Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

The wealthy have an advantage in nearly everything, including testing and grades. We may never have a complete meritocracy, but most AOs are trained to recognize such disparities. So the kid who does a month of volunteering in Palau on his parent's dime may not have an advantage over the kid who spends 20 hours a week at a parttime job or looking after younger siblings.

We are told that admissions controls for school quality by comparing the student transcript to their school profile and don't expect students to do more than is offered by the school. Why don't they do the same with ECs? No recognition for ECs not offered by the school or that cost more than a de minimus amount?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

The wealthy have an advantage in nearly everything, including testing and grades. We may never have a complete meritocracy, but most AOs are trained to recognize such disparities. So the kid who does a month of volunteering in Palau on his parent's dime may not have an advantage over the kid who spends 20 hours a week at a parttime job or looking after younger siblings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. T20 universities and T10 lacs admit too many hooked applicants. If they are admitting over 20% QuestBridge, they should increase their class proportionally.

Nobody is admitt 20% QB. It is under 2% at most schools so just stop now.

It's commonplace now for top colleges admitting over 20% QuestBridge.

[url]https://www.questbridge.org/partners/college-partners/swarthmore-college
[/url]

24% affiliated with QuestBridge (Class of 2028)

That is a mistake on the Questbridge site. Swat took 15 QB kids in the class of 28 and 15 in the class of 27.

Don't bother with data. The people who want to blame the "undeserving" poor of darker skin colors will continue to do so, despite facts showing that legacy, donor and athletic preferences far outweigh any preferences for the poor.

Why are people bitter about donor preference? How do you think the schools got the money to cover the cost of educating FGLI?

Then just rip off the bandaid and auction off slots to the highest bidder.

That doesn’t work. The whole point of the current messy system is that rich kids get to imagine that they’re smart and smart kids get to imagine they’re part of the elite. It only works because they cross the streams.

Anonymous wrote:Even going to college is something most this society doesn't get the opportunity to do.

they have the opportunity, we have student loans. They just choose not to, or choose a deadend major

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. T20 universities and T10 lacs admit too many hooked applicants. If they are admitting over 20% QuestBridge, they should increase their class proportionally.

Nobody is admitt 20% QB. It is under 2% at most schools so just stop now.

It's commonplace now for top colleges admitting over 20% QuestBridge.

[url]https://www.questbridge.org/partners/college-partners/swarthmore-college
[/url]

24% affiliated with QuestBridge (Class of 2028)

That is a mistake on the Questbridge site. Swat took 15 QB kids in the class of 28 and 15 in the class of 27.

Don't bother with data. The people who want to blame the "undeserving" poor of darker skin colors will continue to do so, despite facts showing that legacy, donor and athletic preferences far outweigh any preferences for the poor.

Why are people bitter about donor preference? How do you think the schools got the money to cover the cost of educating FGLI?

Then just rip off the bandaid and auction off slots to the highest bidder.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. T20 universities and T10 lacs admit too many hooked applicants. If they are admitting over 20% QuestBridge, they should increase their class proportionally.

Nobody is admitt 20% QB. It is under 2% at most schools so just stop now.

It's commonplace now for top colleges admitting over 20% QuestBridge.

[url]https://www.questbridge.org/partners/college-partners/swarthmore-college
[/url]

24% affiliated with QuestBridge (Class of 2028)

That is a mistake on the Questbridge site. Swat took 15 QB kids in the class of 28 and 15 in the class of 27.

Don't bother with data. The people who want to blame the "undeserving" poor of darker skin colors will continue to do so, despite facts showing that legacy, donor and athletic preferences far outweigh any preferences for the poor.

Why are people bitter about donor preference? How do you think the schools got the money to cover the cost of educating FGLI?

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't schools be looking for more than a current high test score? Especially in a test prep heavy world, I'm glad they look for a lot more.
We don't want the US system to look like Korea's. CSAT prep and pressure is crazy!

You can, but what would you look for? Then you get into the nebulous world of athletic preferences for obscure rich kid sports, donor admits, legacy preferences, and private schools with their own curriculum that are too "special" to do independently evaluated AP exams but that their kids are far superior to public school kids.

Anonymous wrote:I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

the EC centered holistic admissions are more likely to confer advantages on the wealthy

Anonymous wrote:Only 20% of undergrads at Oxford and Cambridge are international. Do you think that number would be so low if they were just taking the kids with the best #s globally?

What's your point? These are British universities and they take more international students than say, Harvard, which accepts about 17% international students.

But the British, despite their anachronistic system of royalty and nobilities don't have legacy preferences. That should tell you something about merit admissions to their elite universities.

Shouldn't schools be looking for more than a current high test score? Especially in a test prep heavy world, I'm glad they look for a lot more.
We don't want the US system to look like Korea's. CSAT prep and pressure is crazy!

I work in higher ed, have lived in Asia, and visit universities and high schools in China, Japan, and Vietnam annually. My opinion is that holistic admissions are imperfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than purely grade- and test-centric admissions, which corrupt not only the colleges that rely on them but also the high schools that teach to them.

Only 20% of undergrads at Oxford and Cambridge are international. Do you think that number would be so low if they were just taking the kids with the best #s globally?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. T20 universities and T10 lacs admit too many hooked applicants. If they are admitting over 20% QuestBridge, they should increase their class proportionally.

Nobody is admitt 20% QB. It is under 2% at most schools so just stop now.

It's commonplace now for top colleges admitting over 20% QuestBridge.

[url]https://www.questbridge.org/partners/college-partners/swarthmore-college
[/url]

24% affiliated with QuestBridge (Class of 2028)

That is a mistake on the Questbridge site. Swat took 15 QB kids in the class of 28 and 15 in the class of 27.

Could you please provide a source for this?

Even going to college is something most this society doesn't get the opportunity to do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The College board needs to release raw scores for the AP tests. That way MIT and Cornell can see whether your 5 on Physics EM was a 98% or a 61%.

We throw away a lot of information that could be useful for everyone in the process.

You are assuming that MIT and Cornell care. Newsflash, they don’t.

I suspect MIT would care, given that they were among the first to go back to test required. There is a huge difference in competence between someone who got 98% of questions right vs. someone who got 61% right.

But they don’t and they have no problem telling you that they don’t. They tell you exactly what they want if you read Applying Sideways.

You're kidding right? That blog post just says

"I don’t mean to discourage anything from pursuing incredible science and technology research on their own. If you want to do it, DO IT. But don’t do it because you think it’s your ticket to MIT. And that applies to everything you do – classes, SATs, extracurriculars.

There is no golden ticket.

So breathe."