<p>Just saying. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for increasing our self confidence :)</p>
<p>I agree that chances threads are a waste of time, but I think that "crap shoot" suggests a far greater degree of randomness than the process actually contains. Instead of crap shoot I'd say there is a high degree of subjectivity - subjectivity that is impossible to assess on CC chances threads. You see two kids on CC both with stellar stats. One gets in and one doesn't. Crap shoot, right? No, the one chosen was chosen for a reason. It's just that we on the outside cannot see what the reason was. They probably liked that one's essay a little better. His ECs may have been slightly more impressive. He may have appeared more authentic and less "packaged." There are a whole host of reasons, many of them subjective, that might be used to distinguish between any given candidates.</p>
<p>coureur has it exactly right.</p>
<p>we love to think of it as a crapshoot as a kind of scapegoat for when we get rejected. "oh EVERYONE gets rejected to stanford/harvard/etc!" but it's really not.
there are reasons for rejection and maybe hidden reasons for acceptance. i sometimes wish i could talk to the adcom and see their retionale for choosing some candidates and rejecting others.</p>
<p>^ dude, how sweet would it be if your rejection letter came with a quasi-evaluation form with a grade on it....or just the words EPIC FAIL in huge, red letters? hahaha. I have actually heard that some acceptance letters come with handwritten notes like "Loved your essay!" or "Make sure you join the debate team!" but not the other way around lol</p>
<p>My daughter heard a rumor on nearly her very last day at Harvard, just before graduation, that if you are accepted and enroll, that you can by special request be allowed access to your admissions file. You can read the adcoms' evaluation of you and find out why you were accepted. Rejected students or accepted students who did not enroll cannot get access. You have to be a Harvard student.</p>
<p>I told her by all means do it. Let's get a look at the file. But it never happened. It was too late; the office wasn't taking those requests at that time, etc. And she graduated and left a day or two later. But I still would have loved to have seen it, to know what about her app and her qualifications they liked and didn't like. </p>
<p>Maybe someone with kids still at Harvard can find out if it really is posslble to read your Admissions file.</p>
<p>^ wow, that's intense. Just one more reason I'm dying for an acceptance letter, haha!</p>
<p>I'm involved in hiring at the company I work for, and I think it's fair to say that our applicant pool is comparable to Harvard's - we hire top students from top schools, primarily Ivy League. We have hundreds of applications for about 15-20 openings per year. At the end of the day, it is basically impossible to make rational distinctions between the 15-20 we hire and the next 50 or 60 (or more) applicants. Sad to say, but we end up looking for reasons to say no, rather than to say yes. I have no confidence that we end up making the right choices. I am confident that the 15-20 we end up hiring are truly stellar, but are they clearly better than the ones we say no to? There I have less confidence. So I guess my point is that I'm confident that Harvard ends up admitting a stellar class, but I'm less confident that the people they say yes to are necessarily demonstrably better than the people they say no to. If you want to define that as a "crapshoot", I can't say that definition is clearly unwarranted.</p>
<p>If it's a total crapshoot, why does it seem that only top students get in?</p>
<p>It is not a total crapshoot, but I agree that most of the admissions is a crapshoot. You never know if you have the right combination of ECs and good scores or awards. Besides, they seem to want students to strive to be accomplished or make the best of their situations. However, not all high school students have the desire to go out and do prestigious competitions or do stellar community service; most do it for the wrong reasons (out of wanting to just go to a top school rather than having a love for what they do). All that I am saying is yes you can be qualified, but at some point or another after they pick out the applicants that are a must have, then they just look for reasons to reject people, even if they are small. Even if you are so accomplished, you are not guaranteed admission to your first choice, and I am sure there are some people that are rejected from most or all of the ivies or elite schools, even if they deserve to be there and have the right qualifications. Since no one knows for sure what they are looking for and why some people are accepted over other applicants, then it is indeed a crapshoot. It would be easier if the whole processes was meritocratic in a sense as how CalTech admits (although personal qualities should still be considered).</p>
<p>"If it's a total crapshoot, why does it seem that only top students get in?"</p>
<p>Hahahaha I lol'ed.</p>
<p>lol
it's more to get a range of probability
but since most people who post chances usually have absurdedly great stats, most of them pass the academic requirements and so it's a crapshoot for them.</p>
<p>Here's my theory, formed what I have heard and researched. About 10k of the applicants are truly amazing and stellar, but there are only what, like 2000 spots? Harvard picks from these 10k students and tries to form the best possible well rounded class (not that the people are well rounded, but the class is), and so they pick students according to their needs up until the last few hundred spots which are fiercely debated upon. So, it is really a crapshoot because we dont know what Harvard is looking for this year. If its not looking for an intel winner or it already picked one, then that dude is out of luck. This is my theory. It makes me feel better inside. :)</p>
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<blockquote> <p>So, it is really a crapshoot because we dont know what Harvard is looking for this year. If its not looking for an intel winner or it already picked one, then that dude is out of luck. This is my theory. It makes me feel better inside. <<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>It's a crapshoot in the sense that your chances are increased if you happen to be a sprinter or a bassoon player applying in a year when the track team needs a sprinter and the orchestras need bassoon players. In that sense you are lucky. But it's not a crapshoot in the sense that the admits are chosen at <em>random</em> from among the qualified applicants. A true crapshoot would be simple randomness - like dice thrown in a game of craps. </p>
<p>The adcoms choose for a reason, in this example because they are sprinters and bassoon players. But these reasons are not evident to outside observers such as us. So to us it <em>looks</em> random.</p>
<p>Just like quantum mechanics "looks random" but really is deterministic and logical.</p>
<p>Even within a school other students may not have the information to know why one candidate may have a better chance than another. My son was number 8 in his class and only had two ECs at school. But he was also a legacy and he had some pretty impressive outside of school activities that even his closest friends didn't really know about.</p>
<p>The story about seeing everything in your file is not true. You are allowed to see your file, but you are not allowed to see the confidential aspects of your file. So that means no admissions info, no letter of req from your interviewer, etc... I believe you can get your teacher reqs waived for access, but it is a long process.</p>
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<p>I recall from earlier years when the text of the letter that Harvard sends to applicants who were not offered admission has been posted that Harvard graciously says something along those lines. The Harvard admission committee does its best, based on all the information in all the admission files, to choose a great class for Harvard for that year. It offers admission to more students than accept admission. But it doesn't offer admission to a lot of students who, in the committee's own view, are fine students who will surely be very successful in life. </p>
<p>So the moral of the story is: apply to Harvard if you are interested in attending Harvard. Apply somewhere else (a "safety college") if you are applying to highly selective colleges that people might think are comparable to Harvard. There are lots of applicants for few spaces in the entering class, but every year those spaces do get filled by somebody, and you might be included in the entering class if you submit an application. Just be sure to apply elsewhere too if you are applying to Harvard.</p>
<p>It's still a crapshoot to me :P</p>
<p>Yeah chance threads for places like the ivies really are useless…but many ccrs (myself included) continue to flood the chance forum with repetitive threads. The only help chance threads can give you, is if a poster tells you something you could improve on or a detail about the school that you did not know.
Ivy league admissions are a crapshoot though, so anyone that asks for chances for the ivies can’t expect a credible answer. Kids with 2400’s, who are valedictorians, and captain of all their ECs don’t get in, while sometimes kids with much lower scores do. My advice is to leave the chances threads, and do something that can truly help your app (essays, EC’s, etc.)</p>