Anonymous wrote:My clean slate would be:
-academics only considered by universities (no sports, no extras)
- a limited number of applications submitted and a standard fee for all applications. If the student is not admitted to where they have applied, there is always community college and then a more realistic round of applications the next time.

Ideally, I would like high schools to save a whole bunch of money and stop offering sports, only exercise and nutrition classes instead. Let community sports clubs offer sports.

Anonymous wrote:

Judge solely on academics.


This is what most of the world does, and it makes things so simple, and therefore less stressful. I'm European and my cousins are Japanese. I know what I speak of.

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Anonymous wrote:That is exactly what I would do, for starters. Pick your five schools, and get on with it. This applying to 20 schools ridiculous.

Who benefits from this? How would this improve anything?

Schools don’t need to manage yield and will be making their decisions solely on whether they want this student. If they know they are one of five, they know you are serious.

Exactly. They know immediately that you didn’t just throw them in at the last minute, to the list of 20 other random schools you’re applying to. It would make a huge difference. Plus, admissions offices wouldn’t be inundated with thousands of meaningless applications.

Colleges don't care if you added them at the last minute if they want you.

Admissions offices are not "inundated". They want as many students to choose from as they can and they can handle it. If they didn't they would fill the entire class ED/SCEA. You are applying a solution to a thing that is not a problem, and certainly not your problem.

This would not make anything better and would make a whole lot worse for both students and the colleges. Do you think you thought of this and no one in admissions has? If this was a good idea it would be implemented already. It is a bad idea.

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Anonymous wrote:That is exactly what I would do, for starters. Pick your five schools, and get on with it. This applying to 20 schools ridiculous.

Who benefits from this? How would this improve anything?

Schools don’t need to manage yield and will be making their decisions solely on whether they want this student. If they know they are one of five, they know you are serious.

Exactly. They know immediately that you didn’t just throw them in at the last minute, to the list of 20 other random schools you’re applying to. It would make a huge difference. Plus, admissions offices wouldn’t be inundated with thousands of meaningless 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.

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Anonymous wrote:That is exactly what I would do, for starters. Pick your five schools, and get on with it. This applying to 20 schools ridiculous.

Who benefits from this? How would this improve anything?

Schools don’t need to manage yield and will be making their decisions solely on whether they want this student. If they know they are one of five, they know you are serious.

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.

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.

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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.

who would admit to having test prep? and would test prep include taking free tests through Kahn?

Why should kids get dinged b/c their parents have the time/money to give them test prep options? We are by no means rich and I certainly did not do so when I was in college. But all this leveling the economic playing fields at this stage is not good. I'm not saying it never has a role (and don't start with me, I was DIRT POOR, "first gen" growing up - though I had no benefit from that). But, it's role is outsized. This country is SUPPOSED to be a meritocracy. And yes, I am well aware after all my years of scraping and begging and paying my way, that it is not. But, removing one set rules for special access to replace with other rules that many kids cannot meet out of no fault of their own is not the answer.

It seems that you have come to terms with your experience of DIRT POOR, "first gen", didn't benefit and having to scrape and beg your way. Are you advocating for these same DIRT POOR, first gen to continue to struggle on the bottom rung as you once did. If you worked your tail off to finally make it, why wouldn't you want to do every thing you can to give these kids a chance so they don't have to go through what you went through.

Because it is not the role of colleges to equalize the playing field across the board. Why the hell did I bust my a-- to do so only to have it held against me and my kids now?

And you can mock me with your repeated my all caps, etc. That's fine. Bit of assholery but that's to be expected here. But, what you're saying it's ok to tell me and my kids that, regardless of their work, their prep, their grades, "you've done fine enough. Now it's someone else's turn." You have to be content with some lesser position in the college game. I think that's BS. I'm not rich/privileged enough for it not to matter what my kids' stats are (b/c there will be no family connections, legacy status, generational wealth) but I do just well enough to be told my kids should be held back to give someone else a turn? That's really what your advocating?

Sorry, no. I will never be in support of that. The only one losing in this scenarios are families like mine.

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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.

who would admit to having test prep? and would test prep include taking free tests through Kahn?

Why should kids get dinged b/c their parents have the time/money to give them test prep options? We are by no means rich and I certainly did not do so when I was in college. But all this leveling the economic playing fields at this stage is not good. I'm not saying it never has a role (and don't start with me, I was DIRT POOR, "first gen" growing up - though I had no benefit from that). But, it's role is outsized. This country is SUPPOSED to be a meritocracy. And yes, I am well aware after all my years of scraping and begging and paying my way, that it is not. But, removing one set rules for special access to replace with other rules that many kids cannot meet out of no fault of their own is not the answer.

It seems that you have come to terms with your experience of DIRT POOR, "first gen", didn't benefit and having to scrape and beg your way. Are you advocating for these same DIRT POOR, first gen to continue to struggle on the bottom rung as you once did. If you worked your tail off to finally make it, why wouldn't you want to do every thing you can to give these kids a chance so they don't have to go through what you went through.

Because it is not the role of colleges to equalize the playing field across the board. Why the hell did I bust my a-- to do so only to have it held against me and my kids now?

And you can mock me with your repeated my all caps, etc. That's fine. Bit of assholery but that's to be expected here. But, what you're saying it's ok to tell me and my kids that, regardless of their work, their prep, their grades, "you've done fine enough. Now it's someone else's turn." You have to be content with some lesser position in the college game. I think that's BS. I'm not rich/privileged enough for it not to matter what my kids' stats are (b/c there will be no family connections, legacy status, generational wealth) but I do just well enough to be told my kids should be held back to give someone else a turn? That's really what your advocating?

Sorry, no. I will never be in support of that. The only one losing in this scenarios are families like mine.

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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.

who would admit to having test prep? and would test prep include taking free tests through Kahn?

Why should kids get dinged b/c their parents have the time/money to give them test prep options? We are by no means rich and I certainly did not do so when I was in college. But all this leveling the economic playing fields at this stage is not good. I'm not saying it never has a role (and don't start with me, I was DIRT POOR, "first gen" growing up - though I had no benefit from that). But, it's role is outsized. This country is SUPPOSED to be a meritocracy. And yes, I am well aware after all my years of scraping and begging and paying my way, that it is not. But, removing one set rules for special access to replace with other rules that many kids cannot meet out of no fault of their own is not the answer.

So all those kids like you, dirt poor and first gen, if they can't run with the curated kids with their tutors, test prep, essay editors, college counselors, and the best schools and enrichment money can buy - well, screw them. This is a pure meritocracy. Do you even see the irony of your post?

Do you? How is preparing according to what you have the ability to prepare not a meritocracy? I sat for 2 bar exams (passed them both) and had an entire prep course both times (costly and spent the better part of my summers doing those, in addition to working). Is that not meritocracy? Because I took out additional loans to pay for those but, b/c I did, it wasn't acc to "merit"?

And, more to the point, in HS I hung with the privileged without ANY of that (it CAN be done). And once I was in college -a crappy one by most peoples' standards here- I made the most of it. With my grades, I most certainly would have gotten into better schools if I had any guidance, any help, any . . . . anything whatsoever. I had no idea what I was doing. I showed up for SATs/ACTs day of it with no studying. I had no help identifying "reaches" or "safeties", filling out apps, etc. But I made the most of my situation.

Also, if you are capable of reading, I didn't say that equalizing things had no role. I'm saying it is outsized, imo.

Anonymous wrote:When I was in law school, I was a research assistant to a prof who basically ran the admissions process (he was a force of nature and had written a successful casebook -- they pretty much let him do whatever he wanted to). His ideal approach -- not what he did, but what he would have liked to do -- was as follows:

1) Based on scores and GPA, eliminate the bottom 10% of the applicant pool as a kindness to them.

2) Based on scores and GPA, accept the top 10% because you have to.

3) Take the rest of the applications and climb to the top of the tall tower on campus. Then throw the applications down the stairs. In even-numbered years, accept all those that land face up; in odd-numbered years, accept all those that land face down.

Having now gone through the college applications process with three kids and through grad school applications with two of them, I'd say this sounds about right.

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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.

who would admit to having test prep? and would test prep include taking free tests through Kahn?

Why should kids get dinged b/c their parents have the time/money to give them test prep options? We are by no means rich and I certainly did not do so when I was in college. But all this leveling the economic playing fields at this stage is not good. I'm not saying it never has a role (and don't start with me, I was DIRT POOR, "first gen" growing up - though I had no benefit from that). But, it's role is outsized. This country is SUPPOSED to be a meritocracy. And yes, I am well aware after all my years of scraping and begging and paying my way, that it is not. But, removing one set rules for special access to replace with other rules that many kids cannot meet out of no fault of their own is not the answer.

It seems that you have come to terms with your experience of DIRT POOR, "first gen", didn't benefit and having to scrape and beg your way. Are you advocating for these same DIRT POOR, first gen to continue to struggle on the bottom rung as you once did. If you worked your tail off to finally make it, why wouldn't you want to do every thing you can to give these kids a chance so they don't have to go through what you went through.

Because it is not the role of colleges to equalize the playing field across the board. Why the hell did I bust my a-- to do so only to have it held against me and my kids now?

And you can mock me with your repeated my all caps, etc. That's fine. Bit of assholery but that's to be expected here. But, what you're saying it's ok to tell me and my kids that, regardless of their work, their prep, their grades, "you've done fine enough. Now it's someone else's turn." You have to be content with some lesser position in the college game. I think that's BS. I'm not rich/privileged enough for it not to matter what my kids' stats are (b/c there will be no family connections, legacy status, generational wealth) but I do just well enough to be told my kids should be held back to give someone else a turn? That's really what your advocating?

Sorry, no. I will never be in support of that. The only one losing in this scenarios are families like mine.