What Cornell wants from homeschoolers

[regentrude]

18 minutes ago, EKS said:

I've always suspected that "test optional" allowed schools to report higher SAT/ACT score ranges while at the same time admitting students with whatever hooks are desirable who would have otherwise brought the range down.  

I am strongly against test optional and test blind policies.

Yes, I question how they can possibly discern between applicants since there is no standardized curriculum or national high school exit/college entrance exam. 

I can see no-test applications work well for graduate school, because those students can document their performance in a much better way.

[Roadrunner]

22 minutes ago, EKS said:

I've always suspected that "test optional" allowed schools to report higher SAT/ACT score ranges while at the same time admitting students with whatever hooks are desirable who would have otherwise brought the range down.  

I am strongly against test optional and test blind policies.

I am for transparency.

 

Look at UCs. They went test blind because they are trying to favor one racial group over another. They want to increase the number of Hispanics at the expense of Asian kids, and they can’t do that if test scores are staring them in the face. It has absolutely nothing to do with individual merit but with social engineering. As a friend once said, they should just publish quotas and be transparent about it. This smoke and mirrors is laughable. Let’s just call things what they are. I don’t know who benefits from this pretend game.  

[kokotg]

5 minutes ago, regentrude said:

yes. We were talking Cornell, so I assumed we are talking about schools with 10% or less acceptance rates.

Right, but as the conversation meandered it seemed to be about whether applying test optional hurts one's chances in general at "selective" colleges, and it's such a different conversation at Cornell than at Oberlin or wherever, even though both schools are certainly selective. The evidence I've seen so far is that test optional applicants do have a lower chance of admission at highly selective schools (Vanderbilt was the exception Selingo noted, interestingly). But I've only seen numbers from highly selective schools; I'd be interested in seeing if the same is true at the next tier down--those schools that admit more like 25-35%. 

[Arcadia]

3 hours ago, kokotg said:

I'm guessing the distinction between "selective" and "highly selective" is pretty important when it comes to test optional policies. I also think there's a difference between schools that genuinely de-emphasize test scores and those who have been pushed to try going test optional by circumstance. 

 

36 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

I really have no idea of whether or not test optional is really a thing. I’m just jumping in with my skeptical opinion on the whole thing and that the motivation is not always student centered. 

 

2 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Look at UCs. They went test blind because they are trying to favor one racial group over another. They want to increase the number of Hispanics at the expense of Asian kids, and they can’t do that if test scores are staring them in the face. It has absolutely nothing to do with individual merit but with social engineering. As a friend once said, they should just publish quotas and be transparent about it. This smoke and mirrors is laughable. Let’s just call things what they are. I don’t know who benefits from this pretend game.  

The UC and CSU apps are general apps for all the colleges in their system. Both are test optional. However they have sections for AP scores, college classes, SAT/ACT scores.  They say they won’t consider SAT/ACT scores for college admissions but they have the AP scores and dual enrollment scores to look at. The UC app also has the awards section that college admissions can look at, putting National Merit Semifinalist would be very telling.

[kokotg]

4 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I am for transparency.

 

Look at UCs. They went test blind because they are trying to favor one racial group over another. They want to increase the number of Hispanics at the expense of Asian kids, and they can’t do that if test scores are staring them in the face. It has absolutely nothing to do with individual merit but with social engineering. As a friend once said, they should just publish quotas and be transparent about it. This smoke and mirrors is laughable. Let’s just call things what they are. I don’t know who benefits from this pretend game.  

Recruited athletes, legacies, and full pay kids, mostly. 

[Roadrunner]

45 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Right, but as the conversation meandered it seemed to be about whether applying test optional hurts one's chances in general at "selective" colleges, and it's such a different conversation at Cornell than at Oberlin or wherever, even though both schools are certainly selective. The evidence I've seen so far is that test optional applicants do have a lower chance of admission at highly selective schools (Vanderbilt was the exception Selingo noted, interestingly). But I've only seen numbers from highly selective schools; I'd be interested in seeing if the same is true at the next tier down--those schools that admit more like 25-35%. 

Are you going for a conservatory at Oberlin? One would hope auditions tip the scales. 

[kokotg]

2 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Are you going for a conservatory at Oberlin? One would hope auditions tip the scales. 

Oh, he'd have a much better shot at Oberlin at the college than the con, I'm fairly certain. The only reason I can even handle thinking too much about admissions stuff this year is because none of it really applies to my current senior 😉 . Conservatory and college admission are completely separate at Oberlin (I don't think it was that way as recently as a few years ago, but it is now), so if the Con wants him he's in. But academically he'd be very competitive at Oberlin anyway; he's actually my kid who would probably do best with admissions at selective schools because he has good stats AND such a strong extracurricular profile because of music stuff. But he decided to torture me by applying to a bunch of music schools that take 3 or 4 clarinet players a year instead. 

[daijobu]

5 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Look at UCs. They went test blind because they are trying to favor one racial group over another. They want to increase the number of Hispanics at the expense of Asian kids, and they can’t do that if test scores are staring them in the face. It has absolutely nothing to do with individual merit but with social engineering. As a friend once said, they should just publish quotas and be transparent about it. 

I think transparency is illegal.  https://theconversation.com/what-the-california-vote-to-keep-the-ban-on-affirmative-action-means-for-higher-education-149508

[Roadrunner]

20 minutes ago, daijobu said:

I think transparency is illegal.  https://theconversation.com/what-the-california-vote-to-keep-the-ban-on-affirmative-action-means-for-higher-education-149508

Yes, that’s why “holistic” admissions is so useful. They can justify anything. 
 

Edited October 9, 2021 by Roadrunner

[Roadrunner]

18 hours ago, kokotg said:

Oh, he'd have a much better shot at Oberlin at the college than the con, I'm fairly certain. The only reason I can even handle thinking too much about admissions stuff this year is because none of it really applies to my current senior 😉 . Conservatory and college admission are completely separate at Oberlin (I don't think it was that way as recently as a few years ago, but it is now), so if the Con wants him he's in. But academically he'd be very competitive at Oberlin anyway; he's actually my kid who would probably do best with admissions at selective schools because he has good stats AND such a strong extracurricular profile because of music stuff. But he decided to torture me by applying to a bunch of music schools that take 3 or 4 clarinet players a year instead. 

I am eyeing their dual degree program as well as Case Western’s dual degree with CIM. 

[Not_a_Number]

20 hours ago, EKS said:

I am strongly against test optional and test blind policies.

I think test-optional policies will result in more discrimination and not less. 

Tests weren't always around, you know. In fact, tests HELPED certain minority group achieve access. Is that still the case in the same way? Not always, and that can be an issue. But having seen how people interact with my highly gifted DD9, I would be far more confident of her ability to achieve a high score on a test than to convince someone with deep prejudices against women in STEM that she's very talented in mathematics. And that's what portfolios and things like that come down to: one's ability to convince someone else's subjective judgment. 

Edited October 9, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[kokotg]

13 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I think test-optional policies will result in more discrimination and not less. 

Tests weren't always around, you know. In fact, tests HELPED certain minority group achieve access. Is that still the case in the same way? Not always, and that can be an issue. But having seen how people interact with my highly gifted DD9, I would be far more confident of her ability to achieve a high score on a test than to convince someone with deep prejudices against women in STEM that she's very talented in mathematics. And that's what portfolios and things like that come down to: one's ability to convince someone else's subjective judgment. 

I would guess that it's an advantage to be a girl applying to strong STEM schools these days in the same way it's an advantage to be a boy applying...pretty much everywhere else. Gender balance is one thing schools try to accomplish with holistic admissions (if we're talking about a job search, that's something else entirely). The thing about test scores at highly selective colleges is that SO MANY kids max them out that they really just have to look at other things. MIT could just take everyone with a perfect SAT score who applies, have a lottery to see which of them get in, and not admit anyone with a 1590 no matter what else they have going for them, and fill their school almost entirely with wealthy kids whose parents spent a lot of money on SAT tutors. Which is not to say holistic admissions as its practiced doesn't often/usually favor the most privileged kids as well--the ones who aren't going to get top scores no matter what, but who are legacies or whose parents could pay for private lacrosse coaching or a bassoon. College admissions is enormously problematic in all sorts of ways. In theory I love our messed up American system of a zillion little liberal arts colleges, but in reality I also recognize that's it's super messed up in many ways, and that my kid/s are/will benefit from it despite not having a ton of money only because they have a lot of other advantages (educated parents who can help them navigate for one thing) that most kids don't have. 

[kokotg]

I just checked MIT's common data set from 2018/19 (which is just what popped up when I googled, but I'd be surprised if it's changed much): 10.6% of female applicants accepted compared to 4.9% of male. (As I said above, the advantage goes in the opposite direction at most liberal arts schools)

[Not_a_Number]

8 minutes ago, kokotg said:

I would guess that it's an advantage to be a girl applying to strong STEM schools these days in the same way it's an advantage to be a boy applying...pretty much everywhere else.

Yes, but that's true with or without tests. I'm absolutely sure she has an advantage applying to COLLEGES. But I'm not at all sure she has an advantage applying for other stuff. Like, if we send her to a nearby gifted school next year, I'm not at all sure she'll be flagged as being "worthy" of the pullout algebra class they are running, despite the fact that she can currently independently do at least most of the Review Problems in the AoPS Intro to Algebra book without having actually read the book (she hasn't gotten to the Challenge Problems yet.) 

I can give you a long list of situations in which being a relatively normal-seeming girl has been a serious disadvantage to her. They haven't been admissions situations so far, but I can see how the world responds to her. 

 

8 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Which is not to say holistic admissions as its practiced doesn't often/usually favor the most privileged kids as well--the ones who aren't going to get top scores no matter what, but who are legacies or whose parents could pay for private lacrosse coaching or a bassoon.

Exactly. 

Edited October 9, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

I can also tell you what DH's experiences as a nerdy Jew (to be blunt) in the world of his Boston suburb public school was in the 1980s. He still talks about how many doors his SAT score as a 12-year-old opened. No one was interested in his portfolio. No one. 

[kokotg]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yes, but that's true with or without tests. I'm absolutely sure she has an advantage applying to COLLEGES. But I'm not at all sure she has an advantage applying for other stuff. Like, if we send her to a nearby gifted school next year, I'm not at all sure she'll be flagged as being "worthy" of the pullout algebra class they are running, despite the fact that she can currently independently do at least most of the Review Problems in the AoPS Intro to Algebra book without having actually read the book (she hasn't gotten to the Challenge Problems yet.) 

I can give you a long list of situations in which being a relatively normal-seeming girl has been a serious disadvantage to her. They haven't been admissions situations so far, but I can see how the world responds to her. 

 

 

oh, I don't doubt that at all. But speaking strictly about college admissions, holistic admissions benefits girls for STEM schools and boys for most other schools. And it's not so much an altruistic desire to help women in STEM; it's because most students want a campus with a fairly even gender balance. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, kokotg said:

oh, I don't doubt that at all. But speaking strictly about college admissions, holistic admissions benefits girls for STEM schools and boys for most other schools. And it's not so much an altruistic desire to help women in STEM; it's because most students want a campus with a fairly even gender balance. 

But you don't need to be test-optional to give preference to girls. The tests can help you distinguish between girls, too, even if you're trying for gender balance. 

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, kokotg said:

And it's not so much an altruistic desire to help women in STEM; it's because most students want a campus with a fairly even gender balance. 

It's also an immense amount of political pressure. I can tell you what happens at math department meetings regarding admitting female graduate students and hiring female professors. 

Edited October 9, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[kokotg]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

But you don't need to be test-optional to give preference to girls. The tests can help you distinguish between girls, too, even if you're trying for gender balance. 

it's true. that's why I wonder how much test optional policies will actually change who's admitted, because admissions committees have always been able/willing to look at more than test scores. There is some evidence (albeit mixed) that test optional policies increase diversity (without compromising graduation rates), largely, it seems, because applications from underrepresented minority groups increase the most when a school goes test optional. I.e. you can't find those kids who are strong students but not necessarily great testers if they don't apply. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, kokotg said:

There is some evidence (albeit mixed) that test optional policies increase diversity (without compromising graduation rates), largely, it seems, because applications from underrepresented minority groups increase the most when a school goes test optional. I.e. you can't find those kids who are strong students but not necessarily great testers if they don't apply. 

I would guess it's a very temporary bump, though. Like, if people feel defeated because they don't have the test scores right now, they'll soon start feeling defeated because they don't have a portfolio put together by a professional designer, with letters from high-powered people included 😛 . 

[daijobu]

1 hour ago, kokotg said:

The thing about test scores at highly selective colleges is that SO MANY kids max them out that they really just have to look at other things. MIT could just take everyone with a perfect SAT score who applies, have a lottery to see which of them get in, and not admit anyone with a 1590 no matter what else they have going for them, and fill their school almost entirely with wealthy kids whose parents spent a lot of money on SAT tutors.

College admissions is enormously problematic in all sorts of ways. In theory I love our messed up American system of a zillion little liberal arts colleges, but in reality I also recognize that's it's super messed up in many ways, and that my kid/s are/will benefit from it despite not having a ton of money only because they have a lot of other advantages (educated parents who can help them navigate for one thing) that most kids don't have. 

The thing is, a high SAT score is not very helpful because as you say it's easy to max it out.  A kid with a math 780 could be anything from a student from a stable home who did his homework every night to an IMO kid like @Not_a_Number.  Not that I know much about MIT, but I wouldn't say it's all about admitting students from stable homes.  

Thank you for owning up to liking the American system, because I also have affection for this system, despite its many, many flaws, with sports at the top of my list.  I prefer it to, say, the Korean system of one exam and you are either in or out.  We are a test-loving family, but one annual exam is too much for even my nerves.  While less helpful exams like the SAT go away, I think there will always be contests and other opportunities like AMC, USACO, and even the National Mythology Exam for students who have an interest in whatever they truly enjoy.  

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

I can also tell you what DH's experiences as a nerdy Jew (to be blunt) in the world of his Boston suburb public school was in the 1980s. He still talks about how many doors his SAT score as a 12-year-old opened. No one was interested in his portfolio. No one. 

Oh, the other hand, privates have caught on to this portfolio thing. So now if you are wealthy at a private school, you can get your “original research” done because they have entire classes dedicated to this. If you have connections (parents professors or parents who know professors or work at high tech and science and have know how) it’s the same thing. Look at the names of our local school’s science project winners and you will die of laughter - nothing is original. I wouldn’t expect it to be either. Those are kids we are talking about. Kids. They all need help and guidance. 
but the bottom line is this holistic game is very easy to play with $$ and connections. It’s much easier to level the playing field with tests. 

[kokotg]

19 minutes ago, daijobu said:

The thing is, a high SAT score is not very helpful because as you say it's easy to max it out.  A kid with a math 780 could be anything from a student from a stable home who did his homework every night to an IMO kid like @Not_a_Number.  Not that I know much about MIT, but I wouldn't say it's all about admitting students from stable homes.  

Thank you for owning up to liking the American system, because I also have affection for this system, despite its many, many flaws, with sports at the top of my list.  I prefer it to, say, the Korean system of one exam and you are either in or out.  We are a test-loving family, but one annual exam is too much for even my nerves.  While less helpful exams like the SAT go away, I think there will always be contests and other opportunities like AMC, USACO, and even the National Mythology Exam for students who have an interest in whatever they truly enjoy.  

It's not actually easy for the vast majority of kids to max it out, though (the 99th percentile on the SAT starts at 1520)...but there are enough kids in that top 1% to easily fill MIT's freshman class every year. That's why I think distinguishing between a very good, selective college and those very few extremely selective colleges is so important. Anywhere outside of the top 10 or 20 ranked colleges, it's still possible to distinguish yourself as an applicant with truly excellent grades and test scores (ETA: and a rigorous course schedule). That's just not true for that tiny handful of schools at the top of the heap.

Edited October 9, 2021 by kokotg

[kokotg]

Like (and this is wandering even further off topic) I'm on a paying for college group on Facebook, and people are constantly dismissing needs-met schools as "extremely hard to get into." And they ARE, but there's a huge difference between some of those schools, where if you have great stats and at least decent ECs you have a very good chance of being accepted and the top 10 type schools that really are a crapshoot for the vast majority of kids no matter how good their stats are. I hate to see smart kids who need a lot of financial aid turned off of those schools that might be attainable because people lump all needs met schools together with Harvard and MIT.

[madteaparty]

48 minutes ago, daijobu said:

The thing is, a high SAT score is not very helpful because as you say it's easy to max it out.  A kid with a math 780 could be anything from a student from a stable home who did his homework every night to an IMO kid like @Not_a_Number.  Not that I know much about MIT, but I wouldn't say it's all about admitting students from stable homes.    

This is not my world at all. Every year I talk to seniors that "do their homework every night" and they are not maxing on the SAT...Maybe I live in a dumb zip code. 

Edited October 9, 2021 by madteaparty

[Not_a_Number]

13 minutes ago, madteaparty said:

This is not my world at all. Every year I talk to seniors that "do their homework every night" and they are not maxing on the SAT...Maybe I live in a dumb zip code. 

Doing your homework every night isn't a good way to max out the SAT, to be fair. 

I had tons of kids in my calculus classes who had "done all their homework" and flunked the exams. That's because learning effectively is a skill and does not simply involve going through the motions. 

[Frances]

5 hours ago, madteaparty said:

This is not my world at all. Every year I talk to seniors that "do their homework every night" and they are not maxing on the SAT...Maybe I live in a dumb zip code. 

Same here. I live in a school district with over 40,000 students and six high schools. Someone acing the SAT doesn’t even happen once per year and makes the local newspaper when it does.

[Roadrunner]

My affluent high school of 900 kids that sends a ton of kids to UCLA and UCB only has 16 kids in Calculus BC course, the highest math offered. 

They aren't even bothering to offer PSAT, and no, SAT scores exceeding 1,500 are rare. 

[EKS]

5 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

That's because learning effectively is a skill and does not simply involve going through the motions. 

Also, even you have learned effectively, that doesn't mean you'll ace the exam.

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

Also, even you have learned effectively, that doesn't mean you'll ace the exam.

True. It's just a prerequisite. I'd have kids tell me how they "studied for 9 hours," and basically all their studying had been reading the solutions in the textbook over and over again. Like, that doesn't work! It never works! 

[kokotg]

21 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

I am eyeing their dual degree program as well as Case Western’s dual degree with CIM. 

I got really excited about CIM for about a day recently, because their NPC was surprisingly encouraging for a stand alone conservatory. But DS's clarinet teacher shot it down and told him it was probably out of reach. As a control freak, I hate having no idea how to gauge for myself where he's got a shot and where he doesn't. I have no idea if we're being too cautious or too ambitious with his list (I'm fairly sure we at least have some likely admits that he'd be happy with, and I guess that's the main thing). 

[Tess in the Burbs]

when looking at colleges we ruled out any that went above and beyond for home school requirements compared to public school kids.  Transcript and test scores were enough for those kids, why not mine?  They didn't want book lists or sample writing/math samples, they wanted multiple SAT subject test scores and more.  It ruled out schools much closer to home, but at some point you have to pick your line in the sand.  My kids' test scores showed more than enough aptitude for college(were accepted to all they applied to) and the schools with over the top requirements from home schooled kids are missing out on great kids!   Don't ever feel you have to submit all that.  There are plenty of schools to pick from who will value your kid without all the hoops.

[Mom_to3]

On 10/9/2021 at 1:57 PM, Roadrunner said:

Oh, the other hand, privates have caught on to this portfolio thing. So now if you are wealthy at a private school, you can get your “original research” done because they have entire classes dedicated to this. If you have connections (parents professors or parents who know professors or work at high tech and science and have know how) it’s the same thing. Look at the names of our local school’s science project winners and you will die of laughter - nothing is original. I wouldn’t expect it to be either. Those are kids we are talking about. Kids. They all need help and guidance. 
but the bottom line is this holistic game is very easy to play with $$ and connections. It’s much easier to level the playing field with tests. 

I think this is spot on, and there is some research that argues that SAT testing, unlike test-optional policies, actually helps the disadvantaged and should be universal. As a home-schooling parent, in particular, I thought it was very disappointing to see the SAT subject tests being cancelled.

In terms of gender discrimination, the situation is probably quite complex. My DH has experienced (fairly overt) discrimination against males since elementary school all the way to hiring, from both sides. Some of his experiences have been quite...disturbing, to say the least. As a mother of 3 boys, this is quite worrisome, especially as my eldest at least clearly is leaning towards STEM (and one local private wouldn't consider boys born even just a few days after their age cutoff for an interview because they aren't mature enough).

[Eos]

On 10/9/2021 at 2:39 PM, madteaparty said:

Every year I talk to seniors that "do their homework every night" and they are not maxing on the SAT

Do you think this has to do with the amount of time they have to give to SAT prep vs doing all their homework?  

[madteaparty]

1 hour ago, Harpymom said:

Do you think this has to do with the amount of time they have to give to SAT prep vs doing all their homework?  

The implication was that going through the motions and doing a fairly decent job at your local public was enough to ace the SAT.  There are kids who are maxing out what our local public offers and are not even close on getting a perfect score. I don’t know if there’s any SAT prep happening at all. My local public is not offering AP Calc BC this year bc “not enough demand”. 

[Hadley]

Sorry for the late reply to this thread.  I’m just seeing this topic, and I wanted to correct the misinformation about Cornell!

This will be a bit of a drive-by post, as I’m heading out the door to drive up for parents’ weekend.

My son is a freshman at Cornell studying math in the College of Arts and Science.  He did have a 1500+ SAT score, paid internship experience, LOTS of college credits, etc.  I did have very detailed course descriptions and book lists, but I did NOT list all exams, papers, etc.  

We did visit the campus and sit in on a few classes, and meet with someone in the admissions office to discuss what they wanted to see from homeschool applicants.  Cornell was WONDERFUL to work with, at least in our experience.

Please don’t let misinformation on the internet keep your student from applying if it’s their desire to do so.  However, keep in mind that if accepted, your student will work VERY HARD once he or she begins classes!!

Hope this helps… Good luck!!

[NewnameC]

1 hour ago, Hadley said:

Sorry for the late reply to this thread.  I’m just seeing this topic, and I wanted to correct the misinformation about Cornell!

This will be a bit of a drive-by post, as I’m heading out the door to drive up for parents’ weekend.

My son is a freshman at Cornell studying math in the College of Arts and Science.  He did have a 1500+ SAT score, paid internship experience, LOTS of college credits, etc.  I did have very detailed course descriptions and book lists, but I did NOT list all exams, papers, etc.  

We did visit the campus and sit in on a few classes, and meet with someone in the admissions office to discuss what they wanted to see from homeschool applicants.  Cornell was WONDERFUL to work with, at least in our experience.

Please don’t let misinformation on the internet keep your student from applying if it’s their desire to do so.  However, keep in mind that if accepted, your student will work VERY HARD once he or she begins classes!!

Hope this helps… Good luck!!

This is not misinformation, because the requirements are on the website for the engineering school. It may not have applied to your son, because he didn’t apply for engineering. Or, the information on Cornell’s website could be out of date. 

Since you will be at Cornell today/tomorrow and already have a great experience working with them, it would be great if you could find out why these requirements for homeschoolers are listed on their website. I’m sure the Hive would love to hear Cornell is removing out-of-date /confusing information about homeschool requirements for engineering applicants. 

https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/admissions/undergraduate-admissions/first-year-applicants#home

 

[Hadley]

Good point.  I should clarify.  My son was originally thinking of going engineering, and we actually met with someone in that college when we initially visited.  The big take-away that we got from the meeting is that they just want to see something from homeschoolers that is orderly and easy to understand.  Their goal is not to be onerous at all…

Hope this clarifies things.  All I can speak from is my own experience, and they were nothing but responsive and kind…FYI, we did not get that feel from all the Ivies…

I would encourage anyone interested to call admissions and ask questions.  We will be too busy wrangling our new puppy and visiting with our son to hit the admissions office!

Good luck to all in the college application season!

[NewnameC]

I am glad that you had a good meeting with the engineering department, 
however, it is still unknown if your son’s application would have been considered by Cornell because it did not meet the requirements for engineering listed on their website. They may view the requirements listed on their website as what is needed for orderly and easy-to-understand homeschool applications or, more likely, it is old information that no longer applies.
 

Cornell Engineering should be made aware that (potentially) wrong information is on their website. All it takes is an email to whoever you met with from engineering. Cornell could be missing out on great homeschool candidates like your son. 

 

 

[kokotg]

Tangential: I came across a weirdly worded home school applicant section the other day for Peabody Institute, the music school at Johns Hopkins (their admission process is separate from JHU, and JHU doesn't use the same wording):

Quote

Home schooled applicants are encouraged to submit the GED in lieu of a high school degree. Without a high school degree or GED, Peabody will consider musically acceptable applicants for admission on a case by case basis. Applicants must show evidence of their ability to do college-level academic work. The following forms of evidence will be considered:

1. A transcript or other documentation from an accredited home schooling agency that the applicant has satisfactorily completed the equivalent of a high school degree program. Any such submission must include the name of the accrediting body.
2. SAT,  ACT, and/or other standardized test scores.
3. Results from Peabody placement tests.
4. Transcripts from a college or university showing completion of credit-level courses.

At first I thought this was going to require an e-mail to admissions to clarify, but a closer reading seems to say that they'll look at any of those things, not that they require all of them (and they have the same list in another place with an and/or in it). We have plenty of good 2 and 4 to show them, so I think we're okay. But the "encouraged to submit the GED" thing threw me off. 

[Hadley]

18 minutes ago, NewnameC said:

I am glad that you had a good meeting with the engineering department, 
however, it is still unknown if your son’s application would have been considered by Cornell because it did not meet the requirements for engineering listed on their website. They may view the requirements listed on their website as what is needed for orderly and easy-to-understand homeschool applications or, more likely, it is old information that no longer applies.
 

Cornell Engineering should be made aware that (potentially) wrong information is on their website. All it takes is an email to whoever you met with from engineering. Cornell could be missing out on great homeschool candidates like your son. 

 

 

I get this, and do appreciate your sentiment.

Honestly, though, the engineering admissions contact info is public.  We did a LOT of footwork during our college admission season. I encourage everyone to do their own. It’s amazing what can be learned while making contacts and asking your own questions. 
 

As I’ve said, my son, my husband, and I have been very happy with Cornell.  I just wanted to voice our experience, and didn’t want anyone discouraged from applying. There’s many paths to finding the right fit! At the end, all that matters is finding what’s best for our students.

[Garga]

23 hours ago, NewnameC said:

I am glad that you had a good meeting with the engineering department, 
however, it is still unknown if your son’s application would have been considered by Cornell because it did not meet the requirements for engineering listed on their website. They may view the requirements listed on their website as what is needed for orderly and easy-to-understand homeschool applications or, more likely, it is old information that no longer applies.
 

Cornell Engineering should be made aware that (potentially) wrong information is on their website. All it takes is an email to whoever you met with from engineering. Cornell could be missing out on great homeschool candidates like your son. 

 

 

Any one of us could call or email them and ask them…

Edited October 29, 2021 by Garga

[NittanyJen]

On 10/9/2021 at 1:57 PM, Roadrunner said:

Oh, the other hand, privates have caught on to this portfolio thing. So now if you are wealthy at a private school, you can get your “original research” done because they have entire classes dedicated to this. If you have connections (parents professors or parents who know professors or work at high tech and science and have know how) it’s the same thing. Look at the names of our local school’s science project winners and you will die of laughter - nothing is original. I wouldn’t expect it to be either. Those are kids we are talking about. Kids. They all need help and guidance. 
but the bottom line is this holistic game is very easy to play with $$ and connections. It’s much easier to level the playing field with tests. 

I just laughed so hard at the science fair line.

I WENT to a school that was populated by a large proportion of families whose parents worked for a local well-known large global research company. Every year we had a science fair (and an art fair and an… well, everything at the school was a dang competition). Every year some kid with a ridiculous setup of test tubes and UV lights and beakers and reagents that everybody knew their parent had swiped from the lab and set up for them would win the science fair. 

My parents were both teachers, not scientists, and my grandfather was a Bell Labs scientist who believed in kids doing their own work. I still vividly remember the year MY science fair project (we were required to participate) was— a counted cross stitch I designed and executed entirely on my own, comparing plant and animal cells, complete with labels stitched into the design. I was pulled off to the side and quizzed by THREE JUDGES because a parent (from the lab) had seen that I won “most creative,” and lodged an “official complaint” (I didn’t even know there was such a thing for a kid science fair!) that I had “clearly had help from my mother, who is known to be good with needle and thread.” Well duh, why do you think I’d been sewing and quilting and cross-stitching since I was big enough to hold a needle? Yes it was my own work. I had to work on convincing them for half an hour.

And once again, the kid with all the beakers and professional lab equipment took him the first prize, with nobody questioning it (because my parents were not jerks).

After that year, my parents made sure I was on an “educational field trip” every year during science fair week.

The funniest bit? I grew up and became an actual scientist. Most of the kids with this whiz-bang fair setups went into finance.

 

[Roadrunner]

15 hours ago, NittanyJen said:

I just laughed so hard at the science fair line.

I WENT to a school that was populated by a large proportion of families whose parents worked for a local well-known large global research company. Every year we had a science fair (and an art fair and an… well, everything at the school was a dang competition). Every year some kid with a ridiculous setup of test tubes and UV lights and beakers and reagents that everybody knew their parent had swiped from the lab and set up for them would win the science fair. 

My parents were both teachers, not scientists, and my grandfather was a Bell Labs scientist who believed in kids doing their own work. I still vividly remember the year MY science fair project (we were required to participate) was— a counted cross stitch I designed and executed entirely on my own, comparing plant and animal cells, complete with labels stitched into the design. I was pulled off to the side and quizzed by THREE JUDGES because a parent (from the lab) had seen that I won “most creative,” and lodged an “official complaint” (I didn’t even know there was such a thing for a kid science fair!) that I had “clearly had help from my mother, who is known to be good with needle and thread.” Well duh, why do you think I’d been sewing and quilting and cross-stitching since I was big enough to hold a needle? Yes it was my own work. I had to work on convincing them for half an hour.

And once again, the kid with all the beakers and professional lab equipment took him the first prize, with nobody questioning it (because my parents were not jerks).

After that year, my parents made sure I was on an “educational field trip” every year during science fair week.

The funniest bit? I grew up and became an actual scientist. Most of the kids with this whiz-bang fair setups went into finance.

 

Now you can hire somebody to start an NGO or a company for you. That’s a thing now with holistic admissions. 🙄

[Arcadia]

@Roadrunner Below is in the news. I just quote a non paywall link

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/01/11/lawsuit-claims-colleges-overcharged-students-by-hundreds-of-millions.html

”On Sunday, a lawsuit was filed in Illinois federal court against 16 prestigious universities on behalf of five former college students who believe the schools overcharged more than 170,000 financial aid recipients by "at least hundreds of millions of dollars."

Some of the country's most exclusive universities were accused: Brown University, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Emory University, Georgetown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Notre Dame, Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, Rice University, Vanderbilt University and Yale University. 

The suit alleges that the schools use a shared methodology to calculate applicants' financial needs, that these schools occasionally consider financial status in the admissions process and that this system amounts to price-fixing, which is "almost always illegal," according to the Federal Trade Commission. 
"Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, or inferred from conduct) among competitors that raises, lowers, or stabilizes prices or competitive terms," reads the FTC's website. "When competitors agree to restrict competition, the result is often higher prices."”

[rbk mama]

I have a DS who homeschooled through high school and attended Cornell 2018-2021 (graduated early last Dec.). We did not list papers, but all books were listed in the appropriate course descriptions. We had fairly thorough course descriptions, and that same document went to every college - there were no extra materials for Cornell. I do remember seeing something like this list and asking about it - maybe at College Confidential? - and someone said those details were not necessary. Based on that rock solid information, we didn't do anything extra. Honestly we never thought he would end up there as they are not known to be generous with financial aid.  They ended up offering us a very generous financial package, and DS has had an amazing experience there.