College Admissions Doesn't Need to Be So Competitive: Super High Stat Kids are not "a dime a dozen."

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

The wealthy have an advantage in nearly everything, including testing and grades. We may never have a complete meritocracy, but most AOs are trained to recognize such disparities. So the kid who does a month of volunteering in Palau on his parent's dime may not have an advantage over the kid who spends 20 hours a week at a parttime job or looking after younger siblings.

We are told that admissions controls for school quality by comparing the student transcript to their school profile and don't expect students to do more than is offered by the school. Why don't they do the same with ECs? No recognition for ECs not offered by the school or that cost more than a de minimus amount?

That E stands for “Extra” as in outside of

don't be daft. Many ECs are school sanctioned clubs

And many aren’t.Annd the posters suggests no credit for ECs. It offers by the school. That is just dim.

it is a good question to ask. If schools only expect students to take the most rigorous classes offered by their school, why don't they apply that to ECs?

Too difficult to compare. Some clubs are easy at some schools and hard at others. Sports vs. non-sports time commitment is very difficult to assess. I've learned from this site that sometimes sports teams now have multiple captains and the time investment varies a ton. At my high school you had to be elected to be on student council. At my kid's school, any handraiser is eligible. That kind of thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

The wealthy have an advantage in nearly everything, including testing and grades. We may never have a complete meritocracy, but most AOs are trained to recognize such disparities. So the kid who does a month of volunteering in Palau on his parent's dime may not have an advantage over the kid who spends 20 hours a week at a parttime job or looking after younger siblings.

We are told that admissions controls for school quality by comparing the student transcript to their school profile and don't expect students to do more than is offered by the school. Why don't they do the same with ECs? No recognition for ECs not offered by the school or that cost more than a de minimus amount?

That E stands for “Extra” as in outside of

+1

why would you only want ECs that are "done at the school"? So only the top kids can play Baseball or basketball --at our HS those kids are all from 1-2 "travel/elite" teams the rest of the year and they have connections to make the HS varsity team.

Or same with Dance or Gymnastics? My kid does gymnastics at competitive level, and decided to skip HS and all that entails and focus on their own training and outside school team. So they shoudlnt' be recognized for all their work? Don't kid yourself, the kids on the HS team 95%+ do outside competitive gymnastics as well. Nobody "who is poor/doesn't have the $$ for outside training" is making the HS team

don't shoot the messenger. I am just taking the logic colleges use for high school courses and applying it to ECs

It just shows how messed up this holistic system is

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are large numbers of kids tracked into such advanced math classes in high school? It is rarely useful career wise anymore, even in STEM fields. Plus, they have plenty of time in college to take relevant math classes.

I'll answer!!!!

My kid tracked for 2 years ahead. Took Alg 2 in 9th and Precalc in 10th. Then onto AP Calc AB in 11 and Calc BC in 12 because that's how our schools do it.


My kid went to 1 grade ahead in 1st grade. Why? Because that was just how good they were with math and math concepts. No tutoring/Kumon/pressure from us. In fact, in ES when they used to do the "timed math facts" tests, my kid was "so far behind" because they could do it all, just not super fast. They literally never missed a question---they came home in 2nd grade excited they had finally Passed a Timed math test---and I wondered how since they had just taken it. Then I went back and looked and relized they had a 100% accuracy on what they had completed, so by their logic, if they had answered enough questions, they were all correct and they finally would "pass" (Hint they were correct).
My kid understood math concepts above all but 1-2 kids even in their "advanced math" in ES. I watched it happen when helping in class and the teachers told me about it. They also told me when it came time to "advance to GT and be 2 grades ahead in 4th grade" that if my kid didn't make the cut due to a timed test, they want to advocate for them to be 2 grades ahead. (my kid made the cut). The first time my kid had to study for Math (and didn't have a 98/99% without studying) was 12th grade Calc BC.

My kid got the concepts and loved doing higher thinking math problems, but they would have been massively bored if kept on grade level or even 1 grade level ahead.

What it has allowed is my kid skipped the first year of calculus at college and now has room for 2 more advanced electives in their engineering major because of that. Same holds true for their year of chemistry credit .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

The wealthy have an advantage in nearly everything, including testing and grades. We may never have a complete meritocracy, but most AOs are trained to recognize such disparities. So the kid who does a month of volunteering in Palau on his parent's dime may not have an advantage over the kid who spends 20 hours a week at a parttime job or looking after younger siblings.

We are told that admissions controls for school quality by comparing the student transcript to their school profile and don't expect students to do more than is offered by the school. Why don't they do the same with ECs? No recognition for ECs not offered by the school or that cost more than a de minimus amount?

That E stands for “Extra” as in outside of

don't be daft. Many ECs are school sanctioned clubs

And for both of my kids, outside of Marching band and concert band, 95% of their ECs were outside school, no association with the school. One kid, their EC definately helped with admissions and merit---being a true black belt and all that goes along with it impressive people.
The other, their EC was 20+ hours weekly and just their life and all their friends and they couldn't imagine HS without that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are large numbers of kids tracked into such advanced math classes in high school? It is rarely useful career wise anymore, even in STEM fields. Plus, they have plenty of time in college to take relevant math classes.

Parental bragging rights

Nope--we want our kids at the level they need to be challenged and learn. When your 3 yo is "helping with" their older siblings 1st grade math and knows 75% of the answers and loves the word problems, do you tell them "nope, that's above you, go back to counting" or do you encourage them to learn more math and problem solve?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The College board needs to release raw scores for the AP tests. That way MIT and Cornell can see whether your 5 on Physics EM was a 98% or a 61%.

We throw away a lot of information that could be useful for everyone in the process.

Sure, if the goal is to assemble a class of kids who test well.

Only dishonest or ignorant people say that standardized tests only measures the ability to take standardized tests

Standardized tests are the best measure we have of cognitive ability. It predicts pretty much everything you would want to predict.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Agreed. T20 universities and T10 lacs admit too many hooked applicants. If they are admitting over 20% QuestBridge, they should increase their class proportionally.

Nobody is admitt 20% QB. It is under 2% at most schools so just stop now.

It's commonplace now for top colleges admitting over 20% QuestBridge.

[url]https://www.questbridge.org/partners/college-partners/swarthmore-college
[/url]

24% affiliated with QuestBridge (Class of 2028)

That is a mistake on the Questbridge site. Swat took 15 QB kids in the class of 28 and 15 in the class of 27.

Don't bother with data. The people who want to blame the "undeserving" poor of darker skin colors will continue to do so, despite facts showing that legacy, donor and athletic preferences far outweigh any preferences for the poor.

Why are people bitter about donor preference? How do you think the schools got the money to cover the cost of educating FGLI?

Then just rip off the bandaid and auction off slots to the highest bidder.

That doesn’t work. The whole point of the current messy system is that rich kids get to imagine that they’re smart and smart kids get to imagine they’re part of the elite. It only works because they cross the streams.

It's not imagination. Smart kid at Harvard has an idea and needs rich friends at Harvard to support it. Isn't that what happened with Facebook?

So once in a generation it’s real, the other 99.9999% of the time it’s imagination. Either way, it’s the reason schools engage in this elaborate holistic scheme instead of either admitting by stats (which would exclude most of the rich kids) or auctioning off the seats (which would exclude most of the smart kids).

Where does this fallacy come from that rich kids are low stats? My kid goes to a private school filled with very rich kids. The are overwhelmingly high IQ, voracious readers, well traveled, have crazy smart parents, etc. Get out of your bubble, grinders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are large numbers of kids tracked into such advanced math classes in high school? It is rarely useful career wise anymore, even in STEM fields. Plus, they have plenty of time in college to take relevant math classes.

I'll answer!!!!

My kid tracked for 2 years ahead. Took Alg 2 in 9th and Precalc in 10th. Then onto AP Calc AB in 11 and Calc BC in 12 because that's how our schools do it.


My kid went to 1 grade ahead in 1st grade. Why? Because that was just how good they were with math and math concepts. No tutoring/Kumon/pressure from us. In fact, in ES when they used to do the "timed math facts" tests, my kid was "so far behind" because they could do it all, just not super fast. They literally never missed a question---they came home in 2nd grade excited they had finally Passed a Timed math test---and I wondered how since they had just taken it. Then I went back and looked and relized they had a 100% accuracy on what they had completed, so by their logic, if they had answered enough questions, they were all correct and they finally would "pass" (Hint they were correct).
My kid understood math concepts above all but 1-2 kids even in their "advanced math" in ES. I watched it happen when helping in class and the teachers told me about it. They also told me when it came time to "advance to GT and be 2 grades ahead in 4th grade" that if my kid didn't make the cut due to a timed test, they want to advocate for them to be 2 grades ahead. (my kid made the cut). The first time my kid had to study for Math (and didn't have a 98/99% without studying) was 12th grade Calc BC.

My kid got the concepts and loved doing higher thinking math problems, but they would have been massively bored if kept on grade level or even 1 grade level ahead.

What it has allowed is my kid skipped the first year of calculus at college and now has room for 2 more advanced electives in their engineering major because of that. Same holds true for their year of chemistry credit .

This shows that anyone can do math, even kids who are naturally slow/have poor processing speed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are large numbers of kids tracked into such advanced math classes in high school? It is rarely useful career wise anymore, even in STEM fields. Plus, they have plenty of time in college to take relevant math classes.

I'll answer!!!!

My kid tracked for 2 years ahead. Took Alg 2 in 9th and Precalc in 10th. Then onto AP Calc AB in 11 and Calc BC in 12 because that's how our schools do it.


My kid went to 1 grade ahead in 1st grade. Why? Because that was just how good they were with math and math concepts. No tutoring/Kumon/pressure from us. In fact, in ES when they used to do the "timed math facts" tests, my kid was "so far behind" because they could do it all, just not super fast. They literally never missed a question---they came home in 2nd grade excited they had finally Passed a Timed math test---and I wondered how since they had just taken it. Then I went back and looked and relized they had a 100% accuracy on what they had completed, so by their logic, if they had answered enough questions, they were all correct and they finally would "pass" (Hint they were correct).
My kid understood math concepts above all but 1-2 kids even in their "advanced math" in ES. I watched it happen when helping in class and the teachers told me about it. They also told me when it came time to "advance to GT and be 2 grades ahead in 4th grade" that if my kid didn't make the cut due to a timed test, they want to advocate for them to be 2 grades ahead. (my kid made the cut). The first time my kid had to study for Math (and didn't have a 98/99% without studying) was 12th grade Calc BC.

My kid got the concepts and loved doing higher thinking math problems, but they would have been massively bored if kept on grade level or even 1 grade level ahead.

What it has allowed is my kid skipped the first year of calculus at college and now has room for 2 more advanced electives in their engineering major because of that. Same holds true for their year of chemistry credit .

This shows that anyone can do math, even kids who are naturally slow/have poor processing speed.

Yes but you have to start early

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

The wealthy have an advantage in nearly everything, including testing and grades. We may never have a complete meritocracy, but most AOs are trained to recognize such disparities. So the kid who does a month of volunteering in Palau on his parent's dime may not have an advantage over the kid who spends 20 hours a week at a parttime job or looking after younger siblings.

We are told that admissions controls for school quality by comparing the student transcript to their school profile and don't expect students to do more than is offered by the school. Why don't they do the same with ECs? No recognition for ECs not offered by the school or that cost more than a de minimus amount?

That E stands for “Extra” as in outside of

+1

why would you only want ECs that are "done at the school"? So only the top kids can play Baseball or basketball --at our HS those kids are all from 1-2 "travel/elite" teams the rest of the year and they have connections to make the HS varsity team.

Or same with Dance or Gymnastics? My kid does gymnastics at competitive level, and decided to skip HS and all that entails and focus on their own training and outside school team. So they shoudlnt' be recognized for all their work? Don't kid yourself, the kids on the HS team 95%+ do outside competitive gymnastics as well. Nobody "who is poor/doesn't have the $$ for outside training" is making the HS team

don't shoot the messenger. I am just taking the logic colleges use for high school courses and applying it to ECs

It just shows how messed up this holistic system is

Umm...no you are not. You are trying to twist information.

Every single kid has the opportunity to take any of the courses a school offers. So AO look at the rigor offered at the HS and then at what the kid takes.

And the AO can tell who has money and just done ECs because parents have money versus a poor/LMC/MC kid who has to work PT and help actually pay the bills for the family, and who has to come home after school to help with siblings or grandparents/etc.

We get it---you want colleges to only look at GPA and SAT scores. Well that ship has sailed. They know that is only one indicator of what they are looking for. And yes, if your school offers 20 AP courses, you should be taking more than 1 or 2 if you want to be considered "highest rigor".

You are arguing about all of this for literally only the T25-30 schools (maybe T40 if you include SLAC). Outside of that, it is not "difficult" to gain admissions to national Universities ranked 30+ If you are at/above the 75% you will get into most, as long as you are an "interesting person who does more than just academics". And most Highly qualified kids are at/above 75% at most schools 30+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

The wealthy have an advantage in nearly everything, including testing and grades. We may never have a complete meritocracy, but most AOs are trained to recognize such disparities. So the kid who does a month of volunteering in Palau on his parent's dime may not have an advantage over the kid who spends 20 hours a week at a parttime job or looking after younger siblings.

We are told that admissions controls for school quality by comparing the student transcript to their school profile and don't expect students to do more than is offered by the school. Why don't they do the same with ECs? No recognition for ECs not offered by the school or that cost more than a de minimus amount?

That E stands for “Extra” as in outside of

don't be daft. Many ECs are school sanctioned clubs

To get into top schools, you have to do more than what your school has on site. You have to go beyond. And excel at it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. T20 universities and T10 lacs admit too many hooked applicants. If they are admitting over 20% QuestBridge, they should increase their class proportionally.

Nobody is admitt 20% QB. It is under 2% at most schools so just stop now.

It's commonplace now for top colleges admitting over 20% QuestBridge.

[url]https://www.questbridge.org/partners/college-partners/swarthmore-college
[/url]

24% affiliated with QuestBridge (Class of 2028)

That is a mistake on the Questbridge site. Swat took 15 QB kids in the class of 28 and 15 in the class of 27.

Could you please provide a source for this?

Do a bit of work. There is dat for almost every partner school available.

I did , and I provided the link stating 24% Swat admits are QuestBridge.

If you are serious, burden is on you to counter evidence.

Already done upthread. Anway, Swathmore is not in the Ivy League.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

The wealthy have an advantage in nearly everything, including testing and grades. We may never have a complete meritocracy, but most AOs are trained to recognize such disparities. So the kid who does a month of volunteering in Palau on his parent's dime may not have an advantage over the kid who spends 20 hours a week at a parttime job or looking after younger siblings.

We are told that admissions controls for school quality by comparing the student transcript to their school profile and don't expect students to do more than is offered by the school. Why don't they do the same with ECs? No recognition for ECs not offered by the school or that cost more than a de minimus amount?

That E stands for “Extra” as in outside of

+1

why would you only want ECs that are "done at the school"? So only the top kids can play Baseball or basketball --at our HS those kids are all from 1-2 "travel/elite" teams the rest of the year and they have connections to make the HS varsity team.

Or same with Dance or Gymnastics? My kid does gymnastics at competitive level, and decided to skip HS and all that entails and focus on their own training and outside school team. So they shoudlnt' be recognized for all their work? Don't kid yourself, the kids on the HS team 95%+ do outside competitive gymnastics as well. Nobody "who is poor/doesn't have the $$ for outside training" is making the HS team

don't shoot the messenger. I am just taking the logic colleges use for high school courses and applying it to ECs

It just shows how messed up this holistic system is

Umm...no you are not. You are trying to twist information.

Every single kid has the opportunity to take any of the courses a school offers. So AO look at the rigor offered at the HS and then at what the kid takes.

And the AO can tell who has money and just done ECs because parents have money versus a poor/LMC/MC kid who has to work PT and help actually pay the bills for the family, and who has to come home after school to help with siblings or grandparents/etc.

did you read the posts of people here whose kids do sailing, Equestrian, etc? Which category do you put them in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The College board needs to release raw scores for the AP tests. That way MIT and Cornell can see whether your 5 on Physics EM was a 98% or a 61%.

We throw away a lot of information that could be useful for everyone in the process.

Sure, if the goal is to assemble a class of kids who test well.

Only dishonest or ignorant people say that standardized tests only measures the ability to take standardized tests

Standardized tests are the best measure we have of cognitive ability. It predicts pretty much everything you would want to predict.

Most AO would rather see smart kids, who rather than spending $$$$$$ and 50+ hours prepping to take the SAT/ACT multiple times, have something they are passionate about and focus their efforts on, something that enriches their lives beyond just "studying for the test".
My own kid raised their score from 1320 to 1520 with 4 hours of individualized test prep (going over a baseline test). Easy to do in a short time period, especially if you can afford the tutor. If not, it might take you 20 hours to do that individually. So yes, my kid is privileged to not need to spend much time getting to their optimum score (and yes, had they spent another 10 hours focused on Verbal they could have gotten even higher)

So nope, SAT is not a predator of cognitive ability. IQ tests are but not SAT/ACT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

The wealthy have an advantage in nearly everything, including testing and grades. We may never have a complete meritocracy, but most AOs are trained to recognize such disparities. So the kid who does a month of volunteering in Palau on his parent's dime may not have an advantage over the kid who spends 20 hours a week at a parttime job or looking after younger siblings.

We are told that admissions controls for school quality by comparing the student transcript to their school profile and don't expect students to do more than is offered by the school. Why don't they do the same with ECs? No recognition for ECs not offered by the school or that cost more than a de minimus amount?

That E stands for “Extra” as in outside of

don't be daft. Many ECs are school sanctioned clubs

To get into top schools, you have to do more than what your school has on site. You have to go beyond. And excel at it.

and that means the school just pays lip service to trying to recruit poor kids. What ECs can you do and excel at without money?