Reply to TJ - admissions: GPA and essays vulnerable to prep and affluence

Forum Index » Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)

Reply to "TJ - admissions: GPA and essays vulnerable to prep and affluence"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Simple and honest question:  Why do so many of you think that GPA and essays are *less* vulnerable to prep and effects of affluence than test scores?  Affluent kids with motivated parents likely have been in enrichment classes for quite awhile and are likely ahead.  If the kid struggles at all, the affluent parents are likely to get a tutor and shore up any deficiencies the kid might have.  If all else fails, the affluent parents are much more likely to badger the teacher and administration until their kid's grade turns into an A.  It honestly doesn't seem hard for any parent with the money and motivation to make sure any average kid could get straight As in middle school.

Likewise, it's pretty easy to talk about love for STEM and such when the kid has been attending enrichment and camps for many years.  Again, it would also be easy to get prep and tutoring to write a highly polished essay.

With tests like PSAT, while prep helps to some degree, there is a pretty strong limit.  Kids who are naturally 99th percentile will likely earn very high scores with no or minimal prep.  Kids who are pretty average but privileged will see score increases, but they're still unlikely to earn super high scores.  It seems easier for affluent parents to ensure that their kids have straight As and can write strong essays than it would be to ensure that their kid would earn a very high PSAT score.

So what am I missing, here?  [/quote]

That's exactly why selecting the top 1.5% from each school helps level the playing field![/quote]

But it's not the top 1.5%, it's an almost random selection.[/quote]

Nope it's the top 1.5% based on clear and objective metrics. The problem is some people don't like this because it's hard to manipulate unlike the old system, they don't have a clear advantage.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics