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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
That's why I despise the American college exceptionalism.

Everywhere else, students are accepted on academic merit, with thresholds for grades and/or exams, which universities tweak for international students with different high school systems.

This makes the most sense, because universities remain places of higher learning, and judging based on extra-curriculars that don't have standardized norms makes comparing students impossible.

So at least in other countries, you know where you are. You're not messed around and have hopes dashed after waiting for months. As soon as you know your exam results, you also know where you're getting in.

[/quote]

I am reposting the following post from CC on American exceptionalism (discussing the Varsity Blues Netflix show):
[i]

Perhaps this is part of American exceptionalism, but nobody, even the Europeans who chose not to aboard the ship to to the U.S. some 100~200 years ago, understands American “holistic” admission process. The world thinks, well, it’s snake oil. A few examples:

Why do you have to be a good essayst to earn a spot in university? Shouldn’t you be, like, a scholar or a researcher?

Who is a superior human being: one with 14 APs with perfect scores vs one with 5 APs with perfect scores plus 20 hours per week working at McDonald’s?

Why do you need to check the race of an applicant?

Why should one who worked as a volunteer earn advantage over one who did not - to earn a spot in unversity? What is university? A privilege or an accolade given to superior beings, or a place to advance academia?

What is a good character, as opposed to a mundane one? Why should it matter to earn a spot? What is university? A horse race bet for who will succeed in life (and make donations)?

If you are boring, why should you be rejected?

Why do sports matter to a university? What does football have anything to do with academia?

If your political view happens to be at the diametric opposite end of your interviewer’s, should you be punished and rejected for that, or should you fake and feign? (happened to me once at the Harvard interview.)

Why do universities encourage EVERYONE to apply only to reject 99.9% of them?

Why do universities encourage there is no mimimum GPA required for acceptance, when they know it takes a Jared Kushner to get in with a 2.0?

Why do universities care about their matriculation rates? What relevance does it have to, say, an education? Isnt it basically a childish bragging rights, little else?

Why 100 times more expensive than, say, a German, a French or a Korean unversity education? What does it cost to teach someone, say, English literature, really?

If someone appears so smart that he looks as if he might get accepted to Harvard, why do other schools reject him? Is such practice morally defensible when committed by an educational institution?

What is the name of the university admission game? Meritocracy? Whatever the university needs at the moment?

If an applicant asks Rick Singer to write the entire application on his behalf, is there a fail-proof way to tell, or is this too minor a breach to care?

Why are “unique” and “rare” virtues to universities? Are they in stamp collecting business?

When a university’s advertised acceptance rate is 4%, does it mean the chance for an international, FA, no donation, no legacy pushed ORM would be, like, 0.1%?

Why did they make the selection process so arbitrary? To show that they are anti-elitests?[/i]

What happened to OP's DC is the natural outcome of this crappy process, in a crappy year.
[/quote]

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