Tutor reveals Ivy-admissions madness of rich penthouse parents

[Walt]

Sounds legit
I went to a pretty affluent and well regarded school out here in phoenix and my experience was that kids at this school were all but walked through the process and in a graduating class of 60 i'd say 55 got into their first choice school, most of them Ivy league. We had a councelor that started hitting you up like week 3 of FRESHMAN year, I knew a dozen students who were only allowed to take tests on yellow paper AND they could not be timed because of "learning disabilities", I know dudes who took ACT & SAT prep classes 4 years straight and then would start taking the SAT "for real" beginning Junior year until they got a score they were happy with (over 1500 in most cases). Who's parents MANDATED, in coordination with the school that X amount of "volunteer" /extra curricular activities be completed. The shyt was a formula, and a very successful formula.

I"m not sure what the process for reviewing all that information is but to say the wealthy don't have a leg up on that entire process is an outright lie (not that you've said that).

On the flip side, i had friends, very smart friends, smarter than a large chunk of the kids at my highschool who attended IB schools in phoenix that didn't have nearly the same help being forced to go to state schools. (Granted they ultimately ended up doing well for themselves)

I'd actually say something much, much more extreme than that. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The college process at elite schools pretty much exists to replicate the elite, privileged class of society. There are, of course, exceptions - and those exceptions, as they say, prove the rule. The crudest analysis I can give is admissions offices do little more than rubberstamp and credentialize the children of the wealthy, just as private high schools do. The good and interesting work an admissions office does is often incidental, and usually has more to do with an image the institution wants to project than any higher or noble ideals. We've abided the creation of a system of credentials that keeps the ruling class in place.

I could write pages and pages of fact-based and experience-based analysis of the role wealth plays in admissions, but it'd most likely be a waste of everyone's time. I'll leave it at this for now: parents who pay between 30 and 60 thousand dollars for private high schools are not paying that much money for their kids to go to anything but one of the best schools in the nation. You have to be a real fukkup or a true idiot to be a kid from an educated, wealthy household who attends a good private school and not get into a top tier school.

I can provide a much more detailed breakdown of how the process is skewed, but I'm not sure how high the interest is.

 

[Brown_Pride]

I'd actually say something much, much more extreme than that. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The college process at elite schools pretty much exists to replicate the elite, privileged class of society. There are, of course, exceptions - and those exceptions, as they say, prove the rule. The crudest analysis I can give is admissions offices do little more than rubberstamp and credentialize the children of the wealthy, just as private high schools do. The good and interesting work an admissions office does is often incidental, and usually has more to do with an image the institution wants to project than any higher or noble ideals. We've abided the creation of a system of credentials that keeps the ruling class in place.

I could write pages and pages of fact-based and experience-based analysis of the role wealth plays in admissions, but it'd most likely be a waste of everyone's time. I'll leave it at this for now: parents who pay between 30 and 60 thousand dollars for private high schools are not paying that much money for their kids to go to anything but one of the best schools in the nation. You have to be a real fukkup or a true idiot to be a kid from an educated, wealthy household who attends a good private school and not get into a top tier school.

I can provide a much more detailed breakdown of how the process is skewed, but I'm not sure how high the interest is.

For me it'd be pointless at this point
For others though...well probably equally as pointless unless they are wealthy...and even then as it's more a rubber stamp there's not much to be done.

How about this, for those trying to get into schools that don't have the wealth backing them, what can they do to "stand out" or increase there chances to getting into the colleges they want to?

 

[Depreciating Asset]

I'd actually say something much, much more extreme than that. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The college process at elite schools pretty much exists to replicate the elite, privileged class of society. There are, of course, exceptions - and those exceptions, as they say, prove the rule. The crudest analysis I can give is admissions offices do little more than rubberstamp and credentialize the children of the wealthy, just as private high schools do. The good and interesting work an admissions office does is often incidental, and usually has more to do with an image the institution wants to project than any higher or noble ideals. We've abided the creation of a system of credentials that keeps the ruling class in place.

I could write pages and pages of fact-based and experience-based analysis of the role wealth plays in admissions, but it'd most likely be a waste of everyone's time. I'll leave it at this for now: parents who pay between 30 and 60 thousand dollars for private high schools are not paying that much money for their kids to go to anything but one of the best schools in the nation. You have to be a real fukkup or a true idiot to be a kid from an educated, wealthy household who attends a good private school and not get into a top tier school.

I can provide a much more detailed breakdown of how the process is skewed, but I'm not sure how high the interest is.

I would think it would only be useful for your to provide detailed breakdown if there was a dedicated college admissions thread on this site that people applying to schools could read, study and learn from. I don't think posting it in this thread would add much value. My two cents.

 

[mastermind]

You also know nothing about admissions deans, admissions offices, admissions staffs at elite schools. I don't even know what you mean by a "dean is usually the equivalent of a VP in a corporation" and "you would have to be 60 something to be the dean of anything in most places." I don't know what you mean because you have no idea what you're talking about. Firstly there are various types of deans across the more bureaucratic departments who are paid differently, hired under different qualifications, and serve different purposes. I've known deans of admissions - head deans - much younger than 60. You don't what you're talking about, and watching you fumble through this goofy jester's dance of lamely questioning my legitimacy is as weird and comical as an NBA player being challenged about what it actually takes to make an NBA roster by some random poster in the sports forum. I'm over here giving you actual worthwhile information in my posts, while you're providing no insight or knowledge whatsoever, playing the roll of knee-jerk, pointless troll.

TWISM13 is a buffoon.


this has been an amazing discussion tho

 

[Depreciating Asset]

Even at my pharmacy school the dean of admissions was on her 2nd year on the job. By time I graduated she quit and went back to teaching at community college.

...​

Dean at M.I.T. Resigns, Ending a 28-Year Lie

Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became well known for urging stressed-out students competing for elite colleges to calm down and stop trying to be perfect. Yesterday she admitted that she had fabricated her own educational credentials, and resigned after nearly three decades at M.I.T. Officials of the institute said she did not have even an undergraduate degree.

...

Ms. Jones, 55, originally from Albany, had on various occasions represented herself as having degrees from three upstate New York institutions: Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In fact, she had no degrees from any of those places, or anywhere else, M.I.T. officials said.
...

Rachel Ellman, who studies aerospace engineering, said, “I feel like she’s irreplaceable.”

Ms. Jones had received the institute’s highest honor for administrators, the M.I.T. Excellence Award for Leading Change, and many college admissions officers and high school college counselors said yesterday that whatever her personal shortcomings, her efforts deserved respect.

...

Since she entered the field, admissions to M.I.T. and other elite institutions have become increasingly competitive, and she made her mark with her efforts to turn down the flame of competition.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/us/27mit.html?_r=0

This shows you that these degrees often don't mean very much yet they are still a big part of the game.

 

[theworldismine13]

My honest answer will sound like a bland cop-out: it's very, very complex. I'd be happy to touch on what I learned during my time in admissions, but I'll have to give it some thought, I don't want to just ramble on and on. So I'll get back to you.



Fam, what's really wrong with you? What puerile brand of logic is egging you on to keep replying to me with variations of "I don't believe you were a dean of admissions?" Cool then bro, keep it moving. I've been nothing but polite and patient in trying to explain to you in reasonable terms that admissions is a complicated process influenced by many factors - some insidious, some basic. I guess I should adapt to the typical Higher Learning approach and just plainly and curtly say son, you know nothing about college admissions. You posted an advertisement for a novel posing as news and have used it to back some point or other that isn't really worth anyone's time. Awesome. You da intellectual man, dog.

But you know nothing about college admissions, and you know nothing about why and how high schools, wealthy families, tutors, testing services, independent counselors, etc. position themselves to manipulate the admissions process. That much is painfully clear. You also know nothing about admissions deans, admissions offices, admissions staffs at elite schools. I don't even know what you mean by a "dean is usually the equivalent of a VP in a corporation" and "you would have to be 60 something to be the dean of anything in most places." I don't know what you mean because you have no idea what you're talking about. Firstly there are various types of deans across the more bureaucratic departments who are paid differently, hired under different qualifications, and serve different purposes. I've known deans of admissions - head deans - much younger than 60. You don't what you're talking about, and watching you fumble through this goofy jester's dance of lamely questioning my legitimacy is as weird and comical as an NBA player being challenged about what it actually takes to make an NBA roster by some random poster in the sports forum. I'm over here giving you actual worthwhile information in my posts, while you're providing no insight or knowledge whatsoever, playing the roll of knee-jerk, pointless troll.

This is precisely the sort of thing that keeps a lot of decent, serious-minded, critical, and informed posters out of HL - there's nothing sadder and more awkward than when the music stops, the kids leave, and the lights go out, but a clown keeps dancing and juggling. There's a tenuous line between discourse and schtick with a lot of you dudes.

LOL, if you were A dean of admission ie some type of administrative position thats fine, but from my experience at different colleges the title Dean is a high level executive position, it is not an admin position

if you had a different experience at this college you worked at then that's fine, apparently they were looser with the title of dean, but when you said i was the "dean of admissions at a top college" i read that as "i was a top executive at a top college" and no i did not believe that, but now that you explained that you had some kind of admin position and they had several "deans", then sure that's believable

I'm sure there are many exceptions, but the TYPICAL profile for THE DEAN of anything at a top university is somebody in the 60 range with decades of experience

Second of all, you have presented ZERO information in this thread, the only thing you have said is that you are the only one that knows anything

and its like you are confused about the flow of the conversation in the thread, i posted the article for FYI, with no comments, somebody said this article shows why we need AA and then somebody else commented how ivy leagues are not worth it and then the conversations went on from there

I didn't post the article as proof of anything, if you or somebody thought that this article was the last word on the admissions process I apologize for the confusion, the article is just one person's experience, just like your experience shuffling papers in the admission is office is just your experience, you cannot get a complete picture by looking at just one person's experience, people relating their experience is all just information that you can combine to come to your own conclusion

Third I dont know what it is you think I was saying, but I never said the wealthy don't have an advantage, they obviously do, I was arguing that AA would not balance that out and that AA is white liberal distraction

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Walt you should drop knowledge cause there are in fact HS kids and people still going through the admissions process on The Coli

Plus it might allow us to drop knowledge later on for people who need it

 

[Malik]

Just another form of AA for white people, besides the "good-ol boy system"
How do you think a doofus like George W Bush got into Yale?

and Harvard Business School

 

[Walt]

Walt you should drop knowledge cause there are in fact HS kids and people still going through the admissions process on The Coli

Plus it might allow us to drop knowledge later on for people who need it

Cool, will do.

How about this, for those trying to get into schools that don't have the wealth backing them, what can they do to "stand out" or increase there chances to getting into the colleges they want to?

Will touch on this as best I can. The short answer is any poor kid, black or Hispanic kid, and especially poor black and Hispanic is best served by aligningher/himself with some variation of a "feeder" for good schools. I'll elaborate on feeder schools and organizations in general. Independent counselors are geenrally exploitative, unqualified schemers, but there are some knowledgable and effective ones out there and some of them do pro bono work or work at a reduced rate. They can be useful in those cases. The joke is that independent counselors exist as a greed/stupidity tax on the wealthy. But for the poor and uninformed they can serve an important purpose. The typical, cruel irony of the admissions process/game is those who need to do their homework far in advance due to their paucity of knowledge about college and the college process are the ones who get a late start; those who need no assistance whatsoever go overboard in seeking it out.

I would think it would only be useful for your to provide detailed breakdown if there was a dedicated college admissions thread on this site that people applying to schools could read, study and learn from. I don't think posting it in this thread would add much value. My two cents.

If someone made a thread about advice for the college process/an insider's perspective on how college admissions works at an elite school, I'd be happy to share whatever insights I have. I've been paid between $2,000 and $5,000 a handful of times for breaking down the process, reviewing credentials, developing lists of potential schools, devising strategies and editing essays for candidates before. I found the work distasteful, so I stopped pursuing/taking clients. This was after my time as a dean of admissions, so there was no conflict of interest and no compromising of ethics. On a personal level, it felt ethically icky to help some of these families. I'd probably do this again on the freelance tip, because my thoughts on it all have changed. And I'm happy to explain that too.

TWISM13 is a buffoon.

Noted. I trust your judgment. Ignore status it is.

 

[Depreciating Asset]

ExodusNirvana said: ↵
Walt you should drop knowledge cause there are in fact HS kids and people still going through the admissions process on The Coli

Plus it might allow us to drop knowledge later on for people who need it

Cool, will do.

If someone made a thread about advice for the college process/an insider's perspective on how college admissions works at an elite school, I'd be happy to share whatever insights I have. I've been paid between $2,000 and $5,000 a handful of times for breaking down the process, reviewing credentials, developing lists of potential schools, devising strategies and editing essays for candidates before. I found the work distasteful, so I stopped pursuing/taking clients. This was after my time as a dean of admissions, so there was no conflict of interest and no compromising of ethics. On a personal level, it felt ethically icky to help some of these families. I'd probably do this again on the freelance tip, because my thoughts on it all have changed. And I'm happy to explain that too.

I will create a thread. Hope this a good thing for the shorties trying to get into school and the Coli population as a whole.

 

[Depreciating Asset]

I will create a thread. Hope this a good thing for the shorties trying to get into school and the Coli population as a whole.

@yoyoyo1
@suicideking
@Walt
@theworldismine13
@ExodusNirvana
@Brown Ant

How did I do? Is the thread I created too negative? Should I create a separate one for prospective grad students or just have one thread?

 

[Walt]

@yoyoyo1
@suicideking
@Walt
@theworldismine13
@ExodusNirvana
@Brown Ant

How did I do? Is the thread I created too negative? Should I create a separate one for prospective grad students or just have one thread?

Graduate admissions is completely different from undergraduate admissions and varies from department to department and school to school to such an extent that you'd have to be more specific than that. My knowledge of graduate admissions is based solely on what friends of mine in PhD and MFA programs have told me about their experiences sitting in on the admissions committee (which in many programs is typically staffed by a small group of faculty and one or two students in the department, as far as I know).

 

[rapbeats]

yeah pretty much, if you read the article carefully you can see where the author says explicitly that money only gets you so far, and a lot of these rich kids fail to get in, the lesson i got is that you have to prepare and plan for ive league and use your available resources

i dont know if these posters are black but you already have a couple of posters on going to ive league, my point is you already lost the race before it began with that attitude or mentality, this whole thing is a war and in this war the asians are winning because they study harder, black people are losing because they dont study as hard, this article gives you insight into your enemies battle plans, that is what i get and also it tells me what a joke AA is, with AA black people are bringing a knife to a gun fight

lol at a lot fail to get in. there are 100 seats. there are 300 rich people with 700 rich kids trying to attend. there are 5000 upper middle to middle class parents with 12,000 kids trying to attend this school. there are 30,000 poor parents with 70,000 poor kids that are smart enough to do well at this school if they were allowed entrance.

rich folks fill up lets say 85% of those seats
another 10% are people that are not rich but doing okay that have serious connects at these schools.

the last 5% are the rest that are just uber smarty pants(no matter which race you are).


So looking at that math. OF course SOME rich kids dont get in. there are only so many RICH kid seats they have available. there are only 100 seats available in total. there are more rich kids then there are seats. that doesnt mean "see, all rich people dont make it in. see there."

terrible logic.

dont study harder. study smarter. while you're over there grinding it out the old fashion way. someone else is being tutored and having tricks/tips sent there way for every subject there is. so when you do run into that one thing you just are not good at you can still use a trick/tip to get thru it.

they have study tricks/tips. that an average joe broke smart person of color just wont get from their schools.
test taking tricks/tips. that an average joe broke smart person of color just wont get from their schools.
and if all else fails. pay someone who has a track record to do the work for you and put your name on it. an average joe broke smart person of color just wont have the money nor the knowledge of who to contact to pull this off for them.

is it a lost cause? no.

so how should we proceed?
do your best, get into whatever school you get into. dont cry over spilled milk. if they let you in due to AA, SO WHAT, take advantage of it. they owe it to you anyway.

then once you get out and hopefully are not held back in your career(see the merrill lynch thread) your children will grow up in better schools with better connects. because you now work on a job where you may know some ivy graduates. use those connects to help your kid out.

so forth and so on.

 

[He Who Posts Well]

subs

 

[theworldismine13]

lol at a lot fail to get in. there are 100 seats. there are 300 rich people with 700 rich kids trying to attend. there are 5000 upper middle to middle class parents with 12,000 kids trying to attend this school. there are 30,000 poor parents with 70,000 poor kids that are smart enough to do well at this school if they were allowed entrance.

rich folks fill up lets say 85% of those seats
another 10% are people that are not rich but doing okay that have serious connects at these schools.

the last 5% are the rest that are just uber smarty pants(no matter which race you are).


So looking at that math. OF course SOME rich kids dont get in. there are only so many RICH kid seats they have available. there are only 100 seats available in total. there are more rich kids then there are seats. that doesnt mean "see, all rich people dont make it in. see there."

terrible logic.

dont study harder. study smarter. while you're over there grinding it out the old fashion way. someone else is being tutored and having tricks/tips sent there way for every subject there is. so when you do run into that one thing you just are not good at you can still use a trick/tip to get thru it.

they have study tricks/tips. that an average joe broke smart person of color just wont get from their schools.
test taking tricks/tips. that an average joe broke smart person of color just wont get from their schools.
and if all else fails. pay someone who has a track record to do the work for you and put your name on it. an average joe broke smart person of color just wont have the money nor the knowledge of who to contact to pull this off for them.

is it a lost cause? no.

so how should we proceed?
do your best, get into whatever school you get into. dont cry over spilled milk. if they let you in due to AA, SO WHAT, take advantage of it. they owe it to you anyway.

then once you get out and hopefully are not held back in your career(see the merrill lynch thread) your children will grow up in better schools with better connects. because you now work on a job where you may know some ivy graduates. use those connects to help your kid out.

so forth and so on.

this is a confused bundle, im not even sure what your point is with all those numbers, i think maybe you are confused about what i was saying

but let me clarify something, i think getting into these schools is a great wonderful thing

but like i said before the most important thing to extract out of this story is that the parents were focused at an early age, i think that is half the battle, i think if a person tries and fails its all good because at the end of the day you will have a highly educated HS grad that can succeed at any other non ivy league school

i actually think its more important for more black kids to TRY and get to the ivy league than it is how many get in , i think the fundamental problem is not enough black people are even trying, as more black people try more black people will get in. And by trying i dont mean people applying, im talking about parents preparing their kids from elementary school for ivy league, not just filling out an application in the 12th grade and crossing your fingers hoping AA gets you through

as far as actually getting in, there are a dozen ways to skin that cat, as long as you set that goal at an early age, i trust that people can figure something out, and you also have to study how other people do it but i think the biggest hurdle for black people and lower income people is making an ivy league a goal in the first place and doing that at a very early age

the perfect example is you, you are the type of person that will and have written essays about how college is a waste of money and how college is not important, any children you have and nieces and nephews and little cousins you have are automatically disadvantaged just by being around you -an adult person that doesn't even think college is important, you are like exhibit A on why so few black people even try to get into ivy league

once a black kid gets past the hurdle of black people like yourself the rest is a lot of technicalities and information gathering and sure you should study smarter, i agree with that 100 percent, and doing it smarter means you have to study the techniques that other people use and combine it with your knowledge but also study harder than the next man

but overall i dont think a person that writes essays about why college is a waste should be commenting on how to get into the ivy leagues or bemoaning whether people are getting in or not