Admissions Differences between Ivy and Non-Ivy

Applying to College
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@compmom
Thank you, compmom! Decided to attend Duke, because they seem to have greater emphasis on undergrads than graduate students. Super excited about the next 4 years so not crying over spilled milk but still odd!

@rphcfb @momofmusician17
Ahh I see. My counselor did warn me that nobody got into Yale before when I considered (and eventually) applying there for SCEA. And hearing both of your experiences, that reason seems to be very likely! And I agree, students should never be afraid to try! As momofmusician’s son and the Harvard acceptee proved, things can change. Congrats on your son being accepted to Yale!!

@Mastadon
I heard about that but… how would universities know where students have been accepted to/rejected from?

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@“~~~” Yup, that was essentially what I looked at when searching for schools. I grew up in the countryside and a bustling city, so a college’s setting has never really been a turn on/off for me. Nor were things like sport divisions or weather. Looked for places that provided majors I were interested in and ample opportunity to pursue them.

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Ivies tend to favor certain schools, locations, races, income groups etc. Its very common for them to ignore fit and merit. You did well in your acceptances, Duke is a good school, better with some free money, don’t waste your precious time trying to figure out unfair admission practices of Ivies.

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Any time you have just one person’s results, it is an anecdote, not data. It could just as easily have been reversed for the next person.

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@milee30

The idea of fit isn’t elitist at all, and here’s why:

There are some 50 (at least) highly selective schools in this country – universities and LACs – that offer a level of academic and career support that will virtually guarantee that a student willing to work hard at school to get the degree, and use career services to get a solid job, will succeed at both. A kid doesn’t have to blindly throw darts at the board and just apply to the entire Ivy League, MIT, etc. – he or she can whittle down that huge group of (mostly) reach-type schools and pick several that fit them best, according to known preferences.

For example, if a kid really wants to go to a rural school, there’s Dartmouth, Cornell and a slew of top-notch LACs all over the country. If a kid wants a highly intellectual vibe, well there are schools like UChicago, Columbia, Swarthmore, Reed, Carleton, Haverford, Vassar, Princeton, etc. If a kid wants to be in an urban environment there’s UChicago, Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Penn, etc. If a kid favors California, there’s Stanford, the Claremonts, Caltech, USC, Berkeley, UCLA. Gotta have big-time sports? Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, USC, and Rice all have D1 sports.

My point is, kids can follow their preferences and find at least five highly selective reach schools that satisfy at least most of those preferences.

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Totally agree, prezbucky that there are many top choices that would fit students. But kids without much exposure to the system and who may not have traveled to see colleges don’t know what they don’t know. And it’s easy to see how many people think the college admissions process is in part a lottery, so a kid could conclude that considerations of fit are less important than just getting in to one - any one.

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How do you explain same students getting accepted by completely different colleges or getting rejected by very similar colleges. Fit is important yet overly exaggerated by colleges and blindly accepted and regurgitated as gospel by many posters.

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In terms of admission results, “fit” is how the college sees it, not how the applicant sees it. For example, if colleges prefer to have students not over concentrated in particular majors, MIT may prefer to admit humanities and social studies majors, JHU any other than biomedical engineering or other common premed majors, several Ivy schools any other than economics or other common pre finance or consulting majors, etc…

Since OP looks like a prospective business or economics major, s/he may have appeared too similar in aspirations and goals to many other Ivy applicants looking to finance or consulting.

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Thanks for the feedback y’all. Think the discussion has kinda shifted from the original intent to the topic of “fit” so will be closing this thread. Fit, of course, is an important topic to discuss.
One last comment would be that as @milee30 aptly pointed out, it is extremely hard for international students to understand the vibe of U.S. schools. Most of us simply cannot afford to travel that far just to take college tours without the assurances of acceptance. Websites and alumni stories can only go so far. Of course, this applies to many students in America as well.
Personally, I heard about how extremely selective schools can really go either way (Students accepted to Stanford but not Brown. Vice versa). So my college list was of schools that I would be happy to attend to and let the admission results narrow down my options.

Thank you for the lively discussions.

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Discussion has been closed