Anonymous wrote:I personally think kids should apply to as many schools as they want. It is a money maker for the university, and if they can make money another way besides raising tuition, I am happy. Also choosing a university is like choosing a life partner or a forever house. Good to have options.

Yes. Otherwise is restraint of trade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this one of those threads where a bunch of people with no industry experience Monday Morning Quarterback and claim they know better than the colleges who have been doing this forever and their staffs who have been doing it professionally?

Cool, I am in. I say make bowling average 35% of the admissions criteria. And yes, my kid bowls his ass off but that is just coincidence.

No, this is one of those threads where people brag about their “industry experience”, sort of like Billy Crystal’s character in that famous movie scene how he can always tell when women fake orgasms. I bet you can always tell when the essays were “helped” too.

Yeah those stupid “experts” and all their “experience “. Just like the dumbass experts who want me to get a vaccine! I know bettthan them!

Anonymous wrote:Those of you arguing for ranking seem to have forgotten the reason why many high schools stopped ranking--because it made the top kids intensely competitive grade-grubbers.

Yes. My DD (honors/AP level classes at a competetive FCPS HS) was HORRIFIED when she heard that some schools report class rank publicly. It is hard enough maintaining a level head when surrounded by students who think that a perfect GPA is the key to life success (through admission to the "right" college). What would it be like if they were battling over a tenth of a percentage point determining their class rank (and therefore their future). This is not the answer.

Not to mention the fact that the #1 student at HS A might be #25 if they went to HS B. Not all schools are equal, so not all class ranks are equal either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Standardized the applications. Whether that's by the Common Application or something else, I don't know. But just managing all the different ways schools ask the same question adds to the time needed to manage all this.

2. Streamling the deadlines and ways to apply. Maybe just have rolling for the less selective schools, one form of early, and then regular. This ED1 and ED2 and priority this, etc. make the application period longer than it needs to be.

3. Limit the activity space (something already mentioned this and I think MIT does it). Have people list their top three activities. Let them write a couple sentences about each. It'll stop the people who think the longest resume wins.

4. Make high schools calculate GPA the same way so kids know where they stand and so the average admitted GPA statistic is reliable.

5. Love the one essay idea mentioned above. I don't think it needs to be academic, but I don't think any college should be allowed to ask "why us" because it forces a kid to write a special essay just for that school. I like how the Common Application has one essay with 4-5 choices on it.




Those ask for an end to test optional know that just because you send something doesn't mean admissions has to use it, right?

Regardless of what you think about the SAT, test optional is admissions' way of telling you that they don't find test scores valuable in their processes.

I'd go even further and replace GPA with class rank. Schools could determine it however they want, and colleges wouldn't be forced to compare a 3.9 on a 4 scale to a 4.3 on a weighted 5 scale to a 4.5, but with different weights... Instead, a kidding the 85% percentile at school A would be compared to a kid in the 92nd at school B

That doesn't work when you have magnets, highly selective privates, and giant public schools. A kid might be last in his class at a highly selective school that only has 30 kids in the graduating class and that kid might run circles around a valedictorian somewhere else. This, plus the different ways of grading and calculating GPAs, and the differences in rigor among schools is why they have to have holistic admissions. You are never comparing apples to apples when you just look at numbers in the U.S.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Standardized the applications. Whether that's by the Common Application or something else, I don't know. But just managing all the different ways schools ask the same question adds to the time needed to manage all this.

2. Streamling the deadlines and ways to apply. Maybe just have rolling for the less selective schools, one form of early, and then regular. This ED1 and ED2 and priority this, etc. make the application period longer than it needs to be.

3. Limit the activity space (something already mentioned this and I think MIT does it). Have people list their top three activities. Let them write a couple sentences about each. It'll stop the people who think the longest resume wins.

4. Make high schools calculate GPA the same way so kids know where they stand and so the average admitted GPA statistic is reliable.

5. Love the one essay idea mentioned above. I don't think it needs to be academic, but I don't think any college should be allowed to ask "why us" because it forces a kid to write a special essay just for that school. I like how the Common Application has one essay with 4-5 choices on it.




Those ask for an end to test optional know that just because you send something doesn't mean admissions has to use it, right?

Regardless of what you think about the SAT, test optional is admissions' way of telling you that they don't find test scores valuable in their processes.

I'd go even further and replace GPA with class rank. Schools could determine it however they want, and colleges wouldn't be forced to compare a 3.9 on a 4 scale to a 4.3 on a weighted 5 scale to a 4.5, but with different weights... Instead, a kidding the 85% percentile at school A would be compared to a kid in the 92nd at school B

From my understanding, the colleges actually recalculate the GPAs to standardize it and compare apples to apples. They don’t directly compare different weighting schemes. I remember asking our school counselor about a weighted GPA (our school reported only unweighted on a 100 scale), and she said not to bother because different colleges recalculate it differently anyway. Some go as far as dropping the whole freshman year off.

the problem is that they need data to recalculate. If they don't get many applicants from a particular high school and the school doesn't rank, they have no way of knowing what their 4.3 means in relation to other students at that class. I like ranking because it eliminates grade inflation and deflation

They have the school profile for that. Look up yours, it will tell you, among other things, how many AP classes they offer, and the distribution of grades for the most recent graduating class.

They also get info from the school counselor and teacher recs on how your kid's schedule (and your kid) stacks up against others.

The thing that parents forget about (or don't like to think about) is that the high school provides info that helps colleges make their decisions. Take two kids with similar GPAs and test scores, one gets in, the other doesn't. Seems random! and parents gnash their teeth. Or maybe it was because Kid A had 3 ECs and Kid B only had two!! OMG, EC arms race!!

But really, what made the difference is that when the teacher sat down to write her letters of recommendation (for 13 kids), she had nothing but good things to say about both kids, both of whom she likes and both of whom she thinks will be successes in college. But one of those kids just impresses her a bit more than the other. And that comes through in her LORs.

Or the counselor knows that Kid A has had difficult home circumstances or medical issues or other challenges and mentions it in his write-up. Others might not know anything about it, but it becomes a "hook" for Kid A.

Etc.

OTOH, sometimes it really is just random! The college decides that it will accept only x% of schools from Admissions Counselor Z's region. She knows she has to come to the table with 25 applications to support. Will Kid A or Kid B be the 25th? They are really so similar....hmmm...well, this essay really was kind of...ok, Kid A. That's it, done.

So many parents act like college admissions is the great mystery of life, but it's really not all that complicated. But it is unpredictable for any given kid and that seems to make people of a certain ilk insane.

Relax. If you kid is in the position of wringing their hands over whether she will get into an Ivy League school, she is going to be fine wherever she goes.

Anonymous wrote:There is room to enter or write about ONE meaningful extracurricular activity. The arms race to build a resume by age 17 is burning our kids out.

I agree, the EC racket has become ridiculous. But I would add that its an arms race by your choice. Focus on raising a happy and emotionally healthy child goes a lot further than one whose parents considered raising children to be a competitive sport. We do a huge disservice to our kids when we ask them to sacrifice their childhood and mental health for the chance to win the Ivy lottery. That's setting them up for disappointment and making them feel like a failure when the opposite is true. There's a ton of successful people out there who did not attend a T10 college and while I realize that saying your kid goes to Elon or Lehigh, or American may not impress the coffee klatch, we need to get kids off the hamster wheel.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Standardized the applications. Whether that's by the Common Application or something else, I don't know. But just managing all the different ways schools ask the same question adds to the time needed to manage all this.

2. Streamling the deadlines and ways to apply. Maybe just have rolling for the less selective schools, one form of early, and then regular. This ED1 and ED2 and priority this, etc. make the application period longer than it needs to be.

3. Limit the activity space (something already mentioned this and I think MIT does it). Have people list their top three activities. Let them write a couple sentences about each. It'll stop the people who think the longest resume wins.

4. Make high schools calculate GPA the same way so kids know where they stand and so the average admitted GPA statistic is reliable.

5. Love the one essay idea mentioned above. I don't think it needs to be academic, but I don't think any college should be allowed to ask "why us" because it forces a kid to write a special essay just for that school. I like how the Common Application has one essay with 4-5 choices on it.




Those ask for an end to test optional know that just because you send something doesn't mean admissions has to use it, right?

Regardless of what you think about the SAT, test optional is admissions' way of telling you that they don't find test scores valuable in their processes.

I'd go even further and replace GPA with class rank. Schools could determine it however they want, and colleges wouldn't be forced to compare a 3.9 on a 4 scale to a 4.3 on a weighted 5 scale to a 4.5, but with different weights... Instead, a kidding the 85% percentile at school A would be compared to a kid in the 92nd at school B

From my understanding, the colleges actually recalculate the GPAs to standardize it and compare apples to apples. They don’t directly compare different weighting schemes. I remember asking our school counselor about a weighted GPA (our school reported only unweighted on a 100 scale), and she said not to bother because different colleges recalculate it differently anyway. Some go as far as dropping the whole freshman year off.

the problem is that they need data to recalculate. If they don't get many applicants from a particular high school and the school doesn't rank, they have no way of knowing what their 4.3 means in relation to other students at that class. I like ranking because it eliminates grade inflation and deflation

They have the school profile for that. Look up yours, it will tell you, among other things, how many AP classes they offer, and the distribution of grades for the most recent graduating class.

Those of you arguing for ranking seem to have forgotten the reason why many high schools stopped ranking--because it made the top kids intensely competitive grade-grubbers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally think kids should apply to as many schools as they want. It is a money maker for the university, and if they can make money another way besides raising tuition, I am happy. Also choosing a university is like choosing a life partner or a forever house. Good to have options.

It's not all like this.

+1. Only if you're one of those people who is 53 years old and still managing to work into every conversation where you went to college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Standardized the applications. Whether that's by the Common Application or something else, I don't know. But just managing all the different ways schools ask the same question adds to the time needed to manage all this.

2. Streamling the deadlines and ways to apply. Maybe just have rolling for the less selective schools, one form of early, and then regular. This ED1 and ED2 and priority this, etc. make the application period longer than it needs to be.

3. Limit the activity space (something already mentioned this and I think MIT does it). Have people list their top three activities. Let them write a couple sentences about each. It'll stop the people who think the longest resume wins.

4. Make high schools calculate GPA the same way so kids know where they stand and so the average admitted GPA statistic is reliable.

5. Love the one essay idea mentioned above. I don't think it needs to be academic, but I don't think any college should be allowed to ask "why us" because it forces a kid to write a special essay just for that school. I like how the Common Application has one essay with 4-5 choices on it.




Those ask for an end to test optional know that just because you send something doesn't mean admissions has to use it, right?

Regardless of what you think about the SAT, test optional is admissions' way of telling you that they don't find test scores valuable in their processes.

I'd go even further and replace GPA with class rank. Schools could determine it however they want, and colleges wouldn't be forced to compare a 3.9 on a 4 scale to a 4.3 on a weighted 5 scale to a 4.5, but with different weights... Instead, a kidding the 85% percentile at school A would be compared to a kid in the 92nd at school B

From my understanding, the colleges actually recalculate the GPAs to standardize it and compare apples to apples. They don’t directly compare different weighting schemes. I remember asking our school counselor about a weighted GPA (our school reported only unweighted on a 100 scale), and she said not to bother because different colleges recalculate it differently anyway. Some go as far as dropping the whole freshman year off.

This is the case at many schools. They have their own algorithms that they use.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Standardized the applications. Whether that's by the Common Application or something else, I don't know. But just managing all the different ways schools ask the same question adds to the time needed to manage all this.

2. Streamling the deadlines and ways to apply. Maybe just have rolling for the less selective schools, one form of early, and then regular. This ED1 and ED2 and priority this, etc. make the application period longer than it needs to be.

3. Limit the activity space (something already mentioned this and I think MIT does it). Have people list their top three activities. Let them write a couple sentences about each. It'll stop the people who think the longest resume wins.

4. Make high schools calculate GPA the same way so kids know where they stand and so the average admitted GPA statistic is reliable.

5. Love the one essay idea mentioned above. I don't think it needs to be academic, but I don't think any college should be allowed to ask "why us" because it forces a kid to write a special essay just for that school. I like how the Common Application has one essay with 4-5 choices on it.




Those ask for an end to test optional know that just because you send something doesn't mean admissions has to use it, right?

Regardless of what you think about the SAT, test optional is admissions' way of telling you that they don't find test scores valuable in their processes.

I'd go even further and replace GPA with class rank. Schools could determine it however they want, and colleges wouldn't be forced to compare a 3.9 on a 4 scale to a 4.3 on a weighted 5 scale to a 4.5, but with different weights... Instead, a kidding the 85% percentile at school A would be compared to a kid in the 92nd at school B

From my understanding, the colleges actually recalculate the GPAs to standardize it and compare apples to apples. They don’t directly compare different weighting schemes. I remember asking our school counselor about a weighted GPA (our school reported only unweighted on a 100 scale), and she said not to bother because different colleges recalculate it differently anyway. Some go as far as dropping the whole freshman year off.

the problem is that they need data to recalculate. If they don't get many applicants from a particular high school and the school doesn't rank, they have no way of knowing what their 4.3 means in relation to other students at that class. I like ranking because it eliminates grade inflation and deflation

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this one of those threads where a bunch of people with no industry experience Monday Morning Quarterback and claim they know better than the colleges who have been doing this forever and their staffs who have been doing it professionally?

Cool, I am in. I say make bowling average 35% of the admissions criteria. And yes, my kid bowls his ass off but that is just coincidence.

Are you a college insider? Because I would love for you to explain this insane process to me as someone whose kid will go through it in a few years.

It's really not all that mysterious. It is not anything remotely like choosing a life partner or a "forever" house. If that is a common perception, no wonder this process is so fraught.

What it's most like is applying for a job. You put all your info on a resume and send it in. If you have contacts (hooks), you work them. If you don't, you cross your fingers and hope, but also make sure you've sent applications to jobs that maybe are less desirable to you (for whatever reason) so you can have some way to put food on the table.

HR looks over the resumes. Lots of resumes just don't grab them, they end up in the trash can. Some applicants just appear to be not good fits for the organization. Sometimes the organization is in dire need of researchers but doesn't need any accountants right now. There's no way to predict that, it's just how it goes. Sometimes the person reviewing resumes recognizes your home town or where your father went to college, or she also raised llamas as a kid, or maybe she always wanted to and it's so cool that you do it, and so you end up in the good pile. Sometimes the reviewer is in a certain mood and thinks, "let's give this person a chance." Sometimes your reviewer looks at your mother's occupation and thinks, good god, don't we have enough kids of investment bankers here? Sometimes the organization is seeking to increase diversity in their staff and will weed through resumes looking for those attributes. Whatever. It's not rocket science and it's not entirely predictable, certainly not at the individual level. But in aggregate, of course, it is pretty damn predictable. Over the course of time it becomes clear that the organization tends to hire people with X, Y, Z attributes, so if you have those things going for you, your chances improve. But it's no guarantee of course.

Then when you get your offers, you compare them and decide. Most people don't get their dream job, but another job will be just fine and will pay the bills.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Standardized the applications. Whether that's by the Common Application or something else, I don't know. But just managing all the different ways schools ask the same question adds to the time needed to manage all this.

2. Streamling the deadlines and ways to apply. Maybe just have rolling for the less selective schools, one form of early, and then regular. This ED1 and ED2 and priority this, etc. make the application period longer than it needs to be.

3. Limit the activity space (something already mentioned this and I think MIT does it). Have people list their top three activities. Let them write a couple sentences about each. It'll stop the people who think the longest resume wins.

4. Make high schools calculate GPA the same way so kids know where they stand and so the average admitted GPA statistic is reliable.

5. Love the one essay idea mentioned above. I don't think it needs to be academic, but I don't think any college should be allowed to ask "why us" because it forces a kid to write a special essay just for that school. I like how the Common Application has one essay with 4-5 choices on it.




Those ask for an end to test optional know that just because you send something doesn't mean admissions has to use it, right?

Regardless of what you think about the SAT, test optional is admissions' way of telling you that they don't find test scores valuable in their processes.

I'd go even further and replace GPA with class rank. Schools could determine it however they want, and colleges wouldn't be forced to compare a 3.9 on a 4 scale to a 4.3 on a weighted 5 scale to a 4.5, but with different weights... Instead, a kidding the 85% percentile at school A would be compared to a kid in the 92nd at school B

From my understanding, the colleges actually recalculate the GPAs to standardize it and compare apples to apples. They don’t directly compare different weighting schemes. I remember asking our school counselor about a weighted GPA (our school reported only unweighted on a 100 scale), and she said not to bother because different colleges recalculate it differently anyway. Some go as far as dropping the whole freshman year off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love these suggestions. I would remove questions pertaining to parents - like where they went to school, occupation etc. Make it all about the applicant and less about reading tea leaves.

I would never endorse this. I fully support schools' attempts to pull in first gen college students.

Not just first gen, you need some context. I wish, however, that more direct questions were asked, such as the amount of test prep, # of times the SAT were taken, all scores, all paid and unpaid assistance with applications.

Anonymous wrote:1. Standardized the applications. Whether that's by the Common Application or something else, I don't know. But just managing all the different ways schools ask the same question adds to the time needed to manage all this.

2. Streamling the deadlines and ways to apply. Maybe just have rolling for the less selective schools, one form of early, and then regular. This ED1 and ED2 and priority this, etc. make the application period longer than it needs to be.

3. Limit the activity space (something already mentioned this and I think MIT does it). Have people list their top three activities. Let them write a couple sentences about each. It'll stop the people who think the longest resume wins.

4. Make high schools calculate GPA the same way so kids know where they stand and so the average admitted GPA statistic is reliable.

5. Love the one essay idea mentioned above. I don't think it needs to be academic, but I don't think any college should be allowed to ask "why us" because it forces a kid to write a special essay just for that school. I like how the Common Application has one essay with 4-5 choices on it.




Those ask for an end to test optional know that just because you send something doesn't mean admissions has to use it, right?

Regardless of what you think about the SAT, test optional is admissions' way of telling you that they don't find test scores valuable in their processes.

I'd go even further and replace GPA with class rank. Schools could determine it however they want, and colleges wouldn't be forced to compare a 3.9 on a 4 scale to a 4.3 on a weighted 5 scale to a 4.5, but with different weights... Instead, a kidding the 85% percentile at school A would be compared to a kid in the 92nd at school B