Look, if we want equality in educational opportunity, we need to get rid of private universities. Make all of them public. Kids choose a university based on geography and subject matter they wish to study. Get rid of elite universities. There are fantastic colleges that don't get enough applications, and others that get 20 times more applicants than they have places for. This is a lopsided, idiotic situation.
Read Excellent Sheep for an explanation of how elite universities evolved in this country.
Fortunately, the situation is changing, slowly. The best students are being lured to state universities and second tier colleges by finances.
And, let's face it, does it make sense to crowd the best and the brightest into a few very top universities? All those top students in a few colleges who are trying to get A's must feel like they're constantly competing with little hope of coming out on top because everyone was "on top" in high school. Why not spread the wealth among a large number of excellent colleges and universities, and end this insane competition for a few elite colleges?
So, yeah, get rid of the essay. It's stupid. Usually written by a coach. My friend hired a coach for her kids, one of whom got into Yale. She's a great person (lives in NYC), but she did what all parents in her area do. Another friend (also in NYC) is a coach. He went to Harvard and Columbia and is a writer. Most of the kids he coaches get into Ivies, Williams, Amherst, etc. He charges a lot for his services, and only the upper middle class parents can afford it.
How is that fair to the middle classes and lower income kids who want a level playing field for entrance to these universities?
They need to go back to in person interviews, at the very least. Most schools have gotten rid of them because they're so time consuming. Nowadays you can do them on Zoom, which is cheap and readily available.
This maniacal race for college admissions has got to change. It's become completely unmanageable, unhinged.
It's so much worse than it was a decade ago when my oldest child started the process. My youngest is caught up in the mayhem, and it's not healthy at all.

Anonymous wrote:Generally speaking, of course a timed witnessed exam is more indicative of the student's abilities (even if coached) than an untimed, unwitnessed essay.

Overall, we are rapidly moving towards an admission process where the student's 23andme score vastly outranks their SAT score.

That model is self-limiting because it's not globally competitive. USA will lose industries, jobs, contracts etc - or perhaps meritocratic universities will emerge, Google University of the World, competing with the existing system for placement of graduates and dominance of the higher end job market.

But also, as the country is losing its global supremacy, it's very stability will be questionable.

I agree. The issue will resolve itself at some point or other just because of capitalism. However the problem is for our kids, who are teens, and caught in that little window of madness where they will be the guinea pigs used to prove that the "equity" model does not work.

Anonymous wrote:

Here's how you go about it..

Dedicate a certain % of seats for Poor/URMs (with a nicer nomenclature of course). Let's say that's 10% (could be 5, 15 or even 20). 5% of that (flexible) is assigned to what I called "true" URMs, those systematically disadvantaged over a long period of time. IMHO, that's Native Americans and Blacks who were brought here as slaves. We could arbitrarily set the bloodline requirement to 50% and over time change that to 100% for Native American heritage. For Blacks, it would be the ability to trace their ancestry to slaves on BOTH sides of the family. This would be regardless of their financial status.

If the bloodline % is lower, say they married a White, they will not quality but if they became poor or continue to remain poor, they would be covered by the other 5% of the 10% quota. Something along those lines. The purpose of this is to eventually emancipate everyone so these set-asides disappear for everyone other than people who are poor.

This will exclude Hispanics (from Spain or from Latin America), African Americans who just showed up yesterday, etc. If they are poor, of course they would be covered by the other 5%. This way, we don't have to worry about pleasing every URM as well as prevent colleges from coming up with their own version of URM benevolence.

Do you even hear yourself?

As the descendant of a historian/genealogist, who spent decades of his life putting together a history of our family (the more recent one thousand years thereof), have you the slightest inkling of the work involved in identifying "bloodlines"? Of the incredible breach of privacy that it represents if it's a requirement for admission? Of the many surprises that would await people in their genealogy, if you have to use DNA, because, well, humans are prone to temptation?

The whole thing is not only logistically impossible, but it's morally dubious.

Anonymous wrote:And what do admissions officers do then they « sniff » an essay they think was written with the help of a paid consultant?

They used to be able to compare it to the SAT or ACT essay...but that’s a thing of the past now too

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:* Get rid of the essays. They can and are being gamed.
* Tests - Provide everyone the opportunity to prep online. My kid used Khan Academy and one other online course (Prepexpert). Khan Academy is free. Prepexpert cost about $600. Pay poor kids to take these courses.
* ECs - Make a list of "real" ECs - Jobs, community service, ECs related to your major IN SCHOOL, etc. I'm sure others can come up with an equitable list.
* Assign a certain percentage of seats to poor people and "true" URMs (Native Americans and Blacks with slave ancestry on both sides of the family). Others should be covered by the "poor" category.

Can colleges be forced to do play?
- State schools can, by Government mandate.
- The so-called Private schools will play along if you threaten to remove their tax subsidy (i.e. make them pay tax on their income).

Wow. Re: the bold, you'd say that kids who want to go to college would have to ignore doing any ECs they actually enjoy, or which fulfill them personally, because they'd have to spend that time on "jobs, community service, ECs related to your [college] major [in high school]." I guess you can counter that kids can do whatever they want but shouldn't put anything on college applications except the three categories you list.

1. There are not necessarily "ECs related to" a kid's desired college major available at the kid's high school or elsewhere; and many high schoolers don't yet know what they plan to choose as a major so how would they rack up those college-major-related ECs in high school?
2. Community service is already a high school requirement in many school systems.
3. Jobs? Are you one of the adults who believes there are endless jobs out there for high school kids? Do you have any idea how much time advanced HS courses can take up even on weekends? Sure, there are kids who work jobs and also take the hardest HS courses and succeed. But it's not a given that having a job is doable, or desirable in EVERY case. It certainly shouldn't affect a kid's college admission if he or she couldn't work a job for pay while in HS. Some kids live in areas where there aren't jobs for the asking. Maybe you're unaware of that....

Those were just suggestions. See the sentence that follows " I'm sure others can come up with an equitable list. ".

It's difficult to come up with criteria where SES would not give an advantage to some extent. For example, my kids have loads of community service, but most of it depended upon our ability to transport them these opportunities.

I hear you. The URM category is tough to monitor. It's tricky though. My mom is Mexican-American. Thanks to 23andMe, we know that she is about 60% Native American as well as 7% African. She is very brown. Does she qualify? I'm her daughter. I'm probably about 30% Native American. I could look Italian. Do I qualify? My DD is about 15% Native American. She is very white. Does she qualify? My guess is that my mom counts as a minority for sure, but maybe not me and my daughter? I have a friend. He is a very light-skinned Black man, but looks identifiably Black. Does he qualify? What do we do with someone who has a slave ancestor but also predominantly white ancestry? Does this person qualify? I have another friend who is a Mayflower descendant with a trust fund. He adopted Ethiopian kids. Do they qualify? It's tricky. I do agree that giving URM preference to descendants of wealthy Latin Americans is probably not in the spirit of affirmative action.

Here's how you go about it..

Dedicate a certain % of seats for Poor/URMs (with a nicer nomenclature of course). Let's say that's 10% (could be 5, 15 or even 20). 5% of that (flexible) is assigned to what I called "true" URMs, those systematically disadvantaged over a long period of time. IMHO, that's Native Americans and Blacks who were brought here as slaves. We could arbitrarily set the bloodline requirement to 50% and over time change that to 100% for Native American heritage. For Blacks, it would be the ability to trace their ancestry to slaves on BOTH sides of the family. This would be regardless of their financial status.

If the bloodline % is lower, say they married a White, they will not quality but if they became poor or continue to remain poor, they would be covered by the other 5% of the 10% quota. Something along those lines. The purpose of this is to eventually emancipate everyone so these set-asides disappear for everyone other than people who are poor.

This will exclude Hispanics (from Spain or from Latin America), African Americans who just showed up yesterday, etc. If they are poor, of course they would be covered by the other 5%. This way, we don't have to worry about pleasing every URM as well as prevent colleges from coming up with their own version of URM benevolence.

Generally speaking, of course a timed witnessed exam is more indicative of the student's abilities (even if coached) than an untimed, unwitnessed essay.

Overall, we are rapidly moving towards an admission process where the student's 23andme score vastly outranks their SAT score.

That model is self-limiting because it's not globally competitive. USA will lose industries, jobs, contracts etc - or perhaps meritocratic universities will emerge, Google University of the World, competing with the existing system for placement of graduates and dominance of the higher end job market.

But also, as the country is losing its global supremacy, it's very stability will be questionable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eventually there will be heavy push back from things like this.

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2021/06/01/do-college-application-essays-favor-wealthier-students

Makes sense to me.

Of course we can just go to lottery admissions in the future. But if you study history, it's the attack on education that will eventually crumble a society.

TJ is already at lottery. But hey— merit lottery!!! (No one is clear on what that is).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who were the “others,” btw?

Consultant and parent (me). I honestly think that the consultant gave a little too much help, but I wasn't going to tell DC to disregard. The final essay did really reveal the essence of who my DC is; it was just written better than DC would have written on their own. Like someone said, though, admissions consultants are supposed to be experts at knowing a teen's true voice. Yes, I can live with myself and my decisions. As long as other families are able to hire college consultants, there is no reason why my DC couldn't have one. I would have preferred to have DC in a high school with a strong English program, but that would have been much more expensive than hiring a college consultant for 6 hours (this covered a family meeting to review and refine the college list as well as editorial comments for the main essay and some, but not all supplementals).

Of course, a good essay does not stand in isolation. Grades and SAT score were high. I'm fairly certain that my kid had glowing recommendations and they interviewed well. (I wasn't in the room for interviews, but DC seemed to enjoy them and felt confident about them.) Some people just need a little help with their writing. In an ideal world, the writing process is taught well from 3rd grade on.

To be fair, even in that ideal world, some people would be better writers than others simply because that is where their talents lie. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. That is just a fact of life.

IQ, achievement, and almost anything else constructive in life is correlated with wealth. Is this a surprise to anyone? What’s the point of wealth if it’s not to support a better life? Generally, poor people are less ready for every aspect of life - relationships, careers, education, finances. Is a college supposed to remediate all that in four years?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eventually there will be heavy push back from things like this.

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2021/06/01/do-college-application-essays-favor-wealthier-students

The problem here is regarding wealth purely as an input/cause rather than also as an output/result. The fact is, wealth is strongly correlated with the capability of the earner, and these earners in turn provide resources to help their offspring excel academically. The capability of the parent is the input/cause, and wealth is the outcome of that capability. All else being equal, a kid who has had access to these resources is better prepared than one who does not. If we say that it's unfair for kids to have received additional preparation, then by that same logic, it's also unfair that kids go to college at all - because some don't. Why should those who went to college earn a better salary since college attendance is strongly correlated with family wealth. Ironically, here's an article on exactly this topic from the same source:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/23/feds-release-broader-data-socioeconomic-status-and-college-enrollment-and-completion

So, what's the end game here?

Thanks Rand Paul ...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who were the “others,” btw?

Consultant and parent (me). I honestly think that the consultant gave a little too much help, but I wasn't going to tell DC to disregard. The final essay did really reveal the essence of who my DC is; it was just written better than DC would have written on their own. Like someone said, though, admissions consultants are supposed to be experts at knowing a teen's true voice. Yes, I can live with myself and my decisions. As long as other families are able to hire college consultants, there is no reason why my DC couldn't have one. I would have preferred to have DC in a high school with a strong English program, but that would have been much more expensive than hiring a college consultant for 6 hours (this covered a family meeting to review and refine the college list as well as editorial comments for the main essay and some, but not all supplementals).

Of course, a good essay does not stand in isolation. Grades and SAT score were high. I'm fairly certain that my kid had glowing recommendations and they interviewed well. (I wasn't in the room for interviews, but DC seemed to enjoy them and felt confident about them.) Some people just need a little help with their writing. In an ideal world, the writing process is taught well from 3rd grade on.

Anonymous wrote:Who were the “others,” btw?

Consultant and parent (me). I honestly think that the consultant gave a little too much help, but I wasn't going to tell DC to disregard. The final essay did really reveal the essence of who my DC is; it was just written better than DC would have written on their own. Like someone said, though, admissions consultants are supposed to be experts at knowing a teen's true voice. Yes, I can live with myself and my decisions. As long as other families are able to hire college consultants, there is no reason why my DC couldn't have one. I would have preferred to have DC in a high school with a strong English program, but that would have been much more expensive than hiring a college consultant for 6 hours (this covered a family meeting to review and refine the college list as well as editorial comments for the main essay and some, but not all supplementals).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:* Get rid of the essays. They can and are being gamed.
* Tests - Provide everyone the opportunity to prep online. My kid used Khan Academy and one other online course (Prepexpert). Khan Academy is free. Prepexpert cost about $600. Pay poor kids to take these courses.
* ECs - Make a list of "real" ECs - Jobs, community service, ECs related to your major IN SCHOOL, etc. I'm sure others can come up with an equitable list.
* Assign a certain percentage of seats to poor people and "true" URMs (Native Americans and Blacks with slave ancestry on both sides of the family). Others should be covered by the "poor" category.

Can colleges be forced to do play?
- State schools can, by Government mandate.
- The so-called Private schools will play along if you threaten to remove their tax subsidy (i.e. make them pay tax on their income).

Wow. Re: the bold, you'd say that kids who want to go to college would have to ignore doing any ECs they actually enjoy, or which fulfill them personally, because they'd have to spend that time on "jobs, community service, ECs related to your [college] major [in high school]." I guess you can counter that kids can do whatever they want but shouldn't put anything on college applications except the three categories you list.

1. There are not necessarily "ECs related to" a kid's desired college major available at the kid's high school or elsewhere; and many high schoolers don't yet know what they plan to choose as a major so how would they rack up those college-major-related ECs in high school?
2. Community service is already a high school requirement in many school systems.
3. Jobs? Are you one of the adults who believes there are endless jobs out there for high school kids? Do you have any idea how much time advanced HS courses can take up even on weekends? Sure, there are kids who work jobs and also take the hardest HS courses and succeed. But it's not a given that having a job is doable, or desirable in EVERY case. It certainly shouldn't affect a kid's college admission if he or she couldn't work a job for pay while in HS. Some kids live in areas where there aren't jobs for the asking. Maybe you're unaware of that....

Those were just suggestions. See the sentence that follows " I'm sure others can come up with an equitable list. ".

It's difficult to come up with criteria where SES would not give an advantage to some extent. For example, my kids have loads of community service, but most of it depended upon our ability to transport them these opportunities.

I hear you. The URM category is tough to monitor. It's tricky though. My mom is Mexican-American. Thanks to 23andMe, we know that she is about 60% Native American as well as 7% African. She is very brown. Does she qualify? I'm her daughter. I'm probably about 30% Native American. I could look Italian. Do I qualify? My DD is about 15% Native American. She is very white. Does she qualify? My guess is that my mom counts as a minority for sure, but maybe not me and my daughter? I have a friend. He is a very light-skinned Black man, but looks identifiably Black. Does he qualify? What do we do with someone who has a slave ancestor but also predominantly white ancestry? Does this person qualify? I have another friend who is a Mayflower descendant with a trust fund. He adopted Ethiopian kids. Do they qualify? It's tricky. I do agree that giving URM preference to descendants of wealthy Latin Americans is probably not in the spirit of affirmative action.

Who were the “others,” btw?

Anonymous wrote:Let's be realistic. The essay is just one small factor in the whole process. I agree that admissions folks know whether a kid's essay is authentic. I think they should be considered as one small piece of the puzzle, along with grades, test scores, ECs, and recommendations.

Honestly, i don't know if they really know if the voice is authentic. True confession: my kid got extensive help with their essay. It still sounded like it came from a high schooler and it really paid off. Of course, my kid wrote most of it, but some structural suggestions and one clever metaphor came from others. I don't feel bad about this.