Reply to College Admissions Doesn't Need to Be So Competitive: Super High Stat Kids are not "a dime a dozen."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They need/want to round out clubs, theater, sports, etc and their admissions are geared accordingly to ensure their campuses are filled with enriching students of varying backgrounds and contributions to their communities.[/quote]Give a break. Those contributions to communities stop as soon as they get the acceptance. Do you think the people working on wall st or silicon vally have time for ECs? hah[/quote]

You could look at this a couple ways.

1) Western (US/UK) culture values the idea of the "good at lots of things" "Renaissance man" idea.  Also the ideal that people should combine athleticism and academics (as required by prestige fellowships, and implied by "playing fields of Eton" kind of comments, etc.)  The US also seems to place a high value on extroversion and keeping busy at all times.  That's where the ECs trend came from.

2) People who value constructive societies/communities (like admissions officers) like to see evidence of concern for others beyond  self.  Even faked.  The hope is these people will keep progress moving and build a better world.  Wall Street people and Valley people often believe their work does this (whether we agree or not).  This is an attempt by academia to lessen the amount of "brilliant jerks" they produce.  And US business definitely prefers popular bro type people.  I'm a woman.  This is my second year of filing a March Madness bracket to be a joiner.  I don't give a rat's a$$ about basketball. But it's not okay to admit that...more important to fit in and be a good sport.

3) People who value intellectual diversity understand that your views, life goals, personal growth are positively impacted by being around people who are different from you in a mutually supportive learning environment.  People who have had this privilege rarely spend time wishing their school had admitted more people based on math SATs.  And it's really the math that is the issue.  There's still a gender skew there.  In fact, it's amazing to me to realize that it would be possible to design an SAT that would have an equal amount of female high scorers at the very top.  And that those SAT-Verbal analogies that got removed long ago actually were an area where women outperformed men.  If they didn't double the verbal in the selection index, the number of women NMFs would fall a lot.  So why do they do that doubling?  Simple fudge to keep male math nerds from getting ALL of higher education's admissions goodies. Because higher math is only important in some fields.

The ECs list measures a lot of things...extroversion, quirk factor, can you curate and present yourself, energy level, would you pass the "have a beer with" test, are you hireable, are you rich, etc.  Basic primate status competition.  Yes, it's annoying and hard for a lot of people...but it relates well to other types of status competitions that also determine people's career success.

I can tell you that I've lost jobs to women that are sweeter than me.  And it's definitely signaled by "EC's" on their resume.  Like working with troubled kids and raising guide dogs.  I don't have the time or the energy for that. But my standardized test scores are near perfect.  Who would you have a beer with?[/quote]

More importantly, who would you rather work with on a team that requires input and teamwork from everyone? When building a team, you need a group of different people, so you see all sides of the problem, before you are physically constructing the bridge/building.  You need the "always skeptic/sees the problems" type of person as well as the creative, think outside the box person.  One without the other presents problems.  Just like in a job environment, colleges are trying to create a diverse, well rounded group of freshman so the experience is the best/most useful.  Surrounding yourself with others who are exactly a carbon copy of you isn't the best for growth in life. 
And who wants to be on a team with 20 Sheldon's? Nothing would get done. Yet having 2-3 on a team is great
[/quote]lol that's not how engineering works, not even close[/quote]

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