The essays have no real value since there is no way to tell who/what wrote it.

It's a myth that the admission policies of these (private) schools have ever been objective College admissions at highly selective schools have always been a largely subjective process. Ivy-plus schools have always weighed College admissions at highly selective schools have always been a subjective process, with factors like family connections and donations, etc. ... so factoring equitable or holistic admissions are just different subjective practices adding to the historically subjective admissions policies of highly selective schools.

Well Craig, I think you just saved me $85. I had Duke on my daughter’s potential reach list, along with UVA. But I think her case won’t be compelling to either institution. We will just save those dollars. Two less apps

Crazy. Not considering Duke.

It was always a myth that colleges were objectively evaluating candidates on merit. This allows them to do what they want to do. There are apps that can evaluate if an essay was AI generated. The take on scores is interesting, especially given many ivys are no longer test optional and the data for scores is so compelling. Oh well, Duke has great athletics 😂

There is no way to reliably determine if AI was used to write an essay any more than you can tell if a highly educated adult wrote the essay. This insistence to base admissions decisions around essays is nonsensical. Just take away their non-profit tax status and let them continue to do as they please with admissions so long as they start paying their share of taxes. Taxes that can then be used to reduce costs at State Schools where this agenda based admissions tactics should be disallowed. Exactly how much in taxes would the asset management business at Harvard pay with their $50 billion dollar "endowment?"

Why a school might want to select a student with a 1290 Sat score over one with a 1590 makes a ton of sense. The only purpose of test scores is to give schools a sense of how academically prepared a student might be in having their school's rigor. 1290 may be a sufficient score to indicate that a student can thrive academically if admitted. So a school like Duke might find that they'd rather accept a student with a 1290 who also has a compelling background, excelled in a rigorous HS courseload, has some sort of "wow factor" and plans to study a major that is less impacted .....over a student with a 1290 with great stats, a decent essay, standard extracurriculars, ... who intends to study a major that is highly impacted like Pre-med or CS etc

I can see why this consultant feels threatened by the changes that top schools are confronted with, especially AI. There fewer and fewer easy ways to parse equity/inequity.

Duke is ranked too high in recent years, which is ridiculous! (Baseball made it higher rank?) The school was shut down twice in its history. Good kids don't want to go Duke.