? You would totally want your kid to have dyslexia and ADHD, have invested $25,000 and countless hours (and tears) over the years to be sure they can learn to read and do math. You'd take the therapy for anxiety, because being a smart kid who still fails is really hard. But my kid is totally lucky because he's getting extra time on his SAT! He can write an essay about overcoming adversity!

You know you don't want your kid to have my kid's circumstances. And the reason you didn't let your kid grow up poor or traumatized is because you love them and want them to be well and happy, not because you thought being well was going to get them into college. Be sad that your kid can't get into the tippy top schools if you want to, but don't gaslight those of us with kids who has suffered by saying we have it lucky.

Mom of ADHD kid here. Kids like ours are discouraged from discussing any mental health or learning disabilities in college applications. The fact that you have $25K to throw at helping your kid is another strike against them. When colleges say they want to hear stories of adversity, they want to hear that you were a drug addict, your kid grew up in a trailer without running water or electricity, and the kid worked at a Dollar General to put food on the table for their six siblings. THAT’S a great college application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Big part of their rankings-climbing schitck. Back in 1992 the acceptance rate was ~50%, Northwestern’s, too. They make a ton of $$$ on app fees. UNC does, too, at $85/app.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Why do so, so many people not pay attention to the "business" side of this? Harvard probably makes $3m-$4m on application fees alone.

Let's watch what happens if/when they go down from 50,000 applications per year to 15,000 because people stop believing they even have a chance. That lost revenue will probably get taken out of financial aid packages first.

I can see the letters now. "Congratulations. We would like to offer you admission to Harvard University. Just don't bother asking for financial aid, alright?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm still waiting for someone who is willing for their white son to live the rest of his life as a Black man just so that he can get that amazing bump in admissions.

This is obviously sarcastic but my DS swears that some of his friends claimed to be LGBTQ+ while applying to college. Writing made-up essays about their struggles and lack of acceptance with the thought that, once they were on-campus, nobody would be knocking on their door checking their sexual identities.

We've heard that too.. Too late for DC 1. Maybe an option for DC 2 and 3?

[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.

And then frankly, those schools will cease to be as desirable to anyone who is not Asian.

[Anonymous]

Lmao at all of this. I work for the company that so many of these schools use to buy your kids' names for mailers, build their promotion campaigns, and run financial aid optimization programs that calculate the lowest aid they can offer your kid and still get you suckers to pay the rest.
That's where these universities are spending their money. Certainly not on admissions staff to read all these dumb essays from rich kids with helicopter parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What I want is what's best for me.. Of course! That's how everyone operates. Don't pretend you are above it all or someone else is. You and they ain't.

And yes, I want tax exempt status removed after a certain time period (say 7 years after start date), after the institution reaches a certain cashflow situation, or just remove it all. Why the F am I subsidizing a church when I'm not a Christian? Why the heck am I subsidizing a hospital when they are fleecing me to bankruptcy while their fat cat staff make big bucks?

[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.

BS. They just don't go to the top college. They do get to go to *a* college.

[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.

And then frankly, those schools will cease to be as desirable to anyone who is not Asian.

You mean a tribal mentality will set in and it won't be the perfect utopia everyone craves?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lmao at all of this. I work for the company that so many of these schools use to buy your kids' names for mailers, build their promotion campaigns, and run financial aid optimization programs that calculate the lowest aid they can offer your kid and still get you suckers to pay the rest.
That's where these universities are spending their money. Certainly not on admissions staff to read all these dumb essays from rich kids with helicopter parents.

Do you think that everyone doesn't realize that? I'm assuming that you went to college, hire college grads, and will send your kids to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

BS. They just don't go to the top college. They do get to go to *a* college.

Not BS at all. The European educational model is that kids are put on tracks during their middle school years based on ONE exam. Those tracks either lead to a university seat, a licensure program, a trade, etc, etc. No second chances. No re-do of the exam if your child is sick or having mental health challenges or if they are a bit lost at the age of 13 only to mature later. One shot is all you get over there. But, hey, the good part is that most tuition costs peanuts so there is that.