Any high school teachers here who can give some frank talk about which types of students get into the top colleges?

[Anonymous]

After Harvard was found to be racist in its admissions practices, does anyone know if they made any of the admissions committee personnel attend any educational seminars to help remediate themselves of their racism? Or if any of these racist individuals were punished?

It seems a pretty big deal to be adjudicated a racist so I wonder if there have been any follow-on consequences?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard's discrimination against white and Asian students has been so pervasive over the past 20 years that I'm not sure they can pull back from their institutional racism so easily.

Harvard's pronouncements which vehemently denounced the ruling were a pretty big tell that they would not obey the ruling/constitution. At the very least they would do all that they could to continue to favor black applicants.
+1

You didn't read the ruling carefully, it clearly said, no race in consideration, but college can take into account for diversity background of students.

This X1000. UC admissions offices are the experts on how to not consider race while still achieving the racial diversity goals of the campus. Using proxy measures to grade diversity of backgrounds promoting and demoting based on parental education, parental language, parental income, etc is a big part of it. One AO pointed out that the traditional ECs of elected positions, captains, presidents, founding something new, award winning are not more impressive than a student who has to translate everything for their parents who don’t speak English as that shows responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After Harvard was found to be racist in its admissions practices, does anyone know if they made any of the admissions committee personnel attend any educational seminars to help remediate themselves of their racism? Or if any of these racist individuals were punished?

It seems a pretty big deal to be adjudicated a racist so I wonder if there have been any follow-on consequences?

Why don't you conduct a independent investigation and get back to us?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Editors of the school newspaper. Legacies. Athletes. Especially weird ones like Crew. Or URM that has an amazing story and stats to back it up.

Or just URM. Double points if URM at a feeder private.

I was curious to see if the Supreme Court stuff would impact admissions for AA kids from DC's high school, and it did not. High stats URM did far better than unhooked high stats white (and especially Asian kids). Harvard and Stanford took the two top AA kids in the grade. DC happens to be good friends with both these kids (small school) and I'm fairly certain neither were secretly sitting on big awards or top GPAs. Race was the hook. It is what it is. (My kid didn't apply to H or S, so no sour grapes here).

High stats URMs received admission.

What's the problem?

Whites and Asians throw around "high stats" and almost feel entitled to T10 schools.

I don't think vast majority of people would complain about high stats URMs get admitted to top school over same White or Asian kids.
Question is, should low stats URMs get admission to top school. In this forum, not long ago, a SAT 1240 URM kid, with rough family background, was admitted to Amherst college, god bless her. But, I don't think White or Asian kid in similar situation would be admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard's discrimination against white and Asian students has been so pervasive over the past 20 years that I'm not sure they can pull back from their institutional racism so easily.

Harvard's pronouncements which vehemently denounced the ruling were a pretty big tell that they would not obey the ruling/constitution. At the very least they would do all that they could to continue to favor black applicants.
+1

You didn't read the ruling carefully, it clearly said, no race in consideration, but college can take into account for diversity background of students.

This X1000. UC admissions offices are the experts on how to not consider race while still achieving the racial diversity goals of the campus. Using proxy measures to grade diversity of backgrounds promoting and demoting based on parental education, parental language, parental income, etc is a big part of it. One AO pointed out that the traditional ECs of elected positions, captains, presidents, founding something new, award winning are not more impressive than a student who has to translate everything for their parents who don’t speak English as that shows responsibility.

That's why, in last two years after ruling, admission data from top colleges are virtually same overall, you can see Asian students population increased in top stem colleges, same at Harvard, Princeton, but less at Yale and Brown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being sociable, friendly and engaging with classmates/teachers, a contributor in the classroom, is much more important than people realize.

Teachers talk amongst each other, "Oh you have Jimmy next year? He's a great kid."

The more community-oriented and outgoing the kid is, the likelier their reputation will smooth the way for great recommendations and other soft support.

So, basically, you’re promoting extroverted kids only? If a student is quiet by nature, they are perceived as not friendly and not contributing?

I hate it that teachers are so shallow.

DP and this doesn’t matter to me at all. I don’t care of your kid is an introvert or an extrovert. The best letters of recommendation are the ones for kids I really know. They also aren’t necessarily for the highest grades. Your kid can be a quiet introvert but maybe we have a connection because they come to see me in the help block or after school and have told me about their passion for rock collecting and how they go fishing on the weekends while we work on math problems. You don’t know how much they share with teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lists of waitlist movement mostly pulled from private schools.

Because all of the financial aid is gone at that point. They need full pay.

[Anonymous]

Recruited athletes (must be recruited as "close enough" actually seems to hurt your application).

Full Pay/Rich

Need cases and DEI

Odd or interesting/not popular majors coupled with great grades

Luck (what mood was the admissions officer in that day? does she currently hate white men? does she have a thing against athletes or bros?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For some reason there are endless college counselors doing marketiing podcasts, for admissions officers giving interviews, parents stating this is what worked for their child, etc. We get this information and try to use it to see what our own child should be doing.

However, missing from all this talk is the actual teachers who teach these kids, see what kind of grades they get, the impact on their high school community, what the letters of recommendations say, etc.

Out of all these stakeholders you would think that a teacher who sees year after year particular kids getting into college would be in the best position to see what works.

For some reason, we never seem to get their wisdom.

In my experience teachers do not keep track of what colleges kids are getting into. And why would they, they are busy.

[Anonymous]

Also you'd think school counselors would have a good idea on this but in public school this is not happening either

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard's discrimination against white and Asian students has been so pervasive over the past 20 years that I'm not sure they can pull back from their institutional racism so easily.

Harvard's pronouncements which vehemently denounced the ruling were a pretty big tell that they would not obey the ruling/constitution. At the very least they would do all that they could to continue to favor black applicants.

Some anecdata: the MCPS kids I know who've been admitted to Harvard are all Asian this cycle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been teaching AP for many, many years. Most of my students are the 4.0 unweighted GPA types. They volunteer, are varsity athletes, and they are doing all they can to look good for college. Some truly stand out, but most are very strong candidates.

And then college admissions come and the results appear random. The true stand-outs face surprising rejections and the “just” strong candidate got in instead.

Here’s what I think: students have to meet a threshold to make it into the “considered” pile at a college. But after making it into that pile, the choice itself appears random.

All the kids can really do is get themselves into the pile. Then cross fingers and hope for the best.

I think you are accurate all the way until your point about the threshold to be considered pile. After that, it is not random though it may look that way to the outside. The decisions are based on things like.:
- Major (classics gets in over bio; gender studies over engineering; English over CS)
- Talent/ability (National award winning squash player gets in over varsity baseball captain; neither recruited. National ranked figure skater gets on over state champion soccer player; neither recruited)
- essays (what kids reveal in essays matters a lot more than people think.) There is a right way to do essays in the wrong way to do essays. Unfortunately, most HS English teachers advise kids to do the wrong thing. It’s not about overcomplicated sentence and essay structures. The writing should be at easy to read/grasp level; varied sentences, including some very short sentences; poignant, personal, and touching on at least 3-4 of your personal values. It should also not repeat anything covered anywhere else in the application, including your major.
- LOR (an exceptional LOR can make a difference)

Look at the T10 scoring rubrics. You can see why certain kids get in once you understand the scoring.

What makes a LOR “exceptional”?

The ridiculous majors favor the wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Exceptional LOR's are those where the teacher of an advanced subject states that the student is one of the best students that teacher has had in their career, not just that year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Editors of the school newspaper. Legacies. Athletes. Especially weird ones like Crew. Or URM that has an amazing story and stats to back it up.

My DS was all of the above on what you mention and still was rejected by 75% of the schools he applied to! He's going to Purdue engineering but felt like he should have gotten into something better.

My HS junior kid has Purdue engineering on his list. Which other schools did your's apply to? It's tough to figure out engineering admissions rates vs arts & sciences admissions rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being sociable, friendly and engaging with classmates/teachers, a contributor in the classroom, is much more important than people realize.

Teachers talk amongst each other, "Oh you have Jimmy next year? He's a great kid."

The more community-oriented and outgoing the kid is, the likelier their reputation will smooth the way for great recommendations and other soft support.

So, basically, you’re promoting extroverted kids only? If a student is quiet by nature, they are perceived as not friendly and not contributing?

I hate it that teachers are so shallow.

DP My kids went to a lot of schools in a lot of different states, and a wide variety of schools. We found this happens more in bad public schools and in good southern private schools.

The best school for my deep thinker was an elite private that took great pride in being intellectual.

I have some wild teacher stories.

Do tell