Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First comes grades and then holistic admissions

That's how it works. The more selective the school, the more kids that have the basics (grades, rigor and SATs) so those schools use other soft factors to differentiate - ECs, recommendations, fuzzy/opaque criteria - and can get away with it given their 'pedigree'.

Most of DCUM prattles on about ECs, LOCs and Test Optional but for the vast majority of colleges grades, rigor and SAT matter way, way more than the noise levels here would indicate.

What do you mean by “get away with it”, as if it’s something sinister? Many of these schools get many more 4.0/1500+ applicants than they have seats. How would you have them differentiate? I’d personally favor a lottery and get rid of this pressure to curate kids’ lives from pre-K on, but that’s never happening.

Also the schools do recognize that once you hit 1500 or so it doesn't matter. So clear the threshold and then they simply toss the stats away and look at everything else--course rigor, recommendations, essays, etc. So no, your 1600 kid is not "any better than a 1500 kid". And the schools have way more of those kids than the can accept.

Nobody has ever answered the question of why there’s a threshold beyond which all test scores are viewed the same (e.g., 1600 is no better than 1500), yet out of the other side of their mouth they defend no such thresholds for GPAs.

Why isn’t an u/w 3.9 or u/w 3.8 or even an u/w 3.7 viewed the same as an u/w 4.0?

It is! Plenty of colleges have GPA thresholds. You can often see them in your high school’s naviance data.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First comes grades and then holistic admissions

That's how it works. The more selective the school, the more kids that have the basics (grades, rigor and SATs) so those schools use other soft factors to differentiate - ECs, recommendations, fuzzy/opaque criteria - and can get away with it given their 'pedigree'.

Most of DCUM prattles on about ECs, LOCs and Test Optional but for the vast majority of colleges grades, rigor and SAT matter way, way more than the noise levels here would indicate.

What do you mean by “get away with it”, as if it’s something sinister? Many of these schools get many more 4.0/1500+ applicants than they have seats. How would you have them differentiate? I’d personally favor a lottery and get rid of this pressure to curate kids’ lives from pre-K on, but that’s never happening.

Also the schools do recognize that once you hit 1500 or so it doesn't matter. So clear the threshold and then they simply toss the stats away and look at everything else--course rigor, recommendations, essays, etc. So no, your 1600 kid is not "any better than a 1500 kid". And the schools have way more of those kids than the can accept.

Nobody has ever answered the question of why there’s a threshold beyond which all test scores are viewed the same (e.g., 1600 is no better than 1500), yet out of the other side of their mouth they defend no such thresholds for GPAs.

Why isn’t an u/w 3.9 or u/w 3.8 or even an u/w 3.7 viewed the same as an u/w 4.0?

From what we’re seeing, it’s grades, not rigor that matters. Take the classes for dumb kids and get a 4.0 and you have a better chance than taking very rigorous courses with a few Bs. No wonder why professors are complaining about lack of preparedness and inability to write.

Anonymous wrote:People tend to forget that luck also plays a factor.

No. Luck is a roll of the dice. Here, a person makes the decision. To err is human.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First comes grades and then holistic admissions

Read a newspaper or look through the internet. Race is increasingly all that matters.

Thanks DT for your insights!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree it's dog crap. Schools use it to social-engineer the class makeup they want, the most egregious example being Harvard's longstanding practice, as revealed in the lawsuit against them, of reducing the number of Asian admits by scoring them low on esoteric "likeability" metrics.

The biggest case of this was admitting David Hogg after he took a gap year. Before the shooting (a tragedy and I am not denying that), he got rejected from like UCSD. 1210 or something SAT. Took a gap year; got into Harvard. Sad to exploit tragedy. Probably met a professor or something that pulled strings.

Wonder where the kid that sued the newspaper over the MAGA Hat from the Catholic School will go?

He got rejected from UCF, too. The media made a big deal about his 4.2 high school GPA, but anyone familiar with Florida public high school grade inflation knows that's like a B-minus average at best. The top students in Florida have GPAs in the 5's. Just scroll through Hogg's Twitter/X feed. He can barely put together a grammatically correct sentence, even after four years at Harvard.

The MAGA hat Catholic kid, Nick Sandmann, went to Transylvania in Kentucky. A decent LAC, but unselective and a far cry from an Ivy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree it's dog crap. Schools use it to social-engineer the class makeup they want, the most egregious example being Harvard's longstanding practice, as revealed in the lawsuit against them, of reducing the number of Asian admits by scoring them low on esoteric "likeability" metrics.

The biggest case of this was admitting David Hogg after he took a gap year. Before the shooting (a tragedy and I am not denying that), he got rejected from like UCSD. 1210 or something SAT. Took a gap year; got into Harvard. Sad to exploit tragedy. Probably met a professor or something that pulled strings.

Wonder where the kid that sued the newspaper over the MAGA Hat from the Catholic School will go?

David Hogg is EXACTLY the type of kids most T25 schools are searching for. Someone that is a leader and will do something with their life. He took a year off/gap year and became a prominent gun control activist during that time. Harvard and the like are looking for kids who will be future leaders, who are motivated to DO something, not just follow others.

He was not "exploiting a tragedy". He will be a lifelong gun activist and work to make the world a safer place. Much better than kids who "start a charity for 1-2 years" that really didn't do anything and it dies as soon as they get into a college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First comes grades and then holistic admissions

That's how it works. The more selective the school, the more kids that have the basics (grades, rigor and SATs) so those schools use other soft factors to differentiate - ECs, recommendations, fuzzy/opaque criteria - and can get away with it given their 'pedigree'.

Most of DCUM prattles on about ECs, LOCs and Test Optional but for the vast majority of colleges grades, rigor and SAT matter way, way more than the noise levels here would indicate.

What do you mean by “get away with it”, as if it’s something sinister? Many of these schools get many more 4.0/1500+ applicants than they have seats. How would you have them differentiate? I’d personally favor a lottery and get rid of this pressure to curate kids’ lives from pre-K on, but that’s never happening.

Lottery would have been better instead of rejecting high stat kids and admitting others for no apparent reason. It is very hard to see friends with lower stat accepted while others get rejected even in the same school.

You mean rejecting high stat kids and admitting other high stat kids. This idea that some "lower tier" student is taking your high stat kid's spot is a fallacy. There are way more high achievers than spots. You have to stand out in other ways too.

Really do not understand how people who are "so smart"(or their kids are) cannot grasp the concept that if acceptance rate is sub 10%, it's a highly rejective school and most being rejected are also "highly qualified candidates"