Trump was orange. |
| The equity is the public universities. |
This is what European universities do. No DEI questions and tons of government support. |
I like the way you assume someone who is on Questbridge or who is an admit that provides diversity is somehow a lesser student than your snowflake. In my experience, these applicants as well as most of the athlete applicants are every bit as academically qualified as your kid. In the case of the athletes, these applicants were spending 25-30 hours a week over and above their academic requirements to hone their skills while your kid was playing minecraft in the basement. And the Questbridge applicants are overcoming much more difficult financial and living conditions yet achieved similar academic results as your upper middle class coddled kid. So how about lets lose the entitlement. No one is taking your kid's spot at a T20 school. It isn't an entitlement, even if your kid is a legacy. |
Agree about the Questbridge students. Disagree about the athletes. Yes, an athlete can be just as smart as any other student. But your assumption that kids who are not athletes are somehow just wasting their high school years in a basement because they don’t play a sport shows you have bought into the American obsession with sports. You don’t think students who are not athletes aren’t spending 25-30 hours on other activities above and beyond academic requirements? Do you think sports is somehow more valuable than working a job, volunteering time, honing skills in the performing arts? Athletes have a thumb on the scale which means the rest of their application doesn’t have to be as strong as a student with other activities. That is the way of the world. At least own it. |
The academic results are not similar. Not even close. |
DP I've noticed from our private school the smart UMC black kids get in everywhere. And if they are musically or athletically talented, they are like a unicorn. The issue here is that there just aren't many UMC black kids in the school - a handful. |
Why? You would just be making a case for many non-profits to lose their status - like every one that is religiously based, or based on race. Is that a precedent you want to set? |
Says the guy who knows zero elite college admissions people. They are way smarter than you demonstrate you are with that comment, I guarantee you. Guess what? Harvard gets to pick who Harvard wants as long as they don’t break the law. Just like any private organization. The qualifications are up to them, not you. You don’t like it don’t apply. Why would you want to be someplace where everyone is so dumb, anyway? |
No, I agree with both of your follow up points. But the fact is, the schools field teams and they want the teams to be competitive, so by nature, athletes the schools want are going to tip the scales. What also tips the scales...when the orchestra is losing 3 bassonists that need to be replaced, so all of the sudden, unknown to everyone, a few bassonists get their scales tipped. It is a little harder with other ECs, but they are all part of the mix. I know from experience that while athletes are often derided in this forum, there are many athletes who also do robotics or debate or other ECs, with skill and passion. You cannot just assume that athletes are one-dimensional lunkheads. |
And you know this...how? And...how do you know if the Questbridge applicant didn't have the financial and living struggles of your UMC kid who was groomed and prepped for an Ivy application, that they wouldn't have the same results? |
In Selingo's book, he told the story of how athletics came to such prominence in admissions: Jewish white males started to make up more and more of the incoming class, and since it was somewhat hard to filter for religion explicitly, they found athleticism (which favored the taller WASP types in temperament and physical attributes) would boost WASP admissions nicely. That continues to this day, and now its mostly socioeconomic (who can pay for sports starting in Pre-K or access niche WASP sports like squash, lacrosse, fencing, etc). |
And if they need a tight end and a bassoonist (sp), who do you think gets admitted? It’s much harder with other ECs. Why? It is about the money. All about the money. The bassoonist has to have a stronger application. |
I’m extremely skeptical of Questbridge’s verification of credentials process since Mackenzie Fierceton. |
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