Legacy situation

[chominky]

I graduated from CU College of Arts and Sciences about 25 years ago, and recently my oldest son was denied admission to Cornell.  Has this happened to any other eLynah folks before?  I'm surprised to be feeling this way, but I'm taking it personally and it's changed my feelings about Cornell.  I hope this feeling is temporary.

My son is a good student -- good enough for Lafayette, where he will be attending -- yet he was dinged Early Decision in December.  Cornell has always been an important part of our family including numerous vacations to Ithaca plus attending scores of hockey, basketball, and football games.  In addition, my kids loved attending Cornell sports camps in the summer.  I am grateful having attended Cornell, had a wonderful time when I was a student, and was a proud and active alum.  

Does this creepy feeling go away?  My oldest daughter plans on applying to Cornell in two years, so we'll see next time.

[Robb]

Unfortunately, I think that's a part of the "selectivization" trend that's going on in the top schools.  Many of the kids who got in in the 50's and 60's would have been laughed at by the admissions boards of the 70's and 80's, and they in turn would be laughed at today.  As the population grows but the number of spots in the top schools doesn't, those schools can increasingly fill their entire student bodies with the very extreme tip of the bell curve.  More high school valedictorians apply to Harvard than Harvard has freshmen, so they could fill their whole class with nothing but valedictorians if they chose to (wouldn't that be a great day for Cornell hockey?!).

I look at the kids coming out of high schools today with their multiple years of college math, extracirricular research opportunities, publications, standardized test prep courses, etc, and wonder just what kind of crazy rat race this is, and what sacrifices my (hypothetical) kids will have to make someday if they want to attend a place like Cornell.

The flip side of this trend is that more and more extremely talented top students (and the same trend applies to professors) are ending up at so-called "lower tier" colleges, so the educational experiences at those colleges are improving as well.  

Good luck to your son - hope he has a wonderful experience at Lafayette.

[nyc94]

To add to what Robb said, Cornell has routinely putting out press releases about the record number of applications they have been receiving as have most of the Ivies.  Whatever they are calling the current generation of high school kids - Gen Y, Boomer Echo, etc. - there are a heck of a lot more of them than there was in 1990 when I applied and I wonder if I would be accepted at Cornell now.  My high school routinely graduated 400 a year into the mid-80s and then the numbers started dropping until bottoming out around 220 in about 1993.  They are over 400 again and the town had to build a new middle school, build an addition to the high school, and reopen an elementary school that had been shuttered.  Overall the town population has only slightly increased.

Just wondering chominky, did your son also apply to Arts?

[chominky]

> did your son also apply to Arts? <

Yep.  After the fact, I spoke to a contact I have in the Admissions office, and she told me that Early Decision applicants are reviewed by faculty, not Admissions officers.  My son wants to major in History, and my contact told me that it's one of the most competitive departments in the Arts school.

[David Harding]

You might want to look at a piece that John Marcham '50 wrote in the Cornell Alumni News of October 1972 (page 7) about his reaction to the situation. http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/3783/9/075_03.pdf  (It's 38+ MB, so the download is not instantaneous.)  Note that Marcham was editor of the Cornell Alumni News.  His father was long-time beloved professor English, Fred Marcham (and long-time mayor of the Village of Cayuga Heights).  I'm not saying that your situation matches in detail any of the specifics that he describes, but he provides an example of a dedicated Cornell family whose child was not accepted by the University, who was hurt, but who recovered.  

The same issue has an interesting interview with Professor Joel Silbey titled "How Americans Vote," anticipating that year's presidential election.

[BillCharlton]

[quote nyc94]To add to what Robb said, Cornell has routinely putting out press releases about the record number of applications they have been receiving as have most of the Ivies.  Whatever they are calling the current generation of high school kids - Gen Y, Boomer Echo, etc. - there are a heck of a lot more of them than there was in 1990 when I applied and I wonder if I would be accepted at Cornell now.  My high school routinely graduated 400 a year into the mid-80s and then the numbers started dropping until bottoming out around 220 in about 1993.  They are over 400 again and the town had to build a new middle school, build an addition to the high school, and reopen an elementary school that had been shuttered.  Overall the town population has only slightly increased.

Just wondering chominky, did your son also apply to Arts?[/quote]

Don't overestimate Gen Y. They are not smarter than past generations; they certainly are not better educated. Back in my day, kids used to read books instead of surfing the Internet and playing video games! We also were not overly concerned with finding ways to maximize our SAT scores. We just took the SATs and lived with the result. I get the impression that many of the "wunderkinds" today play the recruiting game better and get "coached up" to maximize their scores. Had we grown up in the same environment, I'm sure we could have done the same.

[Robb]

[quote BillCharlton]Don't overestimate Gen Y. They are not smarter than past generations; they certainly are not better educated.[/quote]

I agree that it's very unlikely that "intelligence" (whatever that is) has changed in the last 30 or 40 years.  What has changed are the opportunities for those who ARE intelligent to differentiate themselves from the pack.  On the whole, I also agree that the average educational experience in the US has probably gotten worse.  However, when talking about Ivy League admissions, we're not talking about kids who are anywhere remotely near average.  We're talking about kids who are 2 standard deviations above - the top 2% or so.  I think that their educational experience has "improved" in the sense that they are exposed to more material at younger ages (especially in math and science) and have opportunities to do much more advanced/independent work.  Because these opportunities are now available, I think that the current system ends up (for better or worse) more effectively identifying the kids who are really the cream of the crop - who not only have the ability, but also the initiative and the drive to excel.

Yes, probably as many as 50% of today's youth are no-good, lazy, video game playing, long hair growing, skateboarding, drinking and drugging burdens to society, but that's totally irrelevant when discussing Ivy admissions.
 
[quote BillCharlton]Had we grown up in the same environment, I'm sure we could have done the same.[/quote]
Yep - you're absolutely right.  The only question is: would we have done the same as today's top achievers, or as today's video game players?

[chominky]

> You might want to look at a piece that John Marcham '50 wrote in the Cornell Alumni News of October 1972 (page 7) about his reaction to the situation. <

Thanks for the article, David.  At first I was expecting the author to imply that such feelings of anger and confusion are at first natural, but really senseless.  I felt empathy when he conveyed his story about the scholarship though.  

I can tell you one thing -- the feeling is weird.  Knowing how much harder it is to get in versus 25 or 40 years ago kind of makes it easier to swallow.  I read an interesting article titled "Is the Ivy League 'Worth It?'"  Have you ever heard the adage about fitting 10 lbs. into a 5 lbs. bag?  Well, the Ivy League is still a 5 lbs. bag that the rest of the country and world want to get into.  Here's the link to the article.  I only post it because of the content in the first part of the article.  Don't need to read the rest because we all know that it's worth it.

[BillCharlton]

[quote Robb]Yes, probably as many as 50% of today's youth are no-good, lazy, video game playing, long hair growing, skateboarding, drinking and drugging burdens to society, but that's totally irrelevant when discussing Ivy admissions.[/quote]

Your sentence (with edits) accurately describes many members of my high school class and freshman dorm. :-)  Fortunately, most of them turned out OK. So, come to think of it, maybe things haven't changed that much after all.

[Jim Hyla]

We also have to recognize that Cornell, and the Ivies in general, are getting students from a much wider pool than before. For those of us old enough, we can still remember when women had a more difficult time getting in, and their numbers were much less than now. Although they have not gotten the cultural diversity (yes maybe that's being politically correct, and not intended to spark a war) that they may want, it's certainly much more so than when I was there. They have also taken their message all across the US, say nothing of the world, and therefore getting students from a much larger pool; that leads to much less space for those like us older folks.

[David Harding]

There are some interesting points in the "Is the Ivy League 'Worth It?'" article. http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/college/?article=ivyleagueworthit  There is certainly merit to the idea of the nationalization of the candidate base increasing demand at the elite institutions, though my family experience doesn't match 100%.  I had a great aunt from Indiana who attended Cornell in the early 1920's and an aunt from Minnesota who attended Swarthmore in the 1930's.

[mnagowski]

Did he select an alternate college by any chance? While he may have gotten rejected by Arts, he may have been accepted by AAP or ILR (both of which have very strong history programs and typically a slightly weaker applicant pool). This is the first year the University has had the primary/alternate admissions scheme, and I am surprised by the number of applicants who haven't taken advantage of it.

I actually just interviewed a kid tonight as part of CAAAN. He applied to Arts as a math major, and while he said his SAT and GPA were strong, I got the sense that he will not be "well-rounded" enough for Arts. He would probably have had a decent shot for Engineering or Ag though (both of which have pretty decent quantitative programs, ORIE and Biometry and Statistics) that would have been a good fit for him.

[KeithK]

Whether an alternate makes sense depends on individual interests.  If a kid is really interested in theoretical math then majoring in ORIE (undergrad anyway)may not be as good of a fit as a straight math major.  Likewise, ILR may have strong history programs (they do? learn something every day) but the focus may not be right if what you really like is (random example) medieval history.  For others the "replacement" majors may be perfectly suitable.

[ugarte]

[quote KeithK]ILR may have strong history programs (they do? learn something every day)[/quote]
Yes, but it is a bit ... focused.

[Jim Hyla]

You also have to consider transfers. You can transfer to CU, from another U, and if you're in another school at CU, and doing well, transferring within CU  is possible. Yes, it usually takes you longer to graduate, and therefore costs more, but it can be done.