^^I certainly agree that the treatment of basketball and football players by many D1 programs is shameful, and I think the NCAA is outrageously corrupt for many of its practices. I also agree that an athlete is not going to get much out of the academic side of college if they are incapable of doing the work. But I don't at all think that's true of most recruits in most sports at most top colleges and universities. Also? Half of every school population is going to be in the bottom 50% of the class. Not sure why that should be a deterrent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big elephant in the room: how in the world is this fair?

Why should someone who can play sports or has a parent attending the college get up to a 15x boost to acceptance rate (PRINCETON) AND lower GPA?

I see all the attacks on URM and this is very much the same phenomenon, if not more drastic.

Sickening that so many well-qualified students- who demonstrate ability in more meaningful ways- are getting cut out from great schools over these mediocre ones.

This is ridiculous. Have you not learned that the world isn't fair?? Please - look around at the world as a whole and tell me where you see 'fairness'.
What is fair about being born in say, an Indian slum. How about a Rohingya in Burma? An inner city Washington DC kid - what kind of public school education is that kid getting? Is any of that fair?

Anyway. Even if everything was 'fair' your kid still wouldn't be getting in because there are just too many of your kind of kid to go around. Your kid is not special and neither is mine - get over it. Your kid will get a good education somewhere . There are a lot of things that are 'sickening' but this is not one of them.

I say this as the parent of a kid with high test scores and grades who is applying to college this year - get over yourself.

You sound like an awful person with a severe case of a holier-than-thou attitude. Why don't you get over yourself instead of thinking that patterns like this are excusable?

I guess it's just a matter of perspective, but to me, the PP seems like a thoughtful, caring and sensible person, while you seem ill-informed and entitled. What makes you think your kid deserves a spot at a top school? Just because they have high stats? As PP has said, so do tens of thousands of other kids, many of whom are going to look pretty interchangeable to admissions officers, and almost all of whom will end up with acceptances at very good schools. Also, you've clearly never been around kids who play a sport at a high level, and have no idea about the sacrifices involved.

Not the PP but I had a kid who made all the sacrifices to play a sport at a high level so I understand. Where we differ though is I'm just happy he chose to do so because he loved it. For me it would have been a real concern for him to attend a school as part of the bottom 1/3 - 1/2 because the sport got him in. And then even struggling more due to the college athletic time requirements. College is a time to stretch your wings and grow academically. Find out all the other things you may be interested in. The athlete who gets the boost and have the same high stats as his peers has a shot at success. The number of kids that have to drop out of college sports or transfer is the ugly story of feeling a failure. I think these kids especially in the helmet sports get used and why that is celebrated is nothing I ever will understand.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who thinks playing some sport or having a parental legacy justifies a 15 times greater acceptance rate to Princeton over someone who does other similarly demanding extracurricular activities/has better grades/etc. is plain delusional in my honest experience. I cannot believe that there are some students getting in with a 3.2 GPA or lower at some of these Ivies according to the table on post 2.

This isn't a personal matter. You're the one who chose to make it one. Maybe instead of focusing on "your kid vs. my kid" why not think big picture?

I have no qualms in a holistic process in which special talents are given a boost. However, if your special talent is not only giving you a huge boost but is also letting you get in with a mediocre GPA (at HWS, not having a 4.3+ means being outside of the top 20% by GPA), that's troubling.

Actually this is quite common in the prep schools and it happens at HYPS and all the top 20 schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lac’s are egregious. Shame

Columbia pretty decent for ivy - the antithesis of princeton

Princeton hooked admits have considerably higher GPA's than Columbia hooked admits...shame on Columbia?

Princeton’s unhooked applicants also have considerably higher GPA’s than Columbia’s unhooked applicants. From which I conclude that Columbia places less weight on GPA than Princeton, maybe more weight on SATs or ECs or essays, who knows. YMMV.

Anyone who thinks playing some sport or having a parental legacy justifies a 15 times greater acceptance rate to Princeton over someone who does other similarly demanding extracurricular activities/has better grades/etc. is plain delusional in my honest experience. I cannot believe that there are some students getting in with a 3.2 GPA or lower at some of these Ivies according to the table on post 2.

This isn't a personal matter. You're the one who chose to make it one. Maybe instead of focusing on "your kid vs. my kid" why not think big picture?

I have no qualms in a holistic process in which special talents are given a boost. However, if your special talent is not only giving you a huge boost but is also letting you get in with a mediocre GPA (at HWS, not having a 4.3+ means being outside of the top 20% by GPA), that's troubling.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big elephant in the room: how in the world is this fair?

Why should someone who can play sports or has a parent attending the college get up to a 15x boost to acceptance rate (PRINCETON) AND lower GPA?

I see all the attacks on URM and this is very much the same phenomenon, if not more drastic.

Sickening that so many well-qualified students- who demonstrate ability in more meaningful ways- are getting cut out from great schools over these mediocre ones.

This is ridiculous. Have you not learned that the world isn't fair?? Please - look around at the world as a whole and tell me where you see 'fairness'.
What is fair about being born in say, an Indian slum. How about a Rohingya in Burma? An inner city Washington DC kid - what kind of public school education is that kid getting? Is any of that fair?

Anyway. Even if everything was 'fair' your kid still wouldn't be getting in because there are just too many of your kind of kid to go around. Your kid is not special and neither is mine - get over it. Your kid will get a good education somewhere . There are a lot of things that are 'sickening' but this is not one of them.

I say this as the parent of a kid with high test scores and grades who is applying to college this year - get over yourself.

You sound like an awful person with a severe case of a holier-than-thou attitude. Why don't you get over yourself instead of thinking that patterns like this are excusable?

I guess it's just a matter of perspective, but to me, the PP seems like a thoughtful, caring and sensible person, while you seem ill-informed and entitled. What makes you think your kid deserves a spot at a top school? Just because they have high stats? As PP has said, so do tens of thousands of other kids, many of whom are going to look pretty interchangeable to admissions officers, and almost all of whom will end up with acceptances at very good schools. Also, you've clearly never been around kids who play a sport at a high level, and have no idea about the sacrifices involved.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big elephant in the room: how in the world is this fair?

Why should someone who can play sports or has a parent attending the college get up to a 15x boost to acceptance rate (PRINCETON) AND lower GPA?

I see all the attacks on URM and this is very much the same phenomenon, if not more drastic.

Sickening that so many well-qualified students- who demonstrate ability in more meaningful ways- are getting cut out from great schools over these mediocre ones.

This is ridiculous. Have you not learned that the world isn't fair?? Please - look around at the world as a whole and tell me where you see 'fairness'.
What is fair about being born in say, an Indian slum. How about a Rohingya in Burma? An inner city Washington DC kid - what kind of public school education is that kid getting? Is any of that fair?

Anyway. Even if everything was 'fair' your kid still wouldn't be getting in because there are just too many of your kind of kid to go around. Your kid is not special and neither is mine - get over it. Your kid will get a good education somewhere . There are a lot of things that are 'sickening' but this is not one of them.

I say this as the parent of a kid with high test scores and grades who is applying to college this year - get over yourself.

You sound like an awful person with a severe case of a holier-than-thou attitude. Why don't you get over yourself instead of thinking that patterns like this are excusable?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big elephant in the room: how in the world is this fair?

Why should someone who can play sports or has a parent attending the college get up to a 15x boost to acceptance rate (PRINCETON) AND lower GPA?

I see all the attacks on URM and this is very much the same phenomenon, if not more drastic.

Sickening that so many well-qualified students- who demonstrate ability in more meaningful ways- are getting cut out from great schools over these mediocre ones.

This is ridiculous. Have you not learned that the world isn't fair?? Please - look around at the world as a whole and tell me where you see 'fairness'.
What is fair about being born in say, an Indian slum. How about a Rohingya in Burma? An inner city Washington DC kid - what kind of public school education is that kid getting? Is any of that fair?

Anyway. Even if everything was 'fair' your kid still wouldn't be getting in because there are just too many of your kind of kid to go around. Your kid is not special and neither is mine - get over it. Your kid will get a good education somewhere . There are a lot of things that are 'sickening' but this is not one of them.

I say this as the parent of a kid with high test scores and grades who is applying to college this year - get over yourself.

You sound like an awful person with a severe case of a holier-than-thou attitude. Why don't you get over yourself instead of thinking that patterns like this are excusable?

I calculated some numbers for some other top schools. First number = Distinction acceptance rate, second = ND acceptance rate

Barnard: 44% vs 43%
Caltech: 50% vs 44%
Carnegie Mellon: 78% vs 42%
Claremont McKenna: 80% vs 10% (!!!!)
Kenyon: 60% vs 43%
Middlebury: 33% vs 13%
Notre Dame: 56% vs 42%
Pomona: 40% vs 17%
UVA: 36% vs 44%
UMich: 56% vs 66%
Vassar: 50% vs 41%
Wesleyan: 33% vs 23%

The pattern seems to be that the lower the acceptance rate, the bigger the gap. And that flagship public schools don't seem to care.

Anonymous wrote:The big elephant in the room: how in the world is this fair?

Why should someone who can play sports or has a parent attending the college get up to a 15x boost to acceptance rate (PRINCETON) AND lower GPA?

I see all the attacks on URM and this is very much the same phenomenon, if not more drastic.

Sickening that so many well-qualified students- who demonstrate ability in more meaningful ways- are getting cut out from great schools over these mediocre ones.

This is ridiculous. Have you not learned that the world isn't fair?? Please - look around at the world as a whole and tell me where you see 'fairness'.
What is fair about being born in say, an Indian slum. How about a Rohingya in Burma? An inner city Washington DC kid - what kind of public school education is that kid getting? Is any of that fair?

Anyway. Even if everything was 'fair' your kid still wouldn't be getting in because there are just too many of your kind of kid to go around. Your kid is not special and neither is mine - get over it. Your kid will get a good education somewhere . There are a lot of things that are 'sickening' but this is not one of them.

I say this as the parent of a kid with high test scores and grades who is applying to college this year - get over yourself.

Anonymous wrote:Curious about the cutoff SAT scores for athletes. I know some have been told they had a score cut off, even though no one speaks it.

Athletes don't often have the time to study. I don't envy them - they're basically Christians thrown into the ring with the lions for our savage enjoyment.
I was happy when my DD stopped playing travel soccer as she had escaped getting a concussion whereas some of her teammates had had 5. Five concussions , and other injuries sustained by athletes, can translate into lifelong disability.
Also, the athletes are required to train and travel so much during the sports season they cannot possibly take a serious course load. Then they have to train in the off seadon too.

I'm also all for the legacies with money contributing to the school being admitted because I don't have any money to give them and someone's got to pay for it. I'm quite thankful for those people actually.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay. Again, on Table 1 of the figure, it shows black students have a ~65% acceptance rate, whereas Asian and white students have a ~36% acceptance rate and overall everyone has a ~39% acceptance rate.

The source for 2016 shows that the gap is far less now than it was in 2004. It stands logically that even if one were to perform a regression of black and non-black applicants with the same scores, you would not see a 106 to 1 difference.

I have no dog in this fight, but sorry it does not logically follow.

People keep quoting the researcher from Princeton who found that URMs get a +250 point SAT bump. The data from this research is not actually from 2004 - that was when his research was published. It takes years to get published and accepted in a journal. The data is from 1983, 1993 and 1997.

People keep quoting this as if it is current fact but I don't believe the same analysis has not been run on a more recent group of kids. Here is a copy of the actual paper:

http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf

Also want to point out that the research found that underrepresented minority student status made almost no difference to admission chances at the less selective four-year institutions attended by 80 percent of students.

Thinking I'll make this note a separate thread so people can be cautious when they think they are quoting it. Might be a good idea for folks to actually read the paper themselves to get actual facts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:290 grads, only 20 National Merit Semifinalists.

http://hwchronicle.com/seniors-qualify-as-national-merit-semifinalists/

My take is that this is an example of how little NMS matters. Many kids do significantly better on the SAT.

only 20? that's pretty good, no? I thought less than .5% of students nationally got NMS so if nearly 12x as many are getting that at HWS from a competitive state, that's pretty impressive.

On a side note, I'm shocked that nearly 4x as many apply to UMich over UVA.

1/3 of TJ kids are NMSF.

TJ had 145 this year.

NMSF is meaningless as the cutoff is not the same for every state

California, Virginia, and Maryland had the exact same cutoff score this year. Only one state (NJ) had a higher cutoff.

Anonymous wrote:Okay. Again, on Table 1 of the figure, it shows black students have a ~65% acceptance rate, whereas Asian and white students have a ~36% acceptance rate and overall everyone has a ~39% acceptance rate.

The source for 2016 shows that the gap is far less now than it was in 2004. It stands logically that even if one were to perform a regression of black and non-black applicants with the same scores, you would not see a 106 to 1 difference.

I have no dog in this fight, but sorry it does not logically follow.

Anonymous wrote:Okay. Again, on Table 1 of the figure, it shows black students have a ~65% acceptance rate, whereas Asian and white students have a ~36% acceptance rate and overall everyone has a ~39% acceptance rate.

The source for 2016 shows that the gap is far less now than it was in 2004. It stands logically that even if one were to perform a regression of black and non-black applicants with the same scores, you would not see a 106 to 1 difference.

Without seeing SAT and GPA scores it's impossible to say.