Top 10 Universities - Holistic Admissions Fact or Fiction

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know of an actual example of a kid that got into one of these schools without near perfect SAT or GPA, besides sports stars? Please provide specific examples, if so. I am so tired of sitting through tours and hearing this and then seeing their GPA/ SAT ranges.

[Anonymous]

Holistic is an excuse for arbitrary and subjective masking of hidden intentions and initiatives

By claiming to use a Holistic approach, a school insulates itself from any objective evaluation of admission policies.

There are three main hooks that will get you in with less than perfect credentials: Athlete; Underrepresented Minority; Legacy. For specific example, look at the scatter grams on Naviance or similar system and you'll see plenty of less than perfect credentials that resulted in admission.

[Anonymous]

caltech. not really holisitc. good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holistic is an excuse for arbitrary and subjective masking of hidden intentions and initiatives

By claiming to use a Holistic approach, a school insulates itself from any objective evaluation of admission policies.

There are three main hooks that will get you in with less than perfect credentials: Athlete; Underrepresented Minority; Legacy. For specific example, look at the scatter grams on Naviance or similar system and you'll see plenty of less than perfect credentials that resulted in admission.

Sigh. No, these hooks are not the only reasons you will see admits on Naviance who have less than perfect scores.

DC recently got into a USNWR top 5 school without any of these hooks, and SATs of only 2100 (but GPA of 3.9 unweighted and lots of AP scores of 5). DC got in due to stellar accomplishments in a certain field, which I'm not going to describe here to protect DC's privacy. Also killed the essays. In other words, it's tough for all kids, but if you hit all the notes, and you're also really, really good at something (state or national competition or award), you don't necessarily need one of the hooks mentioned above.

[Anonymous]

Holistic is used to describe the process because a school will get many applications were kids have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. They can't take all of them, so short of pinning names to a wall and throwing a dart, they will then look at other things.
Maybe they wound up with a bunch of kids who did Model UN in last years acceptance pool. So maybe this year they will instead opt for the kid that did debate. This doesn't mean "Model UN = bad" or "debate = good" it just means they have a really strong applicant pool and from year to year they will try to get a good mix of good students that all have great test scores and high GPAs.
This is what they mean when they say "holistic."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holistic is used to describe the process because a school will get many applications were kids have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. They can't take all of them, so short of pinning names to a wall and throwing a dart, they will then look at other things.
Maybe they wound up with a bunch of kids who did Model UN in last years acceptance pool. So maybe this year they will instead opt for the kid that did debate. This doesn't mean "Model UN = bad" or "debate = good" it just means they have a really strong applicant pool and from year to year they will try to get a good mix of good students that all have great test scores and high GPAs.
This is what they mean when they say "holistic."

The scatter grams tell a different story. Not all admitted students have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. And, BTW, how do you even begin to compare GPA across different schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holistic is used to describe the process because a school will get many applications were kids have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. They can't take all of them, so short of pinning names to a wall and throwing a dart, they will then look at other things.
Maybe they wound up with a bunch of kids who did Model UN in last years acceptance pool. So maybe this year they will instead opt for the kid that did debate. This doesn't mean "Model UN = bad" or "debate = good" it just means they have a really strong applicant pool and from year to year they will try to get a good mix of good students that all have great test scores and high GPAs.
This is what they mean when they say "holistic."

The scatter grams tell a different story. Not all admitted students have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. And, BTW, how do you even begin to compare GPA across different schools?

The top colleges can compare GPAs across different schools very well, thank you. They all have their own weighting systems. The top colleges take a kid's transcript apart and reweight all the classes, so that AP Environmental Sciences, say, is given a lower weight than AP Calc BC.

Contrary to what you say, the scattergrams DO tell a story where ALMOST ALL of the kids have near-perfect SATs and GPAs along the 2 axes. You're right, there are always a handful of outliers. But it's not like the outliers have SATs of 1500. No, at the very top schools, the outliers have SATs of 2000. Very occasionally you will see the extremely rare 1800, but you can be pretty sure that kid had a compelling personal history.

1st PP is right, the colleges are building classes. They don't want a class of just math geeks (my own kid, so no dissing the math geeks here) or a class of just English Lit geeks. Also, they don't want a class of 100% legacy WASP preppies, or any other ethnic group for that matter. You're working yourself up needlessly if you're getting paranoid about conspiracy theories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holistic is used to describe the process because a school will get many applications were kids have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. They can't take all of them, so short of pinning names to a wall and throwing a dart, they will then look at other things.
Maybe they wound up with a bunch of kids who did Model UN in last years acceptance pool. So maybe this year they will instead opt for the kid that did debate. This doesn't mean "Model UN = bad" or "debate = good" it just means they have a really strong applicant pool and from year to year they will try to get a good mix of good students that all have great test scores and high GPAs.
This is what they mean when they say "holistic."

The scatter grams tell a different story. Not all admitted students have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. And, BTW, how do you even begin to compare GPA across different schools?

The top colleges can compare GPAs across different schools very well, thank you. They all have their own weighting systems. The top colleges take a kid's transcript apart and reweight all the classes, so that AP Environmental Sciences, say, is given a lower weight than AP Calc BC.

Contrary to what you say, the scattergrams DO tell a story where ALMOST ALL of the kids have near-perfect SATs and GPAs along the 2 axes. You're right, there are always a handful of outliers. But it's not like the outliers have SATs of 1500. No, at the very top schools, the outliers have SATs of 2000. Very occasionally you will see the extremely rare 1800, but you can be pretty sure that kid had a compelling personal history.

1st PP is right, the colleges are building classes. They don't want a class of just math geeks (my own kid, so no dissing the math geeks here) or a class of just English Lit geeks. Also, they don't want a class of 100% legacy WASP preppies, or any other ethnic group for that matter. You're working yourself up needlessly if you're getting paranoid about conspiracy theories.

If your definition of "essentially identical test scores and GPAs" encompasses SAT scores ranging from 1800-2400 and GPA's weighted differently, then we have no disagreement. It is rare indeed for a top school to admit a student with a test score barely above the national average.

I just don't think that scoring in the 85th percentile, while impressive, is "essentially identical" to scoring in the 99th percentile.

Here is a scatter gram for Cornell http://collegeapps.about.com/od/GPA-SAT-ACT-Graphs/ss/cornell-admission-gpa-sat-act.htm

I'd be hard pressed to say that all those blue and green dots are in "essentially the same" location - wouldn't you agree?

Even Harvard has considerable variation: http://collegeapps.about.com/od/GPA-SAT-ACT-Graphs/ss/harvard-admission-gpa-sat-act.htm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holistic is used to describe the process because a school will get many applications were kids have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. They can't take all of them, so short of pinning names to a wall and throwing a dart, they will then look at other things.
Maybe they wound up with a bunch of kids who did Model UN in last years acceptance pool. So maybe this year they will instead opt for the kid that did debate. This doesn't mean "Model UN = bad" or "debate = good" it just means they have a really strong applicant pool and from year to year they will try to get a good mix of good students that all have great test scores and high GPAs.
This is what they mean when they say "holistic."

The scatter grams tell a different story. Not all admitted students have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. And, BTW, how do you even begin to compare GPA across different schools?

The top colleges can compare GPAs across different schools very well, thank you. They all have their own weighting systems. The top colleges take a kid's transcript apart and reweight all the classes, so that AP Environmental Sciences, say, is given a lower weight than AP Calc BC.

Contrary to what you say, the scattergrams DO tell a story where ALMOST ALL of the kids have near-perfect SATs and GPAs along the 2 axes. You're right, there are always a handful of outliers. But it's not like the outliers have SATs of 1500. No, at the very top schools, the outliers have SATs of 2000. Very occasionally you will see the extremely rare 1800, but you can be pretty sure that kid had a compelling personal history.

1st PP is right, the colleges are building classes. They don't want a class of just math geeks (my own kid, so no dissing the math geeks here) or a class of just English Lit geeks. Also, they don't want a class of 100% legacy WASP preppies, or any other ethnic group for that matter. You're working yourself up needlessly if you're getting paranoid about conspiracy theories.

If your definition of "essentially identical test scores and GPAs" encompasses SAT scores ranging from 1800-2400 and GPA's weighted differently, then we have no disagreement. It is rare indeed for a top school to admit a student with a test score barely above the national average.

I just don't think that scoring in the 85th percentile, while impressive, is "essentially identical" to scoring in the 99th percentile.

Here is a scatter gram for Cornell http://collegeapps.about.com/od/GPA-SAT-ACT-Graphs/ss/cornell-admission-gpa-sat-act.htm

I'd be hard pressed to say that all those blue and green dots are in "essentially the same" location - wouldn't you agree?

Even Harvard has considerable variation: http://collegeapps.about.com/od/GPA-SAT-ACT-Graphs/ss/harvard-admission-gpa-sat-act.htm

I think we agree. I was very careful to say that almost everybody has near-perfect scores and GPAs - I've bolded where I said this. I was very careful to say that an "outlier" is 2000 and that 1800 is a very rare case indeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holistic is used to describe the process because a school will get many applications were kids have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. They can't take all of them, so short of pinning names to a wall and throwing a dart, they will then look at other things.
Maybe they wound up with a bunch of kids who did Model UN in last years acceptance pool. So maybe this year they will instead opt for the kid that did debate. This doesn't mean "Model UN = bad" or "debate = good" it just means they have a really strong applicant pool and from year to year they will try to get a good mix of good students that all have great test scores and high GPAs.
This is what they mean when they say "holistic."

The scatter grams tell a different story. Not all admitted students have essentially identical test scores and GPAs. And, BTW, how do you even begin to compare GPA across different schools?

The top colleges can compare GPAs across different schools very well, thank you. They all have their own weighting systems. The top colleges take a kid's transcript apart and reweight all the classes, so that AP Environmental Sciences, say, is given a lower weight than AP Calc BC.

Contrary to what you say, the scattergrams DO tell a story where ALMOST ALL of the kids have near-perfect SATs and GPAs along the 2 axes. You're right, there are always a handful of outliers. But it's not like the outliers have SATs of 1500. No, at the very top schools, the outliers have SATs of 2000. Very occasionally you will see the extremely rare 1800, but you can be pretty sure that kid had a compelling personal history.

1st PP is right, the colleges are building classes. They don't want a class of just math geeks (my own kid, so no dissing the math geeks here) or a class of just English Lit geeks. Also, they don't want a class of 100% legacy WASP preppies, or any other ethnic group for that matter. You're working yourself up needlessly if you're getting paranoid about conspiracy theories.

If your definition of "essentially identical test scores and GPAs" encompasses SAT scores ranging from 1800-2400 and GPA's weighted differently, then we have no disagreement. It is rare indeed for a top school to admit a student with a test score barely above the national average.

I just don't think that scoring in the 85th percentile, while impressive, is "essentially identical" to scoring in the 99th percentile.

Here is a scatter gram for Cornell http://collegeapps.about.com/od/GPA-SAT-ACT-Graphs/ss/cornell-admission-gpa-sat-act.htm

I'd be hard pressed to say that all those blue and green dots are in "essentially the same" location - wouldn't you agree?

Even Harvard has considerable variation: http://collegeapps.about.com/od/GPA-SAT-ACT-Graphs/ss/harvard-admission-gpa-sat-act.htm

BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"?

[Anonymous]

"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of an actual example of a kid that got into one of these schools without near perfect SAT or GPA, besides sports stars? Please provide specific examples, if so. I am so tired of sitting through tours and hearing this and then seeing their GPA/ SAT ranges.

Getting back to the original question . . . even with top SATs and GPAs these schools are a reach. There are simply too many applicants for available slots. If your DC doesn't have these numbers, you should probably limit your visits to these schools. There are plenty of fantastic schools that genuinely take a greater range of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of an actual example of a kid that got into one of these schools without near perfect SAT or GPA, besides sports stars? Please provide specific examples, if so. I am so tired of sitting through tours and hearing this and then seeing their GPA/ SAT ranges.

Getting back to the original question . . . even with top SATs and GPAs these schools are a reach. There are simply too many applicants for available slots. If your DC doesn't have these numbers, you should probably limit your visits to these schools. There are plenty of fantastic schools that genuinely take a greater range of students.

This is sound advice if your DC doesn't fit into one of the Big 3 hook categories. Most of those stay green and blue dots are hooks, the many red dots are those misled by the stay hook dots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holistic is an excuse for arbitrary and subjective masking of hidden intentions and initiatives

By claiming to use a Holistic approach, a school insulates itself from any objective evaluation of admission policies.

There are three main hooks that will get you in with less than perfect credentials: Athlete; Underrepresented Minority; Legacy. For specific example, look at the scatter grams on Naviance or similar system and you'll see plenty of less than perfect credentials that resulted in admission.

Sigh. No, these hooks are not the only reasons you will see admits on Naviance who have less than perfect scores.

DC recently got into a USNWR top 5 school without any of these hooks, and SATs of only 2100 (but GPA of 3.9 unweighted and lots of AP scores of 5). DC got in due to stellar accomplishments in a certain field, which I'm not going to describe here to protect DC's privacy. Also killed the essays. In other words, it's tough for all kids, but if you hit all the notes, and you're also really, really good at something (state or national competition or award), you don't necessarily need one of the hooks mentioned above.

well if you have a "stellar accomplishment in a certain field" that's a hook isn't it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

I count maybe 10-15 "outlier" green and blue dots. You do know that harvard received 35,000 applications this year and only 2,100 acceptances were mailed out 6.2% of applications, and the 865 come from EA.