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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Apr 11, 2018 9:08:24 GMT -5
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Post by sader1970 on Apr 11, 2018 9:51:01 GMT -5
Saw this and was going to post myself but no mention of Holy Cross. Feds not interested in our alma mater. One of the advantages of not being an elite liberal arts college anymore?
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Apr 11, 2018 9:57:14 GMT -5
Come on—you don’t believe that no matter how frustrated you are with our College of late
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Post by alum on Apr 11, 2018 10:21:32 GMT -5
Here is an article from the Times. www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/us/politics/justice-department-probe-college-early-decision.htmlIt is appears it is an antitrust case. Apparently the colleges are sharing the names of admitted ED students so as to make sure that kids are not applying to multiple schools ED. The problem is that kids and/or their parents, are not honoring the agreements they make when they apply ED. That is sleazy, but it probably does not allow for the colleges to collude for the purpose of reducing competition which is what they are being accused of doing. As to sader1970's concern, I don't think that the Justice Department would be go after colleges without proof that they were playing along and would not limit the inquiry to "elite" colleges if it were happening elsewhere. Perhaps HC is doing the right thing. From the parent's perspective, they should not have kids apply ED to schools that don't meet 100% of need and, if they want to compete for merit money, they ought not apply ED at all.
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Post by sader1970 on Apr 11, 2018 10:42:50 GMT -5
Did you notice the question mark in my post? I am not so frustrated with "our College" as with the president, BoT. The College of the Holy Cross is made up of more than those people who come and go. I continue to greatly respect the vast majority of the staff, the students and, yes, even the faculty. The alumni, as a group, are exemplery. Some, however, think that Holy Cross has fallen to the level of a rising Villanova and other regional colleges and universities. Perhaps they are right. My purple colored glasses tell me this is not the case but perhaps if we are honest, it is true. We have certainly fallen behind BC and that alone is galling. Heck, we were rated as the 2nd best Catholic college and now we are down to 4th in just a year. We should be heading in the opposite direction but we aren't. Why have we fallen from the USN&WR top 25 liberal arts colleges and seem to be sinking or, at best, treading water? Guess my life could be worse . . . . I could be Zuckerberg.
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Post by hcpride on Apr 11, 2018 11:02:45 GMT -5
Saw this and was going to post myself but no mention of Holy Cross. Feds not interested in our alma mater. One of the advantages of not being an elite liberal arts college anymore? Well, we are not an elite liberal arts college but that may not be why we were not mentioned.
On another point, I assumed colleges had a method of enforcing ED agreements that might involve some sort of communications with other schools. Especially schools that have some sort of a relationship (NESCAC, etc.). To the extent that hits the anti-trust threshold, we'll see.
Pakachoag Phreek correctly notes Holy Cross is very heavily invested in the Early Decision process. 78% selection rate that filled just under 50% of last year's enrolled class. Incredibly helpful in the selectivity stats.
Villanova finally gave ED a shot this year and should reap some statistical benefits as well (not that they need any at this point).
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Post by alum on Apr 11, 2018 12:26:11 GMT -5
How many recruited athletes do we have per class? When I say "recruited athletes," I am talking about kids with full scholarships (most football players and men's and women's basketball players) and partial scholarships (some of the football players, some men's soccer players and men's hockey players, and maybe a few other men's teams as well as a large number of the women's teams based upon some announcements of recruits.) as well as recruited walkons on both men's and women's teams. This is a guess, but I wouldn't be shocked if there are 100 athletes per year being admitted ED. We all want everything. We would like to see the College's admissions stats get pushed up and we would like to be competitive in a whole bunch of sports. I am not sure how realistic it is to think we can have everything. Villanova offers fewer sports with a student body more than twice as large and a broader curriculum as one would expect from a general university as opposed to a small LAC. Here is an article from Slate which addresses admissions compromises at Wesleyan. Their challenges are a little different but slate.com/culture/2017/12/wesleyan-university-football-is-good-business.htmlI want everything as much as everyone else but I'll be the first to admit, something might have to give.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Apr 11, 2018 16:45:25 GMT -5
The unduplicated count of athletes at HC is about 670, that's down a bit from years past, some of which is due to cap on roster size in football, and there seems to be fewer rowers.
I would expect that HC would want recruited athletes to apply and be admitted ED. This simplifies the AI calculus, assuming the PL has the same specification as the IL, in that the average AI of all recruited athletes must be within one standard deviation of the average school-wide AI .
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Post by HC1843 on Apr 11, 2018 20:31:56 GMT -5
Come on—you don’t believe that no matter how frustrated you are with our College of late C'mon Kentucky...take off the purple glasses. Alma mater has not kept up. Blame it on Worcester, but that is not the answer. We have a school that is more focused on social justice than it is building a brand that will be viable in 100 years. We need business minded folks, not Jesuits running the college. We also have too many people at HC just collecting a paycheck. Far too little focus on moving the brand forward. Far too much resting on our laurels. Imagine if HC actually collected and reported actual SAT scores....it would not be good in my opinion. Cheers.
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Post by hc87 on Apr 12, 2018 0:18:11 GMT -5
Holy Cross was once thought of as a very good school (going back 25-30 years....and beyond)....now it's basically seen as a pretty good school rich kids go to.
Believe me, that's the impression most hs kids have of HC today.
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Post by hcpride on Apr 12, 2018 6:13:02 GMT -5
Holy Cross was once thought of as a very good school (going back 25-30 years....and beyond)....now it's basically seen as a pretty good school rich kids go to. Believe me, that's the impression most hs kids have of HC today. For the kids I teach and mentor that have heard of Holy Cross, it is thought of (generally) as a pretty good social justice school that plays a lot of Division I sports. (Note I did not type that it is thought of as an excellent or very good or poor school, nor did I type that it is thought of as a school that has Division I sports success).
The brighter academic kids looking at Catholic colleges still have high regard for Georgetown, Notre Dame, Boston College, Villanova, and increasingly Fordham. Holy Cross was near the top of that list 30+ years ago when I started teaching...and has trended downward. The brighter academic kids hear and read positive things about those other schools in social media, the press, and from older schoolmates (returning to visit). High school kids excel at computer searches for current data - heaven knows what scandals popped up on the students' computer screens when googling Holy Cross this year. The brighter academic students do a quick Naviance search and that confirms their general impression (for those who have heard of Holy Cross). Of course I still have students who apply to Holy Cross - just not necessarily the same group as 30+ years ago.
Notwithstanding the fact that HC is not identical to any other school, one can still note reputation slippage therein. Perhaps it is inevitable. And that is despite the positive statistical benefits of 'test score optional' and extraordinary ED acceptance numbers (close to half the enrolled students) and rate (78%).
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Post by rgs318 on Apr 12, 2018 9:08:08 GMT -5
Holy Cross was once thought of as a very good school (going back 25-30 years....and beyond)....now it's basically seen as a pretty good school rich kids go to. Believe me, that's the impression most hs kids have of HC today. I can't claim to know "most hs kids" but of the ones I do know, most know of HC and still see it as a good school. I have not heard of it being called a "rich kids school." I guess the kids in the NY/NJ area must be a different breed than "most hs kids."
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Post by sader1970 on Apr 12, 2018 12:57:06 GMT -5
"RIch" is a very relative term. People living under the poverty line in the U.S. are rich in comparison to many people in many pats of the world. i suspect, NY/NJ kids are "rich" and would not think of HC as a "rich kids school."
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Post by Sons of Vaval on Apr 12, 2018 13:00:57 GMT -5
Holy Cross was once thought of as a very good school (going back 25-30 years....and beyond)....now it's basically seen as a pretty good school rich kids go to. Believe me, that's the impression most hs kids have of HC today. There's some validity in this statement. Although pretty much every school in the PL, Ivy, and NESCAC are seen as "rich kid schools."
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Post by alum on Apr 12, 2018 13:22:33 GMT -5
Holy Cross was once thought of as a very good school (going back 25-30 years....and beyond)....now it's basically seen as a pretty good school rich kids go to. Believe me, that's the impression most hs kids have of HC today. There's some validity in this statement. Although pretty much every school in the PL, Ivy, and NESCAC are seen as "rich kid schools." With the reality being that those three groups of schools, almost all of which have excellent resources with which to give need based aid, are often much more affordable for many kids. The schools which rely on merit money do so at the expense of true financial aid and the poorest kids cannot afford to attend them. That said, and I read an article about this topic last fall, it can't be easy to be the poor kid arriving at these schools and not having the latest Vineyard Vines items in his or her wardrobe.
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Post by Sons of Vaval on Apr 12, 2018 13:36:58 GMT -5
There's some validity in this statement. Although pretty much every school in the PL, Ivy, and NESCAC are seen as "rich kid schools." With the reality being that those three groups of schools, almost all of which have excellent resources with which to give need based aid, are often much more affordable for many kids. Holy Cross is more affordable to a kid at Dartmouth HS than any one of the UMASS schools? I would imagine Umass-Amherst is half the cost for an in-state kid than HC is.
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Post by alum on Apr 12, 2018 14:22:12 GMT -5
With the reality being that those three groups of schools, almost all of which have excellent resources with which to give need based aid, are often much more affordable for many kids. Holy Cross is more affordable to a kid at Dartmouth HS than any one of the UMASS schools? I would imagine Umass-Amherst is half the cost for an in-state kid than HC is. To make these comparisons, you need to know what the FAFSA or CSS Profile generate for a family contribution. Then you have to know the total cost of attendance. Then you have to know if both schools are meeting full need. So, to compare, HC and UMASS Amherst for an instate kid: HC Total Cost of Attendance--$67,000 UMASS (average) $29,000 Holy Cross claims to meet 100% of financial need, although using the CSS they consider some things to be assets available for paying tuition (Iike second homes) that FAFSA schools do not. UMASS, which does not purport to meet 100%. For the purpose of this discussion, however, we can assume that UMASS is going to meet 100% of need. If the EFC is anything under $29,000, the two schools should, in theory, cost the same. All aid packages will include a loan and work study, but the rest should be covered by grant. You could use the Net Price Calculator on both schools websites to try to predict the cost for a family based upon a particular set of circumstances. So, if we define poor as having an EFC of less than $29,000, poor kids can go to HC for the same cost as UMASS. Depending on family circumstances and savings, families could have a $29,000 EFC while earning $135,000 per year.
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Post by hcpride on Apr 12, 2018 14:51:13 GMT -5
With the reality being that those three groups of schools, almost all of which have excellent resources with which to give need based aid, are often much more affordable for many kids. Holy Cross is more affordable to a kid at Dartmouth HS than any one of the UMASS schools? I would imagine Umass-Amherst is half the cost for an in-state kid than HC is. Too many variables.There are certain income levels wherein Harvard would cost (out of pocket) less than the local community college and certain income levels wherein Harvard would be twenty times the cost (out of pocket) of the local community college. One could fiddle with the income levels (and EFC) to demonstrate any side of that equation. To grossly oversimplify, something similar holds true for HC (at 100% of demonstrated need) and UMass Amherst. (I am not saying HYP and HC financial aid is similar BTW). For the donut hole kids/parents (too wealthy via HC FAFSA/CSS for substantial financial aid and far too poor to just write a giant check four consecutive years), of course, UMass would be cheaper and in some cases far cheaper. The ED practice and financial aid is where things get a little icky. IMHO.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Apr 12, 2018 19:25:18 GMT -5
Last year there was a study examining where rich kids go to school, rich being defined as being a child of parents with an annual household income of $650,000. 13.1 percent of students at HC were in that category, a lower percentage than BC pr Georgetown. The study examined the percentage of students from the top one percent families with students from families at the bottom 60 percent. (Not quite Gini scaling.) The NY Times ranked the top 10, and as it was an interactive table, one can add schools and see how they compare. The higher the rank the greater the 'disparity' In the Top Ten Bucknell 6 Colgate 7 ________________________ Others: Georgetown 12 Notre Dame 13 Dartmouth 16 Princeton 21 Villanova 24 Bowdoin 25 Yale 27 Brown 30 BC 32 Wesleyan 39 Williams 44 Amherst 47 HC 49 Harvard 62 Loyola Marymount 70 Fairfield 78 Quinnipiac 97 Wellesley 98 Gonzaga 113 Fordham 117 University of Vermont 139 Sister Jean's school 207 Mount Holyoke 226 Smith 230 UConn 327 UNH 360 UMass 684 (may include UMass Lowell, UMass Boston, etc) SUNY Buffalo 735 www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.htmlSee also: www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/opinion/sunday/americas-great-working-class-colleges.html____________________________ This cluster of Wesleyan 39 Williams 44 Amherst 47 HC 49 strikes me as one representing traditional liberal arts colleges in New England, which lack engineering and business administration programs And that many rich parents are tending to steer their children away from the traditional liberal arts. For their daughters, Wellesley, Smith, and Mount Holyoke (three traditional liberal arts women's colleges) have almost fallen off the table. ____________________________ I was told there was a 1960s class at HC that sent FIVE of its graduates to Harvard Med. (The days of Father Busam.) So those believing HC has fallen from its heyday in the 1980s, well, the 19809s had fallen far from the achievements of the 1960s.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Apr 12, 2018 20:37:37 GMT -5
According to one table I saw, $500,000 household AGI is top 0.8%. So putting the floor at $650,000 probably gets you near the top 1/2 percent in USA. If 13.1% at HC are from $650+ families that's an index of 2000+, maybe even 2500.
I'll bet many people would consider "rich" as starting well South of the top 1% or 1/2%.....
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Post by hc87 on Apr 12, 2018 23:08:01 GMT -5
It's probably been evah thus to a certain extent. I can't say I knew too many classmates at HC who lived on the economic margins of life. As the son of a HC alumnus/dermatologist myself, I wasn't holding up my bowl at Kimball and asking "more please."
But it does seem like HC has become more of a "prep school" feeder school than it was in the 80s. Most of the people I knew at HC in the 80s were public school or parochial school alumni...that's my impression anyway.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Apr 13, 2018 6:57:16 GMT -5
Harvard's class of 2021 was minority majority, in that 49 percent of the class was non-Hispanic white. And Harvard is being sued for not admitting enough Asians.
From collegedata.com a look at the diversity or lack thereof of undergraduates at 10 Jesuit institutions (5 East Coast, 5 West Coast) two non-Jesuit schools (Villanova and Portland) and five liberal arts colleges in New England.
Univ of San Francisco, 32.4 percent non Hispanic white, 18.2 percent international students Seattle, 49.1 percent, 10.9 percent international Loyola Marymount 49.2 percent, 9.5 percent international Santa Clara 50.6 percent, 3.9 percent international Portland 62.7 percent, 3.1 percent international Georgetown 63 percent, 13.6 percent international Fordham 63.5 percent, 7.7 percent international Boston College 67 percent, 6.5 percent international Holy Cross 72 percent, 2.6 percent international Gonzaga 72.5 percent, 1.5 percent international Villanova 78 percent, 1.6 percent international Fairfield 79 percent, 2.8 percent international
Wellesley 44.6 percent, 11 percent international Amherst 47.2 percent, 9.4 percent international Williams 57.9 percent, 7.8 percent international Wesleyan 61.4 percent, 9.9 percent international Bowdoin 67.6 percent, 4.7 percent international
Does this suggest that HC, like Fairfield, relies much on the white, Catholic, American demographic, a demographic in relative decline?
'Look at Villanova', you say.
For the class of 2017 at Villanova, degrees conferred by major 31 percent business / marketing 13 percent engineering 12 percent nursing 7 percent communications <1 percent history
Nearly two thirds of Villanova's class of 2017 received a degree in a major not conferred by HC. (At Holy Cross, five percent of the class of 2017 majored in history.)
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Post by hcpride on Apr 13, 2018 7:45:56 GMT -5
Harvard's extensive outreach on this front is to URM's. Not minorities as such. Asians, by and large, are not URM's (neither are whites) and thus have a higher academic threshold (SAT/ACT, not sure about GPA) for admissions. I believe that 'higher academic threshold' is one basis for the lawsuit (discrimination based on race).
When visiting Columbia last year I was intrigued by their number of about 40% (actually ,I think I heard 39%) non-Hispanic whites.
Apart from that, no doubt HC and many other schools are still majority white.
Apart from that, Villanova is definitely not Holy Cross. All can agree. It is, however, an example of a Northeast Catholic School that once had an inferior reputation v Holy Cross and now has a superior reputation (IMHO) v Holy Cross. No doubt course offerings/majors, location, leadership, publicity, etc. all play/ed a part.
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Post by hcpride on Apr 13, 2018 9:11:55 GMT -5
I do not understand the fixation on Villanova by some on this board. Villanova is not important to me at all. I wish them well but I am not particularly interested in Villanova. Do you really think that the course offerings at Villanova are comparable to the quality and rigor of the courses at HC? Villanova is a different kind of school, a small, comprehensive university, more broadly based and it admits students that would never get into HC. HC is a small liberal arts college which to me is its great appeal. Why would one want to take HC out of its prized, enviable niche and lower it into becoming another nondescript, comprehensive, all everything Catholic school with an excessive emphasis on athletics? The old running joke about the dismal reputation of Catholic higher education is that their gyms are larger than their libraries. Great for sports but not great for academics. Holy Cross is different! I would imagine that schools like Amherst or Colgate would serve as a template for Holy Cross, but not Villanova. The underlying philosophy and mission of a liberal arts college such as HC is quite different than schools like Villanova. Are we so moved by the trends of the moment? HC is not a quasi trade school nor should it seek to become one. I agree that HC needs to get better, widen its appeal and keep moving. Improved PL success would help on many levels(disgruntled alumni, included), a more effective way to reach out to HS students might be needed and possibly expanding course offerings would be attractive to more high quality students , but all of these changes should be made within the context of its vaunted, high level liberal arts tradition. I hope that some are not trying to have "the tail wag the dog", namely by changing the nature of the school in the hope of achieving athletic glory. In my not so humble opinion Holy Cross is a great school that does need to improve its standing but it is a wonderful school, nonetheless. Love HC. Colgate and the substantially smaller D-III Amherst, while not Catholic institutions, are also LACs. No doubt. Is there a significant applicant overlap between HC and these two other LACs? I do not believe there is. There is, however, a significant applicant overlap with Villanova. We are competitors for the same high quality students. I don't have to tell anyone on this board of the northeast Catholic families who include both HC and Villanova graduates. And applicants. As far as the Catholic undergraduate liberal arts experience one might find many similarities between the two...or at least the overlapping applicants seem to think so. Villanova is a useful comparator (beyond the overlapping applicant pool) in that it is a more recent example of a northeast Catholic school that once had an inferior reputation v Holy Cross and now has a superior reputation (IMHO) v Holy Cross. Boston College is a less recent example. (This is not suggesting in any way that BC and Villanova are identical to Holy Cross.). BU and Northeastern, who have themselves followed similarly successful trajectories as of late vis a vis Holy Cross, aren't particularly useful comparators IMHO. (BTW HC is not really a small LAC, as LACs go, it is pretty large. And I did chuckle thinking of a comparison between the massive Luth and Dinand - not sure if that was a deliberate jab at all our D-1 sports and an excessive emphasis on athletics but you may very well (perhaps inadvertently) be onto something there at HC....)
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Post by sader1970 on Apr 13, 2018 11:32:48 GMT -5
If Villanova was so great, Professor Liew would be teaching there instead of Holy Cross.
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