Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 16:14     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm very curious about the role of interviewers. I assume you write and send summaries to the admissions team of what you think about each interviewee. Do you have any direct contact with the interviewee's teachers or her college counselor? Do you make a specific recommendation for each interviewee on whether the college should admit/waitlist/reject? Does the admissions team routinely call you to ask specific questions about the students you interviewed? Do you also participate in the admissions team's decision meetings about your interviewees? If so, are you allowed to be an active participant in those meetings? Do you get any advance notice of the admissions team's ultimate decisions on your interviewees? Does the admissions team provide you detailed feedback on what they think about each interviewee, and specifically why they made each decision?


I've interviewed for my Ivy alma mater for a long time and we've always been asked to focus on fit and interest in the school. We're a factor, but not deciders, since most applicants don't get interviewed. The admissions office wants a sense of the applicant's intellectual curiosity and personality that can't be found on paper, not academic achievement. There are explicit instructions not to ask about grades and test scores since they are already in the file and it would be considered inappropriate for an alumni interviewer to talk to an anyone else, including an applicant's teachers or counselors, about the student. We are asked to write up the interview and I've been given general feedback on the usefulness of my writeups. But, I've never been asked followup questions and we do not participate in the admissions committee's deliberations. The vast majority of applicants recommended by alumni interviewers do not get accepted and it is pretty unusual to get an explanation.

On the other hand, long-time alumni interviewers get to know the regional admissions officer pretty well and are pretty well-versed in how they think and what they are looking for in an applicant. I have never seen anyone admitted that I did not recommend highly. My school asks alumni to select their interviewees knowing nothing other than their high school. As a result, alumni with connections to the selective privates are pretty aggressive about choosing those applicants to interview. As a result, the odds that an upper NW private school applicant is offered an interview are much greater than the odds for a suburban magnet student. These interviewers may also have a pretty fine tuned sense of the academic hierarchy at the private without knowing class rank or even GPA. They also know how serious various school extra-curriculars and can help communicate that to the admissions officer. And that kind of information included in an interview write up may make a difference.

Many thanks for your detailed response. Two follow up questions, if you don't mind -
1. You write that you are not permitted to ask about grades or test scores. Does the interviewee file you receive from the college have those details in it already? Or alternatively, do you not know about grades or test scores unless the interviewee volunteers them?
2. You write that most applicants don't get interviewed, and about the odds of different students being offered an interview. I was always under the impression (likely uninformed) that all applicants who want an interview will get one. But I gather from your post that's not correct. Do most applicants request interviews, and only a few whose file appears promising get the opportunity? Or do many seek interviews at all? Is the ability to get an interview a function of the application's strength, or rather is it a function of the availability of alumni interviewers and interest in the students' schools (since all you know before you select interviewees is their high school)?

Again, I appreciate your candor. Also, I recognize you are describing only how your university conducts its interview process, and not necessarily indicating how other universities may operate. Thanks again.


Having been an interviewee and and interviewer for my Ivy alma matter - my understanding was it was essentially an alumni courtesy system that reinforced that legacies do have a leg up - but also just made the parents/grandparents/relative who went to the school feel like their connections (and contributions) had been recognized -- and then by recruiting alums as interviewers, they were more likely to continue to feel connected and contribute (financially and otherwise) to the school
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 16:11     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many thanks for your detailed response. Two follow up questions, if you don't mind -
1. You write that you are not permitted to ask about grades or test scores. Does the interviewee file you receive from the college have those details in it already? Or alternatively, do you not know about grades or test scores unless the interviewee volunteers them?
2. You write that most applicants don't get interviewed, and about the odds of different students being offered an interview. I was always under the impression (likely uninformed) that all applicants who want an interview will get one. But I gather from your post that's not correct. Do most applicants request interviews, and only a few whose file appears promising get the opportunity? Or do many seek interviews at all? Is the ability to get an interview a function of the application's strength, or rather is it a function of the availability of alumni interviewers and interest in the students' schools (since all you know before you select interviewees is their high school)?

Again, I appreciate your candor. Also, I recognize you are describing only how your university conducts its interview process, and not necessarily indicating how other universities may operate. Thanks again.


1) We are discouraged from asking about grades and test scores, since its not what the admissions office needs from alumni. We are not given the numbers. But 90+% of the students work it in or hand a resume with their numbers, even though I always tell the interviewee that I'm not going to ask about scores and grades.

2) Many applicants don't get offered an in-person interview. Back in the 80s, pretty much everyone was interview (required w/exceptions) but there are too many applicants now. The admissions office does not make any evaluation of applicants to decide who gets offered an interview. Alumni interviewers essentially choose blind among all applicants in their area, except for the high school, and contact the applicants themselves. To avoid conflict of interest, we take the year off if we have a child in the admissions process that year. Applicants are free to decline an interview w/o prejudice. But, applicants who schedule and flake send a different message.

As the other alumni PP commented, it is hard to say how influential these interviews are. Principally, they should be viewed by applicants as a way to get to know the school better and I know the admissions officers that I've worked with seem genuinely pleased when my write-ups match their impressions. But, lots of applicants that impressed me have not been admitted. A cynic could argue that alumni interviews are really about making alumni feel engaged and connected to the school in order to generate larger donations, even though there is no direct connection between the admissions and the development office.
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 16:09     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Heard thru my daughter (so second hand) that her friend in VA with a 221 got told she was a SF today. If that's true, then it would lend credibility to PP guess that states are going down this year.
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 16:07     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Over on college confidential they are keeping a state by state tally, and so far every state reported (I think 35+ have reported in so far) has gone down by at least 1 pt. Some two and even three points. Nothing yet for NJ, MA or DC, where the highest cutoffs are. But folks who have been charting this out for awhile all predict every state to go down at least 1 pt.
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 15:19     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:I know for a fact that at least 3 schools in VA (1 private 2 public) already told parents via email that their kids were on list.


Any idea of the scores that made SF? Wondering if the cutoff went down from last year.
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 15:16     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
I know for a fact that at least 3 schools in VA (1 private 2 public) already told parents via email that their kids were on list.
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 15:10     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:With all of this great back-and-forth, I keep forgetting that I have been checking the posts for actual NMSF scores for DC and VA! If anyone has a child that has been told they were a SF, could you please just share their score? Misery might love company, but I passed misery over this wait a loooong time ago!


We're waiting, also! I'm convinced the principal at my kid's school is waiting till last period on Friday, so the kids will have the weekend to discuss and then get over it. The school has a large number of commended and semifinalists and I imagine it will be a big topic of discussion once the information comes out.




I'm guessing it won't be until Sep 10th when the list is made public. SFS especially makes such an issue that it doesn't believe in academic awards because it's anti-Quaker. Of course, since their football team is named the "Fighting Quakers", there are a lot of contradictions with that explanation! (Plus they have no head of school or principal right now!)


+1
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 15:09     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:With all of this great back-and-forth, I keep forgetting that I have been checking the posts for actual NMSF scores for DC and VA! If anyone has a child that has been told they were a SF, could you please just share their score? Misery might love company, but I passed misery over this wait a loooong time ago!


We're waiting, also! I'm convinced the principal at my kid's school is waiting till last period on Friday, so the kids will have the weekend to discuss and then get over it. The school has a large number of commended and semifinalists and I imagine it will be a big topic of discussion once the information comes out.




I'm guessing it won't be until Sep 10th when the list is made public. SFS especially makes such an issue that it doesn't believe in academic awards because it's anti-Quaker. Of course, since their football team is named the "Fighting Quakers", there are a lot of contradictions with that explanation! (Plus they have no head of school or principal right now!)
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 15:03     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:With all of this great back-and-forth, I keep forgetting that I have been checking the posts for actual NMSF scores for DC and VA! If anyone has a child that has been told they were a SF, could you please just share their score? Misery might love company, but I passed misery over this wait a loooong time ago!


We're waiting, also! I'm convinced the principal at my kid's school is waiting till last period on Friday, so the kids will have the weekend to discuss and then get over it. The school has a large number of commended and semifinalists and I imagine it will be a big topic of discussion once the information comes out.

Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 14:04     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
With all of this great back-and-forth, I keep forgetting that I have been checking the posts for actual NMSF scores for DC and VA! If anyone has a child that has been told they were a SF, could you please just share their score? Misery might love company, but I passed misery over this wait a loooong time ago!
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 13:30     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My neighbor in MD has a son in MCPS with a 225, and he was told he was a NMSF, but didn't seem like a real nail biter with that score ? if the commended score dropped 2 points and last year all the states (especially VA) when up a point or two, I would expect the cut offs to all come back a little. Good luck, OP! Our daughter's school (also a Big 3) told the kids not to worry about NM when taking the PSATs because it wouldn't matter to most schools they would apply to.[i] Horrible advice IMO, but who am I to say...we just write out the checks?


This is also the advice our private school gave to its students. As a result, my child did not prepare in any way for the PSAT and earned a very good score (99%ile nationally), but not good enough for DC's NMSF cutoff. DC did bounce back with an excellent SAT score, but with an anticipated minimum of 10-12 NMSF in their graduating class, I do worry how this will impact the college admissions process.


He's only 99th percentile?!? What a shame! And he showed so much promise, too.
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 12:47     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm very curious about the role of interviewers. I assume you write and send summaries to the admissions team of what you think about each interviewee. Do you have any direct contact with the interviewee's teachers or her college counselor? Do you make a specific recommendation for each interviewee on whether the college should admit/waitlist/reject? Does the admissions team routinely call you to ask specific questions about the students you interviewed? Do you also participate in the admissions team's decision meetings about your interviewees? If so, are you allowed to be an active participant in those meetings? Do you get any advance notice of the admissions team's ultimate decisions on your interviewees? Does the admissions team provide you detailed feedback on what they think about each interviewee, and specifically why they made each decision?


I've interviewed for my Ivy alma mater for a long time and we've always been asked to focus on fit and interest in the school. We're a factor, but not deciders, since most applicants don't get interviewed. The admissions office wants a sense of the applicant's intellectual curiosity and personality that can't be found on paper, not academic achievement. There are explicit instructions not to ask about grades and test scores since they are already in the file and it would be considered inappropriate for an alumni interviewer to talk to an anyone else, including an applicant's teachers or counselors, about the student. We are asked to write up the interview and I've been given general feedback on the usefulness of my writeups. But, I've never been asked followup questions and we do not participate in the admissions committee's deliberations. The vast majority of applicants recommended by alumni interviewers do not get accepted and it is pretty unusual to get an explanation.

On the other hand, long-time alumni interviewers get to know the regional admissions officer pretty well and are pretty well-versed in how they think and what they are looking for in an applicant. I have never seen anyone admitted that I did not recommend highly. My school asks alumni to select their interviewees knowing nothing other than their high school. As a result, alumni with connections to the selective privates are pretty aggressive about choosing those applicants to interview. As a result, the odds that an upper NW private school applicant is offered an interview are much greater than the odds for a suburban magnet student. These interviewers may also have a pretty fine tuned sense of the academic hierarchy at the private without knowing class rank or even GPA. They also know how serious various school extra-curriculars and can help communicate that to the admissions officer. And that kind of information included in an interview write up may make a difference.

Many thanks for your detailed response. Two follow up questions, if you don't mind -
1. You write that you are not permitted to ask about grades or test scores. Does the interviewee file you receive from the college have those details in it already? Or alternatively, do you not know about grades or test scores unless the interviewee volunteers them?
2. You write that most applicants don't get interviewed, and about the odds of different students being offered an interview. I was always under the impression (likely uninformed) that all applicants who want an interview will get one. But I gather from your post that's not correct. Do most applicants request interviews, and only a few whose file appears promising get the opportunity? Or do many seek interviews at all? Is the ability to get an interview a function of the application's strength, or rather is it a function of the availability of alumni interviewers and interest in the students' schools (since all you know before you select interviewees is their high school)?

Again, I appreciate your candor. Also, I recognize you are describing only how your university conducts its interview process, and not necessarily indicating how other universities may operate. Thanks again.
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 12:47     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
re odds of being offered an interview --

If the PP's statement is true, then it varies from Ivy to Ivy. The HYP I've interviewed for makes a real effort (and seems to succeed) each year to interview every applicant who wants an interview. And I think they try NOT to give people with a connection to a local private interviews with students from that school.

Same rules/info re grades and scores (interviewers aren't given that info by the school and are told not to ask the student about it). No contact with anyone but the student. Never got asked follow-up questions by admissions. Honestly, I don't think alumn interviews play much of a role in admissions.
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 12:31     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:I'm very curious about the role of interviewers. I assume you write and send summaries to the admissions team of what you think about each interviewee. Do you have any direct contact with the interviewee's teachers or her college counselor? Do you make a specific recommendation for each interviewee on whether the college should admit/waitlist/reject? Does the admissions team routinely call you to ask specific questions about the students you interviewed? Do you also participate in the admissions team's decision meetings about your interviewees? If so, are you allowed to be an active participant in those meetings? Do you get any advance notice of the admissions team's ultimate decisions on your interviewees? Does the admissions team provide you detailed feedback on what they think about each interviewee, and specifically why they made each decision?


I've interviewed for my Ivy alma mater for a long time and we've always been asked to focus on fit and interest in the school. We're a factor, but not deciders, since most applicants don't get interviewed. The admissions office wants a sense of the applicant's intellectual curiosity and personality that can't be found on paper, not academic achievement. There are explicit instructions not to ask about grades and test scores since they are already in the file and it would be considered inappropriate for an alumni interviewer to talk to an anyone else, including an applicant's teachers or counselors, about the student. We are asked to write up the interview and I've been given general feedback on the usefulness of my writeups. But, I've never been asked followup questions and we do not participate in the admissions committee's deliberations. The vast majority of applicants recommended by alumni interviewers do not get accepted and it is pretty unusual to get an explanation.

On the other hand, long-time alumni interviewers get to know the regional admissions officer pretty well and are pretty well-versed in how they think and what they are looking for in an applicant. I have never seen anyone admitted that I did not recommend highly. My school asks alumni to select their interviewees knowing nothing other than their high school. As a result, alumni with connections to the selective privates are pretty aggressive about choosing those applicants to interview. As a result, the odds that an upper NW private school applicant is offered an interview are much greater than the odds for a suburban magnet student. These interviewers may also have a pretty fine tuned sense of the academic hierarchy at the private without knowing class rank or even GPA. They also know how serious various school extra-curriculars and can help communicate that to the admissions officer. And that kind of information included in an interview write up may make a difference.
Anonymous
Post 09/04/2014 11:46     Subject: National Merit semi-finalist state cut offs
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My DC goes to one of the Big 3, and they do not rank, give GPA and have only a handful of AP classes available to take. But every year there are plenty of kids that get into the Ivy League. So PP experience doesn't necessarily apply to a lot of kids at DC privates. But luckily those Ivies know those facts about the schools and it doesn't count against the kids.


A lot of the kids I have interviewed have been from the Big 3. They often have some ballpark GPA, and they have all taken AP tests. They have taken fewer than the kids at the MoCo publics, it's true. They don't have class ranks, but even the interviewers know what a good GPA is at those schools, and the admissions office has decades worth of data on each school.

IB diplomas are well regarded. As with APs, top scores are expected on the SL tests or predicted HL tests. IB students also don't get a pass on the extracurricular, leadership, original research etc. , which can be an issue, given the time commitment.



I'd be curious to know if a 3.8 at one of the Big 3 is considered competitive against someone from MCPS or FCPS with maybe a 4.3 weighted?


A 4.3 weighted in a good MCPS is a middle of the road student (has either gotten quite a few Bs or hasn't taken very many honors/AP classes). As a reference point my DC was at 4.6 weighted/3.9 unweighted. I really don't think the weightings are useful comparison across schools, they only help within a school to help judge the rigor of the classes a student has taken relative to other students in the school. Each school/school system has their own weighting approach so cross school comparisons are useless.



To be honest, I would think a tony school wants to see that the AP score backs up the inflated grade. My daughter has friends in a good public school system where lots of kids get A- or As in various AP classes, but get 3a or 4s on the AP exams. That's the beauty of blind, nationwide standardized tests. Totally unbiased and really can put the "rigor" of the class/teacher in question, IMO.