You must mean that admissions officers don’t do better than chance in selecting high-achieving candidates. Okay, but if that were true, Harvard grads wouldn’t do any better in aggregate than graduates of flagship state schools. Monkeys throwing darts, right?
I think you might misunderstand the context here. Admissions officers aren’t trying to pick the diamonds out of the mud (as stock analysts are). They’re trying to pick the right diamonds from a selection of diamonds and other gemstones. In other words, the vast majority of the applicant pool for elite US universities is high-achieving. Admissions officers are often attempting to “curate” their admitted classes so that they’re optimal according to several criteria.
One of those criteria is diversity, though there are obviously others. The Ivy League at one time admitted very few highly qualified Jews, and one reason they’re so concerned with diversity is that they’re ashamed (as they should be) at their resistance to enrolling non-WASP students. In fact, Stanley Kaplan launched his test-prep business as a way to game the system somewhat and maximize the scores of students who weren’t the “right” kind of applicants.
I present this citation while holding my nose, because it’s an article written by Malcom Gladwell, who I consider to be a sophist of the first order. Nonetheless, it’s interesting reading:
People have been trying to maximize their chances of admission to American universities for well over a century. I’ve heard a few posters reminisce about when things were simpler, but you could say the same thing about any competitive endeavor including athletics and combat. College admissions could certainly be fairer, but the routes to “fairer” seem to be as numerous as the applicants themselves.
Absolutely. When I was a TA in grad school, I had to grade those poorly-written essays—and that was at the flagship campus of a well-regarded land-grant school. It’s ugly out [del]their[/del] [del]they’re[/del] there.
Why, I’m glad you asked! I’m going to shamelessly plug my alma mater:
St. John’s College doesn’t require test scores or accept the common application. Instead, you’ve got to write four essays that are unique to the SJC application. The essays are almost all that matters, which is reasonable because much of the work required is reading books, discussing them and writing analytical essays about them.
What this means in the big picture is that the student body is self-selecting. But it’s not very different from an art school that primarily looks at the student’s portfolio or a place like Juilliard where a performance audition is central to admission.
St. John’s College’s take on reforming admissions won’t suit many, of course, but it was perfect for me. I like the idea that many different colleges might have different ideas about admissions reform, and students can apply to those schools that suit their strengths (and that suit their weaknesses). And I think we all agree that the mainstream admission process could stand to be improved in many ways.
If you’re worried that no one is thinking about reforming how colleges admit and evaluate students, don’t fret. St. John’s, Deep Springs, the Colorado College, The New School and the Olin College of Engineering are all institutions that take delightfully radical (and delightfully different) approaches to these issues.
Most of my close friends from college (who also were the core of my Dungeons & Dragons group ) became college professors. When it’s essay / term paper grading time, several of them regularly post on Facebook about the horrors inflicted on the English language by their students.
We aren’t talking about college admissions–we are talking about college admissions to highly selective private schools (and a handful of state flagship honors programs). There are plenty of slots available at public and (less selective) private schools. At many of them, once you are above a certain SAT/GPA threshold, you are an auto-admit. No one is being denied a chance at a 4-year school because they never did Macrame Outreach for Underserved Youth. There are advantages to going to these schools, but it’s not something everyone wants or is suited for.
Next, the goal of “holistic admissions” is to build a class. It’s to make going to that school a certain type of experience. And there are differences–for example, up above Tamerlane talked about not liking a competitive environment. Some are super-competitive (Princeton), but some really are not (Brown, and honestly, Harvard); some are super hippy-dippy, some are very professional. Some are conventional, some are quirky. What they all have in common is intensity–a student body that is ambitious and has a strong sense of agency. All the essays and recs and interviews and extracurriculars are viewed holistically to get a sense of what kind of kid this is, how they will fit with the culture and what they will bring to the whole. So a typical highly selective would look at a series of prompts like:
[ul]
[li]Write a Personal Statement about an important issue in your life[/li][li]Why do you want to major in X? What are your academic and personal goals?[/li][li]Elaborate on a single extracurricular activity and explain why you have pursued it[/li][li]Why do you want to attend our school, in particular?[/li][/ul]
That, plus the courses they took, the rec letters, and the interviews all give a picture of a whole person (in theory). The reason they look for compelling stories is that they want interesting people–people that will inspire and influence those around them. People that get things done. There’s really no question of whether the kids can do the work. After the first couple cuts, they are left with thousands of kids who can, without a doubt, “do the work”. Once that’s established, you have to have some other criteria.
Is it a great system? No, it’s awful. And they mess up a lot. But I don’t know a better one. Once-in-a-lifetime high stakes testing, make it or break it? Tracking starting at 10 or 12, with constant winnowing, where only the top can even apply? Tons of problems with those systems.
The system does seem to be working for the universities themselves. They remain in incredibly high demand, which is the point–to perpetuate their own appeal, by continuing to deliver an particular type of experience to people who attend.
) became college professors. When it’s essay / term paper grading time, several of them regularly post on Facebook about the horrors inflicted on the English language by their students.