
Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good Through College Admissions - tokenadult
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/16/01/turning-tide-inspiring-concern-others-and-common-good-through-college-admissions
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georgemonck
_Many endorsers have already committed to implementing changes consistent with
the report recommendations – from revised essay questions and marketing
materials, to the development of entirely new recruitment, scholarship and
high school programs focused on community engagement and caring for others....
"We don’t want students who do things just because they think they have to in
order to get into college"_

This is sort of an impossible goal. If you put something on the college
application, and judge students by it, then you are certain to be selecting
students who are doing that activity just in order to get into college.

At this point, I think it may simply be better to use a lottery to fill slots
at the most selective colleges. Set a bar at 1400SAT, top 10% of class, and
one significant extracurricular. Then award students additional points for
slightly higher SAT or better class rank or more exceptional extracurricular.
Do a lottery, with your chances weighted by total points.[1]

Top-ten schools are recruiting from a pool of over a billion people, that
means that among the top 1% of that pool there are 100,000 students each year.
Distinguishing among that top 1% is nigh impossible, and if you try to do it
based on any measuring stick, you will just set off a red queen race. Asking
for people to show that they contribute to the community on the application is
not a recipe for producing people who can successfully contribute to their
communities. It is a recipe for producing people who can create the appearance
of contributing to the community. The two are very different.

[1] I'm sure this policy would have to be slightly more complicated when
taking into account the needs of recruiting a competitive football team, or in
rewarding the biggest donors. But overall, I think this kind of plan would
work for filling most of the slots in college class.

~~~
Zigurd
I think you under-estimate the people in college admissions offices. It's not
that difficult to distinguish an apple-polisher from someone who was being a
real high school kid.

If I were interviewing I'd ask "Did you go fishing with your friends?" If the
answer is "Who has time, and do you mean my LinkedIn connections?" you know
there's a problem.

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bradleyjg
I did interviewing for my alma mater for a few years, but I don't anymore.
Some of these "public service" things I used as a negative signal. If the
student started talking about the week they spent in Honduras building houses
and how it changed his life, or how much of a difference she made by starting
a recycling club for example. All of that seemed cynically calculated for
exactly the purpose it was being deployed for. What really impressed me were
the one or two kids I interviewed that had worked real jobs -- not
internships.

I don't know about other interviewers or the professional admissions staff,
but that was my impression.

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lordCarbonFiber
An admirable effort sure, but I can't help but feel it's empty words. The
careful avoidance of any mention of techniques for evaluation is the most
damning evidence. The reason the battery of achievement based metrics have
become a defacto standard is they are comparable. Every student taking an AP
is taking a known test, and receiving a known score.

"Community involvement" in contrast is much more vague. It's hard to put a
marker on the relative impact of various activities. Do you discount things if
it's organized by a third party (ie the community services most prep schools
already require for graduations)? How do you account for the economic factor?
It's a lot easier to be involved in your community if you aren't working to
assist your struggling family. But at the same time, do you reject a more
qualified candidate purely because they come from greater privilege?

Simple market forces are going to force the achievement race simply because
spots are so limited yet have such a drastic effect on life trajectory.

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FussyZeus
> "Admissions deans are stepping up collectively to underscore the importance
> of meaningful engagement in communities and greater equity for economically
> diverse students.”

What in the world does community engagement have to do with a student's
ability to succeed? I did absolutely jack squat in terms of extra curriculars
and community service in high school because I was busy working to support
myself and my family.

> "“Turing the Tide offers recommendations to tackle both of these issues
> simultaneously by promoting the quality of academic engagement over the
> quantity of achievements in college admissions.”

Who determines what is quality of a particular activity? How is it measured?
How are they compared against each other? These are entirely subjective
concepts that exist only in the heads of the admissions staff and should not
be used to evaluate anything. There is no way to test it, there is no way to
verify or reproduce results, it's entirely hand wavy undeterminable hoo hah.

> "We don’t want students who do things just because they think they have to
> in order to get into college. To the contrary: we want students who lead
> balanced lives, who pursue their interests with energy and enthusiasm, and
> who work cooperatively with others, all of which will help them be
> successful in and after college,”

The goal is good, but now those students you don't want to pressure are now
going to have to figure out not just how to work in all their community crap
into their already burdened schedules, but to make sure they choose community
crap that suits the expectations of the admissions people they're targeting as
to their demographics? How are they supposed to prepare for this?

And for that matter, what on Earth makes community outreach so important as to
even determine whether you get into college? Why don't we stick to the things
we can actually measure, like test scores and grades, taking into account the
off-campus workload of the pupil?

