Response to "Getting In" by Malcolm Gladwell.
After reading the article, the gist I got from it was that Ivy League tries to maintain their reputation by deliberating choosing people of not only better academic abilities but also personalities and even physical appearance, race and athletics. I thought academics and personalities are fairly reasonable. But appearances? These are not what a student can control! This makes the modeling agencies reference seem even more applicable.
Another very astonishing piece of information I found was the they the Ivy Leagues started the personality side of their evaluation because they did not want too many Jews in their university. They want to choose a group of people that, after they graduate, would further promote or maintain the name of the school.
In my several attendances to college fairs, I heard the word "fit" used pretty often in describing how the colleges choose their students, especially in the more prestige schools. The college admission counselors would say something like "we want to find students that fit the personality of our college". This is where the line between accepted and rejected become vague. What are the exact characteristics they want? They never pinpoint it. From this article, I figured one of the reason they never do is because it will make their selection process sound extremely unfair.
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