<p>Also, elite schools like Harvard seem to have a "relationship" with certain high schools. Our high school, despite being an excellent public, to my knowledge has never had a student admitted to Harvard. All of the other Ivies, yes. We're not an Intel finalist factory or anything, but we do have our share of perfect SAT kids, NMF's and the occasional big national award winner types. So, for a student at our school, I'd place the odds of getting in Harvard even lower.</p>
<p>Not a statistician I, so I won't try to modify any of the above -- except to say that the overall observation is one that mini shares -- although he may understate the "available slots" in any given Ivy. Yes, there are definitely targeted categories at these elites. It's not that they don't place a value on great students: obviously they do, but great is not necessarily defined merely by test scores & GPA. The less-hooked but outstanding student still can & does get recognized if the application & attachments support that adjective. This is one thing that many cc students & parents still do not understand (or in some cases, accept).</p>
<p>For nonrevenue sports (i.e. not football, basketball, or ice hockey), the coach at an Ivy will typically only be able to support 5-6 players per year. The 25 freshmen on Harvard's track team are not 25 recruited athletes; more likely, they're 5 recruits and 20 walk-ons. This is the reason that many selective schools have a large number of players at one position/event and very few in another. The one with few is being recruited; the one with many has a recruit and then a slew of walk-ons.</p>
<p>y'all are wrong. acceptance rates don't mean odds, because it is not a random process. if it was random there would be no need for an application. </p>
<p>You can say the percentage is so low, but then to be fair you have to factor in the droves of people who apply and have little to no chance. The more impressive the application is, the more likely you are to get in. If everyone in the country applied to one school while only the top 5% applied to another school, both schools would accept the same people, but would have vastly different acceptance rates, this is the premise of a self selecting university such as Chicago or Harvey Mudd College.</p>
<p>JW Muller, I'm surprised your Duke legacy son with a 2240 was rejected. Did he apply ED or RD? The admit rate for legs in RD is much lower. If Duke is not a leg's first love, then Duke loves them less, too.</p>