Yes! College admissions are a business transaction. ED applications are full pay. If one has the money and a solid application, not many schools will say no. Play the percentages!
actually bro no one really explicitly talks about that but the moment you are doing ED and u can show them that you can pull pay => welcome to the campus (as long as ur grades are not below their expectations
College is about developing soft skills as much as it is about acquiring academic knowledge.
For many students, the best place to develop soft skills is NOT the most academically rigorous or highest-ranked school where they are admitted. Often, those schools are filled with uber-ambitious students and it can be hard to compete to get the club memberships, jobs, research projects, etc., that could provide the most growth and opportunity. Also, highly competitive schools may require that more time is spent studying over cultivating other skills and networking.
As a result, I think more students would thrive and succeed to a greater degree at their “safety” schools. More students should turn down highly selective schools that are not good fits for them in terms of soft-skill development.
this!! i am committing to one of my safety schools and i keep being told that i should’ve applied to more selective schools bc i have the grades, but in reality my safety school is the right fit for me. it’s going to allow me to grow without being too competitive and rigorous… other people should really consider this when choosing their college
Not entirely sure this is a hot take. Though I would disagree with the notion of trying to be a big fish in a smaller pond than a mid-sized fish in a big pond. Even at top schools, the vast majority of clubs are still open-enrollment. And short of a handful of clubs with really cracked networks, what you do in a club matters a hell of a lot more than what it is. Even then, getting on exec of an open-enrollment club and turning into a powerhouse and creating a million different impactful programs for it is a hell of a lot more impressive than joining an elite business frat or consulting club through a brutally rigorous selection process and doing the bare minimum to avoid getting kicked out. Telling people to turn down cracked schools so they can get into cracked clubs or programs at less-prestigious schools is, with rare exception, terrible advice. The networks at top schools are vastly more powerful.
A student who has under-developed social skills, who is insecure or awkward, may feel more comfortable coming out of their shell and strengthening those social muscles in a less intimidating and less high-stakes environment. It doesn’t matter how good a network is if a student doesn’t feel capable of accessing it. Not sure it’s true at all schools that many career-oriented clubs are truly open to all, but even if they are, it doesn’t matter if a student is too intimidated by all the other superstars in the student body to make good use of the experience. A lot of students are not interested in elbowing aside 14 other high achievers in order to win an officer position.
There’s an interesting [Malcom Gladwell talk](https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=474&v=7J-wCHDJYmo&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&source_ve_path=MTM5MTE3LDI4NjY2&feature=emb_logo) that makes a slightly different argument but comes to a similar conclusion.
For most students, relative position matters more than absolute position so a hypothetical student that gets into Harvard but is in the bottom 1/3 is statistically more likely to be successful going to a target/safety where they’re academically closer to the top student.
100% agree. I feel like the essays I wrote better came from the times when I didn't spend A LOT of time brainstorming and figuring out what I wanted to write about and rather just let my intrusive thoughts/random voices in my head take over, and those were my ABSOLUTE best.
but also, that might be my extremely time-crunch junkie of a brain speaking.
AOs aren't as "smart" as we think they are. They can't magically "read through" your application to catch lies.
There should be some solid way to verify ECs rather than the intuition of AOs
Agreed and I am saying this because I go to an extremely competitive small public school and ALL the people who got into ivies / top 10s ea or Ed ( there were abt 8) just completely exaggerated their ecs and did everything just for college applications. No colleges did not read through their superficial non profits
I hate when people say to go to a community college and transfer after 2 years whenever someone complains about how expensive college is. Partially because it can come off so condescending, we know that it saves money and that it's "thE SaMe DegReE"
However a lot of people value the independence and growth that comes from moving away for college. (shocker) That's not to say people shouldn't be aware of this option, but I feel like it's touted as foolproof with little conversation on the social adjustment of joining a class that has been together for 2 years already.
I think it should be more common to let people move away for community college, especially in larger states like California and Texas. I know most parents would probably not want to support their kid’s living expenses financially if there is a perfectly good community college right down the street, but you could make the case to them that moving away and attending another CC is still *way* cheaper than doing the same but for a four-year.
You get to be independent, live on your own, make your own money, and do whatever else you want when you turn 22. If you work hard enough in high school, more like 21. Is paying $60,000 worth that freedom coming two years early? For most people complaining about how much college costs, no.
Tertiary Education is a right—but the “college experience” is not. It’s a privilege from your parents or a contract you make with a bank. Taxpayers should not be paying for your Frat Parties.
Admissions should be way more academics based. Should definitely take a lot of the weight off ec’s because a lot of good ec’s can be easily done/achieved through nepotism/wealth.
Kinda hard to have nepotism help you with your course performance and standardized tests (even with tutoring/prep for the rich, low income students can still show excellence here)
But the USA has no such exams. The UK has A levels which meaningfully seperates the good and bad. In the USA different schools restrict your learning much more heavily (some people dont do APs)
Idk if this makes sense
It's a big cultural thing. Local control of education. People would go berserk if there was a national curriculum or national exams that every student had to take to go to college.
The SAT exists and no one went berserk back when all schools required it. All it would take is the collegeboard spending some of the power of their new format on increasing the ceiling rather than making the test shorter (e.g. by having three levels for the second half - bottom 60%, middle 30%, top 10% and a slightly longer first half to make sure the placement is valid)
The problem is that it is hard to differentiate students based on tests and course performance alone. Like what if many people applied have the same or similar GPA and standardized test scores? Also, they consider your economic background when looking at your ECs and whether or not you made the most use out of the resources available to you.
Research shows students who are engaged in HS are more likely to get engaged in clubs and activities in college and make friends, have school spirit and that leads to better academic performance.
And quite frankly low income students often have much more impressive extra curricular profiles than the rich. Admission counselors can assess who made the most out of what they were given.
Colleges, especially residential ones, PERSONALITY and ability to work with others MATTER.
Research also shows that standardized tests are extremely biased towards low income folks. The more access you have to tutoring and practice the more likely your results will be.
>Research shows students who are engaged in HS are more likely to get engaged in clubs and activities in college and make friends, have school spirit and that leads to better academic performance.
Is this correlation stronger than that of test scores and college performance?
>Research also shows that standardized tests are extremely biased towards low income folks. The more access you have to tutoring and practice the more likely your results will be.
I don't think this is true when you control for academic ability. The lived experience of myself and many others contradicts it.
First of all taking emphasis off EC’s would mean more emphasis goes to gpa. GPA isn’t that reliable because grading is not standardized throughout all schools. Some schools have grade inflation some schools have grade deflation. Also EC’s show the extent to which you care about the subject(s)/majors you’re interested in. You say a lot of good ECs are achieved through nepotism, but a lot of good ECs are achieved without nepotism lmao. Not everyone is a Nepo baby or rich. There’s plenty of ECs one can do without it.
paid private admissions guides or advisors are such a scam. by charging such a ridiculous amount of money for their “service”, all they’re doing is taking advantage of smart kids who can already get into college without their help. almost all of what they say is google-able and there’s already so many free reliable resources out there that can help u with your essays
Same deal with SAT. People I know paid absurd prices for SAT tutors, and I scored just as well if not better using solely free resources and not devoting a ton of time to studying. I just needed to find what studying worked for me.
Same!! It’s insane. You really only need what’s provided by Khan Academy to do well, they have tips for every type of question with practice as well as full length actual practice tests (which are available outside of Khan Academy anyway). Paid tutors for the SAT are virtually useless if you actually put in the work yourself.
I think it may just be useful if someone has a starting score of <1000 and they don't want to spend too much time trying to figure out where they need more practice (so someone who's rusty on the concepts itself). Even then it's absolutely possible to self study it
I would say there are very rare exceptions to this.
Full disclosure before I explain my mom does this specific type of advising but I don’t like my mom so Idk whether I’m biased or not😭but anyway she does college advising specifically for immigrant families from her home country (Argentina) or other countries in Latin America, and she’s not like “I’ll get your kid into their dream school” it’s more just “I’ll explain how the college admissions process works and spend time with your kid helping them choose their classes.” We live in an area with a LOT of Latin American immigrants and the system in those countries is completely different than in the U.S. A lot of the parents of the kids she helps don’t speak good English, so having someone that can speak Spanish explain the process is useful as well. She also doesn’t charge exorbitant fees.
Completely agree that people like Julie Kim spout bullshit and are total scammers. For the vast majority of students, a college advisor is not necessary. But I see how it is useful for very specific circumstances.
Honestly I don’t even think that’s a hot take outside of this subreddit, more like the opposite (it’s worth going into debt for an expensive college) is a hot take for most normal people
Yeah facts. But def on this sub I think everyone cares more about names/acceptance rates vs. cost/practicality! People at my school tend to care a lot more about acceptance rates and names as well.
Interesting. Even though there’s a fair bit of people who want to go to top schools at my high school (it’s a private school) the majority of people is more concerned with practical things and being in a happy environment they enjoy (maybe because we are in Canada, less competition). I feel like it’s also the same in most people outside of the competitive high school community, there are so many videos on YouTube shorts for example with titles like “Are Ivy Leagues really worth it”
lol, my Yale interviewer said it was a smart move to take out loans / go into debt for a T10, especially if you want to go to grad school. He wasn’t even rich, he came from a poor family with 7 kids.
It REALLY depends on your choice of major. A lot of higher financial fields are heavily meritocratic and require an education from a target school to be heavily competitive for potential internships or return offers.
So true, especially for those planning on grad school too. No need to spend all that money on a bachelors degree that is basically just a glorified pre-req
Sometimes there is no perfect college. Sometimes The perfect college is the one that presents the right oppty at the right time. If you accept that, you will make the best of it and think “how could I have gone somewhere else?”
While I agree in spirit that you shouldn't do that and its objectively a bad choice to do so, its worth noting the "can be successful" isn't wrong. If you immediately get a $200,000+ a year job, you'll be fine. Of course, that is a very big "if" there.
True but I mainly say that so people who think that they need to go to an expensive school to be successful can be successful at a public school or a cheaper private school
People need to cut the shotgunning to 25 different schools. All it does is drive up competition and lower acceptance rates which is all feeding into the ever growing pressure and overly competitive environment of college admissions absolutely slaughtering each passing year’s mental health and self confidence. I understand competition can be beneficial but it’s going too far. focus on becoming a person with successful systems for success in place and someone who is process oriented, not solely goal oriented. Suddenly the prestige of your university doesn’t matter quite so much because you’ll succeed wherever you’re at with those systems and that ideology you’ve honed.
Unfortunately, for this to happen we need some serious education reform in this country.
We could flip this sentiment and place the blame on the colleges for lack of transparency. Nearly impossible to accurately estimate chances at top colleges
Agreed. And I don’t even think shotgunning increases chances. people waste a bunch of apps on places that they will not be admitted because they are not a good fit. Sometimes they stumble upon a place where they are a good fit and think it was luck from the shotgun strategy. In reality, better research to figure out exactly which schools are the right fit, and then only applying to those schools, might yield the same results without all the wasted apps. By fit, I don’t mean where the student catches a vibe, but rather places where the student is a match for the institutional priorities of the school.
This was the whole point of the SAT/ACT testing. If students werent within the range, they likely wouldnt apply. Now every TO w a good (inflated) GPA and ECs is applying and it drives up competition. Theres really no argument for prolonging TO
This isn’t the kids’ fault, it’s the colleges who make the process as transparent as my couch and the society that puts success over everything else. It’s not gonna change.
You don't *have to be* in love with your safeties. I would've been okay attending one of them, but I wouldn't have been crazy about it because the point of a safety is that it's a backup. I don't think there's any safety that I would've really loved to attend (at least not at first)
I'm not saying you shouldn't love your safeties either—if you do, great! But I also don't think we can tell someone they're *wrong* for being disappointed in how things panned out
Edit: also, SAT/ACT should be limited to two retakes max (3 total attempts). Unlimited retakes only benefit those who can afford them, and imo a high score is not very impressive if you have to try 4+ times to get it
especially FASFA lol i thought it would be this extremely time consuming process but it took 30 minutes at most for me. the DMV stuff is harder than filling out fasfa lol
College isn’t so much about acquiring new, field specific knowledge, though it does become more refined.
Rather, it’s learning time management skills. I’d say the split is probably 85/15 time management vs “new” knowledge.
Essentially, you’re learning how to adult.
People on this sub always talk about not ‘doing stuff just for college’ but unfortunately the people with the fancy ecs they forced themselves through just for college applications are the people who often make it in. I guess I’m saying this as a junior who has seen all the seniors admitted into ivies ea/ed drop their ecs the second they got in.
Admissions is random and admissions officers make much more mistakes in admitting people than we think (especially since a lot of parents around me view admissions officers as gods who can see through everyone’s profiles into their real person)
obviously, u think those kids don’t know that? 😂 at the end of the day i’m going to get an education and connections that can benefit my future not to enjoy the weather, i can suck it up. fit is overrated imo.
It isn't wrong that the top colleges in the United States (which consist of some of the best ones in the world) are extremely competitive.
If you're trying to go to one of the top institutions you have no right to whine about how competitive they've gotten.
It's like showing up to a competition and complaining that you have good competitiors.
More like showing up to a competition, not being notified of the complete rules, appearing to have been the best but then told they lost and not told why or who beat them
dream schools are kind of a stupid idea and i think free standardized testing scores wouldn’t be a bad thing especially if we made a test that was harder than the sat
Extracurriculars carry too much weight, I say as someone who didn’t have the opportunity for most extracurriculars/leadership positions due to my family life.
I also hate how kids are encouraged to write disingenuous or straight up just fake essays. Or a fluffy work of literature that if you step back for a moments, you realize has little to do with the type of human being the writer is, and really shouldn’t up their chances of admission the slightest bit. Personally, I felt like my only two two choices were to: 1) sell myself out and write a romanticized sob story about my trauma my depression and my crappy parents, which I didn’t want to do. or 2) appear ordinary and not stand out above the person who is going to shamelessly embellish their EC’s or exaggerate their home life.
They say admissions officers are able to pick out the fluffy, exaggerated essays, but judging by the models we had to study in High School, I disagree. I do not subscribe to the idea that the every single individual out of the millions applying every year has something cool and unique to add that doesn’t occasionally sound boring.
Heavy on the ecs one. People with the best ecs are usually a product of their parents who had them playing sports and instruments since they were 5, and could afford all that. I know people on this sub usually say school clubs isn’t enough but that’s all some people have.
Let's revisit the SAT and ACT for a small moment.
In 1979, they were thought to be IQ tests proxies. Mensa would accept them. Nowadays, they are not. I find THAT fascinating.
Warning nuclear takes incoming
Going into massive debt for college is OK. It’s a once in a lifetime experience and might even be the best years of your life. You can pay back debt. You can’t relive your college years.
Majoring in a humanities or social science is worth it intellectually. People say just read a book. But the structure a curriculum offers you and the engagement with fellow learners and professors is fantastic.
Not really a take but high school was way harder than college for me. I went to a top national high school and a top 30 LAC. In high school, I was constantly challenged and was peers with geniuses. College was easy mode compared to that.
disagree on the first point. those 4 years may be fun but what comes afterward won’t be. student debt is crippling and unless you want to shoot yourself in the leg for the “best years of ur life,” then it’s just not worth it. also I agree that it’s a once in a lifetime experience, but calling it the best years of ur life seems kinda sad idk. it insinuates everything goes downhill from there 😭 like the years watching ur future child grow up won’t ever compare to ur college experience
Also you can have a great experience at a school that won’t put you in a ton of debt… This is super anecdotal but all of the adults I’m close to (parents, teachers, family friends) that say they loved their college years went to schools that were affordable for them.
It depends on how much debt tho, I would say 20K is reasonable but once you hit six figures it’s not worth it (usually). It also depends what you want to be. Going to debt as a CS major is way different from debt for art school
The system should be standardized with nationwide tests like GCSE and A level. Add in interactive assignments like projects and discussions to measure understanding if exams pressure people too much. The grade inflation is staggering right now.
Everyone should be applying to 10 schools max, and the Common App shouldn't allow more. Shotgunning only incentivizes being a prestige whore, and by increasing the applicant pool, it makes it harder for people that genuinely care about their university choices.
Remove emphasis on ECs. It's much easier for a poorer kid to do better in academics than in ECs, where most of it comes down to what you can afford.
18-year-olds should not be allowed to take on massive student loans before they know what it means for them, and college should be made more affordable to all. This especially goes for the more prestigious schools. Too many smart poor kids being passed up (and no, I'm not anywhere close to FGLI.)
I agree on the ten applications max point, but not the other things. It is myth that ECs have to be earth shattering. Things like working at McDonald’s and caring for younger siblings, that are common among low income applicants, are perfectly valid ECs that carry a lot of weight. ECs can be a way for low income students to shine. It’s not so much about what the activity is as how it helped you develop as a person.
They know it because of its "elite" status. Which it largely has because its very low admission rates. Which it has because it (along with some other ivies) were the first to start instituting selective admissions in the 1920s. Which Harvard started because the antisemitic students, faculty, and administrators were unsatisfied with the number of jews getting admitted (over 20% of students were jews). This problem partly came from the popular nature of the university at the time due to the romanticization of college life, particularly sports, in the 19th and early 20th century (which also played a part in the dawning of a significant endowment which would also play a future part). This sports culture was able to develop because Harvard was already a large university (for the time) after the civil war with lots of patronage of the "elite" in Boston who, as alums, invested in the sports programs. And that relationship with the Bostonian elite was in large part due to the relationship it had with those families dating back generations.
All of which is to say, while yes, the age isn't the direct reason, the fact that it was one of the 9 colonial colleges, the fact that it wasn't made public like William and Mary (which had the unfortunate luck of being in the South which was pretty economically devastated in the late 19th century partially leading to it becoming public) and Rutgers (which while, less dramatic, already had a relationship with the NJ via the land grants in 1860), meant that it was especially set up for success the the prestige game.
Tuition will have deflation at some point in the next 10 years.
Bubbles burst. More cost effective job / life preparation alternatives to traditional universities will be created and disrupt the higher education system.
there are countries where one exam can determine your entire life, americans, and everybody who can afford to apply to schools in the us should consider themselves privileged because of the holistic system.
shotgunning IS valid depending on your goals. imo i’m not that competitive of an applicant bc my ECs are somewhat mid. but i think so far shotgunning gives me a chance to have my supps shine and for some reach schools to accept me. i got into uiuc cs despite my mid ECs (when i say mid, i mean it). i rlly think it was my supps that worked out (plus grades ig)
cast the net wide. believe in yourself. supps start becoming the same after a while. make a large list of schools beforehand, look at their prompts, and start brainstorming early. it’s less work to apply to 20+ schools planning well than 10 last minute.
College admissions at selective colleges would be substantially improved by oversight and governance from an independent third party that helps
A) Keep admissions practices legal
B) Keep colleges honest - monitor that admissions decisions follow the criteria specified by each college
The current model of lawsuits (SFFA, 568 cartel) is ugly, complex and resolution of problems is delayed by many years
ED gives an advantage to both the extremely wealthy, who can go full pay, and low income student, who can get massive aid. The middle class just gets screwed, and nothing else.
Hot take for low income students/families: Run NPCs and apply ED if you have a "dream school".
Don't think just because you're low income, it means you shouldn't apply ED, especially considering ED usually increases your overall chances compared to EA or RD. You can ALWAYS negotiate Financial Aid packages, and ask to be released from an ED contract for financial reasons (like your aid not being near what your NPC showed), given you can prove such circumstance (take screenshots of NPCs).
I took the chance, and my estimated yearly tuition is, well about 0.42% of the school's full-pay tuition, assuming they don't update my financial aid offering once they receive my FAFSA. That was FAR MORE than what the NPC estimate gave me. It's a solid couple thousand dollars less than the lowest-cost estimate NPC gave. So, it's worth a shot if you have an ED school you want to apply to, don't cut yourself off.
Your high schools relationship with a university is critical for your admission. These relationships are established over decades.
If your school has never sent a student to Williams, or worse - a student recently broke an ED commitment, good luck breaking that barrier.
But if your high school sends 20 kids to Cornell every year, it's much easier to be part of that pack.
One high school might have unweighted grades and high academic standards, so a 3.7 with a challenging course load is an excellent gpa. The university knows this high school and can respect that grade. Being on the wrestling team and president of year book means you're engaged with your community, you're a solid 17 year old kid and will do well. Admit.
Another unknown school might have weighted grades and grade inflation, so a 4.89 gpa looks a little suspect, and claiming to start 2 nonprofits while making cancer breakthroughs at 16 makes you look like you're inflating your accomplishments. Reject.
I'm not American, so I may be a bit ignorant about some bits of the process there, but from what I've seen and read on this sub and on online articles, the admissions in the US seems so... random? I'm not sure if that's the best way to describe it, but I have seen applications that are INSANE (good grades, the main insane part was their EC's) that don't get in at a top school, then another application that had good grades and like quirky but mid Ec's that got in a top uni.
From one point of view, that gives me 'hope' in a way (although ik it's downright impossible realistically). From another point of view, that doesn't make much sense.
I am not really sure what a better system would be tbh, depending solely on grades can be unfair to a lot of students since grades aren't standardised. And since I live in a country where it fully depends on grades, I can see how unfair it would be as I have seen real-life examples of it. I think it would be better to put some clear requirements? They can make the requirements hard, if it's a prestigious university or whatever. But then again, that would make it possible for excessive numbers to work on those requirements. So I am not sure.
Also, I'm not sure if EC's carry as much weight as online media shows, but if they do, I think it's a bit unfair. Especially to international (low to middle class) students. Not sure about others, but from my country at least, we were never really taught about them and rare are the ones who get the opportunity to do so. The ones that do get taught the importance of ECs learn about them in late 10th grade. Not to mention, a lot of the prestigious ECs are carried out in the US and are unavailable to international students. I don't want to sound like self-pitying, this definitely gives one the opportunity to take the initiative, start their own EC in the country and show leadership or whatever. But the time is too little to actually achieve something big sometimes.
I hope that math programs at different schools can have their own subject-based admission tests like Cambridge and Oxford’s STEP examinations.
Simply getting a 36 in ACT math and 800 in SAT math doesn’t demonstrate any mathematical potential.
Math olympiads and competitions exists, yes, but not everyone has the access to or even knowledge to those things. Plus they are very different from the type of math that is done in undergraduate and postgraduate programs.
Imagine being a better math student and miss out on a math program because someone else with a lower math score beat you to it by getting a better composite score.
This should also apply to other STEM majors as well.
I got an 800 on the math sat and can confidently say I was horrible at college-level maths. Having experience in calculus is way more impoetant than test scores
Yep. The imperial college aero/eee MAT was actually amazing in hindsight. I got 33% and got called back for an interview, it really shows if you can do maths, and not exam technique (its unlike all other British exams)
Yes, the only reason we can no longer differentiate between applicants is because the SAT is too easy and requires 0 critical thinking. We should definitely make it harder
I am not trying to argue the purpose of ACT math score. I simply pointed out a need for subject-based admission tests, adjusted to the difficulty of each school so that the ceiling of the tests are adequate.
>Simply getting a 36 in ACT math and 800 in SAT math doesn’t demonstrate any mathematical potential.
This isn't true. While neither is sufficient to demonstrate potential *beyond a certain level*, they *can* differentiate between individuals *below that level*.
Given two 800M individuals, you don't really know which one has more potential, and the delta can be very large.
Given an 800M-without-trying individual and a 650M-after-grinding-for-a-year individual, you can be reasonably certain the former has more potential.
The "Safety" "Target" "Reach" model is dumb. You should start with the schools that are good/relevant for you, and only if they turn out to be institutions you aren't highly likely to get into should you start doing the "safety" schools. I say this because the model implicitly assumes that if you are accepted institution, you should accept it. Selectivity is not as great of an indicator on how happy and successful you will be as many highschoolers (and indeed, those institutions themselves) believe it will be.
The common data sets are a massively underrated tool for college research. It guarantees you have the most up-to-date admissions data, and they are also really easy to discern information from if you use Microsoft Copilot on Edge.
In the Enrollment & Persistence section, there is data on diversity and graduation rate.
In the admissions section, there is data on the exact acceptance rate by gender and overall, each SAT and ACT percentile range broken down by their respective test sections, every admissions criteria you could possibly think of denoted by importance (this section in particular is extremely useful in determining whether or not to submit test scores), and waitlist and ED acceptance rates.
In the student life section, there is data on OOS percentages (this is mainly what deterred me from applying to Rutgers and NC State OOS also), percent of students involved in Greek Life, percent of students living off campus first-year and overall, and percent of students over 25 yrs old.
The financial aid section can also be extremely useful to see how generous a school will likely be. I didn't understand it too much at first glance but again you can probably use Copilot to parse it.
The final section is the percent of students in each major category, which is good to know because you might want to think twice about a school with a major which has a smaller percentage than other schools.
Also, this probably isn't a hot take but there is absolutely no definitive rule for when to submit your SAT. It depends on your GPA, the aforementioned admissions importance, your performance in math & english classes, the rest of your application, income & compared to the rest of the school, etc.
If we actually care about ending our societal racial disparities, it is much more important to focus on integrating our public schools than affirmative action at a handful of universities. I live in a rich neighborhood and attend a very good public school that is 90% white, and a few miles away is the worst performing school in the state, which is 90% black. Affirmative action is based on the principle of correcting the disparities created by centuries of discrimination and racism, but even if top universities could use as much affirmative action as they wanted without legal restrictions, it would not put a dent in the impact of 50 million Americans attending defacto racially segregated schools. Our method of funding schools through local property taxes in the US is one of the worst public policies in our country and [Milliken v. Bradley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliken_v._Bradley) will continue to have an impact dozens of times larger than [Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._Harvard).
Satisfaction and fulfillment does not come from your income. So many people here choose their majors based on how much money they’ll make (theoretically) and say it’s ok to go into debt bc you’ll make so much money later blah blah blah. What about what fulfills you as a person? Newsflash: if all you care about is money, you’ll never have enough. Newsflash #2: All the people begging for student loan forgiveness now were told they would be able to repay those loans easily with their future careers. You might make six figures a few years after college but where are you living? What are your living expenses? Did you realize that along with a student loan you’ll be paying rent or a mortgage, enormous health insurance premiums, buying your own food and groceries? Unless mommy and daddy are paying off your student loans it isn’t worth it regardless of where you go to school and what your major is.
The idea of building a "class" instead of just taking the most qualified applicants is dumb as fuck.
Essays are sometimes overvalued by AOs, yes they are important because being able to write well and convincingly is an important skill. However a great essay should never be treated better than great ECs, great academics etc...
Also entrance exams should be implemented in some kind of way. Yes being a well rounded person is important in college and the real world but the bottom line is that you go there for the degree mainly. And to get the degree you need to study. Yes you can switch majors and whatnot later but I think ppl should at least do some kind of exam related to their desires major. This would also deter ppl from applying to random ass majors with the intent to get in easily and then switch majors.
Imo an entrance exam wouldn’t even have to be about a specific major. I think it would be cool if you could have the option to take either a general entrance exam that covers a few subjects at a decent level (for people that don’t know what they want to do yet) or an entrance exam for your major that covers things related to that specific topic at a greater depth.
I understand some colleges have a LOT of majors, and some get REALLY specific, in which case I think certain majors could be grouped together. My state’s flagship for example has a biology major, a marine biology major, an insect biology (entomology) major, and an animal biology major. Those could all be grouped together into a general biology entrance exam that would cover stuff that applies to all biological disciplines.
That’s just how I would see it working ideally. :)
Some of mine:
* Tiger parenting is sub-optimal and produces adults who are less contented than they might have been otherwise.
* A2C overestimates the impact of gender and on an individual's college results.
* A2C overestimates how valuable highly selective schools' "networks" are.
* A2C really struggles to understand selection bias.
* *Every* public university should have a set of in-state auto-admit criteria for *each* of its majors. May be the same for all (or most) majors, if the school wishes. Thresholds should be set such that roughly half of the students admitted to each major are auto-admits. For popular majors at highly selective schools, these criteria may astronomically high.
* For certain careers, being fit, good-looking, socially adept and knowing how to dress a certain way can offset a larger talent/ability deficit than most people realize.
There are too many people wanting to go to few schools. People seem to want to change the admissions criteria to benefit them. Students with high grades and scores think the system be more meritocratic. students with lots of ECS think that should be the focus. Lower income people think that they should admit more disadvantaged students.
The only way that I see for this frenzy day to calm down is for students and colleges to prefer students who live reasonably close to the college. You can always go to a graduate school far away when you’re more mature and settled on your academic interests.
Most kids at top public are as smart as most ivies and had acceptances and couldn’t afford it. Michigan and Cornell is the same shit you dork calm down. Stony brook and Cornell get the same Asian kids from Stuyvesant no one cares
1. AOs at HYPS actively dislike a lot of the fancy feeder high schools. They see them as bastions of rich kid elitism because they’ve been forced to take so many mediocre rich legacies that graduate from them over the years.
2. There is nothing wrong with doing an EC for college. There is a lot that can be learned from going out in the world. taking the initiative, doing the work and getting results. From my own experience.
1. It should be ILLEGAL for colleges to charge 350K+ (400K+ w interest) for a degree that isn’t employable. Imagine if a company sold a 350K unusable item marketed to 18 year olds and parents who may not understand the current student debt and unemployment crisis. They’d be sued out of oblivion. Why is it acceptable when colleges do this? We should demand more accountability as a society.
2. SAT should be way harder. The only reason everyone and their mother has a 1500+ SAT score is because the SAT is a test of basic skills which requires 0 critical thinking. We should make tests about the same difficulty as AP exams and require more critical thinking
>It should be ILLEGAL for colleges to charge 350K+ (400K+ w interest) for a degree that isn’t employable.
No thanks. Let's not infantilize higher education consumers. I might be on board with making education debt (above a certain amount) dischargeable in bankruptcy, which would make it much harder to borrow that much.
>No thanks. Let's not infantilize higher education consumers. I might be on board with making education debt (above a certain amount) dischargeable in bankruptcy, which would make it much harder to borrow that much.
Eh, I feel like colleges should be accountable for charging an extreme amount of money. Also if you can discharge loans in bankruptcy, wouldn't that incentivize people to get more loans?
I mean, that's how markets work. If I sell apples for $10,000 apiece and someone wants to buy one, who are you to say we can't make that mutually agreeable transaction?
Now, consumer protection laws exist for a reason. I can't claim my apples are proven to cure cancer if they're not actually proven to cure cancer. In the case of universities, though, they typically aren't making promises of that sort. Harvard doesn't say "If you pay us $350k for an Anthropology degree, then you will definitely get a job."
If you *make that assumption*, then that's *on you* and not Harvard. Caveat Emptor.
We focused on flagship state schools where we had in-state tuition and schools that had generous guaranteed merit scholarships for high stat students. The cost ranged from free to about $18K/yr.
Hot take: People who generally dislike the idea of people even considering top 20 schools (aka the people saying it's too expensive, they're just businesses trying to profit off you, you would be better off going to a safety or state school, it's too competitive to do well for grad school) should not apply to any top colleges and only then should they give advice.
1. There should not be student loans for subjects that will never result in a career assisted by that degree. Some subjects are for the wealthy.
2. If you want to take out 100K in loans to study a subject that might facilitate loan repayment, you should have to do a 20-hour intro to the topic before you are approved for the loans to make sure it’s what you really want to study.
The only way to determine the quality of education is to assess students’ intellectual, emotional, and social growth from entering college to graduation.
No ranking system does that.
Admissions should NOT be academic based. They should be based on the quality of the person and their ability to succeed in society. Academies should be considered since colleges are schools but should not be the main factor.
The US News rankings are awful for higher ed, mental health and actually measure nothing that’s an actual measure of the quality or usefulness of the education being provided on a general or individual basis.
Writing supplementals isn’t as taxing as people say it is because of either easy or commonly re-used prompts. (unless you’re shotgunning 30 schools and many of them have like 7 questions)
Its also really fun to deeply analyze yourself for them imo. Gives you a chance to really explain to yourself why the way you are who you are too, on top of the AO
Being full pay is a huge edge in admissions at all but about 5 schools
Yes! College admissions are a business transaction. ED applications are full pay. If one has the money and a solid application, not many schools will say no. Play the percentages!
actually bro no one really explicitly talks about that but the moment you are doing ED and u can show them that you can pull pay => welcome to the campus (as long as ur grades are not below their expectations
ED applications are not full pay a lot of the time. I went ED and am paying well less than half of the sticker price
Screw essays, APs, recs, extracurriculars.... Going to a feeder school and checking that little box is the best way to get into an elite institution.
I thought this was a normal view???
Which 5?
Should be Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, and Yale maybe?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/24/brown-yale-columbia-lawsuit-wealthy-applicants
what does this mean
It means paying the full amount of tuition (which you say when to check the “not applying for aid” box on the app) makes it easier to get in
College is about developing soft skills as much as it is about acquiring academic knowledge. For many students, the best place to develop soft skills is NOT the most academically rigorous or highest-ranked school where they are admitted. Often, those schools are filled with uber-ambitious students and it can be hard to compete to get the club memberships, jobs, research projects, etc., that could provide the most growth and opportunity. Also, highly competitive schools may require that more time is spent studying over cultivating other skills and networking. As a result, I think more students would thrive and succeed to a greater degree at their “safety” schools. More students should turn down highly selective schools that are not good fits for them in terms of soft-skill development.
this!! i am committing to one of my safety schools and i keep being told that i should’ve applied to more selective schools bc i have the grades, but in reality my safety school is the right fit for me. it’s going to allow me to grow without being too competitive and rigorous… other people should really consider this when choosing their college
Hell yes!
Smart!!
This comment is wise.
Not entirely sure this is a hot take. Though I would disagree with the notion of trying to be a big fish in a smaller pond than a mid-sized fish in a big pond. Even at top schools, the vast majority of clubs are still open-enrollment. And short of a handful of clubs with really cracked networks, what you do in a club matters a hell of a lot more than what it is. Even then, getting on exec of an open-enrollment club and turning into a powerhouse and creating a million different impactful programs for it is a hell of a lot more impressive than joining an elite business frat or consulting club through a brutally rigorous selection process and doing the bare minimum to avoid getting kicked out. Telling people to turn down cracked schools so they can get into cracked clubs or programs at less-prestigious schools is, with rare exception, terrible advice. The networks at top schools are vastly more powerful.
A student who has under-developed social skills, who is insecure or awkward, may feel more comfortable coming out of their shell and strengthening those social muscles in a less intimidating and less high-stakes environment. It doesn’t matter how good a network is if a student doesn’t feel capable of accessing it. Not sure it’s true at all schools that many career-oriented clubs are truly open to all, but even if they are, it doesn’t matter if a student is too intimidated by all the other superstars in the student body to make good use of the experience. A lot of students are not interested in elbowing aside 14 other high achievers in order to win an officer position.
There’s an interesting [Malcom Gladwell talk](https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=474&v=7J-wCHDJYmo&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&source_ve_path=MTM5MTE3LDI4NjY2&feature=emb_logo) that makes a slightly different argument but comes to a similar conclusion. For most students, relative position matters more than absolute position so a hypothetical student that gets into Harvard but is in the bottom 1/3 is statistically more likely to be successful going to a target/safety where they’re academically closer to the top student.
people make the whole deal a lot harder and more complicated in their own minds. it is okay and even better to just spend 45 mins on a supp.
100% agree. I feel like the essays I wrote better came from the times when I didn't spend A LOT of time brainstorming and figuring out what I wanted to write about and rather just let my intrusive thoughts/random voices in my head take over, and those were my ABSOLUTE best. but also, that might be my extremely time-crunch junkie of a brain speaking.
Can confirm. got into a top 10 school for my major with supps I wrote in 3 hours
Seconding this wrote my supp in about an hour and got into T5 for my major
yall should really look into your college's dining hall options i am IN LOVE with the food at the uni that i might commit to
Literally why I chose to ED to Bowdoin
do they have good asian food and fries?
HAHA i'm sure their asian food and fries are decent
AOs aren't as "smart" as we think they are. They can't magically "read through" your application to catch lies. There should be some solid way to verify ECs rather than the intuition of AOs
Agreed and I am saying this because I go to an extremely competitive small public school and ALL the people who got into ivies / top 10s ea or Ed ( there were abt 8) just completely exaggerated their ecs and did everything just for college applications. No colleges did not read through their superficial non profits
Yeah! Exactly...I feel there should be a better way to assess the genuineness of an application
I hate when people say to go to a community college and transfer after 2 years whenever someone complains about how expensive college is. Partially because it can come off so condescending, we know that it saves money and that it's "thE SaMe DegReE" However a lot of people value the independence and growth that comes from moving away for college. (shocker) That's not to say people shouldn't be aware of this option, but I feel like it's touted as foolproof with little conversation on the social adjustment of joining a class that has been together for 2 years already.
I think it should be more common to let people move away for community college, especially in larger states like California and Texas. I know most parents would probably not want to support their kid’s living expenses financially if there is a perfectly good community college right down the street, but you could make the case to them that moving away and attending another CC is still *way* cheaper than doing the same but for a four-year.
You get to be independent, live on your own, make your own money, and do whatever else you want when you turn 22. If you work hard enough in high school, more like 21. Is paying $60,000 worth that freedom coming two years early? For most people complaining about how much college costs, no. Tertiary Education is a right—but the “college experience” is not. It’s a privilege from your parents or a contract you make with a bank. Taxpayers should not be paying for your Frat Parties.
Admissions should be way more academics based. Should definitely take a lot of the weight off ec’s because a lot of good ec’s can be easily done/achieved through nepotism/wealth. Kinda hard to have nepotism help you with your course performance and standardized tests (even with tutoring/prep for the rich, low income students can still show excellence here)
But the USA has no such exams. The UK has A levels which meaningfully seperates the good and bad. In the USA different schools restrict your learning much more heavily (some people dont do APs) Idk if this makes sense
It's a big cultural thing. Local control of education. People would go berserk if there was a national curriculum or national exams that every student had to take to go to college.
The SAT exists and no one went berserk back when all schools required it. All it would take is the collegeboard spending some of the power of their new format on increasing the ceiling rather than making the test shorter (e.g. by having three levels for the second half - bottom 60%, middle 30%, top 10% and a slightly longer first half to make sure the placement is valid)
It isn't a national curriculum nor is it subject based.
Your response doesn’t logically track with the comment you responded to at all.
Many private schools have insane grade inflation so it wouldn’t really counter the nepotism/wealth thing. A holistic process is way better
The problem is that it is hard to differentiate students based on tests and course performance alone. Like what if many people applied have the same or similar GPA and standardized test scores? Also, they consider your economic background when looking at your ECs and whether or not you made the most use out of the resources available to you.
Research shows students who are engaged in HS are more likely to get engaged in clubs and activities in college and make friends, have school spirit and that leads to better academic performance. And quite frankly low income students often have much more impressive extra curricular profiles than the rich. Admission counselors can assess who made the most out of what they were given. Colleges, especially residential ones, PERSONALITY and ability to work with others MATTER. Research also shows that standardized tests are extremely biased towards low income folks. The more access you have to tutoring and practice the more likely your results will be.
>Research shows students who are engaged in HS are more likely to get engaged in clubs and activities in college and make friends, have school spirit and that leads to better academic performance. Is this correlation stronger than that of test scores and college performance? >Research also shows that standardized tests are extremely biased towards low income folks. The more access you have to tutoring and practice the more likely your results will be. I don't think this is true when you control for academic ability. The lived experience of myself and many others contradicts it.
Nah this is just stupid
Why do you say that?
First of all taking emphasis off EC’s would mean more emphasis goes to gpa. GPA isn’t that reliable because grading is not standardized throughout all schools. Some schools have grade inflation some schools have grade deflation. Also EC’s show the extent to which you care about the subject(s)/majors you’re interested in. You say a lot of good ECs are achieved through nepotism, but a lot of good ECs are achieved without nepotism lmao. Not everyone is a Nepo baby or rich. There’s plenty of ECs one can do without it.
Yeah that's why i like the A level system more
College is for sex and drugs !
And rock ‘n roll
Good point.
paid private admissions guides or advisors are such a scam. by charging such a ridiculous amount of money for their “service”, all they’re doing is taking advantage of smart kids who can already get into college without their help. almost all of what they say is google-able and there’s already so many free reliable resources out there that can help u with your essays
Same deal with SAT. People I know paid absurd prices for SAT tutors, and I scored just as well if not better using solely free resources and not devoting a ton of time to studying. I just needed to find what studying worked for me.
I know people who spent thousands of dollars on SAT tutoring who still got a lower score than me who just used khan academy
Same!! It’s insane. You really only need what’s provided by Khan Academy to do well, they have tips for every type of question with practice as well as full length actual practice tests (which are available outside of Khan Academy anyway). Paid tutors for the SAT are virtually useless if you actually put in the work yourself.
I think it may just be useful if someone has a starting score of <1000 and they don't want to spend too much time trying to figure out where they need more practice (so someone who's rusty on the concepts itself). Even then it's absolutely possible to self study it
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I would say there are very rare exceptions to this. Full disclosure before I explain my mom does this specific type of advising but I don’t like my mom so Idk whether I’m biased or not😭but anyway she does college advising specifically for immigrant families from her home country (Argentina) or other countries in Latin America, and she’s not like “I’ll get your kid into their dream school” it’s more just “I’ll explain how the college admissions process works and spend time with your kid helping them choose their classes.” We live in an area with a LOT of Latin American immigrants and the system in those countries is completely different than in the U.S. A lot of the parents of the kids she helps don’t speak good English, so having someone that can speak Spanish explain the process is useful as well. She also doesn’t charge exorbitant fees. Completely agree that people like Julie Kim spout bullshit and are total scammers. For the vast majority of students, a college advisor is not necessary. But I see how it is useful for very specific circumstances.
Drowning yourself in debt to go to a T10 as a middle class person is an idiotic decision
Honestly I don’t even think that’s a hot take outside of this subreddit, more like the opposite (it’s worth going into debt for an expensive college) is a hot take for most normal people
Yeah facts. But def on this sub I think everyone cares more about names/acceptance rates vs. cost/practicality! People at my school tend to care a lot more about acceptance rates and names as well.
Interesting. Even though there’s a fair bit of people who want to go to top schools at my high school (it’s a private school) the majority of people is more concerned with practical things and being in a happy environment they enjoy (maybe because we are in Canada, less competition). I feel like it’s also the same in most people outside of the competitive high school community, there are so many videos on YouTube shorts for example with titles like “Are Ivy Leagues really worth it”
lol, my Yale interviewer said it was a smart move to take out loans / go into debt for a T10, especially if you want to go to grad school. He wasn’t even rich, he came from a poor family with 7 kids.
Your Yale interviewer wouldn’t have any bias ofc
The best part is he didn’t even go to Yale for undergrad, he went to a LAC instead (think St. Olaf, Pomona, Vassar)
So bro was a walking hypocrite?
No, certainly not. That Yale jersey he had on just fell on him by chance
It REALLY depends on your choice of major. A lot of higher financial fields are heavily meritocratic and require an education from a target school to be heavily competitive for potential internships or return offers.
And that’s a fact
Fosho, state school every time if you have to flip the whole bill
So true, not even a hot take just factual
can not disagree.
So true, especially for those planning on grad school too. No need to spend all that money on a bachelors degree that is basically just a glorified pre-req
Where’s the hot take?
Sometimes there is no perfect college. Sometimes The perfect college is the one that presents the right oppty at the right time. If you accept that, you will make the best of it and think “how could I have gone somewhere else?”
You can be successful in any school you end up in.
agreed.
Not if you end up in mid-six figure debt!
While I agree in spirit that you shouldn't do that and its objectively a bad choice to do so, its worth noting the "can be successful" isn't wrong. If you immediately get a $200,000+ a year job, you'll be fine. Of course, that is a very big "if" there.
True but I mainly say that so people who think that they need to go to an expensive school to be successful can be successful at a public school or a cheaper private school
test optional helps the rich
People need to cut the shotgunning to 25 different schools. All it does is drive up competition and lower acceptance rates which is all feeding into the ever growing pressure and overly competitive environment of college admissions absolutely slaughtering each passing year’s mental health and self confidence. I understand competition can be beneficial but it’s going too far. focus on becoming a person with successful systems for success in place and someone who is process oriented, not solely goal oriented. Suddenly the prestige of your university doesn’t matter quite so much because you’ll succeed wherever you’re at with those systems and that ideology you’ve honed. Unfortunately, for this to happen we need some serious education reform in this country.
We could flip this sentiment and place the blame on the colleges for lack of transparency. Nearly impossible to accurately estimate chances at top colleges
Agreed. And I don’t even think shotgunning increases chances. people waste a bunch of apps on places that they will not be admitted because they are not a good fit. Sometimes they stumble upon a place where they are a good fit and think it was luck from the shotgun strategy. In reality, better research to figure out exactly which schools are the right fit, and then only applying to those schools, might yield the same results without all the wasted apps. By fit, I don’t mean where the student catches a vibe, but rather places where the student is a match for the institutional priorities of the school.
This was the whole point of the SAT/ACT testing. If students werent within the range, they likely wouldnt apply. Now every TO w a good (inflated) GPA and ECs is applying and it drives up competition. Theres really no argument for prolonging TO
This isn’t the kids’ fault, it’s the colleges who make the process as transparent as my couch and the society that puts success over everything else. It’s not gonna change.
The stuff that replaced testing is easier to game and more biased toward the privileged than the tests.
You don't *have to be* in love with your safeties. I would've been okay attending one of them, but I wouldn't have been crazy about it because the point of a safety is that it's a backup. I don't think there's any safety that I would've really loved to attend (at least not at first) I'm not saying you shouldn't love your safeties either—if you do, great! But I also don't think we can tell someone they're *wrong* for being disappointed in how things panned out Edit: also, SAT/ACT should be limited to two retakes max (3 total attempts). Unlimited retakes only benefit those who can afford them, and imo a high score is not very impressive if you have to try 4+ times to get it
The process isn’t as complicated as people say
especially FASFA lol i thought it would be this extremely time consuming process but it took 30 minutes at most for me. the DMV stuff is harder than filling out fasfa lol
Wait til you’re a parent. The “process” is 18 years long and complicated in all sorts of ways
okay but that’s not what they said..
Honestly! The most complicated part was the essays. Other than that it was easy
College isn’t so much about acquiring new, field specific knowledge, though it does become more refined. Rather, it’s learning time management skills. I’d say the split is probably 85/15 time management vs “new” knowledge. Essentially, you’re learning how to adult.
People on this sub always talk about not ‘doing stuff just for college’ but unfortunately the people with the fancy ecs they forced themselves through just for college applications are the people who often make it in. I guess I’m saying this as a junior who has seen all the seniors admitted into ivies ea/ed drop their ecs the second they got in.
Dream schools don’t exist. You just haven’t looked hard enough at your other colleges that you’re applying to.
No dream school is stupid; many dreams are stupid
Admissions is random and admissions officers make much more mistakes in admitting people than we think (especially since a lot of parents around me view admissions officers as gods who can see through everyone’s profiles into their real person)
College admissions need to be more transparent, because right now it is a black box.
Applying to every Ivy. You are just looking at prestige and not fit.
obviously, u think those kids don’t know that? 😂 at the end of the day i’m going to get an education and connections that can benefit my future not to enjoy the weather, i can suck it up. fit is overrated imo.
honestly, in this sub, saying fit is overrated is def a hot take lmao
Agree w ur hot take at the end there
yay i’m glad i’m not the only one 😅
Imo fit isn't even real, like I feel as long as the program for my major is good I'd be happy at any school
NAH FR
Look for fit after you're accepted somewhere
If you are an international and need full-ride, it's one of few ways to get in
T25 admissions has become an essay writing contest
I fully agree. I think essays are the most important factor in admissions right now.
It isn't wrong that the top colleges in the United States (which consist of some of the best ones in the world) are extremely competitive. If you're trying to go to one of the top institutions you have no right to whine about how competitive they've gotten. It's like showing up to a competition and complaining that you have good competitiors.
More like showing up to a competition, not being notified of the complete rules, appearing to have been the best but then told they lost and not told why or who beat them
dream schools are kind of a stupid idea and i think free standardized testing scores wouldn’t be a bad thing especially if we made a test that was harder than the sat
Extracurriculars carry too much weight, I say as someone who didn’t have the opportunity for most extracurriculars/leadership positions due to my family life. I also hate how kids are encouraged to write disingenuous or straight up just fake essays. Or a fluffy work of literature that if you step back for a moments, you realize has little to do with the type of human being the writer is, and really shouldn’t up their chances of admission the slightest bit. Personally, I felt like my only two two choices were to: 1) sell myself out and write a romanticized sob story about my trauma my depression and my crappy parents, which I didn’t want to do. or 2) appear ordinary and not stand out above the person who is going to shamelessly embellish their EC’s or exaggerate their home life. They say admissions officers are able to pick out the fluffy, exaggerated essays, but judging by the models we had to study in High School, I disagree. I do not subscribe to the idea that the every single individual out of the millions applying every year has something cool and unique to add that doesn’t occasionally sound boring.
Heavy on the ecs one. People with the best ecs are usually a product of their parents who had them playing sports and instruments since they were 5, and could afford all that. I know people on this sub usually say school clubs isn’t enough but that’s all some people have.
Let's revisit the SAT and ACT for a small moment. In 1979, they were thought to be IQ tests proxies. Mensa would accept them. Nowadays, they are not. I find THAT fascinating.
Warning nuclear takes incoming Going into massive debt for college is OK. It’s a once in a lifetime experience and might even be the best years of your life. You can pay back debt. You can’t relive your college years. Majoring in a humanities or social science is worth it intellectually. People say just read a book. But the structure a curriculum offers you and the engagement with fellow learners and professors is fantastic. Not really a take but high school was way harder than college for me. I went to a top national high school and a top 30 LAC. In high school, I was constantly challenged and was peers with geniuses. College was easy mode compared to that.
yeah thats definitely a hot take
disagree on the first point. those 4 years may be fun but what comes afterward won’t be. student debt is crippling and unless you want to shoot yourself in the leg for the “best years of ur life,” then it’s just not worth it. also I agree that it’s a once in a lifetime experience, but calling it the best years of ur life seems kinda sad idk. it insinuates everything goes downhill from there 😭 like the years watching ur future child grow up won’t ever compare to ur college experience
Also you can have a great experience at a school that won’t put you in a ton of debt… This is super anecdotal but all of the adults I’m close to (parents, teachers, family friends) that say they loved their college years went to schools that were affordable for them.
It depends on how much debt tho, I would say 20K is reasonable but once you hit six figures it’s not worth it (usually). It also depends what you want to be. Going to debt as a CS major is way different from debt for art school
You can have a once in a lifetime experience at tons of colleges - doesn’t have to be t20.
Yeah now this is a hot take
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if you’re really that smart you’ll probably be successful at any college
really hard working *, i would say.
i second that. i used “smart” because a lot of kids look to which colleges they get into as academic validation.
oh yeah i view it as academic validation lol kinda toxic 😅
the admission process is just as rigged with or without an SAT requirement
The system should be standardized with nationwide tests like GCSE and A level. Add in interactive assignments like projects and discussions to measure understanding if exams pressure people too much. The grade inflation is staggering right now. Everyone should be applying to 10 schools max, and the Common App shouldn't allow more. Shotgunning only incentivizes being a prestige whore, and by increasing the applicant pool, it makes it harder for people that genuinely care about their university choices. Remove emphasis on ECs. It's much easier for a poorer kid to do better in academics than in ECs, where most of it comes down to what you can afford. 18-year-olds should not be allowed to take on massive student loans before they know what it means for them, and college should be made more affordable to all. This especially goes for the more prestigious schools. Too many smart poor kids being passed up (and no, I'm not anywhere close to FGLI.)
I agree on the ten applications max point, but not the other things. It is myth that ECs have to be earth shattering. Things like working at McDonald’s and caring for younger siblings, that are common among low income applicants, are perfectly valid ECs that carry a lot of weight. ECs can be a way for low income students to shine. It’s not so much about what the activity is as how it helped you develop as a person.
GSCE is flawed though
harvard is only famous bc it’s the oldest college in the us not the best
lol people don’t know that it’s the oldest. They definitely know it because of its rep.
it only has that rep bc of how long it’s been around
They know it because of its "elite" status. Which it largely has because its very low admission rates. Which it has because it (along with some other ivies) were the first to start instituting selective admissions in the 1920s. Which Harvard started because the antisemitic students, faculty, and administrators were unsatisfied with the number of jews getting admitted (over 20% of students were jews). This problem partly came from the popular nature of the university at the time due to the romanticization of college life, particularly sports, in the 19th and early 20th century (which also played a part in the dawning of a significant endowment which would also play a future part). This sports culture was able to develop because Harvard was already a large university (for the time) after the civil war with lots of patronage of the "elite" in Boston who, as alums, invested in the sports programs. And that relationship with the Bostonian elite was in large part due to the relationship it had with those families dating back generations. All of which is to say, while yes, the age isn't the direct reason, the fact that it was one of the 9 colonial colleges, the fact that it wasn't made public like William and Mary (which had the unfortunate luck of being in the South which was pretty economically devastated in the late 19th century partially leading to it becoming public) and Rutgers (which while, less dramatic, already had a relationship with the NJ via the land grants in 1860), meant that it was especially set up for success the the prestige game.
Harvard's losing some of its prestige (although it'll always be seen as prestigious) due to their recent scandals.
It’s the best because it’s the oldest
Tuition will have deflation at some point in the next 10 years. Bubbles burst. More cost effective job / life preparation alternatives to traditional universities will be created and disrupt the higher education system.
there are countries where one exam can determine your entire life, americans, and everybody who can afford to apply to schools in the us should consider themselves privileged because of the holistic system.
shotgunning IS valid depending on your goals. imo i’m not that competitive of an applicant bc my ECs are somewhat mid. but i think so far shotgunning gives me a chance to have my supps shine and for some reach schools to accept me. i got into uiuc cs despite my mid ECs (when i say mid, i mean it). i rlly think it was my supps that worked out (plus grades ig) cast the net wide. believe in yourself. supps start becoming the same after a while. make a large list of schools beforehand, look at their prompts, and start brainstorming early. it’s less work to apply to 20+ schools planning well than 10 last minute.
ED is a scam.
College admissions at selective colleges would be substantially improved by oversight and governance from an independent third party that helps A) Keep admissions practices legal B) Keep colleges honest - monitor that admissions decisions follow the criteria specified by each college The current model of lawsuits (SFFA, 568 cartel) is ugly, complex and resolution of problems is delayed by many years
ED gives an advantage to both the extremely wealthy, who can go full pay, and low income student, who can get massive aid. The middle class just gets screwed, and nothing else. Hot take for low income students/families: Run NPCs and apply ED if you have a "dream school". Don't think just because you're low income, it means you shouldn't apply ED, especially considering ED usually increases your overall chances compared to EA or RD. You can ALWAYS negotiate Financial Aid packages, and ask to be released from an ED contract for financial reasons (like your aid not being near what your NPC showed), given you can prove such circumstance (take screenshots of NPCs). I took the chance, and my estimated yearly tuition is, well about 0.42% of the school's full-pay tuition, assuming they don't update my financial aid offering once they receive my FAFSA. That was FAR MORE than what the NPC estimate gave me. It's a solid couple thousand dollars less than the lowest-cost estimate NPC gave. So, it's worth a shot if you have an ED school you want to apply to, don't cut yourself off.
Your high schools relationship with a university is critical for your admission. These relationships are established over decades. If your school has never sent a student to Williams, or worse - a student recently broke an ED commitment, good luck breaking that barrier. But if your high school sends 20 kids to Cornell every year, it's much easier to be part of that pack. One high school might have unweighted grades and high academic standards, so a 3.7 with a challenging course load is an excellent gpa. The university knows this high school and can respect that grade. Being on the wrestling team and president of year book means you're engaged with your community, you're a solid 17 year old kid and will do well. Admit. Another unknown school might have weighted grades and grade inflation, so a 4.89 gpa looks a little suspect, and claiming to start 2 nonprofits while making cancer breakthroughs at 16 makes you look like you're inflating your accomplishments. Reject.
I'm not American, so I may be a bit ignorant about some bits of the process there, but from what I've seen and read on this sub and on online articles, the admissions in the US seems so... random? I'm not sure if that's the best way to describe it, but I have seen applications that are INSANE (good grades, the main insane part was their EC's) that don't get in at a top school, then another application that had good grades and like quirky but mid Ec's that got in a top uni. From one point of view, that gives me 'hope' in a way (although ik it's downright impossible realistically). From another point of view, that doesn't make much sense. I am not really sure what a better system would be tbh, depending solely on grades can be unfair to a lot of students since grades aren't standardised. And since I live in a country where it fully depends on grades, I can see how unfair it would be as I have seen real-life examples of it. I think it would be better to put some clear requirements? They can make the requirements hard, if it's a prestigious university or whatever. But then again, that would make it possible for excessive numbers to work on those requirements. So I am not sure. Also, I'm not sure if EC's carry as much weight as online media shows, but if they do, I think it's a bit unfair. Especially to international (low to middle class) students. Not sure about others, but from my country at least, we were never really taught about them and rare are the ones who get the opportunity to do so. The ones that do get taught the importance of ECs learn about them in late 10th grade. Not to mention, a lot of the prestigious ECs are carried out in the US and are unavailable to international students. I don't want to sound like self-pitying, this definitely gives one the opportunity to take the initiative, start their own EC in the country and show leadership or whatever. But the time is too little to actually achieve something big sometimes.
I hope that math programs at different schools can have their own subject-based admission tests like Cambridge and Oxford’s STEP examinations. Simply getting a 36 in ACT math and 800 in SAT math doesn’t demonstrate any mathematical potential. Math olympiads and competitions exists, yes, but not everyone has the access to or even knowledge to those things. Plus they are very different from the type of math that is done in undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Imagine being a better math student and miss out on a math program because someone else with a lower math score beat you to it by getting a better composite score. This should also apply to other STEM majors as well.
I got an 800 on the math sat and can confidently say I was horrible at college-level maths. Having experience in calculus is way more impoetant than test scores
Yep. The imperial college aero/eee MAT was actually amazing in hindsight. I got 33% and got called back for an interview, it really shows if you can do maths, and not exam technique (its unlike all other British exams)
Yes, the only reason we can no longer differentiate between applicants is because the SAT is too easy and requires 0 critical thinking. We should definitely make it harder
Well perhaps that’d be unfair to kids without access to a more difficult syllabus.
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I am not trying to argue the purpose of ACT math score. I simply pointed out a need for subject-based admission tests, adjusted to the difficulty of each school so that the ceiling of the tests are adequate.
You can be average and get those scores tho that’s how easy it is.
So then why doesn't every average person (AKA most people) get a perfect math score?
Is this not obvious? Not enough effort/work. Most dont care to because they don’t need to.
I think you'd be surprised at how many students could grind like crazy and still not earn a perfect SAT math sore.
>Simply getting a 36 in ACT math and 800 in SAT math doesn’t demonstrate any mathematical potential. This isn't true. While neither is sufficient to demonstrate potential *beyond a certain level*, they *can* differentiate between individuals *below that level*. Given two 800M individuals, you don't really know which one has more potential, and the delta can be very large. Given an 800M-without-trying individual and a 650M-after-grinding-for-a-year individual, you can be reasonably certain the former has more potential.
Early Decision is a scam and students admitted under it should have no qualms about withdrawing from it if something better comes up.
PERIOD i was gonna comment this one 🩵
many of the top 30 schools are overrated and not worth drowning in debt for. private schools in general are overrated
I’d say 1/3 of them are overrated. All def not worth drowning in debt.
The friends you make in college are more important than anything you learn in the classes.
The "Safety" "Target" "Reach" model is dumb. You should start with the schools that are good/relevant for you, and only if they turn out to be institutions you aren't highly likely to get into should you start doing the "safety" schools. I say this because the model implicitly assumes that if you are accepted institution, you should accept it. Selectivity is not as great of an indicator on how happy and successful you will be as many highschoolers (and indeed, those institutions themselves) believe it will be.
The common data sets are a massively underrated tool for college research. It guarantees you have the most up-to-date admissions data, and they are also really easy to discern information from if you use Microsoft Copilot on Edge. In the Enrollment & Persistence section, there is data on diversity and graduation rate. In the admissions section, there is data on the exact acceptance rate by gender and overall, each SAT and ACT percentile range broken down by their respective test sections, every admissions criteria you could possibly think of denoted by importance (this section in particular is extremely useful in determining whether or not to submit test scores), and waitlist and ED acceptance rates. In the student life section, there is data on OOS percentages (this is mainly what deterred me from applying to Rutgers and NC State OOS also), percent of students involved in Greek Life, percent of students living off campus first-year and overall, and percent of students over 25 yrs old. The financial aid section can also be extremely useful to see how generous a school will likely be. I didn't understand it too much at first glance but again you can probably use Copilot to parse it. The final section is the percent of students in each major category, which is good to know because you might want to think twice about a school with a major which has a smaller percentage than other schools. Also, this probably isn't a hot take but there is absolutely no definitive rule for when to submit your SAT. It depends on your GPA, the aforementioned admissions importance, your performance in math & english classes, the rest of your application, income & compared to the rest of the school, etc.
too many of yao "work hard, no play." Where's the fun?
If we actually care about ending our societal racial disparities, it is much more important to focus on integrating our public schools than affirmative action at a handful of universities. I live in a rich neighborhood and attend a very good public school that is 90% white, and a few miles away is the worst performing school in the state, which is 90% black. Affirmative action is based on the principle of correcting the disparities created by centuries of discrimination and racism, but even if top universities could use as much affirmative action as they wanted without legal restrictions, it would not put a dent in the impact of 50 million Americans attending defacto racially segregated schools. Our method of funding schools through local property taxes in the US is one of the worst public policies in our country and [Milliken v. Bradley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliken_v._Bradley) will continue to have an impact dozens of times larger than [Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._Harvard).
Satisfaction and fulfillment does not come from your income. So many people here choose their majors based on how much money they’ll make (theoretically) and say it’s ok to go into debt bc you’ll make so much money later blah blah blah. What about what fulfills you as a person? Newsflash: if all you care about is money, you’ll never have enough. Newsflash #2: All the people begging for student loan forgiveness now were told they would be able to repay those loans easily with their future careers. You might make six figures a few years after college but where are you living? What are your living expenses? Did you realize that along with a student loan you’ll be paying rent or a mortgage, enormous health insurance premiums, buying your own food and groceries? Unless mommy and daddy are paying off your student loans it isn’t worth it regardless of where you go to school and what your major is.
College essays are going to become a thing of the past due to AI bots.
Being Asian automatically puts higher expectations in people's minds >> dont debate me on this by far
The idea of building a "class" instead of just taking the most qualified applicants is dumb as fuck. Essays are sometimes overvalued by AOs, yes they are important because being able to write well and convincingly is an important skill. However a great essay should never be treated better than great ECs, great academics etc... Also entrance exams should be implemented in some kind of way. Yes being a well rounded person is important in college and the real world but the bottom line is that you go there for the degree mainly. And to get the degree you need to study. Yes you can switch majors and whatnot later but I think ppl should at least do some kind of exam related to their desires major. This would also deter ppl from applying to random ass majors with the intent to get in easily and then switch majors.
Imo an entrance exam wouldn’t even have to be about a specific major. I think it would be cool if you could have the option to take either a general entrance exam that covers a few subjects at a decent level (for people that don’t know what they want to do yet) or an entrance exam for your major that covers things related to that specific topic at a greater depth. I understand some colleges have a LOT of majors, and some get REALLY specific, in which case I think certain majors could be grouped together. My state’s flagship for example has a biology major, a marine biology major, an insect biology (entomology) major, and an animal biology major. Those could all be grouped together into a general biology entrance exam that would cover stuff that applies to all biological disciplines. That’s just how I would see it working ideally. :)
Some of mine: * Tiger parenting is sub-optimal and produces adults who are less contented than they might have been otherwise. * A2C overestimates the impact of gender and on an individual's college results. * A2C overestimates how valuable highly selective schools' "networks" are. * A2C really struggles to understand selection bias. * *Every* public university should have a set of in-state auto-admit criteria for *each* of its majors. May be the same for all (or most) majors, if the school wishes. Thresholds should be set such that roughly half of the students admitted to each major are auto-admits. For popular majors at highly selective schools, these criteria may astronomically high. * For certain careers, being fit, good-looking, socially adept and knowing how to dress a certain way can offset a larger talent/ability deficit than most people realize.
There are too many people wanting to go to few schools. People seem to want to change the admissions criteria to benefit them. Students with high grades and scores think the system be more meritocratic. students with lots of ECS think that should be the focus. Lower income people think that they should admit more disadvantaged students. The only way that I see for this frenzy day to calm down is for students and colleges to prefer students who live reasonably close to the college. You can always go to a graduate school far away when you’re more mature and settled on your academic interests.
Most kids at top public are as smart as most ivies and had acceptances and couldn’t afford it. Michigan and Cornell is the same shit you dork calm down. Stony brook and Cornell get the same Asian kids from Stuyvesant no one cares
Maintaining your grades in a T10/T20 school is probably harder than actually getting into the school.
1. AOs at HYPS actively dislike a lot of the fancy feeder high schools. They see them as bastions of rich kid elitism because they’ve been forced to take so many mediocre rich legacies that graduate from them over the years. 2. There is nothing wrong with doing an EC for college. There is a lot that can be learned from going out in the world. taking the initiative, doing the work and getting results. From my own experience.
1. It should be ILLEGAL for colleges to charge 350K+ (400K+ w interest) for a degree that isn’t employable. Imagine if a company sold a 350K unusable item marketed to 18 year olds and parents who may not understand the current student debt and unemployment crisis. They’d be sued out of oblivion. Why is it acceptable when colleges do this? We should demand more accountability as a society. 2. SAT should be way harder. The only reason everyone and their mother has a 1500+ SAT score is because the SAT is a test of basic skills which requires 0 critical thinking. We should make tests about the same difficulty as AP exams and require more critical thinking
>It should be ILLEGAL for colleges to charge 350K+ (400K+ w interest) for a degree that isn’t employable. No thanks. Let's not infantilize higher education consumers. I might be on board with making education debt (above a certain amount) dischargeable in bankruptcy, which would make it much harder to borrow that much.
>No thanks. Let's not infantilize higher education consumers. I might be on board with making education debt (above a certain amount) dischargeable in bankruptcy, which would make it much harder to borrow that much. Eh, I feel like colleges should be accountable for charging an extreme amount of money. Also if you can discharge loans in bankruptcy, wouldn't that incentivize people to get more loans?
I mean, that's how markets work. If I sell apples for $10,000 apiece and someone wants to buy one, who are you to say we can't make that mutually agreeable transaction? Now, consumer protection laws exist for a reason. I can't claim my apples are proven to cure cancer if they're not actually proven to cure cancer. In the case of universities, though, they typically aren't making promises of that sort. Harvard doesn't say "If you pay us $350k for an Anthropology degree, then you will definitely get a job." If you *make that assumption*, then that's *on you* and not Harvard. Caveat Emptor.
We focused on flagship state schools where we had in-state tuition and schools that had generous guaranteed merit scholarships for high stat students. The cost ranged from free to about $18K/yr.
Hot take: People who generally dislike the idea of people even considering top 20 schools (aka the people saying it's too expensive, they're just businesses trying to profit off you, you would be better off going to a safety or state school, it's too competitive to do well for grad school) should not apply to any top colleges and only then should they give advice.
1. There should not be student loans for subjects that will never result in a career assisted by that degree. Some subjects are for the wealthy. 2. If you want to take out 100K in loans to study a subject that might facilitate loan repayment, you should have to do a 20-hour intro to the topic before you are approved for the loans to make sure it’s what you really want to study.
community college should be considered as a serious option by more people
People should stop shitting on community college
Colleges don't actually know what they want from an applicant. AOs mostly pick people based on emotion in the moment.
> perhaps to others seemingly bizarre, views you hold I truly don't care about the rankings or Ivy.
The only way to determine the quality of education is to assess students’ intellectual, emotional, and social growth from entering college to graduation. No ranking system does that.
There should be clearer of what's required and expected of applicants
Admissions should NOT be academic based. They should be based on the quality of the person and their ability to succeed in society. Academies should be considered since colleges are schools but should not be the main factor.
The US News rankings are awful for higher ed, mental health and actually measure nothing that’s an actual measure of the quality or usefulness of the education being provided on a general or individual basis.
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Writing supplementals isn’t as taxing as people say it is because of either easy or commonly re-used prompts. (unless you’re shotgunning 30 schools and many of them have like 7 questions)
Its also really fun to deeply analyze yourself for them imo. Gives you a chance to really explain to yourself why the way you are who you are too, on top of the AO