Comment by brandnewlow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brandnewlow | Hacker News Reader

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Sorry man, but you've gotta back this stuff up. If you worked there, then, by all means, let us know. It all sounds good, but is it true?

To your points: I didn't talk about the influence of yield rates because at no point during my two years in admissions was a decision ever made on a kid based on whether or not we thought they'd matriculate to our school. This simply did not happen in my presence, so I didn't speak to it.

Note This is one of the problems I have with college admissions consultants. They charge kids an arm and leg to help them get into elite schools, but few if any of them actually ever admitted kids to elite schools. All they can do is look at the black box, see what goes in, what goes out, and then make educated guesses about why. That's not good enough for the prices they charge.

Unfortunately, most of the folks I know who have worked in admissions are so humbled by the process that they wouldn't think to sell kids on the idea that they could get them into an elite school. I tried it for about 3 weeks during grad school and just couldn't do it. It was too ridiculous. The kids that are going to get in are going to get in. The kids that won't, won't. I could take a big payday to inform kids that they will or won't be admitted, but no one wants that service. They want you to polish them into a winner, even if it's not the case.

So the bad information and the snake-oil salesmen dominate the conversation, folks like these people http://ivywise.com

The kids that are going to get in are going to get in. The kids that won't, won't.

At any given school, yes... but what if you were to give people advice about which colleges to apply to? There has to be some way to optimize the effort here, and that's got to be worth something. Especially when helping to rank the second-tier choices -- so you didn't get into Harvard, but maybe you happen to know that such-and-such College favors applicants like your client for such-and-such reasons.

Well, how do you know that college such-and-such favors those kinds of applicants? Do you work there to be able to know for sure? How many schools can you work at to know for sure?

You are right to suggest that parents could use help knowing where to apply. That's the service that people wanted more than anything during my brief adventure in consulting. It was also the one that I felt the worst offering. Every school is different. Every school is a little weird. I don't think anyone can tell a kid where he'd be best off going to college.

Sure, you can read up on what the different guide books say and offer an opinion, but it's still a shot in the dark.

My advice to kids is always to go visit and see if they could see themselves hanging out on campus there. When I was in high school I visited about 20 colleges with my family. They all looked nice, but none of them inspired my imagination. When I visited Princeton, after I was admitted, I got the sense of a place full of people much, much smarter than myself. I felt like I'd somehow been invited to Hogwarts or the Jedi Academy. That sense of disbelief was what cemented my decision. I figure that's as good as method of picking a school as any.

My advice to kids is always to go visit and see if they could see themselves hanging out on campus there.

How practical is that advice for the low-income families mentioned in your other helpful reply? I guess you come from the upper Midwest, as I do. Were your family visits to places like Princeton, Stanford, and MIT, or to colleges in your state and nearby states?

It's not practical at all. But it's not impossible.

It's just being relentlessly resourceful as PG explained last week.

As an officer you're on duty a few days a week. This means you greet the visiting families. It also means you troubleshoot any weird things that happen in the waiting room.

Probably once a month you'd have a kid who hitchhiked across country to come visit and who would ask about where he could stay nearby. Or kids who would cut school to make it there for a visit.

Also, if a family's hiring outside help with the admissions process, then they've already blocked out time to go visit colleges.

I only visited Princeton after I was admitted. I applied blind. My father had almost had a chance to teach there while he was in the army and had always thought highly of the place. I applied to all the big Midwestern colleges and we thought, what the heck, let's apply to one of these fancy Ivies.

It's kind of a classic story of a dream deferred.

I only visited Princeton after I was admitted. I applied blind.

When did you apply?

It must have been in the '80s or '90s, because these days it's pretty much impossible to get into the Ivies without a campus visit on record (or two, preferably). The assumption is that anyone who hasn't done a visit or do doesn't have enough enthusiasm to attend.

these days it's pretty much impossible to get into the Ivies without a campus visit on record (or two, preferably).

I doubt that completely, as I know plenty of counterexamples. The eight colleges in the Ivy League

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League

mostly don't have any policy at all of tracking student interest when making admission decisions. All eight of those colleges know that they will get a good yield out of the smallish number of students that they admit.

We did not track visits. We still recommended them though. A lot of kids would either get fired up once they came to visit, or they'd realize they didn't want to go there. Either way, they had better info.

I'll chime in with counterexamples also; I have an ex-girlfriend and a number of cousins who got into multiple ivies (and Stanford) prior to campus visits.

2000. Graduated in '04. Worked in admissions from 04-06.

You must have been a very impressive applicant to have gotten into Princeton without a campus visit in 2000.

I was a strong applicant from a random place in Michigan. Someone in the office must have taken a liking to something I wrote and pushed me into the admit pile. It's not possible to take credit for that.

I didn't talk about the influence of yield rates because at no point during my two years in admissions was a decision ever made on a kid based on whether or not we thought they'd matriculate to our school. This simply did not happen in my presence, so I didn't speak to it.

I find this difficult to believe, given that I know people who've worked in admissions at a surprisingly large number of colleges-- private and public, universities and liberal arts colleges, elite and average-- and they've all indicated the importance of yield. It's not something that will get a mediocre applicant in, but it's easy for a good one to get rejected on low predicted yield.

This is one of the problems I have with college admissions consultants. They charge kids an arm and leg to help them get into elite schools, but few if any of them actually ever admitted kids to elite schools. All they can do is look at the black box, see what goes in, what goes out, and then make educated guesses about why. That's not good enough for the prices they charge.

I would argue with you on this one. The outcome can be altered, but most people don't have the means or knowledge necessary to do so. For example, consider a student with a 3.9+ from a reasonably good public school, and a 2200 on the SATs, and otherwise middle-of-the-road "soft factors". He's not getting in, obviously. If he improves his SAT scores to 2300-2400, or spends three times as much time on his admissions essay, it won't matter in the least. He's still not getting in.

On the other hand, if he had attended a prep high school (it's ridiculously easy to get into elite colleges from a brand-name prep) he would have a guidance counselor with enough social connections to state his case personally in the admissions office, and he'd almost certainly get in. Or, if he had a great internship-- especially of the kind that can only be bought, in high school, using elite connections-- he could get in.

The service provided by "admissions counselors" like Kat Cohen is the sale of their social connections: an internship at a NYC art gallery in your junior year, a recommendation from a Senator, etc. Everything else they provide is pretty useless. The reason this business model begins to fail at some point is that connection-pimping doesn't scale. Kat Cohen can do this for 3 students per year, but if she's pounding her network for 100 students, her "connections" are going to become annoyed at being sold to rich high schoolers, and fade away from her and her efforts.

I defer to your knowledge of what your friends said about admissions at their school. I can only speak to my own experience at a single, Ivy League school where we did not once use yield considerations to make a decision.

I could put on my Ivy League snob hat at this point and wonder aloud if maybe schools that aren't Princeton don't have the luxury of being able to make decisions without thinking about yield. That's quite possible. But again, unless you have direct evidence, you're just relying on rumors and what you'd like to think about the process, which is in part why things get so messy with admissions.

To the blind man, the different parts of the elephant all feel like different animals. All I'm asking is that you concede that you're blind in this situation.

To point #2: I don't see anything that contradicts what I said. Most college admission consultants have not actually voted on kids as officers at elite schools. Therefore they invent a system that seems to deliver results in some way. They're selling a product they only partly understand under the pretense that they completely understand it.

What I'm arguing is that no one completely understands it.

So, if time_management is blind because he's relying on the anecdotes of others, how does your comment help? It is just another anecdote, and one from someone who admittedly has much less experience and he knows less well than the other anecdote originators. It is presumptuous for such an anecdote to demand higher credibility.

I know people who've worked in admissions at a surprisingly large number of colleges-- private and public, universities and liberal arts colleges, elite and average-- and they've all indicated the importance of yield.

Names of the colleges, please? The great majority of colleges have yields well below 50 percent,

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection...

so the great majority of colleges are already accustomed to admitting a majority of students who will NOT enroll at one of the colleges that admitted them.

Your comment would be much more informative if we had some idea exactly which colleges you are talking about, and which persons affiliated with each college you have spoke to, and how recently.

Names of the colleges, please? The great majority of colleges have yields well below 50 percent,

Right, but regardless of whether the yield is 20% or 70%, colleges care immensely about maximizing it. Higher yield means less uncertainty about class composition and size, as well as higher prestige.

Your comment would be much more informative if we had some idea exactly which colleges you are talking about, and which persons affiliated with each college you have spoke to, and how recently.

Ivy League (x2), 3 and 1 year ago. Elite liberal arts college, 3 years ago. Mid-sized West Coast school, 4 years ago. State flagship, 3 years ago.

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