National Merit Semifinalists 2018 (Dallas, Austin, Plano: best schools, safety, move)
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2. Sessions' probe of Harvard etc. has nearly nothing to do with athletics and a lot to do with better students being sent away in preference of students who fit a racial profile Harvard prefers.
I don't really care about the probe itself, and I don't expect any change in Ivy League admission either, but at least I want to see the raw data.
The Ivy admission records were submitted to both Education Department and Justice Department for multiple investigations, and there have been FOIA requests to release the records.
Ivy League sued the federal government to block the documents in Education Department, and FOIA to Justice Department was declined because of "ongoing investigation", for now.
No matter what the investigation results are, in today's political climate, I believe these records will come to light one day, in certain way.
We all know what they probably meant by that but proving that legally is another story. Also i’m not sure what part of ‘private’ people don’t understand with these schools. Right or wrong they dont have to admit anyone through anyone else's criteria of what’s ‘fair’.
Ivy League admissions haven't been purely merit based in lord knows how long. To me this is akin to rich families complaining about all the financial aid cases the Ivies choose to admit when there are far more financially qualified families that ‘should’ have had their kids attending. And yes, they actually do. In private.
Harvard accepts hundreds of millions of federal dollars every year. Accepting any federal dollars exposes Harvard to the full force of The Code of Federal Regulations and million other things. Harvard in effect is not private in the sense a church or private club or a school that accepts no federal dollars is private.
Harvard and the other Ivies moved away from a fairly strict melange of legacy privilege + merit as the key drivers of admission many decades ago in order to limit the number of Jews admitted.
I don't really care about the probe itself, and I don't expect any change in Ivy League admission either, but at least I want to see the raw data.
The Ivy admission records were submitted to both Education Department and Justice Department for multiple investigations, and there have been FOIA requests to release the records.
Ivy League sued the federal government to block the documents in Education Department, and FOIA to Justice Department was declined because of "ongoing investigation", for now.
No matter what the investigation results are, in today's political climate, I believe these records will come to light one day, in certain way.
I'd like to see those data as well. Clearly Harvard is quite worried about all of this.
Berkeley is located in midst of an Asian area and has lower in-state tuition. Harvard is in cold Boston area and costs a fortune. Most Asian parents prefer to keep kids at a drivable distance, Asian students won’t do mass exodus. Most Asians are educated upper middle class so not eligible for financial aid to ease Harvard expenses.Harvard needs to get over that paranoid fear of becoming an Asian school and loosing white applicants.
If you think top tier Asian American and Asian students as a cadre don't want to go to Harvard you are seriously out of touch.
Private schools, and public schools that do not produce enough NMSF offer up numerous reasons, and most of them are listed in this thread. They are all convenient excuses to obscure the reality that they simply do not have enough students with the intellectual capability, and aptitude (helped by the academic programs, and rigor at each school) to produce a certain percentage of NMSF.
You really believe that? Please read below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jiping
It is a lost cause to ask Asian parents to diversify the goals they have for their children.
Asian tiger parents just have one goal - to better their next generation, and to meet any tangible standard.
They have already started to let their kids learn musical instruments and join in sports since these are also part of requirements for college admission, in addition to A+ GPA.
The youngest US men's national figure skating champion, who just won another international championship for US in SLC this month, is an Asian.
Soon you will have to set quota for everything.
Some Democrats are smarter.
Instead of blatantly telling Asians to F off, they invented a new scheme called "specified API (Asian groups and Pacific Islander) groups".
The main idea is, since Chinese and Indians are outstanding among API groups, they should be subject to a second layer of affirmative actions. If a 20-percent-quota is assigned to all Asians, Chinese and Indian groups can only get a small portion of them, like 3% each.
In this way, the better Asian students can be effectively targeted and limited, in the name of diversity.
Bills allowing data aggregation for specified API have already passed in some blue states including CA. If @BLDSoon is so scared of Asians, you had better call some democratic representatives in Texas now.
I’m new this this forum but had toreply. I’m surprised at how some of you are so off the mark and clueless in somany aspects of the kids that earn NM and your "elite" high schools, and the college admissions process.[/font]
Yes, NM is impressive and the kids earning are clearly smart kids but it is by far minimal indicator for successin college. That is why very few of the elite colleges (public or private) givemuch scholarship money and fewer and fewer have been doing so over the lastseveral years. They know that PSAT is not a big indicator for success. Yes, thekids clearly worked hard but it is not that hard to do well on the PSAT if your kid takes these extensive test prep classes and,or studies the PSAT prep books.By far it is more about 2 factors: Amount of Test prep and affluent parents ordistricts that can afford to provide their students significant amount of thatprep. That is why the affluent districts do the best. They are not preparingyour students better than most other average or better school for any otherreason. I know because my own daughter earned NM going to a public school with 50% lowincome demographics. Her school has a reasonable selection of AP classes but success on PSAT had nothing to do with her school and all to do with her being a bright kid and us, her parents recognizing it and having her take a class to help prepare her to increase her scores a little more. And time. Quit tellingyourselves its anything more than that. When kids practice over and overespecially on this new straightforward test, of course the bright kids aregoing to do well. I find it sad that so many parents are having their kidsprepare so much for that test rather than being more involved in otheractivities and learning about socializing and life because High school and evencollege is about so much more than just academics. It is about learning to workwith others, which leads to my next important comment.
Colleges certainly want high scoringstudents but they want those students that are more likely to be contributorsto their college by their active participation in all of the variety of areasthat make colleges a dynamic and constant learning environment beyond straightacademics. If any of you talk to the selective college reps, they will tell youthat they want smart kids that can handle the academic rigor, while having timeto engage in the other aspects of their university. So “smart” kids with provenrecord of extensive extracurricular activities that already exhibitedtime-management and leadership and social skills due to all of their activitiesare the ones they want. Representatives from these schools admit that they haveto turn away a lot of good kids, but if your child is more of a High scorer andachiever and only “check box” activities and volunteer service, many of themcan see through that. They may select some kids that are the highest scorersand achievers regardless of the other contributions they made in high schooland likely to make in college otherwise but overwhelmingly they want kids thatare interactive and many super smart kids do not do that so they are going topass you over.
I also have to say from experience at my kid’s school, often certain demographics of studious students do not participate and engage as much in extensive extracurricular activities other than some volunteer oracademic organizations. I truly do not mean this as a stereotype or to trivialize those organizations but I’m sorryit is true for many. No you do not have to be an athlete, but kids on athleticteams and marching band, and other such activities have to learn to work together with a plethora of other kids that are not like them and they put in a tremendous number of hours and still make the grades in their classes. Being in the Key club or NHS orMath club is not the same level of commitment for most of the kids. Not thatsome don’t put a lot of hours in but it just isn’t the same commitment of having to put in 20-30 hours per week and on school nights. I've seen a few of you imply this is just some silly requirement but kids LEARN how to work with others in these diverse organizations. You are not better than someone else because you make the highest grade. Kids need to learn that in life and in their jobs they will need to work on a team for the benefit of the greater good, company, etc. Not just selfishly always for themselves to be the "best" which is what I see from too many students due to their upbringing and emphasis on being the best rather than being smart AND a good person and not cheating, etc. [/font]
But make no mistake a lot of excellent students do not get admitted to some colleges. Instead they admit some students with high but maybe slightly lesser qualifications (in variety of areas) who offermore “diversity” to the college and that can come in different ways. There is no question that happens and it’s notall bad. I feel like it happened to my own student and it feels unfair sometimesparticularly when they chose some students, seemingly because of race but who actually are even more affluent (and thus would seem to have had some advantages). But regardless, diversity on college campuses (and in our cities, states and countries) is a good thing and keeps them a dynamic social and learning environment so we just haveto accept some of that. There are many great schools for all the kids out there so we chose to believe that it was just meant to be and made the decision choice easier. We need to stop teaching our kids that attending a college on the "top 25" list is more important than finding a good fit and just doing well at that college.
Sorry for the long response and I hope it doesn’t offend anyone but I had a different perspective and felt compelledto share.
Last edited by ut_mom; 10-17-2017 at 08:40 PM..
Reason: "font characters"
Ah crap. I meant Princeton. He still got a 1300. Still proves the point. Breslow went to Yale.
I stand by what people I know say. Told him if his kid gets 1200 he's in. You can also search on the internet for many parents who said their kids got in with a 1200 (or close to it) on the SAT because of sports. Numerous examples. One guy posted he ran track at Harvard and got a 1290 on his SAT. Said he was on the lower end of scores. Another women said multiple people on her cross country team got from 1300-1400. Men's hockey has much much lower requirements.
Regardless it is still 100% factual that doing well in sports allows you a lower bar for acceptance. You keep responding with points that absolutely prove what I said is true.
I am still trying to figure out what you are trying to prove because all you have done is agree that one can get lower grades and lower scores if they play sports. Arguing specific requirements is impossible.
The lowest AI index for Ivy league acceptance according to an article I read a few minutes ago is 176.
The point is if you get a 3.6 GPA and score a 1420 or so on your SAT and the coach of the BB, baseball, football, hockey, track, soccer, lacrosse, etc team wants you in you are 100% in. Do the exact same and go through admissions process and maybe you get in if you are lucky.
I'm begging you study up on this as your kids get older. You are correct that a 176AI is the absolute minimum that avoids the circular file. However, as each school's entire athletic program on a per class basis must have an average AI number within an absolute maximum of 1 standard deviation from the overall class mean......the kid with a 176 needs to be the next Jordan Spieth or Michael Jordan because the rest of his class across all sports will have to make up for his AI deficiency.
I'm begging you study up on this as your kids get older. You are correct that a 176AI is the absolute minimum that avoids the circular file. However, as each school's entire athletic program on a per class basis must have an average AI number within an absolute maximum of 1 standard deviation from the overall class mean......the kid with a 176 needs to be the next Jordan Spieth or Michael Jordan because the rest of his class across all sports will have to make up for his AI deficiency.
So you're saying the kid better be an athlete named "Jordan"?
Sorry for the long response and I hope it doesn’t offend anyone but I had a different perspective and felt compelledto share.
You perspective aligns exactly (100%) with Harvard.
These are the exact words from Harvard when they started the anti-Semitic Jewish Quota:
Quote:
it is neither feasible nor desirable to raise the standards of the College so high that none but brilliant scholars can enter
the standards ought never to be so high for serious and ambitious students of average intelligence
gather additional information on character and fitness and the promise of the greatest usefulness in the future as a result of a Harvard education
The anti-Semitic feeling among the students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews. If their number should become 40% of the student body, the race feeling would become intense.
Note I'm not criticizing you. Asian quota is today's moral standard and it won't go away anytime soon. My post was talking about what will happen next.
It's in Asian culture to not challenge the rule, but to adapt and evolve yourself and survive with it. If academics get deprioritized, and athlete/extra-circular become the lower-hanging fruit, of course Asians will swarm into these activities and raise the bar there again. Not sure everyone want to see this happen.
Last month I mentioned an Asian boy won an international figure skating championship for US. Guess what happened a few days ago? Another Asian girl won the world gymnastics championship for US team.
What will be the new dynamics? I'm curious whether at the end it will end up being a net loss for all non-Asians, considering AA doesn't really help the URM in the long term either.
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