Read an old article (ancient … from late 90’s :))that detailed how the kids who get Ivy placement, even from top BS, are all legacy, $$$$ and minority groups. I know this plays a role of course but I am wondering if kids who don’t neatly fit into these categories have a shot at top schools if their performance warrants. What are your thoughts and experience in this regard? Thank you.
I would add recruited athletes to that list. There are numerous threads discussing this topic. The short answer is you should not go to boarding school because you think it will up your chances of an ivy acceptance. There are unhooked academic rock stars from boarding schools accepted to ivies and other elite schools every year.
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My first-hand experience is that top performers from such schools do get accepted to ivy League colleges (and peers) without hooks. Nothing is guaranteed, of course.
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You stated that the article you read was from the late 90’s? Different century - in so many ways. A lot has changed in 25 years. More regional diversity. Less Ivy options for unhooked students. More competition, etc. Ivy bound students from BS are often top athletes or strong students in a sport where they need players.
There are more really excellent BS students applying to Southern and Western US schools than there were in the 1990’s. You can look at matriculation statistics and see the shift. Also, marketing efforts from colleges have changed so much in 25 years.
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If you graduate at the top of your class from a well known boarding school (ie top 1-2%), and you have the support from the college counseling office, you stand an excellent chance at the Ivies.
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I think I have mentioned before that from what I have seen I agree with the article + athletes + the top several kids in a class. If you are in the top 10 kids in a BS class you are likely to get into an Ivy if you have targeted well and write excellent essays. If you are not in that top 10 kids you are going to struggle even to get into a top NESCAC.
Even schools that don’t do class rank make it clear which kids are in the top 10 - the profile sent to colleges lists the top GPA + the top average so if your kid has an average in that top range colleges will recognize that.
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If you have no hooks, typically if you are in the Top ~5% at a HADES-level school, you’ll have a good shot to end up at a T10, or an equivalent LAC (Williams, Amherst, Pomona, etc). At my school, a pretty good indicator was if you were in the first round of Cum Laude inductees after the junior year. Pretty much all of the 10-15 people in this group each year ended up at a high Ivy/similar.
A lot of the top boarding schools tout Ivy matriculation to be around 25-30%, and if you extended that to T20s, I’d guess the figure is closer to 40% (Andover and Exeter might even be near 50% in a good year). But, removing legacies and recruited athletes, the real, “unhooked” number will likely be around 10-15%.
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My kid’s school had about 25% of kids go Ivy and close to 40% once you throw in MIT, S, UC, Duke and top 5 LACs. Usually also 1 or 2 kids to Military academies.
Of this large cohort typically split close to 1/3 athletes, 1/3 “hooked” but non athlete, 1/3 pure strength of application.
This pattern seems to have been repeating itself over recent history.
Top prep non BS.
These stats seem similar to NYC schools like Trinity, HM, Dalton, etc but with fewer athletes more hooked non athletes and roughly the same pure strength of applications.
Across the board also seeing more kids expanding their schools for consideration. Vanderbilt, UWash, USC all now being heavily applied and attended versus years past.
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My kiddo started BS this year as a Jr. She texted me in September that two kids in her Jr. class had just committed to Ivy’s for sports. I didn’t realize it starts Jr. year- they most likely haven’t taken SAT’s yet even. Wondering if it is conditional? Do their grades and scores even matter?
Oh, it is absolutely conditional And to be clear and accurate, despitef what the kids said and/or think, they were not offered admissions.
While coaches have a great deal of pull in Ivy admissions, it is the admissions office that makes the actual offer, and that will not happen before 10/1 of senior year when the first Likely Letters are issued.
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@AnonMomof2 : in some sports, I’ve heard of cases where verbal offers were given as early as freshman year. And yes, for Ivy league sports. Lacrosse is the sport where I’ve seen this happen. Reasons cited are that Lax is a spring sport, so waiting until senior year to make offers would be too late.
The Ivy league coaches have to balance their academic index. Typically the mean AI for a team should be within 1 standard deviation of the entire college’s incoming freshman class. Harvard’s mean AI is 220, and the minimum AI for ivy league athletes is 176. So I’m guessing that the SD is about 15, so that the minimum AI for a Harvard athlete is about 205. The coaches can manipulate this however – by taking a very high AI student to offset a low AI. As long as the mean AI is within the lower bound, the admissions office will usually be okay.
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No, they most likely have taken the SATs. Athletic recruiting is a different beast, and those kids have gone through a process just as tough – tougher, in most cases – than nonrecruit applicants. Their process starts earlier, is longer, and is just as fraught with rejection, uncertainty, and anxiety until it reaches the conclusion – which is all the outside world sees.
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So they are taking SAT’s sophomore year? That seems really early. I just assumed their offer would be on condition they get x score (and x would be lower than the school average). Interesting. I had no idea how sports recruiting works. I have a dancer not a sports athlete.
Thanks for the explanation but I have no idea what AI or SD are.
The AI is an index used in recruiting athletes, mostly by Ivy League schools.There are older posts that have the formula. It’s an index that is used in recruiting. There is an academic index and an AI rank. Not sure how this has changed in the past 2 years. Based on what I knew it to be, it’s a combination of the students test score and GPA….(correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s been a while). Let’s say a coach needs to fill the bench/roster. There will be some athletes who are super talented yet have low test scores and GPA. On the other hand, there might be an athlete who is less talented in the sport (but still strong enough for recruiting), yet has high test scores and GPA. The coach can balance out the numbers with the AI.
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You are correct. The actual calculation may have shifted (or maybe not) now that Subject Tests have been eliminated. That still seems to be a secret.
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SD is standard deviation. A stats concept to talk about how far away from the average score something is. More than 1 SD means you are outside the norm. 2 and you are really far outside. 3 you are really really far - think of it like a bell curve. One standard deviation puts you out there on either side of the bell. The higher the SD, the more far out on either tail you are, and the fewer people are out there with you.
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Apparently Ivy League colleges also balance AI across teams so the big money sports of football and basketball can recruit some talented athletes with lower AIs and offset those in sports apparently such as squash, golf, fencing and tennis.
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Many athletic recruits do take the SAT as early as sophomore year, yes. And you are right, if a kid hasn’t hit a benchmark yet, the offer can be conditional on hitting a certain score. Of course some kids get that score early so don’t need to retake the test.
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You will have high AI scorers on Ivy League hockey/lax/football teams who barely see a minute of playing time in 4 years of college. They are on the team literally to balance out the team’s otherwise low AI score. It’s a bit scandalous, IMO.
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