Insider Perspectives from a Highly Selective Admissions Office

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I know you don't want to reveal the college but given the stats you mention in your opener, I'd say it was a bit of a crappy school, maybe 3rd or 4th tier.

I don't know that the admissions office practices of such a place are as helpful as knowing the practices of the more competitive schools, in that you should always aim high and fall on a lower branch, not aim low and fall on the ground.

It is not a 3rd or 4th tier school. You should take a look at Stanford's own pool and see how many applicants come from the lower end (and how few are taken): http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/profile.html

You don't mention recalculating GPAs at all. That's insane if you are getting apps from DMV.


Are you feeling marginalized at work? Is they why you've come here to invited these people to worship at your alter of knowledge?

I thought that was obvious given that it is my perspective at one office. No one should take it to be indicative of every single admissions office at an elite college. I just thought it would be nice to answer some questions that people have. Also, we don't recalculate GPAs on a particular scale, but we know from past history which GPAs are particularly on the low end for each school (listed in the profile we create for each school).

[Anonymous]

Anyway, I have to head out for a bit; will try to answer more questions in the evening. I hope this was helpful, and just if it wasn't clear already, this is not representative of every college out there, and a number of views are espoused are my own, not the admissions office.

[Anonymous]

What about kids who were adopted interracially? Which box should they check? Always check the one which would give them a better advantage in consideration? Some examples:

African-American adopted into a while family -- check AA?
Asian child adopted into a while family -- check white?
Latino child adopted into a white family -- check Latino?

[Anonymous]

OP, for anyone in the counseling community, where you work is becoming obvious from your posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Does your school claim to have holistic admissions?

I checked our admissions language and see no explicit claim of holistic admissions; I don't use the terminology myself, but I do mention that we consider a wide variety of factors beyond SAT and GPA.

OP - the issues with the concordance tables have been a frequent topic of discussion. There are some people who theorize that the lower new SAT scores can be explained by all the "top" students opting to take the old SAT or the ACT, and diluting the talent pool of students who took the new SAT. Is there anything you've seen in the data that would lend credence to this theory? Can you comment on the relative numbers of students who submitted old SAT vs new SAT vs ACT?

It's all up in the air given how new the SAT is. I think these tests can be coached and there simply isn't that much material for the new SAT compared to the old one, and it does feel like a much difference test, so scores seem to be lower. There is a huge database of released old SATs. One thing we have noticed is that most applicants from boarding schools are submitting ACTs or old SATs, so there could be a socioeconomic factor too. Difficult to draw many conclusions. We have noticed across peer schools that new SAT scores tend to be lower than old SAT scores in our admit pools.

Thanks for the response. One follow-up...so given two students of similar background, grades, high school, qualifications, etc....the new SAT scores skew lower than old SAT? In other words...did you just ignore the concordance tables?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yawn. White privileged folks prevail as usual w/ alumni connections and donations.

Really? It is my AA friends who graduate from Ivy league schools and have all of the "connections" and "privilege." Pretty racist comment you just made thinking only whites go to top schools.

[Anonymous]

OP - Can you discuss the rationale for accepting Asian (or any other race) International students over students of the same race who live in the U.S. (many who have emigrated)? Given the large cohort of the foreign-born and their children in the U.S., why does the school not feel that it can achieve diversity from within the U.S.? Why would the valuable resource of an elite American education not be better used for those who have committed to this country? (I know you didn't create the policy, but perhaps have heard the conversations).

And, BTW - those SAT scores for alums that you want to denigrate were probably harder to achieve "back in the day" before the SAT re-sets and the mainstreaming of the prep industry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, what do you (and those in your office) think about the higher standards being placed on Asian American applicants?

It's a difficult topic. We receive thousands of applications from Asian Americans who score a 2200+ and who have a 4.0 UW or close to it. We know these students have worked immeasurably hard to achieve these goals. The reality is that our purpose is to bring people from all walks of life, and unfortunately, when Asians are already over-represented at campus, it's hard to admit more students without compromising the diversity we aim for. Our white % is already noticeably lower than the US Census; the Hispanic and African-American numbers are a little lower or around the same, but the Asian American number is much higher than the US Census. Most of our international students are Asians as well. I know that sounds hypocritical when our campus is so privileged socioeconomically, but our admit pool is ultimately a microcosm of the larger applicant pool- no matter how many adjustments we try to make- we receive a lot (and I mean a lot) more applications from rich students, we receive more applications from Asians than Blacks or Hispanics and just a few more Caucasian applications than Asian applications.

I see the value of a meritocracy similar to the UC system- admitting students on the basis of their objective measures. My personal stance is that subjectives are as key to bringing the best and brightest. Were we to rely on just numbers, we'd exclude the student who graduated summa cum laude in our college but had only a 1750 SAT from her inner city background (real story, just happened last May). We'd exclude the valedictorian who had to work full time to support their family, and thus didn't have the ability to do test prep. Relying on objectives alone means eliminating the richness and complexity that is part of these students' lived backgrounds and experiences, and we just don't want to do that. We also want to make sure the students ARE capable of handling the work, hence the minimum expectations for GPA, test scores, etc. and a heavy consideration of academic potential by LORs.

Isn't it a little silly to aim for diversity as measured by the census while at the same time claiming to admit the strongest students?

Not OP, but no, it isn't silly when you've got an abundance of highly qualified students and when there are a variety of ways of being a strong student.

One of which is having the correct race..

Holistic is just another way to say social engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Practices are so different by school that an experienced admissions person would never put out that original post without cautioning that this was only how they did things at ONE school.

You don't mention recalculating GPAs at all. That's insane if you are getting apps from DMV.


Are you feeling marginalized at work? Is they why you've come here to invited these people to worship at your alter of knowledge?

I thought it was quite helpful. Thank-you OP for taking the time.

[Anonymous]

some quick replies:

Just curious, because we're years away--how would you treat an adopted Asian child? Her name would not suggest she's Asian, but presumably you ask for a picture. (And I have no idea what she'll choose to put down as her race when she's ready to apply.) We are, to put it mildly, not tiger parents, and I worry this will hurt her!

Her race would be Asian for the purpose of our demographics, but we would recognize a different background if her application or LORs mention it. For students who don't indicate race, we usually think they're Asian or White and use that as the benchmark.

What about kids who were adopted interracially? Which box should they check? Always check the one which would give them a better advantage in consideration?

They should check whatever they honestly identify as. That's what we want to see, and we can usually tell from the application if they aren't.

OP, for anyone in the counseling community, where you work is becoming obvious from your posts.

Thanks for the warning, will try to be more vague.

Thanks for the response. One follow-up...so given two students of similar background, grades, high school, qualifications, etc....the new SAT scores skew lower than old SAT? In other words...did you just ignore the concordance tables?

No, we did review the concordance tables, but we're just not seeing as many folks scoring high on the new SAT than on the old ones. Since a good number of applicants did take the new SAT, we can't just put them aside. We're waiting for CB to come up with a more accurate concordance table.

Can you discuss the rationale for accepting Asian (or any other race) International students over students of the same race who live in the U.S. (many who have emigrated)?

The perspective I give you will be invariably my own, and this is just such a politically charged question. I don't believe I should describe it.

Can you discuss the rationale for accepting Asian (or any other race) International students over students of the same race who live in the U.S. (many who have emigrated)?

You're correct. I think I overreacted with that post about how a majority of alums wouldn't be admitted. I am myself an alum of a top college, and we often joke about how we could not be admitted today, but that does not excuse a serious topic such as this. A 680 in the old old test was a high percentile. My point was really that a lot of alums don't know that, and we get feedback that 680 is an amazing score when it's on the lower end. I am sorry for my tone and did not mean to disparage anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I know you don't want to reveal the college but given the stats you mention in your opener, I'd say it was a bit of a crappy school, maybe 3rd or 4th tier.

I don't know that the admissions office practices of such a place are as helpful as knowing the practices of the more competitive schools, in that you should always aim high and fall on a lower branch, not aim low and fall on the ground.

It is not a 3rd or 4th tier school. You should take a look at Stanford's own pool and see how many applicants come from the lower end (and how few are taken): http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/profile.html

You don't mention recalculating GPAs at all. That's insane if you are getting apps from DMV.


Are you feeling marginalized at work? Is they why you've come here to invited these people to worship at your alter of knowledge?

I thought that was obvious given that it is my perspective at one office. No one should take it to be indicative of every single admissions office at an elite college. I just thought it would be nice to answer some questions that people have. Also, we don't recalculate GPAs on a particular scale, but we know from past history which GPAs are particularly on the low end for each school (listed in the profile we create for each school).

Admissions offices are up to their necks in finalizing the regular decision pool at the top tier colleges. The fact that you have time to come on DCUM during the middle of the day screams lack of credibility. Folks, I think we have a poser here--a knowledgable poser but still a poser. A top tier admissions officer would not have the time to play around on DCUM with admissions decisions a mere days in some cases (MIT) or weeks (Ivy's).

[Anonymous]

The point I find particularly fascinating is the one about how they're only willing to accept just a couple students from each school, which is to say that you're more likely to be rejected applying from an elite school than you are from a middle-of-the-road school.

It makes me wonder why, exactly, parents are so eager to pay $40k or more per year to send their kids to elite private schools, particularly when you can presume that not only are you giving them more stringent competition, but you're likely making them compete against the "VIPs" (legacies, donors).

You can't change your race: if you're Asian, you're penalized; if you're white, you're a little less penalized. But you can select your school's competition pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Practices are so different by school that an experienced admissions person would never put out that original post without cautioning that this was only how they did things at ONE school.

You don't mention recalculating GPAs at all. That's insane if you are getting apps from DMV.


Are you feeling marginalized at work? Is they why you've come here to invited these people to worship at your alter of knowledge?

Your the one who seems to have some problems, be it marginalized or just mean. If you don't want to read this, move on.

[Anonymous]

Curious about a few things:

How much weight you give to SAT subject test scores?

Do AP test scores factor into admissions at all? A lot of people on DCUM have indicated that they are only used for freshman class placements, but there is a divide of opinions on College Confidential.

Assuming you require all test scores to be submitted, would you look with disfavor on a kid who got a great test score to start, for example 1570 out of 1600 on the SAT, retaking the test multiple times to try for a perfect 1600?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The point I find particularly fascinating is the one about how they're only willing to accept just a couple students from each school, which is to say that you're more likely to be rejected applying from an elite school than you are from a middle-of-the-road school.

It makes me wonder why, exactly, parents are so eager to pay $40k or more per year to send their kids to elite private schools, particularly when you can presume that not only are you giving them more stringent competition, but you're likely making them compete against the "VIPs" (legacies, donors).

You can't change your race: if you're Asian, you're penalized; if you're white, you're a little less penalized. But you can select your school's competition pool.

That is quite simple. Not everyone makes decisions based solely upon trying to get their child into the "right" college. Some of us actually make high school decisions based up the right fit and best academics for our child. Novel idea, huh?