State school admissions should not be wholistic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There might be a few odd cases, but like PP said, the top 10% are getting into UMD. Not into CS though.

You are clearly not from Maryland. I’m not sure if it’s worse in other states, but here for certain high schools it’s essentially a lottery.

That’s the whole point. Guaranteed admissions is guaranteed. Maryland is vibes.

Are you telling me if you look at the Naviance for Whitman or whatever school you are at that the top 5% of applicants are an equal mix of accepts and declines? I can tell you for B-CC that is not true. Same at 10%. Top kids are almost uniformly admitted.

I think you are going to need to name the school and your evidence at this point, beyond the fact that your child apparently was not admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can get behind this. Arlington resident for 26 years. Paying a ton in taxes. Every kid in my kid's social circle is an exceptional kid - As, sports, community engagement, etc. and yet most will be denied from top VA public schools. Why should my kid pay almost the same
amount in tuition to attend CNU that they would need for W&M? How much of the Nova tax base goes to the budget of each public institution? Should NOVA kids get a bigger percentage of seats for top 10% or 5%? Why is it so much cheaper to go down south even as an OOS?! Make it make sense.

1) they may be denied the top
Public options but there are still 30+ options in Virginia including the guaranteed transfer program- Virginia has one of the best public college system in America.
2) the prices are set by the individual boards. CNU decides what it will charge. W&M decides. They are both providing a four year education at a discount. Why wouldn’t they be relatively the same? Do you really think UCLA should be more than UCSD?
3) re tax base - you are paying almost nothing for UVA because UVA is unique in that it is almost entirely self-suffice - it receives only 6% of its budget from the Commonwealth
4) NOVA kids already get a much larger percentage of slots at the Commonwealth’s universities due to sheer demographics.
5) as to why it might be cheaper to go OOS in the south —— each state makes up its own system and charges whatever the legislature decides. States do not have to copy one another. Some states severely restrict the number of OOS places (UNC) and others are relatively accommodating to OOS. Texas, for example is not, whereas UVA is 26.% OOS. Each state is different. Some states offer next to nil in terms of public higher education. You should be grateful for the unique offerings that VA has. Only CA has a comparable system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There might be a few odd cases, but like PP said, the top 10% are getting into UMD. Not into CS though.

You are clearly not from Maryland. I’m not sure if it’s worse in other states, but here for certain high schools it’s essentially a lottery.

That’s the whole point. Guaranteed admissions is guaranteed. Maryland is vibes.

UVA is that way in VA. The difference is we have William&Mary, VA Tech and JMU—so really 4 state flagships and then GMU and VCU are well-respected too.

Yeah I think that is why Maryland is such an outlier. Very big population of high-achieving graduates and only one well-known state school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There might be a few odd cases, but like PP said, the top 10% are getting into UMD. Not into CS though.

You are clearly not from Maryland. I’m not sure if it’s worse in other states, but here for certain high schools it’s essentially a lottery.

That’s the whole point. Guaranteed admissions is guaranteed. Maryland is vibes.

Are you telling me if you look at the Naviance for Whitman or whatever school you are at that the top 5% of applicants are an equal mix of accepts and declines? I can tell you for B-CC that is not true. Same at 10%. Top kids are almost uniformly admitted.

I think you are going to need to name the school and your evidence at this point, beyond the fact that your child apparently was not admitted.

So just to be clear you are on board with the idea the top 10% at Whitman should be guaranteed admission? That’s the point here and if you agree, fine. The argument is not about whether top students get denied now, it’s whether the state should legally be allowed to deny them based on twenty six random made up factors.

[Anonymous]

It all makes sense once you look at college as an instrument of indoctrination, first and foremost. Kids who are accepted with lower grades are just the easiest targets or the most unreachable otherwise, that’s why they get in. The know that you’ll shape your kids’ political preferences, they need to reach others and shape the state’s political class and voter base.
Southern universities do the same btw. So it’s across the board

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There might be a few odd cases, but like PP said, the top 10% are getting into UMD. Not into CS though.

You are clearly not from Maryland. I’m not sure if it’s worse in other states, but here for certain high schools it’s essentially a lottery.

That’s the whole point. Guaranteed admissions is guaranteed. Maryland is vibes.

UVA is that way in VA. The difference is we have William&Mary, VA Tech and JMU—so really 4 state flagships and then GMU and VCU are well-respected too.

Yeah I think that is why Maryland is such an outlier. Very big population of high-achieving graduates and only one well-known state school.

But it’s not the only good school.

My SIL went to UMBC. She’s a doctor.

Who cares if it’s not the flagship if it provides a great education at an affordable price?

New York doesn’t even have a real state flagship. Somehow high achievers manage to go to Binghamton or Stony Brook (or even Geneseo) without panic.

My kid didn’t like UVA. She liked VCU. Problem solved!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, basically OP’s kid had good grades, no material extra-curricular and no story that they could articulate that made them standout from other academic bots. Reasonable summary?

This. We hear variations of this all the time here:

“TO should be banned,” so says the parent of a kid who tested well.

“1580 first try,” so says the parent looking sideways at a super scoring kid.

“1560, top 5% of class, denied/deferred?!??” So says parent of a kid who isn’t well rounded.

“Those ECs are a dime a dozen…they want a kid who can stand out. My kid stood out by x, y, z…” says the parent of a kid with good ECs.

“They should make essays done in person to stop AI use and/or adults helping,” so says parent of a strong writer.

Etc etc etc. everyone wants what helps their kid emphasized and what hurts their kid eliminated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's ridiculous that you can bring your kid up in a state public school system from k to 12 and they can graduate with a perfect or near-perfect grade record and they don't get into your taxpayer-funded state college. There is an annual cycle of people in Maryland learning that going to a good public high school, taking hard classes, and getting good grades is not enough to get into UMDCP. Especially in MoCo. This is a system for distributing a government benefit, and it shouldn't be done through a mysterious black box and essentially random back room vibes.

It should be clear to every student no later than the first year of freshman year of high school what they will need to do to get into their state flagship. In a lot of states it is, but in particular in Maryland it is not and it is ridiculous. In Maryland kids are actively punished for attending good schools and working hard to do well.

It's all part of a unified public education system. If the people running the state university flagship don't think that the most academically accomplished high school graduates should attend the college, something is wrong.

OP - write your legislator.

[Anonymous]

“Wholistic” is not a word.

I think you mean “holistic”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It all makes sense once you look at college as an instrument of indoctrination, first and foremost. Kids who are accepted with lower grades are just the easiest targets or the most unreachable otherwise, that’s why they get in. The know that you’ll shape your kids’ political preferences, they need to reach others and shape the state’s political class and voter base.
Southern universities do the same btw. So it’s across the board

Hilarious.

[Anonymous]

OP, have you contacted your elected officials?

The State can make changes to how UMD admits students as it is a state funded and run institution. It's not private.

But I would wager, they would come back with exactly the same argument that others on this board have voiced - go to a different state school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, basically OP’s kid had good grades, no material extra-curricular and no story that they could articulate that made them standout from other academic bots. Reasonable summary?

This. We hear variations of this all the time here:

“TO should be banned,” so says the parent of a kid who tested well.

“1580 first try,” so says the parent looking sideways at a super scoring kid.

“1560, top 5% of class, denied/deferred?!??” So says parent of a kid who isn’t well rounded.

“Those ECs are a dime a dozen…they want a kid who can stand out. My kid stood out by x, y, z…” says the parent of a kid with good ECs.

“They should make essays done in person to stop AI use and/or adults helping,” so says parent of a strong writer.

Etc etc etc. everyone wants what helps their kid emphasized and what hurts their kid eliminated.

Congratulations on not being able to do math. Something like Texas’s 10% rule would make it harder for kids at the big MoCo schools to get into UMD. Like someone else said, it would actually increase admissions from other high schools. It would make it more fair. It would mean the kids know what they need to do. The taxpayer knows what they are getting and parents can make an informed choice about where their kid goes to school.

But shout out to everyone who doesn’t get that and instead just wants to attack other kids.

[Anonymous]

There is a reason that public flagships in the South, and every private school, are full of high-stats kids from Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut.

These are high-tax states who are not focused on developing post-secondary options for high-stats kids.

If you have a problem with admission, question the State's educational mission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's ridiculous that you can bring your kid up in a state public school system from k to 12 and they can graduate with a perfect or near-perfect grade record and they don't get into your taxpayer-funded state college. There is an annual cycle of people in Maryland learning that going to a good public high school, taking hard classes, and getting good grades is not enough to get into UMDCP. Especially in MoCo. This is a system for distributing a government benefit, and it shouldn't be done through a mysterious black box and essentially random back room vibes.

It should be clear to every student no later than the first year of freshman year of high school what they will need to do to get into their state flagship. In a lot of states it is, but in particular in Maryland it is not and it is ridiculous. In Maryland kids are actively punished for attending good schools and working hard to do well.

It's all part of a unified public education system. If the people running the state university flagship don't think that the most academically accomplished high school graduates should attend the college, something is wrong.

In Texas, the top 5% high school kids are guaranteed admission to its top public college (UT Austin), but there’s no guarantee that they’ll get into their first choice majors. Other TX colleges (including Texas A&M) will take the top 10% for sure, again to some major not necessarily your first choice. In practice, the top 5-10% of high school kids in Maryland ARE pretty much guaranteed a spot at UMD. I don’t see how imposing such a rule would make any practical difference.

+1

Every kid can get into *a* public college, and the top 5% or 10% can get into the flagship but not necessarily their preferred major. This is true in both MD and VA. Sounds like the state funded education system is doing what it should.

Agree it is likely about the preferred major. If the top 10% of kids from your high school all want the same major, they aren't all getting in. Also, being top in your high school doesn't guarantee that you are top in the state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There might be a few odd cases, but like PP said, the top 10% are getting into UMD. Not into CS though.

You are clearly not from Maryland. I’m not sure if it’s worse in other states, but here for certain high schools it’s essentially a lottery.

That’s the whole point. Guaranteed admissions is guaranteed. Maryland is vibes.

Are you telling me if you look at the Naviance for Whitman or whatever school you are at that the top 5% of applicants are an equal mix of accepts and declines? I can tell you for B-CC that is not true. Same at 10%. Top kids are almost uniformly admitted.

I think you are going to need to name the school and your evidence at this point, beyond the fact that your child apparently was not admitted.

So just to be clear you are on board with the idea the top 10% at Whitman should be guaranteed admission? That’s the point here and if you agree, fine. The argument is not about whether top students get denied now, it’s whether the state should legally be allowed to deny them based on twenty six random made up factors.

Random made up factors. lol. You justt want to substitute that with the random factors that best suit YOUR kid. Guess what? The university wants and needs kids who are different from yours too.