What happens when elite schools shift away from test scores, grades, and AP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely true, and some of the brightest, most passionate kids do not do as well in school these days because their form of learning does not correspond to the competition and demands of high school. My DS is an example of this. A well-read, passionate kid with math skills who really struggled in school before knocking the SATs out of the park (no prep), getting into college, and blossoming in a more intellectual environment. The structure of high school stifled rather than nourished his learning curve. And this was one of the top schools in this region.

I have a child like this. I think he should go to Harvard, but he'll never get there. He's an extremely thoughtful kid who rails against the idiocy of many of his classes, does indifferent work (I can hardly blame him) and gets Bs when he could easily get As if he jumped through all the hoops. I'm sure he'll do fine in college, but he won't be able to attend a highly selective college under the current admissions structure. He does not have the GPA, and that eliminates him before any of his other qualities, his intellectual abilities, his curiosity, his creativity can be considered. Even if he gets perfect SATs, he's out of the running.

I have a friend who does alumni interviews for Harvard. He agrees that my son would be great at Harvard, would thrive and grow and be a superb addition to the community. But without those grades, my son has no chance to have that experience. I'm sure my kid will do fine elsewhere, and in the long run, it doesn't matter. But there's a symbiosis at places like Harvard that's cut short when kids like mine are not part of the mix. A child who won't jump through hoops is more creative, more intelligent, more interesting than the ones who do. I admire iconoclasts, and perhaps Harvard and the other elite schools are finally realizing that if they want to continue to produce the most innovative thinkers, they will have to expand their admissions process to include kids whose minds do not fill little boxes and circles.

If he's blowing off HS because it's BS, what outlet has he found for his curiosity/creativity/intellectual abilities? If he's doing something interesting/impressive outside of school, GPA will matter less at some schools. Harvard's always admitted kids who think outside the box but applicants have to manifest that trait in some way other than refusing to jump through hoops.

Refusing to jump through hoops is an accomplishment in itself at my kid's high school, amid the intense academic pressure from his peers. Reading books and thinking is his outlet. Why is manifesting that trait in an outward way necessary? I agree he's got to find out how to show what he has to offer, but I don't think accomplishment is elite education should be about. It should be about pushing the most innovative minds, making them grow and expand until they have the maturity to implement or use their accomplishments. Our society rewards extroverts, as a PP has said. The child sitting in the corner reading a book and thinking might be formulating the next theory of relativity, but it may take 10 years for that idea to mature. It is a good question: how do you identify these uniquely talented kids? Many are underachievers because they're bored or nonconformists.

Harvard has heretofore chosen to ignore them in favor of kids who put their talents out there in the form of visible accomplishments. That's fine, and I'm not sure how else they are going to judge kids' potential otherwise, but my point is that this is an imperfect way of determining what these kids will achieve. Creativity, as Virginia Wolfe said, takes time spent alone in a room. Would she have gotten into Harvard? Probably not. She didn't have a lot to show for her intense intelligence when she was 18.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely true, and some of the brightest, most passionate kids do not do as well in school these days because their form of learning does not correspond to the competition and demands of high school. My DS is an example of this. A well-read, passionate kid with math skills who really struggled in school before knocking the SATs out of the park (no prep), getting into college, and blossoming in a more intellectual environment. The structure of high school stifled rather than nourished his learning curve. And this was one of the top schools in this region.

I have a child like this. I think he should go to Harvard, but he'll never get there. He's an extremely thoughtful kid who rails against the idiocy of many of his classes, does indifferent work (I can hardly blame him) and gets Bs when he could easily get As if he jumped through all the hoops. I'm sure he'll do fine in college, but he won't be able to attend a highly selective college under the current admissions structure. He does not have the GPA, and that eliminates him before any of his other qualities, his intellectual abilities, his curiosity, his creativity can be considered. Even if he gets perfect SATs, he's out of the running.

I have a friend who does alumni interviews for Harvard. He agrees that my son would be great at Harvard, would thrive and grow and be a superb addition to the community. But without those grades, my son has no chance to have that experience. I'm sure my kid will do fine elsewhere, and in the long run, it doesn't matter. But there's a symbiosis at places like Harvard that's cut short when kids like mine are not part of the mix. A child who won't jump through hoops is more creative, more intelligent, more interesting than the ones who do. I admire iconoclasts, and perhaps Harvard and the other elite schools are finally realizing that if they want to continue to produce the most innovative thinkers, they will have to expand their admissions process to include kids whose minds do not fill little boxes and circles.

This. So why care at all about what Harvard's missing?

I have a similar kid who won't get into Harvard or its ilk and I have wasted not one minute worrying about it. (Since they give only need-based aid, we couldn't afford it anyway.) As you noted, my kid will do fine elsewhere and so it doesn't matter.

And as said previously, I can value the contributions and potential of kids like ours without denigrating the contributions and potential of the kids who ARE being accepted to Harvard. There are plenty of bright, thoughtful, innovative, creative kids who also get good grades and have high test scores. They will have more options than our kids do. Good for them. It doesn't have any bearing on my kid.

The real concern we should all have as parents is whether the system as designed benefits any of these kids. I think increasingly we are finding that it doesn't. I do think elite colleges could help relieve some of the pressure (internal and external) to fill meaningless little boxes and circles (for example, by advertising that they will recalculate GPA using a formula that only allows weighting for up to, say, 4 or 5 AP or IB classes and allowing spaces for kids to report test scores for only 4 or 5 (making it pointless to take additional AP classes unless the student really finds them interesting or useful)), but I can't envision a world in which elite colleges don't value good grades and so there will always be smart and creative kids with unimpressive grades or test scores who will be overlooked in the elite admissions process. And again, it generally doesn't matter. Those kids will be fine without Harvard, and Harvard will be fine without them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely true, and some of the brightest, most passionate kids do not do as well in school these days because their form of learning does not correspond to the competition and demands of high school. My DS is an example of this. A well-read, passionate kid with math skills who really struggled in school before knocking the SATs out of the park (no prep), getting into college, and blossoming in a more intellectual environment. The structure of high school stifled rather than nourished his learning curve. And this was one of the top schools in this region.

I have a child like this. I think he should go to Harvard, but he'll never get there. He's an extremely thoughtful kid who rails against the idiocy of many of his classes, does indifferent work (I can hardly blame him) and gets Bs when he could easily get As if he jumped through all the hoops. I'm sure he'll do fine in college, but he won't be able to attend a highly selective college under the current admissions structure. He does not have the GPA, and that eliminates him before any of his other qualities, his intellectual abilities, his curiosity, his creativity can be considered. Even if he gets perfect SATs, he's out of the running.

I have a friend who does alumni interviews for Harvard. He agrees that my son would be great at Harvard, would thrive and grow and be a superb addition to the community. But without those grades, my son has no chance to have that experience. I'm sure my kid will do fine elsewhere, and in the long run, it doesn't matter. But there's a symbiosis at places like Harvard that's cut short when kids like mine are not part of the mix. A child who won't jump through hoops is more creative, more intelligent, more interesting than the ones who do. I admire iconoclasts, and perhaps Harvard and the other elite schools are finally realizing that if they want to continue to produce the most innovative thinkers, they will have to expand their admissions process to include kids whose minds do not fill little boxes and circles.

This. So why care at all about what Harvard's missing?

I have a similar kid who won't get into Harvard or its ilk and I have wasted not one minute worrying about it. (Since they give only need-based aid, we couldn't afford it anyway.) As you noted, my kid will do fine elsewhere and so it doesn't matter.

And as said previously, I can value the contributions and potential of kids like ours without denigrating the contributions and potential of the kids who ARE being accepted to Harvard. There are plenty of bright, thoughtful, innovative, creative kids who also get good grades and have high test scores. They will have more options than our kids do. Good for them. It doesn't have any bearing on my kid.

The real concern we should all have as parents is whether the system as designed benefits any of these kids. I think increasingly we are finding that it doesn't. I do think elite colleges could help relieve some of the pressure (internal and external) to fill meaningless little boxes and circles (for example, by advertising that they will recalculate GPA using a formula that only allows weighting for up to, say, 4 or 5 AP or IB classes and allowing spaces for kids to report test scores for only 4 or 5 (making it pointless to take additional AP classes unless the student really finds them interesting or useful)), but I can't envision a world in which elite colleges don't value good grades and so there will always be smart and creative kids with unimpressive grades or test scores who will be overlooked in the elite admissions process. And again, it generally doesn't matter. Those kids will be fine without Harvard, and Harvard will be fine without them.

The OP raised the question because the elite schools, including Harvard, plan to change their admissions criteria. Why are they doing this? Obviously, they are concerned that they are not getting the right pool of kids they want. Mixed in among those creative, thoughtful, accomplished kids with high grades and scores, are some kids with similar stats who are neither creative nor thoughtful. Their talent is getting grades and scores and positioning themselves for the elite schools based on the current admissions requirements for those schools. Change the requirements, and will the same type of competitive strivers (that's the best way I can find to describe them) become chameleons and change their profiles to match the new set of criteria? It's an interesting question that will only be answered if the elite schools follow through with their idealized plans. I'm doubtful they'll achieve holistic admissions, nor that they will end up with any more interesting, creative students attending their schools than they have now. But I could be wrong.

Harvard probably does need my kid and yours. At least they are pretending they want kids like mine. My kid will do fine elsewhere, but he'd also really benefit from spending four years around similar people. Where he's going to college, he's only going to meet a few people who are like him. That's fine and OK, but probably not the most stimulating experience for him. Harvard would be better for him, maybe, but it's not going to happen. And Harvard would be better off with my kid and yours among its student body because our children would challenge their peers in different ways. Kids who always achieve know nothing about failure, one of the most powerful learning experiences a person can have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely true, and some of the brightest, most passionate kids do not do as well in school these days because their form of learning does not correspond to the competition and demands of high school. My DS is an example of this. A well-read, passionate kid with math skills who really struggled in school before knocking the SATs out of the park (no prep), getting into college, and blossoming in a more intellectual environment. The structure of high school stifled rather than nourished his learning curve. And this was one of the top schools in this region.

I have a child like this. I think he should go to Harvard, but he'll never get there. He's an extremely thoughtful kid who rails against the idiocy of many of his classes, does indifferent work (I can hardly blame him) and gets Bs when he could easily get As if he jumped through all the hoops. I'm sure he'll do fine in college, but he won't be able to attend a highly selective college under the current admissions structure. He does not have the GPA, and that eliminates him before any of his other qualities, his intellectual abilities, his curiosity, his creativity can be considered. Even if he gets perfect SATs, he's out of the running.

I have a friend who does alumni interviews for Harvard. He agrees that my son would be great at Harvard, would thrive and grow and be a superb addition to the community. But without those grades, my son has no chance to have that experience. I'm sure my kid will do fine elsewhere, and in the long run, it doesn't matter. But there's a symbiosis at places like Harvard that's cut short when kids like mine are not part of the mix. A child who won't jump through hoops is more creative, more intelligent, more interesting than the ones who do. I admire iconoclasts, and perhaps Harvard and the other elite schools are finally realizing that if they want to continue to produce the most innovative thinkers, they will have to expand their admissions process to include kids whose minds do not fill little boxes and circles.

This. So why care at all about what Harvard's missing?

I have a similar kid who won't get into Harvard or its ilk and I have wasted not one minute worrying about it. (Since they give only need-based aid, we couldn't afford it anyway.) As you noted, my kid will do fine elsewhere and so it doesn't matter.

And as said previously, I can value the contributions and potential of kids like ours without denigrating the contributions and potential of the kids who ARE being accepted to Harvard. There are plenty of bright, thoughtful, innovative, creative kids who also get good grades and have high test scores. They will have more options than our kids do. Good for them. It doesn't have any bearing on my kid.

The real concern we should all have as parents is whether the system as designed benefits any of these kids. I think increasingly we are finding that it doesn't. I do think elite colleges could help relieve some of the pressure (internal and external) to fill meaningless little boxes and circles (for example, by advertising that they will recalculate GPA using a formula that only allows weighting for up to, say, 4 or 5 AP or IB classes and allowing spaces for kids to report test scores for only 4 or 5 (making it pointless to take additional AP classes unless the student really finds them interesting or useful)), but I can't envision a world in which elite colleges don't value good grades and so there will always be smart and creative kids with unimpressive grades or test scores who will be overlooked in the elite admissions process. And again, it generally doesn't matter. Those kids will be fine without Harvard, and Harvard will be fine without them.

The OP raised the question because the elite schools, including Harvard, plan to change their admissions criteria. Why are they doing this? Obviously, they are concerned that they are not getting the right pool of kids they want. Mixed in among those creative, thoughtful, accomplished kids with high grades and scores, are some kids with similar stats who are neither creative nor thoughtful. Their talent is getting grades and scores and positioning themselves for the elite schools based on the current admissions requirements for those schools. Change the requirements, and will the same type of competitive strivers (that's the best way I can find to describe them) become chameleons and change their profiles to match the new set of criteria? It's an interesting question that will only be answered if the elite schools follow through with their idealized plans. I'm doubtful they'll achieve holistic admissions, nor that they will end up with any more interesting, creative students attending their schools than they have now. But I could be wrong.

Harvard probably does need my kid and yours. At least they are pretending they want kids like mine. My kid will do fine elsewhere, but he'd also really benefit from spending four years around similar people. Where he's going to college, he's only going to meet a few people who are like him. That's fine and OK, but probably not the most stimulating experience for him. Harvard would be better for him, maybe, but it's not going to happen. And Harvard would be better off with my kid and yours among its student body because our children would challenge their peers in different ways. Kids who always achieve know nothing about failure, one of the most powerful learning experiences a person can have.

I think it's an open question whether Harvard is concerned they are not getting the right kids. It's important to note that this study is coming out of the Harvard Department of Education, not from the admissions office or from the general university. Neither the president of Harvard, nor its faculty, nor its admissions office is complaining about the caliber/types of students who are being admitted. And I suspect the concern of researchers in the Department of Education is not at all about the caliber/type of student being admitted to the university but rather about educational goals/philosophy and about the mental health and welfare of American teens and how our educational system (and the college admission process in particular) contributes to that.

At the same time, the concerns about the admissions process aren't about failure to identify kids like yours and mine. The piece by Frank Bruni characterizes the problems in the admissions process as: warping the values of students drawn into a competitive frenzy, jeopardizing mental health, and failing to include — and identify the potential in — enough kids from less privileged backgrounds. My kid is not one of those less privileged ones and I suspect yours isn't either.

And the reality is that Harvard already does practice holistic admissions and, with its endowment and good name, it has more ability than most to attract all kinds of alternative kids from all kinds of alternative backgrounds. So this isn't really about Harvard at all, except in the fact that Harvard often can lead and others will follow.

I also have to push back on your notion that your kid (or mine) would benefit from spending 4 years at Harvard around "similar" people. Here's the thing: you are arguing that the people now admitted to Harvard AREN'T similar to our kids in important ways. And if that's true, I can't agree that spending time with them would necessarily be good for my kid. I knew when we were looking at colleges for my kid that we needed to find places where students were less pre-professional and competitive and more intellectual and cooperative. If Harvard's problem is that it is too much of the former, then it's not the right place for my kid at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:college teacher here. System has created kids who don't care about learning but do care about grades and prizes. These aren't the kids elite colleges want, so they are looking for ways to find kids who care about learning (and they are looking to find smart kids of all ses brackets). But they have yet any way to measure caring about learning and their measure for smarts skews for kids from a certain high ses.

I know two really unpleasant, hugely competitive kids of enormously competitive parents who attend Harvard and Yale. These kids excelled at sports and did well academically at so-so private schools. The parents wanted the prestige of having their kids at "top" Ivies, and they succeeded. I'm hoping the kids have trust funds for therapy, because they are going to need it. I've talked with these kids (and their parents) and they are really disgusting people. But the kids had the creds, and they got in.

I can't understand why Harvard and Yale accept kids like this. They are going to become horrible adults, interested only in advancing themselves and not in improving the world for the rest of the human race.

Getting rid of test scores and GPA and all that crap would require the elite schools to work harder to figure out who the real leaders are, who the deepest thinkers are, who the most compassionate and dedicated people are and offer them the very great privilege of attending their universities. The world does not need another corporate lawyer or investment banker, and elite institutions should recognize this and let those people attend other schools. None of those lawyers or bankers makes the world a better place, and the elite institutions should not be educating them.

Because a huge number of bankers and lawyers put in their time, build up their savings, then quit to put their talents to use in better places. If you aren't aware of this trend, then you're not running in the right circles.

Oh please. Show me one. Please.

You are probably not old enough to know one. They work until they are 60 or 65 amassing wealth, then retire and go on the boards of nonprofits.

[Anonymous]

To return to answer OP's original question: This isn't going to happen. This article was a PR move on behalf of Harvard to make Harvard look "soft" and "kind" while admissions does its work. It's totally disingenuous. If they were serious they would do something to actually assess the students' "niceness" like hold real interviews, not alumni ones. Your child is nothing but a series of numbers to them: SAT/ACT/SAT II subject matter scores; GPA; class rank and outside ECs that might bring fame to the school. That is all. If you think they are actually looking for niceness amongst 37,000 applications, you are insane - I, too, was just a number for Harvard Univ. and Law School. No one had ever met me before I showed up with trunk. That's the awful truth - our children (DD has applied) are just stats. to admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To return to answer OP's original question: This isn't going to happen. This article was a PR move on behalf of Harvard to make Harvard look "soft" and "kind" while admissions does its work. It's totally disingenuous. If they were serious they would do something to actually assess the students' "niceness" like hold real interviews, not alumni ones. Your child is nothing but a series of numbers to them: SAT/ACT/SAT II subject matter scores; GPA; class rank and outside ECs that might bring fame to the school. That is all. If you think they are actually looking for niceness amongst 37,000 applications, you are insane - I, too, was just a number for Harvard Univ. and Law School. No one had ever met me before I showed up with trunk. That's the awful truth - our children (DD has applied) are just stats. to admissions

Again, this work comes out of Harvard's Graduate School of Education. It does not come out of the admissions department and wasn't designed to make Harvard look like anything. There's been no indication from Harvard that it intends to change its admissions processes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, this work comes out of Harvard's Graduate School of Education. It does not come out of the admissions department and wasn't designed to make Harvard look like anything. There's been no indication from Harvard that it intends to change its admissions processes.

Except for the fact that it was endorsed by the admissions directors and deans at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, this work comes out of Harvard's Graduate School of Education. It does not come out of the admissions department and wasn't designed to make Harvard look like anything. There's been no indication from Harvard that it intends to change its admissions processes.

Except for the fact that it was endorsed by the admissions directors and deans at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc.

Yes, but what we are telling you is that it is PR bullshit! And timed to - surprise - come out just after the applications were due in to "calm" the students and makde the applicaitons officers seem more human. Nothing has changed. There will be more applicants than ever. Fewer students will get in. Selectivity no. will drop to 4% or perhaps even 3%. And this is all being done for the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, this work comes out of Harvard's Graduate School of Education. It does not come out of the admissions department and wasn't designed to make Harvard look like anything. There's been no indication from Harvard that it intends to change its admissions processes.

Except for the fact that it was endorsed by the admissions directors and deans at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc.

Yes, but what we are telling you is that it is PR bullshit! And timed to - surprise - come out just after the applications were due in to "calm" the students and makde the applicaitons officers seem more human. Nothing has changed. There will be more applicants than ever. Fewer students will get in. Selectivity no. will drop to 4% or perhaps even 3%. And this is all being done for the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

The report was about building momentum inside elite institutions. There is nothing in the report addressed to applicants now or in the immediate future. Do you have any idea how change at higher ed institutions happens? They are notoriously slow because it takes persuading donors, alumni, faculty, and trustees. And, they really like consensus in the academic community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned that the new emphasis on community service, etc. will once again privilege extroverts over introverts. There are lots of very bright people (ahem, myself included) who prefer to work quietly and alone and who really don't turn their smarts towards organizing tasks -- organizing others, getting people 'pumped' about some project. It's possible to be really intelligent without having the personality of an aerobics instructor -- and top schools should recognize that and seek out more of the quiet, brilliant types -- even if to the extroverts we seem dull.

+1000
My kids are exactly as you describe (as am I). They detest things like pep rallies, car wash fundraisers, "spirit week," etc. Anything that requires them to prance around and scream with feigned excitement. On the other hand, they are excellent students who love nothing more than curling up with good books or having deep discussions about subjects that interest them. However, there's no way to convey that kind of personality to colleges. Apparently, all they want to see are the leaders, the class officers, the kids who spearhead some enormous, all-night charity dance-a-thon. My kids love to learn, but they just don't fit the kind of mold that puts them on display at all times. Too bad, because they would be incredible assets to any college.

University of Chicago looks for these kids. Their Uncommon Essays really give kids a chance to show off their intellectual playfulness. Teacher recommendations are another place where these qualities may shine through. No interview required at U of C. Canadian universities might be another place to look -- McGill cares about your coursework, your grades, and your scores. No teacher recs, no ECs, no interviews.

You mean where fun goes to die? Nothing like an institution that recruits "creative" kids and crushes them under a rigid curriculum and grade deflation.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps the intent is noble, but it seems largely self-serving, to the extent some of those schools want maximum discretion to describe their admissions policies as holistic and then turn away Asian students.

Here we ago. Again with the Asian students issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps the intent is noble, but it seems largely self-serving, to the extent some of those schools want maximum discretion to describe their admissions policies as holistic and then turn away Asian students.

Here we ago. Again with the Asian students issue.

Asians should just continue to remain invisible, right?