Are stats posted on CC unrealistically discouraging???

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>My best friends goes to a well thought of public school in an upper middle class suburb of New York. His school recently published a pamphlet anonymously listing the GPA, class rank, SAT scores and "schools accepted to"- "schools rejected by" stats for all its graduates in the last two years. </p>

<p>Here are some stats we compiled regarding admission to the ivy (excluding Cornell), and ivy caliber schools (we used Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, Duke, Amherst and Williams).</p>

<p>Of the students who scored over 1450 and graduated in the top ten% of the class over 90% were accepted to at least one of these 12 schools.</p>

<p>Of the students who scored over 1500 and graduated in the top ten % of the class 100% were accepted to at least one of these schools.</p>

<p>Surprisingly, the admissions to HYPS were not concentrated at the very top of the class but were quite spread through the top 10%, though the average SAT among those admitted to these schools was well into the 1500s.
Statistically underqualified athletes, urms (which the school does have), developmentals and legacies, whose impact on the admissions process is stressed so heavily on this forum, did not appear to be a big factor. In fact, not one applicant who was outside the top ten % and scored less than 1400 was admitted to any of these 12 schools. </p>

<p>My friend tells me that the average ECs of the accepted students is unlikely to exceed those that are routinely described as average on this forum.</p>

<p>The moral of this story is not to forget about safety schools.
Just don't let all the crazy stats you see on this forum make you unreasonably pessimistic.</p>

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<p>Yes they are too discouraging. I've been so surprised this year by how over-hyped college admissions is. It's just not that bad, people!</p>

3

<p>Well, I think in general the message this site sends is that it's impossible to get into the top schools. But, of course, that's false. </p>

<p>I think there are two reasons for this (and I'm guilting of some of this myself):</p>

<p>1--it is really, really tough to get into the Ivies--and for a lot of people that come to this site--that's all that matters--so if they are told they probably won't get in (which is the case about 70% of the time)--that's a negative, and</p>

<p>2-there are tons of people that are on here just to talk up their schools. So anytime you say something like "MIT is a slight reach" or "Georgetown is a match", you have about 4 posts telling you that you are totally off base and only 1 out of 10 gets into MIT with great stats, and only 2 out of 10 get into Georgetown and that's if they were valedictorian and won 6 awards, blah, blah, blah..... </p>

<p>Heck, I posted two days ago that I thought someone was a slight reach to MIT and had two different people argue with me for 4-6 posts why it would be a reach, not a slight reach--like that really mattered all that much. Over on the business thread, there is an argument that is going on (last time I checked it was 10 pages long) on which is the better business school--Berkeley or USC.</p>

<p>In the end, someone like myself who gives chances is almost all criticized as being too lenient with my estimates by others who are either at the school, got rejected by the school, or are about to apply or go to the school. It becomes an ego thing to these people to state that nobody could do as well as them. So nobody has a good chance.</p>

<p>You know, if I have one more person tell me how 25% of Harvard's rejects had 1580 scores or above and 3.9 GPAs, I swear I'll scream. I've seen that posted on here a minimum of 50 times--and quite often used as the basis for why podunk university is also getting tougher--like the two schools are somehow related to each other in the admissions process.</p>

<p>Lastly, everybody loves to say--oh, go look at the rejection thread for XXX University--everyone there had great stats and got rejected. Well, my answer is go look at the list of acceptances. About half of the people applied to 8 or more colleges, and most were accepted at about 4 to 6 of them. So, yes there are rejections, but there are more accepted--and last time I checked there are over 2,400 colleges in this country--the competition is only at the top 100-125 or so and that's about all this site discusses--therefore everything needs to be kept in perspective.</p>

4

<p>id like to thank all of you guys for taking a few seconds to bring this website and the entire idea that encompasses it into perspective. far too often people come here and treat the opinions of other students as a life or death situation.</p>

<p>at one point or another everyone has to realize that with the scores they post on this website, wherever they go- whether it be harvard or your local community college- you have what you need to succeed and rise the ranks. you have proven that in your scores and concern for being on this website in the first place, you have drive and most importantly you have your BRAIN</p>

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<p>CC makes me cry :(</p>

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<p>Calcruzer, I've already applied and been accepted to my ivies, so I have no ego involved in telling you I think your assessments are off base and yes, too lenient. Wait a full season and watch. You are giving way higher chances to kids and just putting money into the pockets of schools that want to keep rejecting a higher number each year. You seem not to understand the huge number (50%) of the hooked candidates that make up the lower stats acceptees at ivies and other top colleges. The large number of recruited athletes, URMs (about 20% of every class), development (rich) candidates, growing every year and the kids of the famous and powerful.</p>

<p>That leaves the rest to have top, top stats. 25% of Harvard admits this year had over 1590 (old) SATs. Your AI formula, as you interpret it, simply isn't true and you're giving false hope.</p>

7

<p>holycow, </p>

<p>Keep in mind that your best friend used his/her school so the information is purely antecdotal especially if the school has an established track record for sending students to the schools you mentioned. The pamphlet does nothing for the students at the neighboring school or the school in the next district who have never in the history of their school sent a kid to one of those colleges.</p>

<p>This is the equivalent of someone who attends Stuyvesant posting the same thing where everyone knows that Stuy has been sending kids to these schools for decades telling the a kid at Bert & Ernie H.S.with the same stats that they have an excellent chance of being admitted despite the fact that the school has not yet graduated its first set of seniors.</p>

<p>suze is right about a large # percentage of admissions are already going out to hooked applicants: Recruited athletes, URMs, legacies, developmental admits., students recruited under the new low income initiatives, etc. Then factor in the schools that have established track records for sending kids, the exters, andovers, st. pauls, and other elite preps as well as the Thomas Jeffersons, Stuyvesants, New Triers and other "elite" public high schools in the country and factor in 6 to 7% of internationals students.</p>

<p>The unhooked BWRK has to bring a really strong game to table in order to get admitted.</p>

8

<p>dont listen to like 70% of the people on CC haha...if i did, i prob wouldnt have applied to UVa this year...thank god i did!!!!</p>

<p>just remember that they are people just like you, they arent ADCOMS and their guess is just as good as yours, except they dont make it sound that way...psh</p>

9

<p>Well, the people on this site care a great deal about getting into college, and are generally the best students. Yet, people who attend my highschool who got into top schools have stats similar to those posted on this site.</p>

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<p>yea but the problem with this site is people have different opinions about what top schools and "good" scores are</p>

11

<p>Keep in mind that some of the people "chancing" you have asked to be "chanced" at the same schools themselves. Thus, they might have unrealistic views of the admissions policies at X university (usually regard it as very selective and will give you your chance based on their stats and the chance they think they have at X university). They're discouraging b/c it's an Internet forum where we have no idea about the track record of your high school; that's where you should look to first about your chances.</p>

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<p>Sybbie719:
Thanks for your input, but your reply to my OP seems to suggest that the explanation for all those ivy admissions is that the applicants from this high school were somehow held to a lesser standard than the rest of us would be; that merely attending this high school somehow constituted something of a "hook". In reality, I think the opposite is true.
One thing is certain about this high school. It is among the nation's most "demographically challenged" (a term I learned on CC). It is a New York upper middle class suburban public school with a ton of overrepresented minorities. It is not a place where you will find ivy adcoms diversity shopping. It is a school whose students will generally encounter the following assumptions (which are largley true) on the part of ad officers. It will be assumed that the student has had every advantage, has spent thousands on SAT tutors, and is deserving of the adcom's highest level of scrutiny.<br>
Consequently, the admission statistics I presented can be viewed as particluarly encouraging- especially when they are compared with the bleak picture that is sometimes painted on CC.</p>

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<p>Eh? I don't get you holycow; the ivies do not just diversity shop. In fact, the only reason they diversity shop is because they have so little diversity in the first place, meaning that though they do look out for "diverse" candidates, they accept many more less "diverse" ppl, in terms of race, religion, sexual orientation, background, etc. </p>

<p>As an established, elite public school they have a very good record at Ivies and other such schools, so adcoms know what they're getting when admitting someone from that school. It's not a lesser standard b/c the level of academics at each school varies and HYPS know that this school's level is high, so someone in the 4th percentile can be compared to the valedictorian at another school. There's a reason why Boston Latin, Stuy, TJ, etc. send 20+ students to Harvard a year when most schools send only one. Rather than a not elite, lower-class urban public school where they might have qualms about the academic quality of the students, simply b/c of the poor quality of the school. It's not a "hook," but Ivies will invariably take more students from this elite school than from the other, inner-city school. That's why your stats are skewed, not to mention they come from a very small sample size. They are not encouraging for anyone who is not at such a school.</p>

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<p>The way I see it is that if a school is called a match to you on CC, you're in. If it's called a reach, apply and you have a 40-50% chance, and if it's called a safety they will name a building after you.</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
Thanks for your input, but your reply to my OP seems to suggest that the explanation for all those ivy admissions is that the applicants from this high school were somehow held to a lesser standard than the rest of us would be; that merely attending this high school somehow constituted something of a "hook". In reality, I think the opposite is true.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I am not suggesting at all that students at particular schools are being held to a lesser standard. As a NYC parent who D is a rising junior at an Ivy, I can tell you first hand for her class, the largest group of students were from NY, with the majority of those students coming from NYC, then LI & Westchester county. </p>

<p>A person who has sat through 4 admissions cycles here on CC there were a few suprises as far as admissions (ex. Andi's son- you can do a search for his story) but not many. I would recommend reading the thread- My Dinner with an Admissions Officer</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=118616&highlight=dinner%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=118616&highlight=dinner&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>on 6/16/05 I posted the following Post # 26):</p>

<p>Stuyvesant H.S. in NYC Class of 2005 had the following admits;</p>

<p>7- harvard, 12- Princeton, 30-Cornell, 29-Columbia, 16-Dartmouth, 6-Penn, 8-Stanford, 9 wash u, 7 williams, 4 -amherst, 4-brown, 4-cooper union, 8-georgetown, 8-Jhu, 11-MIT and mutltiple admissions at chichago, wes, wellesley, vassar etc. with a large number of ED admits in each school.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=71381&page=2&pp=15&highlight=stuyvesant%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=71381&page=2&pp=15&highlight=stuyvesant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Attached a partial listing of the where 372 students (which is not even half of the seniors) the class of 06 at Stuyvesant is going in the fall.
<a href="http://stuycom.net/user/senioritis.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://stuycom.net/user/senioritis.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<h1>of students going to:</h1>

<p>4-Barnard, 4- Brown, 1 Caltech, 11- Columbia, 4- Cooper Union,
30- Cornell, 14 Darmouth, 6- Duke, 13-Harvard, 11-Hopkins, 9-MIT
27-NYU, 11- Princeton, 5- Stanford, 5- Penn, 3- Yale</p>

<p>Fluke? I think not.</p>

<p>It is not to say that every now and then students get accepted from schools that are not normally on the radar. My D was one of those students who went 7 for 7 at a small (less than 100 seniors) NYC 6-12 magnet school (she turned down stuy, to stay with her friends). In her class, there was a student who was the first on in the history of the school to be accepted to Stanford. Since then, the school has been sending students to Stanford.</p>

<p>In the Dartmouth article: In admissions, many get 'special' attention </p>

<p>it states:</p>

<p>*Minorities, legacies and elite high schools -- all seem to benefit during the admissions process. With acceptance rates above average for these groups, is the average well-rounded applicant facing an uphill climb? Yes and no.</p>

<p>But acceptance rates are not high only for these groups. Athletes and students with 800 SAT scores also gain admission at a disproportionately high rate, Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg said. Rates are also higher for students with exceptional essays and above-4.0 GPAs. With so many people applying for admission at one of the top 10 schools in the country, it takes a combination of many factors to get that thick envelope come April.</p>

<p>On the other hand, roughly 40 percent of applicants are given some sort of extra attention -- minorities, legacies or athletes. This year, 24 percent of applicants were students of color, 3 percent legacies, and roughly 13 to 17 percent were athletes, based on estimates. This 40 percent of the applicants has a combined admit rate nearly double the overall level.</p>

<p>Athletic admissions statistics are not released by the admissions office. Some speculate that athletes -- particularly those for big sports -- are given the highest preference of all. This does not appear to be the case at Dartmouth, although athletes do benefit from having a lobbyist in their coach. Coaches submit ranked lists of their recruited athletes to the admissions office. The admissions office then reviews the applications, taking into account the applicant's athletic talent and coach's recommendation.</p>

<p>"Athletic talent works in the same way other kinds of talent do. The only difference is it's a much more organized and structured recruiting process and that's a function of the NCAA and the Ivy League rules," Furstenberg said. "They tell us who they want, but there are no guaranteed number of slots."</p>

<p>But even with the ability to submit a list, some coaches expressed frustration with how little say they really have.</p>

<p>"How much clout do I have? Minimal," men's swimming coach Jim Wilson said. "If you look at my SAT scores and compare to the average SAT scores, my kids may be getting in with a 1450 instead of a 1460."</p>

<p>Wilson did, however, speculate that some of the "higher-profile sports like football may be getting a little more help."</p>

<p>Coaches are given little feedback from the admissions office before submitting their lists, according to Wilson. "I'm shooting blind," he said, adding that other schools, even in the Ivy League, are actually more lenient with athletic admissions.</p>

<p>"Some schools will say 'if he has this GPA and this SAT score were going to let him in.' Our admissions doesn't do that," Wilson said.</p>

<p>Michele Hernandez '89, who worked in the Dartmouth admissions office in the mid-1990s and is currently a private college counselor, concurred.</p>

<p>"Dartmouth actually has higher standards for athletes than most schools," she said. "Many athletes that are walking straight into Harvard couldn't get into Dartmouth."</p>

<p>While athletic talent can bolster an application, it does not replace other criteria for admission, according to Furstenberg. If coaches do not find well qualified applicants to put on their list, they risk not getting enough players that year.</p>

<p>"If the coaches say we need nine soccer players this year, but we only think six of them are qualified, that's what they get," he said. "All of the decisions are made here; the only person at the institution who can admit someone is me."</p>

<p>Based on acceptance rates alone, African American students have the best chance of getting into Dartmouth, with legacies right behind them. African Americans were accepted into the Class of 2008 at a rate of 44.6 percent, while legacies had a 35.4 percent acceptance rate. Native Americans and Latinos enjoyed acceptance rates of 34.6 and 29 percent, respectively.</p>

<p>With so much of the applicant pool enjoying these benefits, it leaves others receiving below-average acceptance rates. </p>

<p>White Americans, who make up over 60 percent of applicants, had an acceptance rate of 16.2 percent. International students had the hardest time getting into Dartmouth, accepted at a rate of only 10.2 percent.</p>

<p>"Roughly 40 percent of applicants are 'tagged' in some way. That means 60 percent aren't," Hernandez said. "Overall, the SAT average is not coming from the 40 percent tagged acceptances. The 60 percent have to have higher numbers to pull up the tagged applicants getting a break."</p>

<p>Breaking down statistics from the Class of 2008 applicant pool, the "tagged" applicants are not the only ones receiving a bit of an advantage. Because more male applicants apply to Dartmouth, but the goal male-to-female ratio of the admit class is 50:50, male applicants were accepted at a below-average rate of 16.8 percent, while female applicants were accepted at a rate of 20.1 percent. This difference will likely continue unless female applications catch up with their male counterparts.</p>

<p>But what does all this mean? Well, for one, that no matter how you look at it and no matter who you are, Dartmouth is one of the most selective institutions in the country.</p>

<p>"There are probably no more than about 50 institutions in America that admit less than 50 percent of their applicants," Furstenberg said, "and you wouldn't find any population in our pool that gets admitted above 50 percent."
*
<a href="http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2004051301040%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2004051301040&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>This website annoys me sometimes. There seems to be alot of hype about the ivies. Like, there are a million other schools out there that would fit someone well and provided them with an excellent education and they wouldn't have to be worried about being rejected or looked down upon. There's alot of emphasis on HYPS ect. give it a break.. If i see one more "my chances to Harverd, Yale, or Princeton" i will scream. That's y so many are rejected every year, cuz half the nation (even those who know they won't get in) apply there.</p>

17

<p>I think the thing to keep in mind is this: I am fortunate to go to one of the best 10 schools in the country in terms of college admit rates. Everyone with a 3.6+ and 2100+ SATs gets into an Ivy, Stanford, MIT or Duke. At the public high school in my town, kids with 2400s and 4.0 get rejected from all of those schools, even Cornell.</p>

18

<p>And also, people need to realize that college is entirely what you make of it. Bill Gates never graduated. My dad has Harvard buddies who are on unemployment and who have never had a job that paid more than 50K a year--and they are in their 40's. My dad's business partners, all of whom are worth more than 100 mil, all graduated from Arizona State University. That's not the exception. It is better to be no. 1 from Pepperdine than in the bottom half at Harvard.</p>

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<p>I agree with you FindFishFast, browsing around here makes me feel horrible. <em>sighs</em></p>

20

<p>i totally agree. it's what u get out of it.</p>