Honestly, I don't understand why colleges scrapped standardized tests. Now they are going to focus more on the essays which have an even greater correlation with wealth in the family and it is much easier to lie on them. I mean, I get that standardized tests aren't perfect but essays are much worse. They can be easily lied on and can just not even be written by the student themself.
I totally agree with you. In my opinion, SAT and ACT are prob the most fair aspect in college application. Extra curricular also correlates to wealth and so is gpa imo. Standardized tests are definitely supposed to be fair
@@angelinebena9675 I disagree, while ECs are also connected to wealth colleges look at the obstacles and circumstances that allowed you (or didn't allow you) to chose the ECs you did- that's in my opinion the most fair aspect. Colleges are not going to focus on essays more (well a little) but test optional students will have to rely more on their merit aspects such as GPA since that is another indicator of how you'll do at the next level.
Standardized testing is not valuable at all. All it does is measure how much the student studied for the SAT or ACT specifically. Most of the things on there are for the most part not relevant to what the student is actually learning in school. I think essays, grades, interviews, GPA, and ECs are so so much more important.
@@aryachaudhari7283 that’s not true. Statistics have shown that performance on standardized test directly correlates the academic performance in college despite not correlating to academic performance in high school. But guess what? Colleges want to know about how well students in perform in college not in high school. You might wonder why there will be a correlation but there is and that’s why standardized testing have always been a requirement in top colleges in the past years
@@aaniyahs9252 let’s be honest, it is extremely easy to fake an obstacle and challenge once you already have that title of ECs. That’s the thing. Since colleges don’t fact check you only have to gain that impressive activities list, which is easy to gain using money, and then you can elaborate it and make it look like you’ve done the most amazing thing in the world
So as an MIT interviewer: I definitely fact-check when I interview but after I interview. And MIT reinstated their testing policy a month ago. As to lying or fraud (fake recommendation letters, fake transcripts), I can also say: Don't do it, and if you are caught, you will be rejected / your admission will be rescinded. I know a couple of admisson reps and we've discussed the nation in question for fake transcripts. Bullying teachers: happens not only at private schools. My friend who graduated from Harvard wanted to be a teacher, so she student taught at a local high school. She gave a few A's (truly outstanding, high quality, very minor problems), lots of B's (good effort, minor problems, overall good work), some C's (some more major problems or didn't really make a strong effort). She was taken to task by parents who claimed she was tanking their kids' chances. My friend was like, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your kid is not getting into Harvard with that level of writing... and I will not allow such crappy quality of student to besmirch my school."
My (European private) school is the absolute opposite. The parents make the students do whatever they want. Most of the students do care about their grades but if they get a bad grade they’re always like “well whatever”. They’re not interested in any activities and are all “chill”.
I read a very extensive article a while ago about Harvard's anthropology department, where tenured professors were asking for sexual favors and even having sexual affairs with their female students in order to give research opportunities, grades, etc.... So much for top ivy league status.
People lie on resumes because companies especially in the tech industry make their requirements more of a wishlist and they literally never have you do any task relating to most of the skills they required. Never do blatant lies on a resume just upsale yourself. BTW some of the most famous and successful people got their foot in the door by giving little lies to get started in a industry. Steven Spielberg snuck into a movie studio lot at 17 and placed a name tag on a unattended trailer with the director title and started conversing with professionals in the industry and got his film funded and made.
Brooke, I’ve watched your videos for the past 2 years!!! Thanks so much for all the help. I’m attending UCSD this fall (all my reaches waitlisted/rejected me... EECS was rough this year)... but anyways the advice helped :)
Hello from Panama Brooke. Could you make another international student video? A lot of us didn’t get the SAT and don’t have AP/honors classes. We also don’t qualify for Financial Aid and usually have no funds to go without it. On all my rejection letters there was a part with that said something along the lines of:”Be certain that our decision had nothing to do with your financial need UNLESS you are an international student.” Is there anything we can do?
Wouldn’t lie, after getting rejected from Upenn ED, I did think of doing All of the Above... but then it was about even if I get into Harvard I’d still have it with me for the rest of my life... I definitely think Minerva is doing a way better job in this criteria
Hi Brooke, nice video! Could you make a video on what companies look for in a student after college? Grad school ? Experience ? Where you went to college? I think that would be nice!
Our son had to transfer to an IB school for his 11th and 12th grade ( his existing school stopped in the 10th), about a year into this new school, we found out that 14 or 15 kids from a class of 37 or 40 had obtained certificates that they were learning disabled. We were stunned as to how a third of a class could be considered learning disabled. These kids were perfectly normal kids and were taking Higher Level subjects but got these certificates so that it could buy them extra time for the SAT and ACT exams. Why does the ACT or SAT board, permit this extra time? Or if they do, why don’t they include that in their report? The system is flawed and allows for these loopholes that over zealous parents employ. They need to find ways to keep parents out of the admissions process.
Dysgraphic and dyslexic college student (26 ACT, 3.580 GPA for reference). The tests need to have extra time as an available accommodation. If it takes a student more effort and time to read the questions due to an LD, they need the time. If they use a scribe or human reader, they need time to go through that. Flagging would have easily hurt me and fellow disabled (of all types) students to be denied an opportunity or even admission to a college. I could have colleges question my hard work (and it was hard). I took 30 some dual credit hours, scored a 4 and two 5s on AP exams, and I did well. I also worked hard and long hours. I earned those grades. A flag on those scores could have had all the colleges I applied to say I was denied. I may have never gotten scholarship money. Is 1/3 of the students abnormally high? Yes, but it's possible. 1/5 is the normal rate, but there may be a higher concentration due to actual needs (maybe a lot of the LD students signed up for other electives or choose an IB path). The students ability to be in IB/AP/Dual Credit classes isn't related to there learning disability like you seem to have stated. It is related to the hard work of every student regardless of disability status. Being LD might impact choices due to the student's own comfort level (I choose dual credit over AP for example due to preferring my credit not being determined by a test), but not intelligence. Have people cheated the system? Yes. We know this. But don't make the disabled community unable to access there LEGAL rights (ADA) due to a few people making a bad choice. Don't make it harder, it only allows student inequality. Try out the Understood.org simulations out to better understand the LD perspective. It doesn't just impact the classroom, it impacts my whole life.
@@Bookworm-bh9yy Sure there are those that need the assistance of extra time and most LD students do work hard. But how do you justify that more than a third of a class gets a learning disabled certificate. Most of these kids got 34/36 and 35/36 or 1540+/1600 because they were able to take these tests over several days. Most of these kids took multiple Higher Level subjects at the IB. If they had any learning disabilities then how are they permitted to register for advanced classes and achieve these grades? These are kids who did not work extra hard like you did, but used the system to get more time and more assistance to get better grades. They might well have gotten these grades if they worked harder but this was an easier alternate route for them. Maybe if children score very high (33+ and 1500+) then maybe the conditions they had to achieve this score should be included. Does that make sense? That would ensure that those who are truly disabled are fairly treated. If you score 36/36 but do the exam over 2 or 4 days (apparently this is what ACT does) is it fair to those who did the same exam honestly? I could understand if it was 10% of a class, but this was more than a third of a class in an elite school nonetheless. This is an injustice to not only those who truly have learning disabilities but all other students as well. I cannot see how 20% or 30% of a population is LD. I understand LD has several forms and is normally limited to a very small percentage of people (I have a cousin who is even more LD than I am and he still functions at a much lower intellectual level even at age 60, he more than compensates for this with his integrity). FYI my wife volunteered as a scribe for some children she knew were truly learning disabled. I have met and know one of these boys and when you talked to him you could never tell he had any disability but he needed help writing. Thankfully this boy found his calling after school and is now doing very well in the hospitality industry. He still comes over to play pool with my son and what a fantastic pool player he is too! For the record I was labelled as Dyslexic and ADD as a child (in the 70s). I was voted at one of those least likely to succeed and my current status surprises my ex classmates when they meet me now. We had no recognition of these disabilities then. So it good there is some recognition now. While my disability limited my writing, I was fortunate to also be blessed by what my wife calls an “elephantine memory”. I was able to retain most of what was taught in class. I also was fortunate to have developed an almost addictive habit for reading. So being LD has no relation to being successful.
@navin advani The students where allowed to register because they worked hard. The reason the extra time for ACT (and SAT) is over multiple day is logistics. There is only so many physical hours in a day and only so much any student can do. Only so many hours an administrator can be available for, or any volunteers that are needed. I don't support the flagging of any students, even if they are very high scoring. This is because students shouldn't have to be reviled no matter what until they are ready (and also discrimination issues would still exist). ACT already doesn't help students much since they state "February 2019" vs a specific date (like SAT) which can be very needed for applications. If I had worked hard, got a 36, but no one believed that I had gotten it honestly due to my accommodations, I would be devastated. I would be just told my effort and dedication is meaningless due to my LD. Or what about a student who needs extra time due to other disabilities who achieved a high score and got flagged? Then there scores are also in question. I'm glad those in your life found success. I really am. I'm still working on it actually at the moment due to me being in college. I would explain the 1/3 by chance. Maybe they all honestly where in choir and there was only one section they could be slotted in. I won't call them out as not being LD or cheating the system without reviewing all the paperwork they have that exists. I refuse to say they are cheating based on statistics. It could take years to be diagnosed, due to issues at the school, being a more difficult diagnosis, and other issues. They may have been able to handle other years before but they always had struggled (masking) and only recently was able to get diagnosed. The Varsey Blue scandal made me terrified to loose my accommodations. Because of a similar thought process you have. I had decent scores and I have used accommodations. The College Board and ACT still approved me for accommodations. If I didn't have accommodations, then I wouldn't be in college. I live with daily thinking that I'm unable to succeed on some level due to administration before I was diagnosed assuming I was lazy. That I didn't try hard enough. That I was unable to succeed. That was in 2nd grade and I'm now I'm college. I still feel that pain and subconscious issue. My LD impacts my personal life as well. Not just my classroom experience and I'm highly aware of that. I questioned how I got my 26, I questioned my 4 and 5s on AP. I questioned my 1st 12 dual credit classes having a 4.0 GPA. I question when I get As on my essays. I worked hard on each thing, but still can't believe myself due to ableism that I faced so young. There are highly gifted students who are LD. They shouldn't be hurt by flags or accommodations being restricted.
@@Bookworm-bh9yy you make some fair points. I would hate to see any form of discrimination. However how you propose to ensure that students who aren’t LD, but get an LD certificate, be identified for gaming the system. We would all like a level playing field. We would all like students to be judged on their abilities honestly. The current system is being gamed as the Varsity Blues documentary showed. It has been gamed for years if not decades. With colleges getting more and more demanding, parents are using every trick in the book and inventing a few new ones to get their children into college. This is not fair to the children who aren’t as privileged or prefer to take the honest route. I know children that got into Caltech, Yale, MIT etc and these kids were actually brilliant enough to make it through the minuscule “quota” reserved for foreign students. However I also saw children whose work ethic, academic abilities, and other achievements (including the research papers they claimed they wrote, projects they have called their own, etc) were “invented”. Many of these also used the LD route to gain an unfair advantage over their peers at the SAT/ACT. It rankles when elite universities have just a few seats for the better students but the ones that are the among the best are cheated out these by those who are willing to game the system. I spoke to the school counsellor when my son was applying to colleges and she just threw her hands up in frustration. She was aware of who was gaming the system and who were not. I don’t know if she mentioned this in her reports as her reports are confidential. The system in the UK (before the pandemic threw that out of gear) is fairer. Students are judged on their academics and their final grades in the A levels. These are a series of exams that take place in controlled conditions. LD kids are identified by the school (and not some independent authority) based on their progress in the school and are offered assistance (time, writers, etc) based on the degree of their LD. Some are given 25% more time, some 50%.
@@navinadv I'm enjoying this conversation as it is important to me to have and to maybe find a part of a solution for the future generations of test-takers and to attempt to properly level the playing field. I would honestly think with the amount of effort and sometimes cost to get diagnosed it wouldn't be worth faking. Unfortunately, others think that that isn't the case. Last year allow more students a taste of my accommodations (typing my essay) and I'm sure it looks attractive. I've always said that if someone wants my accommodations, they get the LD with them. But last year, we also saw how College Board threw accommodations essentially on the students. There was little official word until later on compared to the rate of information. For a while, I called College Board on every update to ensure I understood what was going on. They never thought "hey, let's not add additional stress on our disabled test takers". It's more work and stress to deal with accommodations (testing rooms, timing, who can even test, am I going to get lunch, a lot of things). I never applied to the big and elite colleges (unless you consider Embry Riddle, LeTourneau, or Oklahoma State as competitive). Maybe I don't understand that process well enough. However, I've heard that "MIT disease" is really dyslexia and there's a higher than average population for LD students at MIT. My HS was mildly competitive in the classes (AP was typically preferred over dual credit, I'm from Texas so the top 10% is important to many) but not ultra competitive. Maybe that is a difference between our presepetives. I don't think a final test should be the only deciding factor like the UK system. We all have bad days. We all have days that aren't good test days. A final test may be a bad day for a student. I think an overview of the student's experience is a good idea. The current accommodations have both 1.5 and double time for the SAT/ACT. I was awarded double time, but more likely used something between 1.5 and double depending on what I was working on (ACT science was easier than any essay section for me, leading to less time usage). I also might state that the competitive nature may need to go away. Allow students to be more honest. If it's so competitive to encourage cheating, then it's not a good system. I think for any false LD identification should be based on a sudden change in testing scores that isn't likely related to accommodations. We saw hard work can get people in a tight spot (I remember this one case of a girl working hard and jumped more than the College Board expected). Investigate the student individually as needed. Someone like me only tested with accommodations so my scores would be accurate due to my usage of accommodations (having a single 4 in one subject (my 1st AP) then having a 5 is a logical jump over a year). A new accommodation request between 4 years may be a chance to look deeper. It can also be historical documentation. If the student had a 1 in a similar subject then a 5 right after and had accommodations, it might be worth looking at (has the student had historical testing that was in progress, was the student's other state testing a similar reaction over the year, eta). If the student was in LD evaluation progress, then it might be okay or a historical usage (maybe the student didn't want College Board accommodations in freshman year, took the test and realized they needed them, then went through the process). I'm asked annually before testing if I want to use my accommodations (I always said yes), so there can be changes. I feel like the system may be broken badly enough it'll take a remake of the entire system to fix some issues.
Is getting into Columbia really an accomplishment? I got waitlisted at Stanford and rejected from Harvard. I don't know what I'm going to do this late into the college admissions cycle kms! Everyone on reddit and college confidential trashes Columbia University.
Uh yes that is definitely an accomplishment I swear some people are so brainwashed they think Harvard and Yale are the only prestigious and good institutions
Are you kidding !? It’s an insane accomplishment. Getting into just one of these schools is insanely tough. It’s a crapshoot. You can be rejected at Cornell and accepted to Princeton. Waitlist at Dartmouth and into MIT. Columbia is a powerhouse of powerhouses. Hope you love working hard though it’s pain and misery some times , amazing tough smart kids .
Their admit rate this year was UNDER 4%!!! Lower than Yale's. The school is ranked top 5. People on reddit are terrible if they're trashing Columbia. There are so many haters on Reddit. Please ignore them.
I really don't understand why 5 is so crazy, I could totally see why parents would have trouble with agendas in school and why they wouldn't want to screw there kids when we live in an age when sometimes voicing an opinion has unfair concequinces. What else should they do?
I love Supertutortv videos and I learned a lot from your videos to coach my son. However, I need to point out a weak information on this video. The article “As competition among Chinese international students for U.S. schools grows, so does fraud” used in #3 Fake Transcript is an article published in February 2015. Since then many changes had been made by Chinese Ministry of Education. CHESICC is the only institution in China that can verify transcripts for colleges, universities, and other higher education institutions around the world. Furthermore US top colleges would already have the SOP to verify school transcripts from China of their legitimacy. Or these top universities would already have past experiences to be able to tell if those accepted Chinese students from schools in China were high achievers or not. Most likely they would trust Chinese students coming from certain well known elite high schools in China.
I’m glad to hear changes are being made and happy to include links to articles with information about those in our blog for this video if you know of any! My experience is over the past decade or so with students from Chinese schools- I’ve seen many with perfect or near perfect GPAs and the rates of admission with these students is just lower than with my other international students- those with more “proof” ie gpa or grades from us institutions can sometimes overcome this. I’ve also wondered how I can work with kids that have perfect English grades when their first draft essays are nearly unreadable. Obviously this isn’t everyone. What pains me is to see the students that are great overlooked because on paper it’s hard for colleges to tell the difference when everyone has straight As.
@@SupertutorTV Yes, I agree with you that there are great students overlooked. Students you and I think are great may not seem great to others. One thing to keep in mind is students who are very good in English and writing essays don’t mean they are outstanding in STEM and vice versa. If I don’t misunderstand your statement, when you said your international students had higher rates of admission than the Chinese students, my guess is it depends on which major(s) and/or college(s) you are comparing with. Also there are some international students are coming from countries where English is their primary language or is the language being used in their schools to conduct teaching in all subjects. Where as in China and Taiwan, a lot of the students there don’t get to learn English at schools or only get to learn English starting in high schools. Those who are really outstanding and their parents are making high income, their parents could send them to English and other tutoring. Me being a person from Malaysia and had to learn to read, write and speak three languages (Malay, English, Mandarin) starting from elementary school, and had taken standardization tests in three languages in STEM subjects in Malaysia, I must say, it is HARD! Then came to US to complete bachelor’s and master’s in engineering was no fun, especially English is not my primary language. Essays (in English)? It was something I always wanted to quickly get by.
Why? I think MIT's admissions policies work for MIT very well. I've gone over the Class of 2026 list and there are definitely some people that I was like, yup, yup. At least two names from my shortlist have shown up and they don't have to commit for another week.
Or just fund public schools so they'll be better than private schools. The public schools should be federally funded, so how good your education is could be less associated with your zip code. Then nobody will want to go to private schools unless they're really religious. You don't need to abolish private schools outright, just make them irrelevant.
Honestly, I don't understand why colleges scrapped standardized tests. Now they are going to focus more on the essays which have an even greater correlation with wealth in the family and it is much easier to lie on them. I mean, I get that standardized tests aren't perfect but essays are much worse. They can be easily lied on and can just not even be written by the student themself.
I totally agree with you. In my opinion, SAT and ACT are prob the most fair aspect in college application. Extra curricular also correlates to wealth and so is gpa imo. Standardized tests are definitely supposed to be fair
@@angelinebena9675 I disagree, while ECs are also connected to wealth colleges look at the obstacles and circumstances that allowed you (or didn't allow you) to chose the ECs you did- that's in my opinion the most fair aspect. Colleges are not going to focus on essays more (well a little) but test optional students will have to rely more on their merit aspects such as GPA since that is another indicator of how you'll do at the next level.
Standardized testing is not valuable at all. All it does is measure how much the student studied for the SAT or ACT specifically. Most of the things on there are for the most part not relevant to what the student is actually learning in school. I think essays, grades, interviews, GPA, and ECs are so so much more important.
@@aryachaudhari7283 that’s not true. Statistics have shown that performance on standardized test directly correlates the academic performance in college despite not correlating to academic performance in high school. But guess what? Colleges want to know about how well students in perform in college not in high school. You might wonder why there will be a correlation but there is and that’s why standardized testing have always been a requirement in top colleges in the past years
@@aaniyahs9252 let’s be honest, it is extremely easy to fake an obstacle and challenge once you already have that title of ECs. That’s the thing. Since colleges don’t fact check you only have to gain that impressive activities list, which is easy to gain using money, and then you can elaborate it and make it look like you’ve done the most amazing thing in the world
RIP for the private school counselors and teachers that got bullied and didn’t make it 😔🙏
So as an MIT interviewer: I definitely fact-check when I interview but after I interview.
And MIT reinstated their testing policy a month ago.
As to lying or fraud (fake recommendation letters, fake transcripts), I can also say: Don't do it, and if you are caught, you will be rejected / your admission will be rescinded. I know a couple of admisson reps and we've discussed the nation in question for fake transcripts.
Bullying teachers: happens not only at private schools. My friend who graduated from Harvard wanted to be a teacher, so she student taught at a local high school. She gave a few A's (truly outstanding, high quality, very minor problems), lots of B's (good effort, minor problems, overall good work), some C's (some more major problems or didn't really make a strong effort). She was taken to task by parents who claimed she was tanking their kids' chances. My friend was like, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your kid is not getting into Harvard with that level of writing... and I will not allow such crappy quality of student to besmirch my school."
My (European private) school is the absolute opposite. The parents make the students do whatever they want. Most of the students do care about their grades but if they get a bad grade they’re always like “well whatever”. They’re not interested in any activities and are all “chill”.
I live in DC and have a friend who goes to Sidwell and he says it is absolutely insane 😂
Would love to see the Sidwell and Andover stories at least be compiled into a blog post
Do you mean academics r extremely hard or you mean it's generally toxic environment?
Know some Sidwell dudes too
@@freethinkeralways Definitely a toxic environment
@@jhmrem Sidwell
Correction: Sidwell Friends is located in Washington DC (at least the upper school), not outside of it.
I read a very extensive article a while ago about Harvard's anthropology department, where tenured professors were asking for sexual favors and even having sexual affairs with their female students in order to give research opportunities, grades, etc.... So much for top ivy league status.
People lie on resumes because companies especially in the tech industry make their requirements more of a wishlist and they literally never have you do any task relating to most of the skills they required. Never do blatant lies on a resume just upsale yourself. BTW some of the most famous and successful people got their foot in the door by giving little lies to get started in a industry. Steven Spielberg snuck into a movie studio lot at 17 and placed a name tag on a unattended trailer with the director title and started conversing with professionals in the industry and got his film funded and made.
Got rejected from all ivies and Stanford 🙁 joining Berkeley... Maybe it’s tough for an international 🙃
I wish you all the very best 😃
Congrats on Berkeley as an international student!
Same Saylus
What were your activities/?
Awww well Berkeley is a good school too. Don't be hard on yourself. Congrats
Brooke, I’ve watched your videos for the past 2 years!!! Thanks so much for all the help. I’m attending UCSD this fall (all my reaches waitlisted/rejected me... EECS was rough this year)... but anyways the advice helped :)
i got into harvard, columbia, and stanford this week hehe thanks brooke
Damn son
Congrats!
Congrats!
Congratulations
@@saetukrit Congrats, what were your activities?
Good video Brooke! Those last words were great!
This is so scary damn
I watched Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal!
@You- know-who Yup! It's on netflix
@You- know-who np! :)
@You- know-who Oh i was pretty mad at the end because all the students who worked hard to get into college didn't get in.
Hello from Panama Brooke. Could you make another international student video? A lot of us didn’t get the SAT and don’t have AP/honors classes. We also don’t qualify for Financial Aid and usually have no funds to go without it. On all my rejection letters there was a part with that said something along the lines of:”Be certain that our decision had nothing to do with your financial need UNLESS you are an international student.” Is there anything we can do?
So you would need to look at need blind schools or schools you can afford. (Finances are part of the assessment of fit.)
Appreciate your videos so much.
I always love the messages she gives at the end it’s like a warm hug telling us it’s going to ok ❤️🥹😭😭ily Brooke !!!
Wouldn’t lie, after getting rejected from Upenn ED, I did think of doing All of the Above... but then it was about even if I get into Harvard I’d still have it with me for the rest of my life... I definitely think Minerva is doing a way better job in this criteria
Would be cool if Brook talked about minerva
@@jeoboden Minerva isn't worth it!
Well, no, if you got found out that you lied on an application, your admission could be rescinded or you could be rejected during admissions.
Hi Brooke, nice video! Could you make a video on what companies look for in a student after college? Grad school ? Experience ? Where you went to college? I think that would be nice!
That varies wildly from industry to industry. She went to Stanford btw
@@jonathanbeltran188 haha. Yea I know. When I said which college you went to I meant like if it matters where you go to college to get a good job.
Our son had to transfer to an IB school for his 11th and 12th grade ( his existing school stopped in the 10th), about a year into this new school, we found out that 14 or 15 kids from a class of 37 or 40 had obtained certificates that they were learning disabled. We were stunned as to how a third of a class could be considered learning disabled. These kids were perfectly normal kids and were taking Higher Level subjects but got these certificates so that it could buy them extra time for the SAT and ACT exams. Why does the ACT or SAT board, permit this extra time? Or if they do, why don’t they include that in their report?
The system is flawed and allows for these loopholes that over zealous parents employ. They need to find ways to keep parents out of the admissions process.
Dysgraphic and dyslexic college student (26 ACT, 3.580 GPA for reference).
The tests need to have extra time as an available accommodation. If it takes a student more effort and time to read the questions due to an LD, they need the time. If they use a scribe or human reader, they need time to go through that.
Flagging would have easily hurt me and fellow disabled (of all types) students to be denied an opportunity or even admission to a college. I could have colleges question my hard work (and it was hard).
I took 30 some dual credit hours, scored a 4 and two 5s on AP exams, and I did well. I also worked hard and long hours. I earned those grades. A flag on those scores could have had all the colleges I applied to say I was denied. I may have never gotten scholarship money.
Is 1/3 of the students abnormally high? Yes, but it's possible. 1/5 is the normal rate, but there may be a higher concentration due to actual needs (maybe a lot of the LD students signed up for other electives or choose an IB path).
The students ability to be in IB/AP/Dual Credit classes isn't related to there learning disability like you seem to have stated. It is related to the hard work of every student regardless of disability status. Being LD might impact choices due to the student's own comfort level (I choose dual credit over AP for example due to preferring my credit not being determined by a test), but not intelligence.
Have people cheated the system? Yes. We know this. But don't make the disabled community unable to access there LEGAL rights (ADA) due to a few people making a bad choice. Don't make it harder, it only allows student inequality.
Try out the Understood.org simulations out to better understand the LD perspective. It doesn't just impact the classroom, it impacts my whole life.
@@Bookworm-bh9yy Sure there are those that need the assistance of extra time and most LD students do work hard.
But how do you justify that more than a third of a class gets a learning disabled certificate. Most of these kids got 34/36 and 35/36 or 1540+/1600 because they were able to take these tests over several days. Most of these kids took multiple Higher Level subjects at the IB. If they had any learning disabilities then how are they permitted to register for advanced classes and achieve these grades? These are kids who did not work extra hard like you did, but used the system to get more time and more assistance to get better grades. They might well have gotten these grades if they worked harder but this was an easier alternate route for them. Maybe if children score very high (33+ and 1500+) then maybe the conditions they had to achieve this score should be included. Does that make sense? That would ensure that those who are truly disabled are fairly treated.
If you score 36/36 but do the exam over 2 or 4 days (apparently this is what ACT does) is it fair to those who did the same exam honestly?
I could understand if it was 10% of a class, but this was more than a third of a class in an elite school nonetheless. This is an injustice to not only those who truly have learning disabilities but all other students as well. I cannot see how 20% or 30% of a population is LD. I understand LD has several forms and is normally limited to a very small percentage of people (I have a cousin who is even more LD than I am and he still functions at a much lower intellectual level even at age 60, he more than compensates for this with his integrity).
FYI my wife volunteered as a scribe for some children she knew were truly learning disabled. I have met and know one of these boys and when you talked to him you could never tell he had any disability but he needed help writing. Thankfully this boy found his calling after school and is now doing very well in the hospitality industry. He still comes over to play pool with my son and what a fantastic pool player he is too!
For the record I was labelled as Dyslexic and ADD as a child (in the 70s). I was voted at one of those least likely to succeed and my current status surprises my ex classmates when they meet me now. We had no recognition of these disabilities then. So it good there is some recognition now. While my disability limited my writing, I was fortunate to also be blessed by what my wife calls an “elephantine memory”. I was able to retain most of what was taught in class. I also was fortunate to have developed an almost addictive habit for reading. So being LD has no relation to being successful.
@navin advani The students where allowed to register because they worked hard. The reason the extra time for ACT (and SAT) is over multiple day is logistics. There is only so many physical hours in a day and only so much any student can do. Only so many hours an administrator can be available for, or any volunteers that are needed.
I don't support the flagging of any students, even if they are very high scoring. This is because students shouldn't have to be reviled no matter what until they are ready (and also discrimination issues would still exist). ACT already doesn't help students much since they state "February 2019" vs a specific date (like SAT) which can be very needed for applications.
If I had worked hard, got a 36, but no one believed that I had gotten it honestly due to my accommodations, I would be devastated. I would be just told my effort and dedication is meaningless due to my LD. Or what about a student who needs extra time due to other disabilities who achieved a high score and got flagged? Then there scores are also in question.
I'm glad those in your life found success. I really am. I'm still working on it actually at the moment due to me being in college.
I would explain the 1/3 by chance. Maybe they all honestly where in choir and there was only one section they could be slotted in. I won't call them out as not being LD or cheating the system without reviewing all the paperwork they have that exists. I refuse to say they are cheating based on statistics. It could take years to be diagnosed, due to issues at the school, being a more difficult diagnosis, and other issues. They may have been able to handle other years before but they always had struggled (masking) and only recently was able to get diagnosed.
The Varsey Blue scandal made me terrified to loose my accommodations. Because of a similar thought process you have. I had decent scores and I have used accommodations. The College Board and ACT still approved me for accommodations. If I didn't have accommodations, then I wouldn't be in college. I live with daily thinking that I'm unable to succeed on some level due to administration before I was diagnosed assuming I was lazy. That I didn't try hard enough. That I was unable to succeed. That was in 2nd grade and I'm now I'm college. I still feel that pain and subconscious issue. My LD impacts my personal life as well. Not just my classroom experience and I'm highly aware of that. I questioned how I got my 26, I questioned my 4 and 5s on AP. I questioned my 1st 12 dual credit classes having a 4.0 GPA. I question when I get As on my essays. I worked hard on each thing, but still can't believe myself due to ableism that I faced so young.
There are highly gifted students who are LD. They shouldn't be hurt by flags or accommodations being restricted.
@@Bookworm-bh9yy you make some fair points. I would hate to see any form of discrimination.
However how you propose to ensure that students who aren’t LD, but get an LD certificate, be identified for gaming the system.
We would all like a level playing field. We would all like students to be judged on their abilities honestly. The current system is being gamed as the Varsity Blues documentary showed. It has been gamed for years if not decades. With colleges getting more and more demanding, parents are using every trick in the book and inventing a few new ones to get their children into college.
This is not fair to the children who aren’t as privileged or prefer to take the honest route. I know children that got into Caltech, Yale, MIT etc and these kids were actually brilliant enough to make it through the minuscule “quota” reserved for foreign students. However I also saw children whose work ethic, academic abilities, and other achievements (including the research papers they claimed they wrote, projects they have called their own, etc) were “invented”. Many of these also used the LD route to gain an unfair advantage over their peers at the SAT/ACT.
It rankles when elite universities have just a few seats for the better students but the ones that are the among the best are cheated out these by those who are willing to game the system.
I spoke to the school counsellor when my son was applying to colleges and she just threw her hands up in frustration. She was aware of who was gaming the system and who were not. I don’t know if she mentioned this in her reports as her reports are confidential.
The system in the UK (before the pandemic threw that out of gear) is fairer. Students are judged on their academics and their final grades in the A levels. These are a series of exams that take place in controlled conditions. LD kids are identified by the school (and not some independent authority) based on their progress in the school and are offered assistance (time, writers, etc) based on the degree of their LD. Some are given 25% more time, some 50%.
@@navinadv I'm enjoying this conversation as it is important to me to have and to maybe find a part of a solution for the future generations of test-takers and to attempt to properly level the playing field.
I would honestly think with the amount of effort and sometimes cost to get diagnosed it wouldn't be worth faking. Unfortunately, others think that that isn't the case. Last year allow more students a taste of my accommodations (typing my essay) and I'm sure it looks attractive. I've always said that if someone wants my accommodations, they get the LD with them. But last year, we also saw how College Board threw accommodations essentially on the students. There was little official word until later on compared to the rate of information. For a while, I called College Board on every update to ensure I understood what was going on. They never thought "hey, let's not add additional stress on our disabled test takers". It's more work and stress to deal with accommodations (testing rooms, timing, who can even test, am I going to get lunch, a lot of things).
I never applied to the big and elite colleges (unless you consider Embry Riddle, LeTourneau, or Oklahoma State as competitive). Maybe I don't understand that process well enough. However, I've heard that "MIT disease" is really dyslexia and there's a higher than average population for LD students at MIT. My HS was mildly competitive in the classes (AP was typically preferred over dual credit, I'm from Texas so the top 10% is important to many) but not ultra competitive. Maybe that is a difference between our presepetives.
I don't think a final test should be the only deciding factor like the UK system. We all have bad days. We all have days that aren't good test days. A final test may be a bad day for a student. I think an overview of the student's experience is a good idea. The current accommodations have both 1.5 and double time for the SAT/ACT. I was awarded double time, but more likely used something between 1.5 and double depending on what I was working on (ACT science was easier than any essay section for me, leading to less time usage).
I also might state that the competitive nature may need to go away. Allow students to be more honest. If it's so competitive to encourage cheating, then it's not a good system.
I think for any false LD identification should be based on a sudden change in testing scores that isn't likely related to accommodations. We saw hard work can get people in a tight spot (I remember this one case of a girl working hard and jumped more than the College Board expected). Investigate the student individually as needed. Someone like me only tested with accommodations so my scores would be accurate due to my usage of accommodations (having a single 4 in one subject (my 1st AP) then having a 5 is a logical jump over a year). A new accommodation request between 4 years may be a chance to look deeper. It can also be historical documentation. If the student had a 1 in a similar subject then a 5 right after and had accommodations, it might be worth looking at (has the student had historical testing that was in progress, was the student's other state testing a similar reaction over the year, eta). If the student was in LD evaluation progress, then it might be okay or a historical usage (maybe the student didn't want College Board accommodations in freshman year, took the test and realized they needed them, then went through the process). I'm asked annually before testing if I want to use my accommodations (I always said yes), so there can be changes.
I feel like the system may be broken badly enough it'll take a remake of the entire system to fix some issues.
Wouldn't Fake Athlete Recruiting count as one of the Obscene Parental Behavior? Or that does already fall into the first category.
Well that is lying on an application #2- but I figured that story has enough press
Check out the 80's movie "Soul Man."
That's the holistic system...
7:16
for fake transcripts I recommend international if they have the choice don't choose the local broad
choose CIE (IGCSE/A levels) or IB
Is getting into Columbia really an accomplishment? I got waitlisted at Stanford and rejected from Harvard. I don't know what I'm going to do this late into the college admissions cycle kms! Everyone on reddit and college confidential trashes Columbia University.
Uh yes that is definitely an accomplishment I swear some people are so brainwashed they think Harvard and Yale are the only prestigious and good institutions
Are you kidding !? It’s an insane accomplishment. Getting into just one of these schools is insanely tough. It’s a crapshoot. You can be rejected at Cornell and accepted to Princeton. Waitlist at Dartmouth and into MIT. Columbia is a powerhouse of powerhouses. Hope you love working hard though it’s pain and misery some times , amazing tough smart kids .
Their admit rate this year was UNDER 4%!!! Lower than Yale's. The school is ranked top 5. People on reddit are terrible if they're trashing Columbia. There are so many haters on Reddit. Please ignore them.
Bruh every school gets trashed, don't u worry about that. Congrats on Columbia, it's a big achievement, woohoo!
The people of Reddit who are trashing Columbia are probably all Columbia rejects
It's not the fault of the parents, students, or teachers. It's the fault of the competitive education system we live in.
Nah, parents deserve some blame
I really don't understand why 5 is so crazy, I could totally see why parents would have trouble with agendas in school and why they wouldn't want to screw there kids when we live in an age when sometimes voicing an opinion has unfair concequinces. What else should they do?
I love Supertutortv videos and I learned a lot from your videos to coach my son. However, I need to point out a weak information on this video. The article “As competition among Chinese international students for U.S. schools grows, so does fraud” used in #3 Fake Transcript is an article published in February 2015. Since then many changes had been made by Chinese Ministry of Education. CHESICC is the only institution in China that can verify transcripts for colleges, universities, and other higher education institutions around the world. Furthermore US top colleges would already have the SOP to verify school transcripts from China of their legitimacy. Or these top universities would already have past experiences to be able to tell if those accepted Chinese students from schools in China were high achievers or not. Most likely they would trust Chinese students coming from certain well known elite high schools in China.
I’m glad to hear changes are being made and happy to include links to articles with information about those in our blog for this video if you know of any! My experience is over the past decade or so with students from Chinese schools- I’ve seen many with perfect or near perfect GPAs and the rates of admission with these students is just lower than with my other international students- those with more “proof” ie gpa or grades from us institutions can sometimes overcome this. I’ve also wondered how I can work with kids that have perfect English grades when their first draft essays are nearly unreadable. Obviously this isn’t everyone. What pains me is to see the students that are great overlooked because on paper it’s hard for colleges to tell the difference when everyone has straight As.
@@SupertutorTV Yes, I agree with you that there are great students overlooked. Students you and I think are great may not seem great to others. One thing to keep in mind is students who are very good in English and writing essays don’t mean they are outstanding in STEM and vice versa. If I don’t misunderstand your statement, when you said your international students had higher rates of admission than the Chinese students, my guess is it depends on which major(s) and/or college(s) you are comparing with. Also there are some international students are coming from countries where English is their primary language or is the language being used in their schools to conduct teaching in all subjects. Where as in China and Taiwan, a lot of the students there don’t get to learn English at schools or only get to learn English starting in high schools. Those who are really outstanding and their parents are making high income, their parents could send them to English and other tutoring. Me being a person from Malaysia and had to learn to read, write and speak three languages (Malay, English, Mandarin) starting from elementary school, and had taken standardization tests in three languages in STEM subjects in Malaysia, I must say, it is HARD! Then came to US to complete bachelor’s and master’s in engineering was no fun, especially English is not my primary language. Essays (in English)? It was something I always wanted to quickly get by.
I know one chinese private high school gives everyone straight A
Oh boy oh boy *grabs popcorn*
Would you guys pick Case Western or Denison University ? And why ?
The cheapest because I’m poor and international so no finaid.
Case western, I think it provides more resources and is one of the universities with the best academics
@@angelinebena9675 Thanks Angeline
Thanks for the feedback AllieB16
@@franklinbray5304 you’re welcome 😉
❤️❤️
Gossip girl lmao
abolish private schools and fund public schools simple
Why? I think MIT's admissions policies work for MIT very well. I've gone over the Class of 2026 list and there are definitely some people that I was like, yup, yup. At least two names from my shortlist have shown up and they don't have to commit for another week.
Or just fund public schools so they'll be better than private schools. The public schools should be federally funded, so how good your education is could be less associated with your zip code. Then nobody will want to go to private schools unless they're really religious. You don't need to abolish private schools outright, just make them irrelevant.