<p>our school, also northeast like mathmom’s, is very large and competitive and according to 4 years’ worth of data shown on Naviance, the admission rate for Stanford is 8% and Harvard is 16%. Harvard has twice the number apply, but that shouldn’t make a difference–should it? The acceptees at Stanford have been–and this is hearsay–athletes of a certain sport, but athletes with very high grades and test scores. Princeton and Yale accept 8% and 9% of our applicants (Princeton likes a certain sport, too, but there again the athletes are at the tippy top of the academic chart). Dartmouth and Cornell are 23%, Columbia and Penn are 19%, Williams is 18%, WashU is 23%. Lots of kids apply to all of those, so the numbers probably are pretty good at predicting, once you look at accepted GPAs and SATs.</p>
<p>More interesting stats…UNC-CH is 6% and MIT is 6%, too. And Caltech is 50%. Seems high? Only two kids in the last 4 years–Caltech is very self-selecting, isn’t it? One was accepted. The rule here is not to look at acceptance rate but average GPA accepted.</p>
<p>So numbers don’t–and never will–always tell the story. There will always be several X factors: school, location, makeup of individual college classes.</p>
<p>But it’s fun to speculate, certainly keeps us busy while waiting. I remember when I was pregnant with the first I poured over research and old wives’ tales about sex of babies born a certain time of year/day (and also doing things holding a needle on a thread over my belly and seeing if it spun around–scientific things like that). And then there are people coming up to you saying, “It’s a boy!”</p>
<p>I think I’m off track. But I’m just agreeing with blossom that one’s local Naviance data is more meaningful than a nationwide equation but that neither will reveal the secret to college admissions. And statistics didn’t stop my kid from doing a little magical thinking during the college app process.</p>