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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He’s wrong. Look at the UC system it’s been legacy and race blind for a while though athletic recruitment is still there. The demographics bear out that affirmative action isn’t in place. The top ranked schools are over 45% Asian, under 5% AA, 20% white and the rest are Hispanic or other. A lot of mixed Asian and white kids choose the other category. Affirmative action is NOT taking seats. Anything under an unweighted 4.0 and weighted 4.2 ( UC cap ) puts you squarely in the waitlist category of mid tier UCs. Having perfect GPA stats, great ECs and well written PIQs still puts you into a lottery and you are likely to end up in the lower tier schools.

UCB and UCLA are very biased against kids from the Bay Area. But that is fine as their mandate is to serve top kids from across the state, not your neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who asked him? If we wanted to be India we would be.

OK racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most people saying US schools should be more like foreign schools don't actually want to go to those foreign schools over top US schools.

Nobody wants to go to us schools because it's holistic. They want to go to US schools because this is where the money is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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)

Not correct. At all. As an example, Yale took 66 Questbridge kids in 2025, out of 2308 admitted students. That's about 3%. Please stop spreading misinformation (or take a math class.)

Funny you chose not to explain Swarthmore numbers. I can post a lot more top colleges’ percentages.

Please feel free to calculate the Ivy League colleges' Questbridge percentages and share them here. We'll be waiting.

DP

"Top colleges" is more than just ivy.

Swarthmore is frequently considered a to college

[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.

You are assuming that MIT and Cornell care. Newsflash, they don’t.

+1. If colleges wanted raw scores, there would be a way to send raw scores. Keep praying that if you send your kids raw physics scores they will be admitted though.

[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.

You are assuming that MIT and Cornell care. Newsflash, they don’t.

+1. If colleges wanted raw scores, there would be a way to send raw scores. Keep praying that if you send your kids raw physics scores they will be admitted though.

a kid with 98% raw ap physics will be doing other physics stuff to be noticed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holistic admissions may have been rooted in anti-semitism, but not Jews disproportionally benefit. Jewish students are 25-30% of Ivies

False. What’s your source on this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whatever...

yawn.

There are a few more things happening in the world than college acceptances these days.

Life continues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whatever...

yawn.

There are a few more things happening in the world than college acceptances these days.

Agree. What good is a T20 degree if the world is on fire?

Who do you think will have to put out that fire?

[Anonymous]

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.

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.

Donor preferences are not unconstitutional, racial preferences are. You want to outlaw legacy preferences, I'll sign your petition but until then, stop being racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Most people saying US schools should be more like foreign schools don't actually want to go to those foreign schools over top US schools.

+1!

I would be happy if my kids went to Oxford or Cambridge over a private university in the USA which is 2x the tuition. British schools don't have legacy preferences and many of them require admissions tests to enter. Much fairer.

Great, tell them to apply there.

Too hard. Much easier to pay for EC and get into holistic schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are assuming that MIT and Cornell care. Newsflash, they don’t.

I suspect MIT would care, given that they were among the first to go back to test required. There is a huge difference in competence between someone who got 98% of questions right vs. someone who got 61% right.

But they don’t and they have no problem telling you that they don’t. They tell you exactly what they want if you read Applying Sideways.

You're kidding right? That blog post just says

"I don’t mean to discourage anything from pursuing incredible science and technology research on their own. If you want to do it, DO IT. But don’t do it because you think it’s your ticket to MIT. And that applies to everything you do – classes, SATs, extracurriculars.

There is no golden ticket.

So breathe."

Thing is there are golden tickets to MIT.

MOP camp is a ticket

[Anonymous]

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.

a students income does not change the correlation between test scores and college performance. A 1550 rich kids in average does as well as a1550 poor kid.

[Anonymous]

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.

a students income does not change the correlation between test scores and college performance. A 1550 rich kids in average does as well as a1550 poor kid.

Yes, that’s been shown pretty conclusively.

[Anonymous]

Better for the kids to learn now that there are thousands and thousands of other kids out there who are just as or more smart and accomplished, instead of going through their young adult years with an inflated sense of self importance and being put in their place when they reach a roadblock or face a setback of sorts.