Ha! That’s where I went to grad school! I love Madison and UW-Madison.
I would have loved Deep Springs, but yeah, the location is pretty austere. I did my undergrad work at St. John’s College, which I loved at least as much as I’d have loved Deep Springs. And Santa Fe, NM was much more hospitable than, you know, Death Valley.
That’s so weird. I was one of those people who applied to college specifically because I had no concept of goals in life, and I dropped out to join the goddamned Army. (Which immediately sent me back to college.) Anyways, thanks for the responses.
I’m coming at this from the high school side: I teach at a small, very good pubic magnet, where placing kids at selective and highly selective colleges is basically our purpose in life. I teach all the junior English, so I’ve sort of drifted into being a default college app supervisor (there are are bunch of us. This takes So Much Work). So I don’t have the experience of being “in the room”, but I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t across a wide variety of colleges over many years. I’ve also talked to a lot of admissions officers and gone to/presented at all the important conferences.
Anyway, the first mistake people make is thinking that this process is about “deserving” students. It’s not; it’s a job interview. Job seekers also think in terms of “deserving” the job, but anyone who has ever hired people knows, you don’t consider who deserves it–you consider who will add value.
So what value to Admissions officers look for? The first is the ability to participate in the academic life of the university–this is what they look to grades and test scores to confirm. If either of those are too low, it raises the significant red flag that you lack the intellectual skills or life/time-management skills to be successful. Low grades and test scores means you never even get seriously considered. However, in the vast majority of cases, as long as your grades and test scores are above the threshold the college is looking for, they don’t more value by being even higher.
Once you have all the kids with the base academic skills to succeed, what do schools want? What adds value? Generally speaking, they want to recruit students who 1) will go on to be successful, as a credit (and “development opportunity”–i.e., donor) to the university 2) make the college student experience better for all students and 3) attract future applicants.
The simplest way to see this is gender balancing. Some schools get a lot more boy applicants; some schools get a lot more girls. Virtually all schools try very hard to accept 50/50 boy/girl applicants. The reason is simple: get too unbalanced, and your apps drop, because most kids want to go to a school with a 50/50 split. So when MIT accepts a higher % of female applicants, it’s not about pandering to girls, it’s a cold-blooded attempt to make sure everyone thinks they have a good chance of getting laid.
What else adds value to schools? There’s no magic formula: it’s like casting a reality TV show, where you want a some of everything. You want some super-smart, dizzying intellects. You want some future entrepreneurs, some organizers, some idealistic, save-the-world types. You want Olympic athletes and international students. You want class discussions ( and study groups, and cafeteria conversations, etc) to sing, to be a melange of experiences and perspectives–so you want poor kids and rich kids and kids of all sorts of background. You don’t want this because it is objectively “good”–you want this because the rich, private school, full-pay kids want this. They don’t want to go to a college full of the exact same kids they went to private school with. They actively seek out schools that have more diversity, on every axis. Schools provide that diversity literally as a service.
You know what doesn’t add value? Going to class, making very good grades, and spending the rest of your time in your room playing Fortnite, smoking pot, and masturbating. That’s the kid with perfect test scores and grades and nothing else, who gets shut out and is mad because they think they “deserved” to go. But they didn’t have anything to offer. Their intelligence and work ethic wasn’t going to make anyone else’s experience better, it is unlikely to translate into dramatic post-college success, and it sure as hell won’t attract applicants in the future. The absolute death knell in an application is a kid who just isn’t busy, who doesn’t have much going on. Highly selective schools want kids who see around them endless things that need to be done, and who don’t have hours in the day to get them all done. Those are kids who add value.
So, how do you show you will add value? That’s where the essays (and supplemental essays, which are growing yearly) and interview and rec letters and extracurricular accomplishments come in. Ideally, they are congruent; they all work together to describe the same essential person, so you get a real sense of who they are. So there’s no magic activity or anything: it’s about that whole picture. If you’re looking for one of those super-intellectual kids, having super-high grades and test scores is suddenly a huge asset, but it’s better if it’s backed up with successful research or academic competitions, and teacher recs that say this is the smartest kid they’ve seen in years. If you are a save-the-world kinda kid, those test scores and grades just need to be over the threshold, but your essays and extracurriculars need to be focused on making real, positive change in the world, not just showing up to pick up trash on Saturdays–and your passion for changing things needs to be clear enough that your teachers could see it, and talk about it.
It’s easy to think that the kid with a compelling story “has an advantage”, but that’s bullshit. Generally speaking, the “compelling stories” kids never apply at all, because the weight of that story means they never got that far. The kids who get accepted because they have a compelling story get accepted because they face a challenge and they don’t just endure–they thrive. They keep their ambitions and keep pushing forward even when they have some shitty circumstances. That’s an interesting person, a person who adds value to a campus. Fortunate, affluent kids also can do remarkable things–if anything, they have a huge advantage, because they can find their own problem, devise their own solution. “Compelling stories” kids don’t get to pick.
Anyway, all this is for the highly highly selective schools, though it’s also a pretty good guide to how to get money out of moderately selective schools.
I should also admit that in practice this whole process is riddled with both corruption and incompetence. Admissions officers leave the business to go work as private college counselors, or to work in fancy private schools, and who you know can play a big role. What I said are general guidelines about how to market yourself to a school, but there’s nothing remotely fair or equitable about this process. Just having an incompetent school counselor can basically make applying to highly selective schools nearly impossible–and having one who knows who to call at the office of your dream school can tilt the balance to you.
There’s a reason it’s becoming more and more the “done thing” for parents to hire a private college counselor at the sort of hourly rates you pay a lawyer. It’s an incredibly competitive process and knowing just how to present yourself is basically specialized knowledge that is extremely expensive.
I mentioned this thread to a friend who is a long-time college professor, and has spent time working with the admissions people. He mentioned one thing that’s completely missing from this discussion so far:
Can the prospective student pay the full price for their tuition?
While all colleges have scholarship options available, their budget is limited. If they admit more students who can pay, the school can save their scholarship money for really good but financially needy students.
He said no school will ever admit to this, but in reality it is certainly a factor in admissions. One reason schools have a lot of foreign students is that their governments are paying for their education, so the college is assured of getting paid. (This also provides encouragement to the students to study hard.)
Schools are actually pretty open about whether or not they practice “needs-blind” admissions for domestic and international students. There’s even a wiki list.
Every school not on those lists explicitly considers ability to pay when considering applicants.
On the other hand, perhaps you missed the chance at the next Bill Gates, who would have dropped out after two years, but possibly had some almost-alumni feelings for the institution. Then after a garage startup, 100 billion in tech advancement riches, an honorary degree and multi-billion endowment.
Manda Jo, thanks for your fantastic posts in their thread. Your long one in particular is fantastic. I may show it to my kids when they apply for college. Your elaboration on my “compelling stories” point is well taken. Cheers!
You are describing me. I hated the world and the world hated me right back. I never left the dorm room, I actively despised my dorm-mates and treated them with contempt, I deliberately ate alone, and I hated my entire college experience. In my mind, the problem was that I was there to get a piece of paper and I didn’t give a fuck about their frats or clubs or participation in anything. I’m not paying them my money because I wanted to make someone else’s education ‘more diverse.’ Not that I ever thought I could get into a halfway decent college to begin with.
Nice to know you people considered me a second-class citizen the whole time. 
I couldn’t get the last sentence to bold, and I realize that the first part is a typo. It still made me LOL.
I also believe that there are some situations where a 50/50 gender split is not necessarily advisable. This is one of them. Some medical and law schools are also doing that; IMNSHO, let’s say you have 100 spots and the 61 best applicants are men, or possibly women in a traditionally female-dominated profession. Sorry, that’s who should be there.
In light of this would it not be fair to say that it could be considered an entirely rational and healthy choice for the kid who wants to go home, smoke pot, play fortnite and masturbate to do so?
Each Uni has its own criteria. At Cambridge, most applicants are required to take a subject-specific written admission assessment, either pre-interview or at interview. In addition, some Colleges ask applicants for some courses to submit examples of their written work – one or two school/college essays – which may then be discussed at interview.
Maths is more results driven, but selection is very much geared to the interview.
Of course, as you might expect, there are people who will prepare potential students for these crucial interviews. As suggested above; a student with 8 A-star ‘A’ levels from a top Public School might sometimes be turned down in favour of one with minimum grades from a Comprehensive school in a deprived area, in the name of diversity.
I wonder if colleges will ask for a DNA test one day to declare a minority status. A person could put down Native American, and likely get into a school he or she would not have under a different ethnicity.
You’re assuming that the target demographic groups will remain the same; historically they’ve fluctuated wildly every 25 years or so. Take a look at the history of these places some time - it’s really quite interesting. I was lucky to get into the nothing super fancy state school I went to - I was a lazy piece of shit but at the time SAT scores were all the rage. I’m still a piece of shit to this day, but I wouldn’t describe myself as lazy; typing this took some amount of effort. Maybe later I’ll put on pants, I’ll have to see how I feel.
Thank you! But really, it’s a lot more useful to talk about it long, long before it’s time to put the application together. For a kid who wants to go to a highly selective school, the key thing (besides keeping grades and test scores up) is to vigorously pursue one’s interests at as high a level as possible. I think underclassmen are often afraid to pursue their interests: it’s not laziness, it’s just a natural lack of agency. Giving them permission and support makes a big difference.
Poor fit for a particular type of university does not equal “second class citizen”. I mean, say I don’t want to hire you for a job because even though I think you are technically competent to complete the duties as assigned, it’s clear you won’t innovate, you won’t train/support team members, you won’t cross-train, or keep up in your field. Am I treating you like a “second class citizen” because I don’t offer you a job?
And it sounds like you weren’t looking for the kind of experience they were selling. That’s not bad. There’s lots of local regional colleges happy to take your money and give you a solid education and a piece of paper and not require anything else. That opportunity is still there. Being mad at Harvard because they are offering a different sort of college experience than what you wanted is like being mad you can’t get a cheeseburger at Chipotle. It’s a different kind of thing.
But it’s not like that. It’s more like you have 100 slots and 300 applicants all of whom are incredibly qualified, to the point that ordering them from “most” to “least” is basically meaningless. At that point, picking for gender balance doesn’t mean that you get less qualified candidates–and it does mean that you continue to get qualified candidates. If you don’t gender balance and the others do, maybe next year you get a lot fewer applications and you really are struggling to fill your slots with qualified applicants.
Don’t conflate the admissions process (which is a mess) with the highly selective college experience. They are about as related as pregnancy and parenthood. There are lots of valid reasons to want to go to a highly selective university, and lots of valid reasons not to. Off the top of my head:
Money. For poor and middle class kids, the highly selective universities are the cheapest. They meet 100% of demonstrated need, without loans. And they pay everything–housing, books, food, travel. Some pay study abroad. State schools and other private schools won’t do this, not even for extraordinarily qualified poor kids. (with a few exceptions). It’s inevitably cheaper for my kids to go to MIT than to UT.
However, money is also a reason NOT to go to these schools: if your household income is over $200k, you’re gonna pay $70k/year no matter how talented you are, and it’s a legitimate question whether or not they are worth it. However, the sorts of things that make it possible to even get into a highly selective college also make it very likely you’ll get offered a very nice scholarship at a second-tier private school. I’ve had a lot of affluent students get into highly selective schools and opt out of going–because at that point, UT or USC seem a much better bargain.
Ambitions. It’s true that you can get a good education anywhere. You can make your own opportunities. But it’s easier at a highly selective institution. If you want to go into the Foreign Service, there’s no substitute for Georgetown. If you want to be a tech entrepreneur, Stanford is going to put you in contact with amazing people. If you want to do cutting edge research, starting off at a major research university puts you closer to the rock stars of your field. And there are firms–especially in tech, business consulting, and finance–that really do have a list of schools they hire from. And that effect can persist beyond your first job.
My poor kids especially benefit from being in a culture of professional ambition/achievement. They don’t know anything, and being immersed in a culture of really high achievement, where everyone is talking about grad school and summer internships and research opportunities is very, very helpful. That stuff exists everywhere, but you have to know to go look for it. At a highly selective, ambition is ribboned into the culture.
There are other advantages: you just have so many cool opportunities to meet people from classmates whose parents are Senators and CEOs to taking classes taught by people who lead their field. You get support. If you have an emotional breakdown, they give you the benefit of the doubt and work with you, they don’t kick you out. If you want to study something super-obscure, there are endless resources to help you do so. Again, they may or may not be worth it–it really depends on what you want to do and what you are paying for it.
It’s worth noting that this is completely different from the alumni interviews used by the highly selective universities in the US. They vary a lot because the alumni are volunteers and there’s a lot of variance. Furthermore, they aren’t technical interviews–alumni interviews are about assessing “fit”, not academic credentials. They have an impact on admissions, but they aren’t nearly as heavily weighted as in the UK.
nm
If you go to MIT one of your professors might be someone considered to be the the father of internet, that always blows my mind.
I myself envy the cream of the crop kids. They have a chance to live an interesting life, sometimes after working a 12 hour shift at a warehouse I think it would have been more merciful for society to just cull the lower achievers like they do with fish and livestock.
Re: grade inflation, my high school sent a brochure (along with the letter from the guidance counselor? Or maybe just separately to every college anyone was applying to) that showed how many students received each grade for each class over the past few years. E.g. AP Basket Weaving: A: 37; A-: 16; B+: 87; etc.
I don’t know if this is typical.
This is key… Many many people “live an interesting life” without a degree. Of course, it does help but wasting three or four years of your life bored and feeling a failure, is no help at all. No qualifications are needed to go backpacking round the world, but youth and energy help a lot.
This is not true. College admissions is a batch process. A higher GPA is always better over the pool of colleges you might apply to. This is why high schools have to give harder courses count as a “5” for an A on the GPA calculation, or no one would take them.
Even if it is, again, it’s a batch process. For most colleges they are just going to ignore that piece of information.