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On college confidential there was a black kid in Texas endlessly bragging about getting into every top 20 college (only rejected from Stanford) a few months back.
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/2021582-chance-me-for-ivy.html He only had a 32 on the ACT and SAT II scores super mediocre. No Asian or white kid with his stats would get into even 1 top 20 college. On top of that he's going for 100% free to Harvard. |
Yeah that lucky low income immigrant sonofabitch. If only you had been lucky enough to be born poor in Kenya! He was 3rd in his class of 570. Didn't seem like endlessly bragging to me, he seemed pretty grateful and bewildered. Also, "super-mediocre" is an oxymoron. |
That's not saying a lot for many high schools. |
32 is 98%tile. What's your issue?? |
Exactly, so literally 200,000 kids scored higher than him on the ACT/SAT. |
The relevant stat is the percentile a 32 would be amongst admitted applicants at top 20 colleges. Try to keep up. |
You try to keep up. Top colleges use holistic admissions and scores are just one of many factors. 32 is a solid score., especially alongside being in the top 10% of your class.l |
Around 2 million students take the test each year (up in recent years) 2% of 2 million is 40,000, not 200,000, right? Also that's the number that scored equal or better. a 33 is a 99th % -- so only 20,000 kids scored better, not 200,000. This is the part where you say "Typo" (except explain the comma). By the way, the kid also had a 33 superscore. |
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Looks like my post of last night disappeared into oblivion, just for making a suggestion to further along the discussion. So, here it is, I am posting again.
Colleges and universities with less than or equal to 10% admit rates should have no preference categories such as, athletes, legacies, based on race, donors, connected and powerful families, etc. They should give some consideration to first gen and truly poor families while keeping the academic credentials bar higher than it is for them now. Rest of the admissions should be awarded purely on academic excellence. Colleges and universities with greater than 10% admit rate can follow the present system they have and attract so called "well-rounded"/"multidimensional" students who develop such personalities by sacrificing some of their effort at academic excellence. This way the country and the society will benefit as a whole by having people pursuing academic excellence and well as those pursuing well-rounded personality development. Students can choose what stream they want to follow based on their innate talents and interests. If Harvard or any other university with less than 10% admit rate want to have preference categories, let it increase the intake so that its admit rate is greater than 10%. Surely Harvard has enough endowment to increase its capacity to admit greater number of students than it does now. Now, there it is. I hope this time my post will not disappear. Looking forward to reading others' views. |
Nice, respectful post. Asking in kind: Why should private colleges do what YOU want rather than what they think is best for their organization's health and future? |
His ECs are awesome especially "Chairman and Member Representative for Asian-American Culture Club". |
Why when top tier colleges have NEVER admitted based solely on academic achievement? One of the only colleges that goes purely on academic achievement is CalTech and it isn't known for being an enjoyable place to go to college. The sports teams are awful. Like it or not there has always been a huge emphasis on college sports teams in this country. It is a way of being attached to your school even after you graduate. Many college athletes go on to be very successful in life because of their ability to balance demands and their ability to work as part of a team. The biggest hook goes to recruited college athletes. Someone posted the 4 factors thatHarvard looked at and by far the athletic category Tier 1 student had the best chance of being accepted. What is the rate of Asian college athletes at Harvard? I looked for this number but couldn't find it. |
Who cares anyway? A kid who got a 32 can do the work and that is ALL that matters. It is completely irrelevant to the consideration his admission that someone else somewhere else got a 34. |
About top tier colleges NEVER admitting based solely on academic achievement - until they started admitting women, they NEVER admitted women before, until they started admitting Blacks, they NEVER admitted before. After all this practice is not like written in the constitution and should not be violated! So this argument is moot. Times have changed. About CalTech being boring - ask the students who knowingly and willingly studying there. Students interested in academic excellence will select top tier colleges when such colleges admit solely based on academics. Students interested in academics and sports (even those wanting to have fun tailgating etc., not necessarily being on sports teams) can choose those colleges that have greater than 10% admit rate and practice current system of preferences. The colleges that boast less than 10% admit rate and every year make great marketing effort to attract even more students to bring down the admit rate to 5% and below (20 applicants to choose from to fill one seat) should not be allowed to apportion precious few seats to nonacademic preferences - except on the basis of first gen or economically poor families. I don't even know how many Asians are among admitted athletes at Harvard and I am not concerned about that. |
So by "academic achievement" you mean test scores? Also, as someone asked before -- why should they admit based on criteria YOU select. They had good reasons to admit African Americans and women. What is their reason to change to admit based on test scores now? I can think of many why they should not. For instance, you can make a strong case that someone who can get a 3.8/32 while playing sports is a better admit than one with a 4.0/35 with less time on ECs. It's not for me to judge which is better for Harvard to take based on what helps them acieve their institutional goals. And what about majors? That data point is often left out of any analysis... |