Yes I agree. When I was an undergrad I did bench research for two summers beside a former dean of science at a large university. He was a cool guy still quite turned on by doing research and embracing all the new DNA technology that was coming on at the time. He and my supervisor said they did interviews for the med school every year and said that on the whole the entering class they got was quite good but "boy we did let in a few doozies" The explanation was that most people can fake socially acceptable behavior for a interview.

-Top athletes at the state level.

Just out of curiosity,

How much does family history tie to the application/acceptance process?

For example, if my grandfather and father went to Yale, and I was a very good but not brilliant student, would I have a better chance? Would I have a better chance if my family donated plenty of money?

So if the Ivy league schools are chock full of good athletes who's taking on the geeks and dweebs that are smart as hell but hopeless athletically? Which there seems to be no shortage of.

Here's some insights into the Ivy League School application process.

The kids that get into these highly sought after schools are unbelievably bright, resourceful, and hard charging kids. There's nothing special about the quality of education provide by these highly sought after schools, what is special is that the competition to get in is so fierce, that (largely) only brilliant kids get in.

My wife's family has been tightly bound with Yale since <WW2. Once or twice/yr Yale contacts her to interview some kid who has successfully advanced far enough in the application process to warrant a personal interview. The kids that have come thru our door in the last decade+ for an interview are amazing. They all had the list below in common, the entire list:
-The weakest of the SAT/ACT scores was 99 percentile.
-Top athletes at the state level.
-Student leadership roles like class president, etc.
-Tons of community service gigs like spending Summers in 3rd world countries helping to provide dental care.
-Incredible poise and self-confidence in the frightening interview.
-Well read on a variety of subjects, to include current events.
-As a 17yr old punk kid, actually had well thought out opinions worth listening to.

I'd have to say that I never really understood that kids like this even existed. Sure, there's always kids that have a couple of the above accomplishments, but all of these kids had every one of the above. Holy shit! And of the couple dozen that have come to the house to be interviewed in the last >10yrs, only one, ONLY ONE, of them actually got into Yale. He was the one that had already written an Economics book. At age 16, having long had an interest in Econ, he decided that there needed to be a book that better explained Econ at the HS level. By age 17 he was done and it was published.

So if the Ivy league schools are chock full of good athletes who's taking on the geeks and dweebs that are smart as hell but hopeless athletically? Which there seems to be no shortage of.

Were they all white and straight? I only say that half facetiously.

My HS was and is an Ivy mill. I know multiple schoolmates who got in that were missing at least two or three of your criteria.

Didn't you say you are in admissions? Maybe you are joking but there are plenty of excellent, non-athletic students who get very good scholarships to Ivy league schools.

The interviews can work both ways. My daughter did a bunch of interviews when she was applying and I recall one school that dropped to the bottom of her list based on the interview. It's funny the things that can sway kids to liking a school or not.

I'm thinking Harvard's application process isn't all it is cracked up to be. In other words despite all their best efforts they really don't know that much about the students they are admitting aside from that they are good at jumping through the hoops that are their admission process. They do know they have good marks and are good at doing the SAT. Beyond that they don't know much about the character of the people they are admitting.

I was still, at that stage, a "work in progress".

Apparently they were posting in a private room, but someone with access brought it to the schools attention.

MIT and Caltech

Sure. But come up with a system that can evaluate the character of 40,000 applicants in some reasonably objective way. And make it cost-effective. And avoid what some might consider excessive invasion of privacy, like turning over account passwords.

Good luck.

This is a great teaching moment for all our kids. And even if colleges are not routinely looking at individual's social media presence, you can be sure many potential employers are. Tell them to use the "Grandma" test - i.e. they should only post comments or material online that they would be happy for their grandmothers to see.

Just out of curiosity,

How much does family history tie to the application/acceptance process?

For example, if my grandfather and father went to Yale, and I was a very good but not brilliant student, would I have a better chance? Would I have a better chance if my family donated plenty of money?

I also get most kids do and say dumb stuff at the age of 17-18, but the ones I knew who were Ivy league material in my small public school were way more mature than me, hell even more mature than I am now at 32.

The article provides no specific information about what the fools posted, but if it was along the lines indicated, I think they were too stupid for Harvard. Or are General F***ups a protected class these days?