[ehondo670]

Why do prestigious universities only show veneration to strong performing high school academics? The only point of entry into their top programs, is through first getting accepted as a freshman. It is virtually impossible to gain entry as a transfer student.

They must not realize, that not everyone is given a thriving adolescent environment to succeed in. I really would have loved to take AP classes, participated in after-school clubs, and gotten a 4.0, but my time was occupied with taking care of a family berated by an alcoholic mother and father.....cough, cough sorry, I am just making excuses for not applying myself. Sorry.



/rant off

[alleyyooper]

U of M is over rated any way.
Star basket ball player can not even remember the number 3.

Al

[canudigit]

Originally Posted by ehondo670

Why do prestigious universities only show veneration to strong performing high school academics? The only point of entry into their top programs, is through first getting accepted as a freshman. It is virtually impossible to gain entry as a transfer student.

They must not realize, that not everyone is given a thriving adolescent environment to succeed in. I really would have loved to take AP classes, participated in after-school clubs, and gotten a 4.0, but my time was occupied with taking care of a family berated by an alcoholic mother and father.....cough, cough sorry, I am just making excuses for not applying myself. Sorry.



/rant off

I understand where you're coming from to a point, but really, if they didn't go by high school academics, extracurriculars, etc. then what would they use as entrance criteria, since they know zero about a person when they apply?

I'm sorry that you got a tough break in life. I hope it won't discourage you from going to college somewhere and making a better life for yourself. And there are scores of success stories of people who had a tough life early on but persevered and graduated from college, proved themselves in the workplace, and went on to bigger and better things. I hope you will have a chance to be one of them.

[Coldjensens]

They seem to weigh test scores more heavily than anything. I am not sure how they comare high school grades since some schools use a different grading system (i.e. 5.0 scale instead of 4.0). Other schools engage in grade inflation (i.e. no one gets below a C and 40-50% end up with As). Since this change with the administration, how can they possibly keep up with what is going on in each school and then meaningfully evaluate grades from one school compared to grades from another?

My daughter is applying to transfer from U-M Dearborn to U-M Ann Arbor so I guess we will see what difficulty she has. Her grades at U-M D are about the same as she got in high school (3.8 - 3.9), so we will see whether they accept her now. Of course we do not know whether the would have accepted her right out of high school, becasue she applied too late, but I assume that they would have.

[Bhaalspawn]

Originally Posted by ehondo670

Why do prestigious universities only show veneration to strong performing high school academics? The only point of entry into their top programs, is through first getting accepted as a freshman. It is virtually impossible to gain entry as a transfer student.

They must not realize, that not everyone is given a thriving adolescent environment to succeed in. I really would have loved to take AP classes, participated in after-school clubs, and gotten a 4.0, but my time was occupied with taking care of a family berated by an alcoholic mother and father.....cough, cough sorry, I am just making excuses for not applying myself. Sorry.

What kind of admissions criteria and process do you recommend that they use instead? If they don't base admission on SAT and ACT scores and high school grades, then what should they base it on?

[canudigit]

Originally Posted by Bhaalspawn

What kind of admissions criteria and process do you recommend that they use instead? If they don't base admission on SAT and ACT scores and high school grades, then what should they base it on?

Because if they were to let everyone in who had an ostensibly "good" reason for not doing so well in high school, people would lie, lie, lie, unqualified people would get into the school, and the school's reputation would suffer. Once a school builds a reputation for excellence, they have to do everything in their power to uphold that reputation, even if it means not admitting people who don't have the performance history to indicate that they would be successful students in a very challenging academic environment. I'm not saying that your story isn't true or that you fit into this catagory, but there are a lot of people who would make up sob stories to compensate for basically being a slacker in high school if it would get them into a prestigious school and it wouldn't be fair to people who really worked hard.

[ehondo670]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

They seem to weigh test scores more heavily than anything. I am not sure how they comare high school grades since some schools use a different grading system (i.e. 5.0 scale instead of 4.0). Other schools engage in grade inflation (i.e. no one gets below a C and 40-50% end up with As). Since this change with the administration, how can they possibly keep up with what is going on in each school and then meaningfully evaluate grades from one school compared to grades from another?

My daughter is applying to transfer from U-M Dearborn to U-M Ann Arbor so I guess we will see what difficulty she has. Her grades at U-M D are about the same as she got in high school (3.8 - 3.9), so we will see whether they accept her now. Of course we do not know whether the would have accepted her right out of high school, becasue she applied too late, but I assume that they would have.

Uh, if she is trying to transfer into the engineering or business program, she can forget it (it's a waste of time, they only admit 1% of transfer students into their program). The only easy access point into the school is the LSA, but that is only a liberal arts program. And we all know how marketable a liberal arts degree is...

I also go to u of m d, and had the intention of transferring as well. I just recently realized that it is nearly impossible.

[scolls]

The student body is over 40k making it one of the largest universities in the country. Apparently there is a good amount of people who figured out how to get in. Quit complaining because you aren't one of them.

[AlohaHuey]

Originally Posted by ehondo670

Why do prestigious universities only show veneration to strong performing high school academics? The only point of entry into their top programs, is through first getting accepted as a freshman. It is virtually impossible to gain entry as a transfer student.

They must not realize, that not everyone is given a thriving adolescent environment to succeed in. I really would have loved to take AP classes, participated in after-school clubs, and gotten a 4.0, but my time was occupied with taking care of a family berated by an alcoholic mother and father.....cough, cough sorry, I am just making excuses for not applying myself. Sorry.



/rant off

Because they can.

That said, there are plenty of people who came from difficult backgrounds who went to good schools.

[YAZ]

Originally Posted by scolls

The student body is over 40k making it one of the largest universities in the country. Apparently there is a good amount of people who figured out how to get in. Quit complaining because you aren't one of them.

Yeah....just be good at football and major in something important like kinesiology or communications.

Go Blue? More like Go Blow.....