Holistic admissions is BS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First comes grades and then holistic admissions

That's how it works. The more selective the school, the more kids that have the basics (grades, rigor and SATs) so those schools use other soft factors to differentiate - ECs, recommendations, fuzzy/opaque criteria - and can get away with it given their 'pedigree'.

Most of DCUM prattles on about ECs, LOCs and Test Optional but for the vast majority of colleges grades, rigor and SAT matter way, way more than the noise levels here would indicate.

What do you mean by “get away with it”, as if it’s something sinister? Many of these schools get many more 4.0/1500+ applicants than they have seats. How would you have them differentiate? I’d personally favor a lottery and get rid of this pressure to curate kids’ lives from pre-K on, but that’s never happening.

Also the schools do recognize that once you hit 1500 or so it doesn't matter. So clear the threshold and then they simply toss the stats away and look at everything else--course rigor, recommendations, essays, etc. So no, your 1600 kid is not "any better than a 1500 kid". And the schools have way more of those kids than the can accept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - Restating the statement. I think holistic admissions is there and is fine but colleges should also say that, if you don't have a very high GPA (basically nothing less than A's), please dont apply. They would want you to think you have a chance, so they can show their selectiveness.

Friend’s child was admitted to Cornell and Yale with all As and a C+ yesterday. Waitlisted at Duke and Harvard.

So the C+ is an anomaly and shows the kid is human. The all As rest of time show their real work.

Hint when your all A kid gets to college they likely will not have a 4.0 (if in anything stem related or business)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - Restating the statement. I think holistic admissions is there and is fine but colleges should also say that, if you don't have a very high GPA (basically nothing less than A's), please dont apply. They would want you to think you have a chance, so they can show their selectiveness.

Colleges don't need to say anything. Your complain is that more straight-A students are choosing to apply on their own, despite knowing the low acceptance rate.

No, my complaint is that they make kids believe that if they don’t have perfect GPA, they sill have a chance through holistic admissions. I don’t think 56,000 duke applicants had perfect GPA. The non perfect thought they had a chance

And I doubt everyone who got admitted had a 4.0UW. You do have a chance, but most likely you don't if you got a 3.7UW unless there is a good reason behind that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is silly. If you’re so smart that your kid is also smart, you should recognize that a lot of kids will get rejected when 50k apply for 3k seats, or whatever the numbers are. Why would you ever imagine that your less-than-perfect kid would excel at this game when even the perfect fail?

As for the opacity at top schools, it will never change, and for good reason. Top schools are looking for smarts AND something else that together has a high probability of creating distinguished alumni. Why define the something else? Schools want alumni succeeding in all areas of life and the world changes too quickly to put disruption and creativity in a bottle.

OP, it sounds like your kid is a conventionally smart kid who wanted a break. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s not who Harvard admits. A solid state school would be a perfect fit for your kid.

Agree with your points. All I am saying is that top colleges can be more transparent with required GPA. Less stress on parents and kids

Not that hard to determine. You need at least a 3.85-3.9+UW, 5-8+ APs (unless your schools doesn't offer that many), ideally you need APs in all areas (STEM, Humanities and SS). You need a rigorous schedule and need to push yourself.

That is 90-95% of the kids who get in. The other 5-10% includes athletes, legacy, and kids who have overcome obstacles (really smart kids who shine thru despite attending a school with only 3-4 APs in a rural area or inner-city school where only 10-20% of kids even go to college).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid got into two T20 schools a couple years ago with a low GPA (3.1) from a top private. He also had perfect SAT scores. I think the admissions committee recognized that he was a smart, but immature kid, To me, that it a sign of holistic admissions. Looking at the whole kid -- not one metric.

And your kid is still free to submit that in todays environment. Just like a kid can submit a somewhat lower SAT and high GPA and write essays about how they have overcome obstacles

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - Restating the statement. I think holistic admissions is there and is fine but colleges should also say that, if you don't have a very high GPA (basically nothing less than A's), please dont apply. They would want you to think you have a chance, so they can show their selectiveness.

Friend’s child was admitted to Cornell and Yale with all As and a C+ yesterday. Waitlisted at Duke and Harvard.

So the C+ is an anomaly and shows the kid is human. The all As rest of time show their real work.

Hint when your all A kid gets to college they likely will not have a 4.0 (if in anything stem related or business)

Mine does. At Cornell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holistic = applicants have to have it all

Yes, this is true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People tend to forget that luck also plays a factor.

Do parents still set up 501c3s for their kids to fluff their odds?

Yes we did and had a law firm do it for free who was my outside counsel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First comes grades and then holistic admissions

That's how it works. The more selective the school, the more kids that have the basics (grades, rigor and SATs) so those schools use other soft factors to differentiate - ECs, recommendations, fuzzy/opaque criteria - and can get away with it given their 'pedigree'.

Most of DCUM prattles on about ECs, LOCs and Test Optional but for the vast majority of colleges grades, rigor and SAT matter way, way more than the noise levels here would indicate.

What do you mean by “get away with it”, as if it’s something sinister? Many of these schools get many more 4.0/1500+ applicants than they have seats. How would you have them differentiate? I’d personally favor a lottery and get rid of this pressure to curate kids’ lives from pre-K on, but that’s never happening.

I meant the opacity. A Harvard can afford to be as opaque as they can get away with and still be 10+ times oversubscribed (overapplied?). A Kentucky State on the other hand published the exact amount of merit you get if you get a certain GPA/SAT on their website. Heck, even a not-so-bad Indiana University guarantees admission to their flagship business school if you get a 3.8GPA. Lower the pedigree, lower the opacity. Higher the pedigree, the more opacity you can get away with.

^^ PP again.. And yes, opacity is a bad thing, especially in a process that's partially funded by the public (through tax subsidies) regardless of whether the college is private or public, hence my use of 'get away with it'.

I don't get why you think it is opaque? The rubric is all over the place. People make a living out of making sure kits match it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid got into two T20 schools a couple years ago with a low GPA (3.1) from a top private. He also had perfect SAT scores. I think the admissions committee recognized that he was a smart, but immature kid, To me, that it a sign of holistic admissions. Looking at the whole kid -- not one metric.

Same but with 3.3 Unweighted--decent challenging load of classes. Top Private. Full Pay. Very Very good ECs--set up a non-profit that raised 26,000 in a very creative field plus your traditional school ECs. 34 ACT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First comes grades and then holistic admissions

That's how it works. The more selective the school, the more kids that have the basics (grades, rigor and SATs) so those schools use other soft factors to differentiate - ECs, recommendations, fuzzy/opaque criteria - and can get away with it given their 'pedigree'.

Most of DCUM prattles on about ECs, LOCs and Test Optional but for the vast majority of colleges grades, rigor and SAT matter way, way more than the noise levels here would indicate.

What do you mean by “get away with it”, as if it’s something sinister? Many of these schools get many more 4.0/1500+ applicants than they have seats. How would you have them differentiate? I’d personally favor a lottery and get rid of this pressure to curate kids’ lives from pre-K on, but that’s never happening.

Lottery would have been better instead of rejecting high stat kids and admitting others for no apparent reason. It is very hard to see friends with lower stat accepted while others get rejected even in the same school.

You mean rejecting high stat kids and admitting other high stat kids. This idea that some "lower tier" student is taking your high stat kid's spot is a fallacy. There are way more high achievers than spots. You have to stand out in other ways too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree it's dog crap. Schools use it to social-engineer the class makeup they want, the most egregious example being Harvard's longstanding practice, as revealed in the lawsuit against them, of reducing the number of Asian admits by scoring them low on esoteric "likeability" metrics.

The biggest case of this was admitting David Hogg after he took a gap year. Before the shooting (a tragedy and I am not denying that), he got rejected from like UCSD. 1210 or something SAT. Took a gap year; got into Harvard. Sad to exploit tragedy. Probably met a professor or something that pulled strings.

Wonder where the kid that sued the newspaper over the MAGA Hat from the Catholic School will go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree it's dog crap. Schools use it to social-engineer the class makeup they want, the most egregious example being Harvard's longstanding practice, as revealed in the lawsuit against them, of reducing the number of Asian admits by scoring them low on esoteric "likeability" metrics.

The biggest case of this was admitting David Hogg after he took a gap year. Before the shooting (a tragedy and I am not denying that), he got rejected from like UCSD. 1210 or something SAT. Took a gap year; got into Harvard. Sad to exploit tragedy. Probably met a professor or something that pulled strings.

Wonder where the kid that sued the newspaper over the MAGA Hat from the Catholic School will go?

Hogg made a name for himself. Elite unis like famous people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree it's dog crap. Schools use it to social-engineer the class makeup they want, the most egregious example being Harvard's longstanding practice, as revealed in the lawsuit against them, of reducing the number of Asian admits by scoring them low on esoteric "likeability" metrics.

The biggest case of this was admitting David Hogg after he took a gap year. Before the shooting (a tragedy and I am not denying that), he got rejected from like UCSD. 1210 or something SAT. Took a gap year; got into Harvard. Sad to exploit tragedy. Probably met a professor or something that pulled strings.

Wonder where the kid that sued the newspaper over the MAGA Hat from the Catholic School will go?

Hogg made a name for himself. Elite unis like famous people.

Explained well here:

https://www.quora.com/How-did-David-Hogg-get-into-Harvard-with-a-1270-SAT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - Restating the statement. I think holistic admissions is there and is fine but colleges should also say that, if you don't have a very high GPA (basically nothing less than A's), please dont apply. They would want you to think you have a chance, so they can show their selectiveness.

Friend’s child was admitted to Cornell and Yale with all As and a C+ yesterday. Waitlisted at Duke and Harvard.

So the C+ is an anomaly and shows the kid is human. The all As rest of time show their real work.

Hint when your all A kid gets to college they likely will not have a 4.0 (if in anything stem related or business)

Mine does. At Cornell.

Well that is an anomaly. Most kids hit the intensive degrees in college and will have a1 or more classes they struggle with, so very few kids graduate with a 4.0 in engineering or CS.