BellaOnline Forums Education Gifted Education underqualified legacies and kids with connections

Here's a provocative piece on college admissions. It's not surprising, really, but still upsetting.

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I think, personally, legacy admissions are becomming less and less of an issue. Private colleges/universities and the few public colleges/universities with large endowments have always had a habit of waiving or dealying requirements for children of donors. Honestly though, they can't do it extremely frequently as these kinds of admissions could impact their accountability scores.

In Texas and Florida, the greater problem relates to kiddos who graduate in the top XX percent of their class. Laws require automatic admission to public universities--even the flagship institutions--if the student meets the top XX percent rule.

In my experience, no child who has actually been admitted--if well and truly qualified--will be bumped by one of these legacy admissions as long as he/she jumps through all the required hoops on time and has all documentation in place upon formal admission.

Warning: my personal experiences may affect my reasoning on this one.


I guess for me, the issue is that kids are applying to more and more schools, resulting in record numbers of applicants to the top schools. The top tier institutions are turning away valedictorians and other students with really strong applications because they don't have slots for them all. So event he most able kids are feeling a tremendous amount of pressure related to the whole application process. If legacies who are underqualified are taking up space, it makes the competition that much more fierce. I don't know of you ever hang out at college confidential, but there are kids there who sound simply amazing who have been turned away from schools that would have embraced them just a few years ago. My own son is PG and had excellent test scores, yet he didn't get into his dream school. He is at a very good LAC now, but it isn't his first choice.

I'm not familiar with the situation in TX and FL. Do you mean that the state schools are guaranteeing more slots than they should? Are they overcrowded?

The way the law reads in TX, the public universities (including the flagships) must automatically admit any high school student who graduates in the top 10 percent of his high school class - meaning these students don't have to worry about competing for a slot. The slot is guaranteed. Its only when these students exceed a certain percentage of an institution's enrollment that the institution may opt for a lottery system--otherwise the student must be admitted.

Its rare--if it truly happens at all--that institutions truly turn valedictorians away simply because there are no slots. Generally there are other reasons the student has been denied admissions. Valedictorians with high test scores aren't always a good match for the school--perhaps the student is overly focused on academics and hasn't met the school's expectations for volunteer service/employment; perhaps the student hasn't demonstrated leadership potential; perhaps the essay didn't demonstrate the breadth of knnolwedge the school expected. Admissions officers look at much more than high school performance, GPA and test scores. Students who aren't admitted to their top choices should ask admissions officers for feedback regarding the admissions denial.

Lynn-

I suppose the kids at college confidential could be inflating their descriptions, but I like to believe that they are not. It isn't just them who say the odds are getting tougher though.

Here's one piece:
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What these articles all say is that standing and GPA is simply not enough - and really it never has been. Your student has to demonstrate in more than one way that he/she really is cream of the crop and deserving of a spot. Ivy League schools have always been competitive and will remain so as the number of students believing they are deserving of a spot simply because they have perfect test scores and high standing increases (gotta love that grade inflation...). Change in admissions isn't required, really. What's needed is a change in student and family perception of what constitutes a "best fit" for the student.

Again - "Generally there are other reasons the student has been denied admissions. Valedictorians with high test scores aren't always a good match for the school--perhaps the student is overly focused on academics and hasn't met the school's expectations for volunteer service/employment; perhaps the student hasn't demonstrated leadership potential; perhaps the essay didn't demonstrate the breadth of knnolwedge the school expected. Admissions officers look at much more than high school performance, GPA and test scores. Students who aren't admitted to their top choices should ask admissions officers for feedback regarding the admissions denial."

Warning: this is a hot button issue for me and I've spent far too many hours on collegeconfidential so I may come off too fiery. I apologize in advance.

The kids Lorel is describing are far from kids with nothing more than high GPAs and perfect scores. These are kids who work tirelessly at all sorts of interesting and creative pursuits, who are accomplished beyond the wildest dreams of most of us who grew up in the last generation, AND who show those perfect scores and gpa's. Lorel is right. There are too many kids applying to too many top schools and the schools are accepting those with connections, money, minority status and athletic ability over those who are academically qualified, sometimes dizzyingly so, but who have no such connections or status.

I can live with the fact that these schools, particularly the Ivies, have institutional priorities that mean that some of the most qualified kids won't gain entrance. What I have more difficulty with is the notion (1) that this is a meritocracy--it isn't and it just plain drives me crazy when someone suggests that it is and (2) that the Ivy League schools represent the pinnacle of higher education and of students. With so many extraordinary students being turned away in favor of those less qualified, the Ivies have no monopoly on academic excellence. Far from it!

I'm wondering what you mean by a "change in student and family perception of what constitutes a 'best fit' for the student." Fact is, many of these kids would fit just fine, maybe better than the ones who've been accepted. If you had framed this differently and flat out acknowledged that this is a matter of an institution making decisions based on nonacademic priorities--taking a certain number of full freight paying customers, making sure their student bodies are ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse, taking a certain number of athletes to fill their teams (ugh, this one makes me gag but I gather I'm very much in the minority on this), then I'm with you. It's the notion that those who are accepted are more "deserving" because they "fit" that gets me.


I've recently finished reading "The Game of Life" by James Shulman and William Bowen. Recruited athletes, many of whom would have no chance at getting into elite schools without inclusion on a coach's admit list, enjoy an admissions advantage that's as much as 40% over a highly qualified non-hooked applicant. Indeed, the only kids (but one) accepted to the Ivies from our local public high school last year were athletes.

I've looked at many, many scattergrams that display the distribution of scores of admits to elite schools and the priorities clearly show again and again that admission is, more often than not, gained through nonacademic factors.

Sorry, I could go on and on. The whole topic infuriates me. And my own kid wasn't even hurt by this process!

"Again - "Generally there are other reasons the student has been denied admissions. Valedictorians with high test scores aren't always a good match for the school--perhaps the student is overly focused on academics and hasn't met the school's expectations for volunteer service/employment; perhaps the student hasn't demonstrated leadership potential; perhaps the essay didn't demonstrate the breadth of knnolwedge the school expected. Admissions officers look at much more than high school performance, GPA and test scores. Students who aren't admitted to their top choices should ask admissions officers for feedback regarding the admissions denial."

Sorry Lynn. They're not getting in because there isn't room for them. Plain and simple. There's no real reason or logic to it beyond the gross numbers and institutional priorities. Here's the honest feedback: Maybe you come from the northeast where there are too many applicants vying for admission to the school so the admitted kids from the region are limited to those with solid connections. Or maybe you're a girl and there are too many girls in the applicant pool. Or maybe the admissions folks only take one person from your high school and that slot's been given to a wrestler. You can be a brilliant, engaged student who has shown leadership, creativity, and breadth and it just won't make a difference if the demographics work against you.

Shoshi: Collegeconfidential is a forum for students and they will rehash their disappointments in life much the same as we do on the forums here. I've no doubt the students believe they should have been admitted; and there's no question in my mind that these students feel slighted that they weren't provided with a slot because they deserved the opportunity to attend that school.

There's nothing wrong with taking a stand supportive of education. We could run similar arguments for employment expectations for students such as these; even though we know employment practices and unemployment rates are going to prevent many from entering into their "dream" positions. Reality is not always what we want it to be.

Ivy Leagues do not necessariy represent the epitome of academic excellence. That's a value students and parents have given them (and this ranking is worth about as much as the paper the ranking company has the list printed on). If you believe the only way to go is to buy name-brand and nothing else will do as well, then of course you're likely to have a high rate of disappointment. But then, that leads me back to the "fit" argument.

"Fit" involves the student and parent coming to a realistic understanding of the student's actual circumstances (compared to the pool of applicants that are likely to apply to the college he/she is interested in attending) and the college's mission, needs and goals. If an institution has 500 openings (exclusive of athletes, if you want to bow to Shulman and Bowen) for new freshmen and 1000 or more applications from "brilliant, engaged students," then your student has to figure out what will make him/her stand out above the rest (and yes, I have actually acknowledged they're looking at non-academic criteria by indicating admissions officers are concerned with factors other than GPA and test scores). Seriously.

If your student adequately researcheed the institution and had some understanding of what the institution was truly seeking in a student, he/she could determine whether or not the "fit" was appropriate and the effort to apply worth it.

I always have students apply to at least three to five colleges. Included in the applicant pool should be one that is their dream college, one that is (in the student's/parent's eyes) a good alternate to the dream, and one that is a definite admission. Because the students and parents are focused on finding an actual "fit," I've yet to have a student that wasn't admitted to at least one of the colleges on their list--regardless of which area of the country they applied to. Was it always their "dream" school? Of course not.

Regardless of who benefits and whether or not everyone should have access or some more access than others, higher education in the U.S. is not a right, its a privilege.