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College Acceptance/Matriculation Stats: NCS/STA, Holton/Landon
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Anonymous
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DCUM should start a Statistics forum. (Kidding. I know, ROFL.)
FYI: Statistical analyses will never include intangible but decisive factors like clicking with the alum interviewer, or writing a resonant essay -- in fact the essay's impact depends on the admission reader's affinities and, practically speaking, whether he/she's had enough coffee that morning or is distracted by an upcoming meeting with the Head of Admissions. This is not a science. |
Anonymous
Stop - you're getting me hot. |
Anonymous
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Okay this is my last statistics post (because I have work to do...using statistics!).
The point was simple: stop looking at STA's admission to Harvard of 14% versus Sidwell's admission to Harvard of 26% and conclude that IF YOUR CHILD GOES TO SIDWELL, he will have a better chance of getting into Harvard than if he went to STA. (PS: I MADE UP THOSE NUMBERS! PLEASE DON'T QUOTE!!!!!) Let's imagine Sidwell accepts more Harvard legacies than STA, and that is the fundamental determinant of acceptance to Harvard. In which case, if you happen to have a Harvard legacy son, it won't matter where you send your child because the critical factor is an inherent characteristic of the child. If you DON'T have a Harvard legacy child, then likewise, sending your child to Sidwell will not increase the chance for acceptance to Harvard, because the critical factor is not present in the child. I would expect there to be a lot of noise in the case of college admissions because it may very well be influenced by a board of directors, by funding gaps, by a particular admissions team, and those influences may change over time. |
Anonymous
No, I wond't stop. How about: Even sophisticated attempts to solve figure out the effect of schools on college admission bog down in statistical nonsesense; For example: http://professorreed.com/Attewell_-E-_the_winner-take-all_HS__organizational_adaptions_to_educational_stratification.pdf Discuss. |
Anonymous
| The stats are irrelevant if you don't know the facts about each particular applicant. |
Anonymous
| right |
Anonymous
Wow, I'm glad you didn't stop - that is one of the most interesting articles I've read in a long time. Thank you. If you have any others like that, please please please post links. Some assorted thoughts after reading it: The article presents pretty damning criticism of class rank as an admissions factor by colleges. For example, the article shows that class rank often severely harms the college chances of very strong students, class rank greatly accelerates efforts to game the winner-take-all system, and class rank as an admissions factor has a very ugly historic root in antisemitism (endnote 8). I wonder why colleges continue to place so much emphasis on it. Even if colleges have reasons not to eliminate class rank entirely from calculations, it seems the formula should be adjusted to lower its weighting. This article was published in 2001. Judging from some of the article's descriptions, it appears the actions and counter-actions of both high schools and colleges are evolving fairly rapidly. I suspect the situation has changed further over the past 8 years. I am curious what is different now. I had not realized that many schools give GPA boosts for AP classes, resulting in 4.0-4.5 GPAs for some students. The article helps explain the fairly common story about a 4.0 GPA student being rejected by a top college. It seems like pure magnet schools like TJ really would be harmed the most by the class rank factor. The bottom 50% of TJ's senior class might easily be in the top 10% at most other public high schools in the area. The class rank factor also would be really unfortunate for any strong students at Blair who are not part of the magnet program, since the 100 magnet students seemingly would push down the class rank of other non-magnet students that otherwise might be in the top 10% of class rank if Blair did not have a magnet program. (Or maybe Blair gives separate class ranks for different programs? But that creates the same problem TJ students face.) The article focuses on the computer-based formula that most colleges use for a first cut, but does not say much about the subsequent by-hand review by admissions personnel. I'd be curious how likely the admissions personnel are to override the computer rankings. It might vary some for different colleges, but I suspect most would be fairly similar. I suppose if you could compare the anticipated admission rating for certain schools (based on the computer formula) with the actual admission rates from those schools, then you could gauge how willing the admissions personnel are to overrule the computer, and also how much weight the admissions personnel give to particular star schools. Great read. Thanks again. How did you find it (so I could search on my own for other similar studies)? |
Anonymous
| The article focused on "star" public high schools, correct? Many independents do not do class rank. |
Anonymous
| Many independents are not on the list of 67 star independents (out of a little over 200 schools) used in this analysis. |
Anonymous
| right |
Anonymous
| Most privates don't do rankings so as not to ruin a kid's chances of getting into a good college |
Anonymous
| If you want your kid getting into a great college -- apply Early Decision or Early Action. The odds of being admitted are much greater. |
Anonymous
| Bump |
Anonymous
| Isn't it true that more private school kids apply ED and EA so they have better chances overall (on avg) than public school kids of being admitted? |
Anonymous
| That may be true, because more public school kids want to wait to see what kind of scholarship money is offered from a variety of schools. Just another sad piece of evidence that money affects kids' chances of getting in. |