I really hope these articles about kids who got into all 8 Ivy’s doesn’t become a “thing”. Every year there are a small handful of maybe 50 kids whose applications are so compelling that even schools like Harvard are a match / low match for them. Historically, these students applied to a top school like Harvard, got accepted, and then withdrew most of their applications or only applied to the few schools that they would genuinely consider going to over Harvard. Mostly, they did this because they are nice kids who weren’t interested in merely collecting trophies and who didn’t want to “take” someone’s spot or waste admissions committees’ time - many of them are friends with other top kids in their high school and want to see them do well too.
I hope the recent national press attention that a few of the kids who’ve gotten into all 8 Ivy’s have received doesn’t cause others to want their 15 minutes of fame too. There are quite a few kids who could play this game and I’m glad they usually don’t because - unless comparing financial aid packages is really critical for them - it amplifies and highlights the worst aspects of the college admissions process.
@al2simon, indeed, and that’s why I can’t say I find this achievement all that impressive. There are a decent number of kids who can succeed at this game but choose not to play it because they have no good reason to, and personally, I think we should laud those don’t play this game rather than those who do.
My oldest son got into all the schools to which he applied, but he only applied to two Ivies and didn’t apply to Stanford. He was looking for a strong STEM education. In the end, he was deciding among MIT, Princeton and Mudd.
He was definitely looking for need based aid since we’re of moderate income, but he definitely did not want to apply to most Ivies. MIT was by far the best fit.
He was interviewed for several online newspapers, but these stories quickly fade away.
I personally think these kids should get a medal for just writing those many apps. They seem perfect for filing out TPS reports in triplicate (and with the cover sheet). I know that when my son’s time comes, if he gets into the school that he wants to during EA, he is not writing any more apps. He will be chilling instead.
“I didn’t apply to all the Ivies, but they all share the qualities that were most important to me as an applicant: a national and international student body; academic depth and strength across all disciplines; incredibly diverse extracurricular opportunities with strong vocal music and jounalism; an underlying philosophy that matches mine (no athletic scholarships and heavy need-based aid). There were other things that mattered to me as well, but these were my top priorities.”
Yes, that’s a perfectly sound reasoning on why someone might apply to all eight. Plus they are all old and historic institutions - except for Cornell they are all older than the United States itself. And they are all located in the northeast. They have many things in common besides being in the same athletic league. In fact their commonalities were recognized long before the athletic league existed. They were widely referred to as the “Ivy League” decades before the actual athletic conference was founded.
Personally, I think applying to all eight is a little over the top. Overkill so to speak. Plus I shudder at the thought of the drudgery involved in writing all those supplemental essays. But given their reputation for excellence coupled with generous financial aid, it’s easy to see why a high-stat kid might want to apply to several Ivies. But they know the odds of getting in are quite low. From there it’s not too long of a stretch to imagine someone applying to all eight in the hopes of getting into one.
Now why getting into all eight is a remarkable achievement is simply because of the long odds against puling it off. Let’s assume for the sake of simplicity that the average admission rate for the Ivy League is 9%. I’m sure it’s not exactly that but close enough to illustrate the point. So from a purely admission rate perspective your odds of getting into one Ivy are 0.09 x100% = 9%.
Thus the theoretical admission rate for getting into all eight would be 0.09 x 0.09 x 0.09 x 0.09 x 0.09 x 0.09 x 0.09 x 0.09 x 0.09 x 100% = 0.00000043%.
Now I know this is over-simplified and assumes that the admission rate applies equally to all applicants, which it does not. But it does illustrate why getting into all eight is seen as newsworthy. Get into Harvard with a 6% admission rate and you might be mentioned in your local newspaper. Get into all eight with a cumulative 0.00000043% admission rate and you’ll make national news.
@Scipio, as you noted, Ivy admissions are not IID, so it’s nonsensical to keep using that 0.00000043% figure when you know yourself that that massively understates the true odds.
Also, rare /= remarkable. As I have kept hammering in this thread, there are a decent number of kids who are as or more remarkable who did not apply to all 8 Ivies (meaning they obviously could not have gotten in to all 8). I don’t find those kids to be less remarkable just because most of them did what was sensible for them so thus you did not hear of them. In fact, if someone got in SCEA to their first choice and didn’t apply any more, I would consider that more commendable behavior than that of someone who applies to some Ivies with no intention of ever going (because they have already gotten in somewhere they deem better) just so they can say that they got in to all 8 Ivies.
“@Scipio, as you noted, Ivy admissions are not IID, so it’s nonsensical to keep using that 0.00000043% figure when you know yourself that that massively understates the true odds.”
It’s no more nonsensical than than talking about a school’s overall admission rate, which we use all the time on CC to measure a college’s selectivity and to a get a broad estimate of an applicant’s theoretical chances.
Assuming an average 9% admission rate for the ivy league schools, the 0.00000043% is the correct overall odds of getting into all of them at the same time. Like the individual school’s admission rate, it will understate the odds of some individuals and overstate the odds of others, but it’s the true odds faced by the population as a whole.
This type of calculation is meaningless because of the high correlation between decisions. There are many kids who any ivy would be extremely likely to reject, any there are also a good number of kids who any ivy would be glad to have. I expect the main reason why there are so few who get into all 8 is because few of the latter group would apply to all 8. Some of the ivies are quite different, so it is surprising that such an applicant want to attend all 8. And even if they did want to attend all 8, a large portion would apply SCEA/ED to their first choice and/or reduce the number of applications by choosing their top x colleges among the ivies, instead of applying to all 8.
For example, I grew up right in the northeast, almost dead center in the middle of the ivies, so all of the ivies were a reasonable distance away. I was interested in engineering (particularly electrical) and did not want to live in a large city. At the time, I felt that 3 ivies met the criteria of a great EE department and not in a large city. I did not even consider applying to the other 5. It’s quite difficult to find a set of applicant interests where all 8 ivies would come out near the top, with few other colleges ahead of them.
@Scipio, @Data10 explains well why “overall” odds of 0.000000043% is a meaningless number (especially when we are discussing outlier candidates as we are) because of correlation. Which is why the number of kids we see get in to 8 Ivies is pretty much always above 1 (and the number would be far bigger if most of the tippy-top kids applied to all 8, which most do not do).
I’m 100% sure the African American guy (Agbafe) has far less qualifications than the Indian one (Chandrashekar). To get accepted to all 8 Ivies and Stanford and MIT as an Asian male? Must’ve been a USAMO/USAPhO/USNCO/USACO qualifier, or even IMO/IPhO, etc.
I half agree with you. I’m sure the Indian guy must have had extraordinary qualifications. He’s from one of the most overrepresented minorites, after all, and therefore his ethnicity doesn’t work in his favor.
But the African American could have been just as qualified. Why not?
@Akashi and @Marian why don’t you just back up your claims instead of seeming racist? You could google them and then make your claim a valid point instead of making claims based on race alone.
Most of these students are from immigrant households, and some are first-generation college students. They applied to an array of top-ranked schools, plus a handful of safeties, because most of them needed generous financial packages and they lacked the sort of resources for identifying ideal “fits” that a typical, affluent, suburban kid might have.
@PurpleTitan I understand where you are coming from with your argument, but statistically the odds are still overwhelming. Let’s assume that a very accomplished kid has a 20% chance of acceptance instead of a ~9% chance. You still get an incredibly low .000256% chance of getting into all 8.
I think what’s being missed is that if someone got into all eight, he/she probably had better chances at each one to begin with than has been estimated.
For example, if an applicant has all the characteristics a school is looking for, then, maybe they have more like a 80% chance of acceptance at each, give or take.
You are absolutely correct with your first paragraph. BUT…there is no way anyone has an 80% chance of getting into a single school. Even people with perfect SAT scores and 4.0s get accepted at a rate that, if I remember correctly, is about 20% (which is why I chose that number)