
Secrets of Elite College Admissions - bookofjoe
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secrets-of-elite-college-admissions-11598626784
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RcouF1uZ4gsC
> They switched a legacy applicant—meaning that a parent had earned a degree
> from Emory—to “deny” because of his light extracurricular involvement. The
> original readers gave him a score of 2 out of 5 in that category, observing
> that he wanted to major in pre-med “but we don’t see activities to support
> that,” one of the admissions officers said.

>But while the student listed neuroscience as a major, “there is no example of
neuro in the file” in terms of activities or in the essays, the admissions
officer said. She suggested that they move the applicant to the wait list,
which would be “a softer landing” than an outright denial.

This kind of focus on extra-curricular activities is a complete waste of time,
and is actually very discriminatory against low-income students. I believe
there is no correlation between being a good doctor and doing "medical
related" extra-curricular activities in high school or between being a good
neuroscientist, and doing "neuro science" related extra-curricular activities
in high school. Having good interpersonal skills, good verbal and written
communication skills, and strong math and science fundamentals is far more
important.

> Among those who didn’t make it into Lafayette that year was an applicant
> from Pennsylvania who ranked fifth in his high school class of more than
> 600, with a 3.96 GPA and 1450 on the SAT. His financial need to attend
> Lafayette: $66,810 for his freshman year.

I think they did the student a favor. I am sure that a student with those
grades and scores could easily attend a top notch state university for much
cheaper and receive as good if not better an education.

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throwawaysea
I agree. The focus on extra curricular activities is ridiculous. Even for
students who demonstrate them, it must be frustrating to have to devote time
to those activities instead of your personal life or other passions.

~~~
TeMPOraL
And all that just to give people illusion that they got in through special
merit, not just baseline merit + some luck.

It would be much cheaper and much better for both students and universities if
applications were handled by a random number generator. That is, from the pool
of students that applied to a given facility and crossed some per-faculty
grade threshold, just bin then together and pick at random, until all places
are filled.

(If you're worried about grade inflation, introduce university-provided exams
instead. And/or design the first year to aggressively weed out anyone who
can't pull their weight.)

But alas, there are lots of people making lots of money from handling
admissions and providing extracurriculars, I'm pretty sure they'd object :).

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PhantomGremlin
_If you 're worried about grade inflation, introduce university-provided exams
instead._

?

How is that any better than SAT or ACT?

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applecrazy
I mean, we've known that universities aren't just looking at academics, test
scores, and extracurriculars. If that was the case, the majority of colleges
would have algorithmic admissions. (Although, surprisingly, there are some
universities who do use a composite scoring algorithm to aid admissions)

Having flexible processes give institutions the ability to "shape" the
incoming class—after all, isn't it good for marketing to have people from X
different states or Y different countries represented in your student body?
The campus climate is also dictated by the student body—do you want a
cutthroat academic atmosphere (similar to Berkeley) or a party-rich campus
(similar to LSU or Penn State)?

~~~
m0zg
> ability to "shape" the incoming class

Also known today as racial discrimination where Asians are heavily
downweighted, similar to how Jews were downweighted 40-50 years ago. Then
again when Columbia rejected Richard Feynman because he was a Jew, it put a
permanent stain on their reputation, and Feynman did all right anyway. I'm
pretty sure smart kids will do all right, Ivy League or no Ivy League.

~~~
strikelaserclaw
Harvard isn't trying to pump out just academics or engineers, lawyers and
doctors. They want to pump out prominent businessmen, politicians, activists,
fields like these have a looser correlation to raw technical ability and can't
really be measured by sat scores or GPA

~~~
ffggvv
but skin color can measure it?

~~~
strikelaserclaw
in some cases a most definite YES. America is not some post racial utopia, we
are far away from Asians having prominence in politics or social life.

~~~
m0zg
This could be because politics sucks and pay is low, so successful
lawyer/doctor Asians do not want to participate in it.

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bookofjoe
[https://archive.vn/Zsk19](https://archive.vn/Zsk19)

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gbronner
There's a market failure here: everyone now applies to 15-20 elite colleges,
at an application cost of perhaps 1500$. Kids have no idea where they'll get
in, and colleges have no idea who will attend.

Limiting applications to 8 or 10 schools would reduce the uncertainty on both
sides

~~~
oehtXRwMkIs
I think a better solution is the one where applicants get a limited number of
times to mark specific applications as something they are especially
interested in.

Apparently it just works out pretty well without restricting your application
pool.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/05/05/527087730/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/05/05/527087730/episdoe-769-speed-
dating-for-economists)

~~~
wrkronmiller
There is already something called “early decision” at some US colleges,
wherein you commit to attend a college if accepted.

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marta_morena_25
US universities are always amusing to me. You pay about 100 times more than
for a German university and end up with an education where you have trouble
understanding the content they teach in Germany after graduation, unless you
come from an elite university. But hey, it's really easy to find Standford
equivalents in Germany as long as you search for a good university for your
major, instead of just searching for a university. Of course it doesn't come
with the prestige and the network, but honestly is that really worth a quarter
million dollars? In the end, if you are smart and willing to learn, the only
thing you really get from US elite university is prestige and better equipment
and research opportunities. However, all of that isn't really relevant for a
whole lot of people.

~~~
brmgb
Well, it is fairly common knowledge that US universities are not worth the
price they charge for undergraduate education if you are not in a position
allowing you to network heavily. They are very good (and by that I mean very
rich) for research however. For a European, going to the US before your PhD
makes little sense.

