Why is it that a highly qualified applicant can apply to so many Ivies, and only get accepted to one or two? If they got into one, they should get into all!
Maybe, the colleges confer amongst themselves.
Or, more than likely, by spending an average of 90 seconds per application, applying to Ivy League has nothing to do with who you are, but the time of day the adcom decides on your app.
My hypothesis: Ivy League admissions is an absolute crapshoot, is a sham, and is a lottery with minimal emphasis on your actual talents.
<p>well for starters all the ivies have different admissions standards and criteria. some are harder to get into than others, but yeah when there are so many qualified applicants it is kind of a crapshoot</p>
<p>lolol it was horrible
and i still don't understand
why didn't he just throw the water at the alien at the end?
why did he need to take a bat and hit it???</p>
<p>Admitting a class for college is like casting a play, even the largest schools only need so many history majors, basketball players, mock trial members, and when they have those lists filled they look at the rest of the casting requirements. The better the school's reputation, the longer the casting line is.</p>
<p>If it really was an absolute crapshoot, then the laws of probability would dictate that the selectivity of Ivy League colleges would vary every year. For example, if the admisions changes really was a random crapshoot, then one year, Harvard would be the most selective of the Ivies, and another year, Harvard would be the least selective of the Ivies. I defy you to name me a single year where Harvard was the least selective of all the Ivies.</p>
<p>sakky, if everybody applied to all of the colleges you might be correct. If Harvard gets a larger selection of the best students then another Ivy League school, it makes sense that they could be more selective.</p>
<p>If they get an abundance of A+ students that exceeds their needs, some A+ students will be rejected. How many 4.5, 1500+, violin playing tennis champs can one school be expected to accept?</p>
<p>Is what I said so confusing. I made my post to disprove the contention that the OP made. </p>
<p>Here, let me explain. The OP asked why is it thata person can apply to all Ivies and only get into one or two, and then concluded that the Ivy admissions process was a crapshoot. That's what he said. I took that argument to its logical conclusion by saying that if the Ivy admissions process really was a crapshoot, then what we should be seeing is that Harvard would sometimes be the most selective Ivy, and other times, it would be the least selective. We are not seeing that, so obviously that means that it is not a crapshoot.</p>
<p>It's logical proof by contradiction, something that (I hope) many of you have learned. If you believe that a premise is wrong, you can prove that it is wrong by taking the premise to a conclusion that we all know is absurd. It is clearly absurd that there are years where Harvard is the least selective of all Ivies, therefore it cannot be true that the admissions process is a crapshoot. </p>
<p>assuming more people apply to harvard than any other ivy would mean that harvard would still be the most selective even if it was entirely random. disproving sakky's reasoning.</p>
<p>though lets be logical... its not an entirely random process....</p>
<p>To me, "a crapshoot" suggests randomness + luck (or lack thereof). I know of someone who last year was admitted to every Ivy to which he applied. It was more than 3 -- I think 5 or 6. That would suggest to me that logic & consistency outweighs the randomness factor. I do not know what his e.c.'s were like; I only know that his academics were superb. My understanding is that he is not a legacy at any of those. He is also definitely not a URM nor especially needy financially nor some valuable, unusual athlete.</p>
<p>Lbtg47, then we simply have to use a more expansive view of the problem. You say that if Harvard simply gets more applications every year, then one could say that admissions are random while Harvard would still then be highly selective (hence debunking my proof). But then you would then have to ask why is it that Harvard gets more applications than all the other Ivies, year-in, year-out? The fact that Harvard were to simply get more applications than all the other Ivies every year would, by itself, be a non-random event, thus once again showing that if you look at the situation holistically, clearly it is not a crapshoot in the sense that there is something non-random happening.</p>
