Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts.
1) extra time is not an advantage if it is proportional and legit to a dress a learning disability. It is supposed to be compensation for a deficit. But, I agree the system needs reform. Kids usually get a round block od extra time without proof that it is proportional to the need - in other words, if a deficit warrants an extra 10 minutes that kid likely will get 30 min or 60 min more- or no extra time at all.
2) but OP's point that privates stack their schools with students with hooks is well taken. It is one way they try to ensure that their college placements exceed averages. Of course, the best advantage is just an inredibly self-motivated student with insane talent and supportive parents with an interest and means of suportting the child in any way possible.

The other problem is that many parents have seized unfair timing advantages for their non-disabled kids by paying a "specialist" to label their kid with some specious disorder. It throws the whole practice into disrepute - too many aggressive parents gaming the system.

My high-IQ kid has a language-based learning disability that interferes mightily with her ability to demonstrate what she knows. I would give just about anything to make it go away, but it never will. Some extra time on a test allows her to come closer to her potential and helps her not dissolve into a puddle of anxiety and self-loathing. But that in no way affects your kid.

Anonymous wrote:My question to OP is - how do you know that only 2 kids got into Ivies "without a tip"? Are you assuming that anyone who is an athlete, of color, a legacy, etc. would not have gotten into the Ivies otherwise? I realize that sometimes these things can make a difference in filling out a college class - but if you truly believe that this is the ONLY "tipping factor" for their acceptance, then you might want to reflect a little on your own lens of the world. I'm not saying this to dump on you, or to be mean...but making these sorts of assumptions doesn't make you look very good. It's just really offensive to discredit someone else's achievement by putting them into some "box" that suggests they only ended up there because of a "special favor"....this includes school acceptances, job title, etc. I suspect you may not realize it (as someone has hinted at) or even mean it...

OP here- I do know that only 2 of the people who went to ivies did not have a tip.
I am not suggesting that the people with tips did not also have top grades, talents, scores etc and that they ONLY got in because of their tips, I am just saying that they had tips. I am not saying that they always used their tips- some had ivy legacy status and didn't use it to apply early when it can help. But they had the tip, even if they didn't use it.
In addition, I know that there are resume lines that can help , such as girls applying for stem, intel winners, or singing stars etc- but I didn't add those in because those aren't necessarily so obvious in the little 2nd grader when he is accepted at the school.
Please give me a little credit- I know who was minority and cum laude, and who wasn't. I know who the sports stars are. I know who spent every weekend raising money for a special charity. There are many fantastic people in this class. I am not discrediting anyone- almost all the kids in the class were hardworking and talented.
I am saying that if your child does not have a tip, they might not get into an ivy until grad school. Also- of the 24 vanilla students I originally spoke of- I am not suggesting that they deserved to go anywhere other than where they went.
If you are going to spend a lot of money on private school thinking that if your child is in the top 20% of the class they will go to an ivy- no it will not necessarily happen that way. Maybe if they have a tip as well. I think when most of the parents went to school the top 20percenters went to ivies- its not that way any more.
I HOPE you can see that I am not looking at it thru any lens at all- not talking about what should be happening- merely what is happening.

Anonymous wrote:1. Is "tip" the new word for "hook"? Or just OP's word for a category that she has expanded to include students getting extra time?

2. I find it borderline offensive that she appears to have asked her child* to list specific students that, for example, get extra time. I am also a little skeptical that she or her child would know everyone's specific legacy status.

3. Very sad that all of elementary and secondary school appears to have telescoped down to just college admissions for the OP.

If you look at a lot of the admissions discussions on this website they are about ivy admission numbers. There are many advantages in a private education, but a lot of people are mainly interested in the preparatory nature of these schools.
I am sorry if you find it borderline offensive that my child told me who had extra time. My child was outraged that people all of a sudden in 11th grade were taking 3 AP courses and getting extra time in all of them FOR THE FIRST TIME in 10 years. I asked her how many in her AP US history class section fell into that category- she said 50% !! Some of them were concussion extra timers who had not quit their sport, not taken any time off, still taking 3 APs- and getting extra time. I genuinely felt sorry for these children and thought the school ought not to have allowed it. But I also felt for my child, who considered a lot of it cheating .
If your child is in a school for 12 years and you are even marginally friendly, interested in people, sociable, and interested in their children, and an active volunteer at the school, then you can easily know where the parents went to college.

The simple solution would be to create tests without time pressure. Just add whatever the extra time increment is to the scheduled session and let everybody have access to it. I guess this would also mean you couldn't separately time the various subsections. Or maybe you administer the test on both timetables and give kids the choice.

Fast reaction times matter in some contexts (driving race cars) but where college admissions are concerned, the difference between being able to answer a math or reading question in 1 vs 1.5 minutes has no practical relevance. Give people the time they need to answer the questions regardless of why they need the time. It's not as if a kid who can answer a multiple choice question quickly will somehow do better on the test if she has more time to answer that question.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts.
1) extra time is not an advantage if it is proportional and legit to a dress a learning disability. It is supposed to be compensation for a deficit. But, I agree the system needs reform. Kids usually get a round block od extra time without proof that it is proportional to the need - in other words, if a deficit warrants an extra 10 minutes that kid likely will get 30 min or 60 min more- or no extra time at all.
2) but OP's point that privates stack their schools with students with hooks is well taken. It is one way they try to ensure that their college placements exceed averages. Of course, the best advantage is just an inredibly self-motivated student with insane talent and supportive parents with an interest and means of suportting the child in any way possible.

On your number 2, it is neither as complicated or as sinister as you make it out. Private schools "stack their schools with students" who are . . . IN THEIR APPLICANT POOL. The schools cost $40,000 per year, and the schools that give the MOST aid in this area still have 75% full-paying students. Who has the money in this area? Generally parents with advanced degrees (doctors, lawyers, consultants etc.) and often those parents are alums of Ivies and/or other highly selective schools. That's just the demography of the DC area.

When schools do their admissions, they are looking for the smartest kids in the applicant pool, and diversity, and maybe athletic talent if they care about that. Those are all things that can lead to college admissions success too. Do schools know that parents look at college outcomes as part of the school choice process, so that it is part of marketing? Sure. But it's just a piece. And school admissions committees don't sit around saying "how can we assure that in 13 or 8 or 4 years we'll have the most Ivy admits?" They are saying "who are the strongest students in our pile and how can we convince them to come to our school"? And "do we have enough financial aid in the pot for everyone who needs it"? And "will we continue to have a good applicant pool as tuition goes up?"

Lastly, for those weighing in the "extra time" issues -- give it a rest. Encourage your own child to work hard and do well, and to recognize that time spent worrying about other people's perceived advantages and how "fair" they are is time wasted.

Spoken like a parent who wrangled an extra time advantage for their kid but doesn't want to acknowledge what a boost that is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my child's senior class of 81 students only 24 were plain vanilla , meaning they were not an ivy legacy, minority, recruitable athlete, or had extra time on their tests. Most of the people in the class had some advantage over just their resume.

One of these things is not like the others.

Which? I think you could argue/answer that question in a bunch of different ways. Bottom line is that colleges feel that they'd lose something they value if they ignored these factors. Of course this list isn't exhaustive -- geography, first-generation college, field of interest, and a host of other factors are in the mix as well at least in the Ivies and other private schools that devote a lot of resources to admissions.

I was in the first class to enter Harvard after they decided to do equal access admissions regardless of gender. At a work-related social event a few years after graduation, a woman asked where I'd gone to college, and when I answered, her response was "oh, you're why our son didn't get admitted!" Gotta love the attitude of aggrieved entitlement. Wonder if she passed it on to her son.

Apologies. I was conflating this thread with another one started about the same time last night and covering the same topic. http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/450219.page

For those eager to claim the mantle of victim and complain that your children are deprived of their rightful spot by some other "tip" applicant, you should check out the further research of the same Princeton academic whose work formed the basis of The article OP cites. http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/Opportunity%20Cost%20of%20Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20June%202005.pdf

Critics of affirmative action in American higher education often overlook the fact that elite universities give added weight in the admissions process to many different types of student characteristics. In this article, we use micro-simulation analysis to investigate the effect on the profile of admitted stu- dents of eliminating preferences for one or more categories of students. ... White applicants would benefit very little by removing racial and ethnic prefer- ences; the white acceptance rate would increase by roughly 0.5 percentage points.

No one is stealing your spots. If your kid got beat out, it likely was by some other "un-tipped" applicant who was simply more qualified.

I always tip 20%.

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts.
1) extra time is not an advantage if it is proportional and legit to a dress a learning disability. It is supposed to be compensation for a deficit. But, I agree the system needs reform. Kids usually get a round block od extra time without proof that it is proportional to the need - in other words, if a deficit warrants an extra 10 minutes that kid likely will get 30 min or 60 min more- or no extra time at all.
2) but OP's point that privates stack their schools with students with hooks is well taken. It is one way they try to ensure that their college placements exceed averages. Of course, the best advantage is just an inredibly self-motivated student with insane talent and supportive parents with an interest and means of suportting the child in any way possible.

On your number 2, it is neither as complicated or as sinister as you make it out. Private schools "stack their schools with students" who are . . . IN THEIR APPLICANT POOL. The schools cost $40,000 per year, and the schools that give the MOST aid in this area still have 75% full-paying students. Who has the money in this area? Generally parents with advanced degrees (doctors, lawyers, consultants etc.) and often those parents are alums of Ivies and/or other highly selective schools. That's just the demography of the DC area.

When schools do their admissions, they are looking for the smartest kids in the applicant pool, and diversity, and maybe athletic talent if they care about that. Those are all things that can lead to college admissions success too. Do schools know that parents look at college outcomes as part of the school choice process, so that it is part of marketing? Sure. But it's just a piece. And school admissions committees don't sit around saying "how can we assure that in 13 or 8 or 4 years we'll have the most Ivy admits?" They are saying "who are the strongest students in our pile and how can we convince them to come to our school"? And "do we have enough financial aid in the pot for everyone who needs it"? And "will we continue to have a good applicant pool as tuition goes up?"

Lastly, for those weighing in the "extra time" issues -- give it a rest. Encourage your own child to work hard and do well, and to recognize that time spent worrying about other people's perceived advantages and how "fair" they are is time wasted.

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts.
1) extra time is not an advantage if it is proportional and legit to a dress a learning disability. It is supposed to be compensation for a deficit. But, I agree the system needs reform. Kids usually get a round block od extra time without proof that it is proportional to the need - in other words, if a deficit warrants an extra 10 minutes that kid likely will get 30 min or 60 min more- or no extra time at all.
2) but OP's point that privates stack their schools with students with hooks is well taken. It is one way they try to ensure that their college placements exceed averages. Of course, the best advantage is just an inredibly self-motivated student with insane talent and supportive parents with an interest and means of suportting the child in any way possible.

The other problem is that many parents have seized unfair timing advantages for their non-disabled kids by paying a "specialist" to label their kid with some specious disorder. It throws the whole practice into disrepute - too many aggressive parents gaming the system.

Anonymous wrote:You still don't get it, PP.

I think she does. She is plainly acknowledging that while almost all kids in privates are born on third base, the schools themselves then do their utmost to mainly admit the top 1% of the 1% - that is, kids who are only an inch from home plate thanks to Ivy legacies, athletic prowess, etc. That way, they can boast high Ivy/MIT/etc. admits. OP isn't claiming her kid doesn't have advantages.

A few thoughts.
1) extra time is not an advantage if it is proportional and legit to a dress a learning disability. It is supposed to be compensation for a deficit. But, I agree the system needs reform. Kids usually get a round block od extra time without proof that it is proportional to the need - in other words, if a deficit warrants an extra 10 minutes that kid likely will get 30 min or 60 min more- or no extra time at all.
2) but OP's point that privates stack their schools with students with hooks is well taken. It is one way they try to ensure that their college placements exceed averages. Of course, the best advantage is just an inredibly self-motivated student with insane talent and supportive parents with an interest and means of suportting the child in any way possible.

My question to OP is - how do you know that only 2 kids got into Ivies "without a tip"? Are you assuming that anyone who is an athlete, of color, a legacy, etc. would not have gotten into the Ivies otherwise? I realize that sometimes these things can make a difference in filling out a college class - but if you truly believe that this is the ONLY "tipping factor" for their acceptance, then you might want to reflect a little on your own lens of the world. I'm not saying this to dump on you, or to be mean...but making these sorts of assumptions doesn't make you look very good. It's just really offensive to discredit someone else's achievement by putting them into some "box" that suggests they only ended up there because of a "special favor"....this includes school acceptances, job title, etc. I suspect you may not realize it (as someone has hinted at) or even mean it...