Requirements and Admittance to Ivy League Schools
Dear Mr. Bradshaw, I visited several Ivy League colleges with my son and daughter last summer. Both are juniors and will be applying to many of them this fall. We met with representatives who
, to a person, kept emphasizing how they typically turn away students with perfect grades and test scores. Im not sure I understand the purpose of telling us this information. The colleges we visited have highest grades and test scores in the nation! We came away feeling less confident than ever about the selection process. Our high school counselors tell us that getting into a top college is more or less a crap shoot. As none of them attended a top college the most they could suggest was read the college handbook. My question to you is who gets admitted to the Ivy League and what criteria do they use to select students? Both my son and daughter have already scored perfect on several parts of the SAT and rank tops in their class. And to be honest they didnt have to work that hard to do it. We know other colleges offer a good education but thats not what they prepared for all these years. I hope you have good advice beyond what we have gotten thus far! Signed, A hopeful parent of the Ivy League. Dear Parent, Thats quite a story but not an uncommon one. America is supposed to be all about meritocracy. Yet many top students are turned away each year from the Ivy League. What gives? First let me say that the colleges were right in warning you that perfect grades and test scores alone are not always going to get you in. There is more to the admission process than stacking the applications according to grades and test scores and picking the best off the top first before looking at the others. Thats the way it is done in other countries with a national examination system. Not to be cynical but Irans current leader scored first out of 50 thousand students on his national examination and look where that got them. America does not use a national examination to determine who gets in. Nor does having a photographic memory like Bill Clinton or having Einsteins IQ insure admission. All of which makes it difficult for bright students to prepare for a top college and even discouraging at times. Youve already alluded to one quality that makes your son and daughter stand out among others as likely candidates for admission. The fact that they didnt have to work all that hard in high school to be the best in their class is a typical characteristic. I dont know why but the students I have worked with seem to share this one common trait--high school was fairly easy. Another trait is they all tested well. When colleges tell you not to worry if you dont have the highest test scores this is slightly misleading. The admission meritocracy in American breaks everything down into categories and scores them accordingly, rather than having one vertical stack like in Japan, Korea, India and China. We use gender, ethnic background, legacy standing, sports and geographic location and international status in the search for the most promising students. When they pick a student he or she is most likely to be the one with the highest test scores. Grades matter but since grade inflation has become rampant in recent years, and class rank is rapidly disappearing from transcripts, test scores seems to be holding their own. And, of course, test score have a lot to do with how colleges are ranked in US News and World report. No matter which of the myriad of categories you fall into, test scores are probably going to be the most persuasive quantitative asset you bring to the admissions committee. Let me make another observation which is perhaps more difficult to define in a quantitative sense. The students Ive worked with who got admittedand they fit all categoriesseem to exhibit a certain individual self-confidence. Not arrogance. But they seem to know themselves. They understand where they want to go in life and are mature enough to have weighed the outcomes and if they dont get admitted to their first choice it isnt going to make or break them. They are not going the let their identities be defined by the institutions. They are centered and focused on life in general and are prepared to deal with disappoint and failure as a natural component of life. They know what they want to major in, they are already thinking about grad school, and very few take more than four years to graduate. They know that Harvard and Stanford are labels like Polo and Prada. These are great names to have on ones diploma, to be sure, but in no way are they going to be the defining points of their life. They would not have fallen victim to view that the system is rigged against me if they didnt get in.
Requirements and Admittance to Ivy League Schools
By: Gerald Bradshaw
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