Admissions strategy... 91% chance acceptance to harvard, yale, princeton, etc.

Applying to College
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<p>My problem with everyone saying that you can't 'calculate percentage' is that they certainly don't know that there are PUBLISHED numbers of the % of students admitted.</p>

<p>I think any average person can say that their chances at HYP or whatnot would be close to ~10 to 12%. Yes, any average person. That ~10-11% was formulated by the thousands of students who applied.. this is the most accurate statistic that we have.</p>

<p>In that case, I would stop saying that the kid has no idea what he's talking about. I'm in a Statistics class and the mathematical calculations he did are valid, however, like most people said on this board, it is unclear as to whether college admission at one university is an independent event.</p>

62

<p>so this is why i have a C in ap statistics....im so confused.</p>

63

<p>those stats aren't really acurate. you have to realize that if one school rejects him, there is probably a higher chance of the next doing the same for a similar reason because these events are not independent. its a good strategy though and will definetly increase his chances.</p>

64

<p>Sounds nice in theory. Haha 91%...</p>

<p>Significantly off in practice.</p>

65

<p>The reasoning of the OP's friend is mind blowing. How did he arrive at his extremely generous 33% acceptance rate for one college? That's the basis of everything, and it's wrong.</p>

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<p>Why are people so outraged at this? Do you guys like protecting the idea that those schools are untouchable and no one can get into them? No one at harvard or mit or any of those other schools has cured cancer or perfected cold fusion; they're pretty normal people. Obviously, the numbers and percentages are gonna be off, but the idea seems very right to me. The acceptance rate for these colleges may be 12% overall, but a lot of people apply to the school who are academically below the range of the school, so i don't see giving someone who's academically at or above the college average a 33% chance as that ridiculous. And the whole point is that the admissions process at these schools is somewhat random. The admissions officers at one school can think that someone isn't what the college is looking for, but that doesn't mean all the others will.</p>

<p>If you got stats in the range and are pretty well rounded, most likely you will get into one of those schools, if you want to apply to all those big name schools.</p>

67

<p>This reminds me of the guy who created an equation for friendship.
Silly math whizzes..numbers, too, have their limits.</p>

68

<p>
[quote]
This reminds me of the guy who created an equation for friendship.
Silly math whizzes..numbers, too, have their limits.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Not true! Everything can be quantified. I came up with a formula to determine the size of one's ego once. My "Ego Index" was about an 80% on that scale.</p>

69

<p>A wonderful theory, now if only the Ivys didn't talk to each other would it work. They, however, do, and they know when someone is shotgunning them (they don't like it either). Someone I knew had the exact same thought pattern, and got rejected from every single school she applied to.</p>

70

<p>So applying to all the ivies is a no-no?</p>

71

<p>You people underestimate these chances. A perfect student w/ excellent passions and essays and reccommendations and that has everything going for him has WAY more than a 15% chance at a top ivy. </p>

<p>More like a 80%+ chance. Based upon numerous books written by admission officers, they say that 'almost' all the time a student with almost perfect stats is admitted at a 80%+ admission rate, with those other 20% being rejected because of other factors such as crappy personality, bad EC's, bad essays, grade-grubbing, and red-flags. At places like Dartmouth, the admission rate for people with 750+ on a SAT section is 50%, with the 50% rejected likely because of deficencies in grades, the other SAT sections, SAT IIs, and all the prementioned stuff.</p>

<p>Thus, that ideal student would easily be able to say he will get into a top school, unless a freak accident occurs, as they sometimes do.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
A wonderful theory, now if only the Ivys didn't talk to each other would it work. They, however, do, and they know when someone is shotgunning them (they don't like it either). Someone I knew had the exact same thought pattern, and got rejected from every single school she applied to.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>that is very wrong too. The only time the ivie adcoms meet is in early May or so, in unpersonalized general conferences where they just review admission policies and such, and so they have NO CONTACT WITH THE OTHER IVIES except for ED/EA lists, and thus applying to all the ivies simply increases your chances, regardless of these crazy conspiracy theories that have been disproved hundreds of times by hard evidence. Shotgunning it doesnt 'increase' your chances, but it lowers random rejections. That person who got rejected from them all must have then been very unlucky or simply unqualified in the first place.</p>

72

<p>Wow! A thread revival that brings up BOTH of the wrong, extreme ideas about applications to all the Ivy League colleges that have come up in other threads. </p>

<p>Wrong extreme idea 1: </p>

<p>Some students "reason" that if an applicant applies to all eight Ivy League colleges, his chance of admission at any one of them is the same as the average base admission for all of them (which is wrong assumption a). Then the students "reason" that because the eight admission committees don't all meet in the same room, that they select students "independently" in the STATISTICAL sense (which is wrong assumption b). The students then misapply a formula learned in high school that only applies to differing situations, to calculate that the chance of getting into some Ivy League college is almost a sure thing. </p>

<p>What's wrong with wrong assumption a is that a weak applicant for admission at the least selective Ivy League college is a weak applicant everywhere else, and that means that applicant's chance of admission anywhere is well below the base rate of admission for any Ivy League college. </p>

<p>What's wrong with assumption b is that usually colleges don't have to actively collude to end up choosing similar kinds of students. ALL colleges prefer stronger students to weaker students. A teacher of statistics explained to me what "independence" means in the sense used by statisticians: "What is independence? It means that when you learn about the outcome of one event, it has no influence on your guess about the probability of success in another event. However, in this case, if a student gets rejected from 8 schools, that DOES influence my guess about how likely he is to get rejected from the 9th school. I'd say someone who gets rejected from 8 schools is more likely to get rejected from the 9th than someone who didn't get rejected from 8 schools." In other words, even if colleges act independently in the layman's sense of the term, you can't use the multiplicative rule of probability to figure out the joint probability of being admitted to one out of the eight Ivy League colleges. Plenty of students get rejected by all eight. </p>

<p>Earlier replies in this thread months ago brought up </p>

<p>Wrong extreme idea 2: </p>

<p>Ivy League admission officers are thin-skinned and personally offended if you apply to their "competitors," and will reject you if you apply to all eight Ivy League colleges. </p>

<p>Well, that's just ridiculous. There are plenty of students each year who are admitted to more than one Ivy League college (of course, those are rather extraordinary students) and there are at least a few each year who apply to all eight and are admitted to all eight. Ivy League colleges do NOT collude in this manner when making admission decisions. They admit the students who they think will fit well into the next entering class and contribute to the campus community. The bottom-tier Ivy League colleges admit a lot of students who don't enroll (= they have low "yield,") because they admit some students who prefer to enroll at one of the OTHER Ivy college colleges that admitted them. Each college has its own tricks, in five cases including binding early decision programs, to identify students who genuinely prefer that college, but in the regular action round, every college admits some students who are also admitted by some of the other Ivy League colleges, perhaps all of the Ivy League colleges. </p>

<p>Bottom line: don't worry about either wrong, extreme idea. Apply well to all of the colleges that interest you. (You've already applied, haven't you, as of the date of this post, if you've met this year's deadlines, right?) There is little point in applying to a college you wouldn't possibly attend if admitted, but there is every reason to apply to a college you like, because you can't get in if you don't apply.</p>

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<p>If your friend is truly such a great applicant, yes, he MIGHT get into one of those schools. He MIGHT even get into more than one, if he's good enough. However, he better have a darn good safety ready as well.</p>

74

<p>one problem: statistics dont account for the human element.
its not a machine deciding for you, if it was everyone could go by odds and be sucessfull</p>

75

<p>Amen to tokenadult's wise statement!</p>

76

<p>Since the first post was in July 06, I think the guy already applied to colleges last year... I'd be interested to know where he did get in</p>

77

<p>This thread is as ridiculous as the "Chances of being a Millionaire" in FB</p>

78

<p>hahaha i like the random percentages people are throwing out...yale sends out its acceptance stats to alums, and last year it rejected something like 80-85% of people with 1600s. So, you know, Harvard and Princeton, being soooo much less selective than Yale, are clearly accepting 95% of perfect scorers?? I went through the college admissions process myself and have seen younger students "suffer" through it to...and i'm still scratching my head. There's no quantifiable method to it!</p>

79

<p>By "perfect scorers," I believe they mean people with 2400s, which are much harder to get than 1600s. I believe only 200 or so people get perfect scores each year.</p>

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<p>people are fighting. We need to get like such as maps. Lets stop bashing each other.</p>