Chance to get into an Ivy School

Parents Forum
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<p>OP - MIT had a surprising amount of music opportunities. I was surprised about that when my musician son applied.
[MIT</a> Music Program: Prospective Students - Admission Supplements](<a href=“Massachusetts Institute of Technology |”>Massachusetts Institute of Technology |)</p>

<p>Harvey Mudd also likes students with artsy passions. In our case, we were not sure that son would still have enough time for music (which he does more for fun) at MIT or Harvey Mudd. He really loved Olin, but you should know that only Engineering is offered there.</p>

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<p>who said anything about “semi”:slight_smile: and most athletes going to HYPS have the same level of academic stats as non athletes. I agree that at state schools such as Cal and UCLA admissions lowers academic standards to the basement for athletes.</p>

<p>MIT has exceptional acting students as well…actors such as James Woods went to MIT to study the arts!</p>

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I don’t think so. Maybe for some, but not for most.</p>

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<p>^^actually in many of the women sports the athletes have higher stats than regular admits. On my daughters team there were several 4.0 students, one kid had a 2400 SAT (which is only 450 kids out of 1.5 million), my daughter had a 2300, and the schools where these girls were signed to: Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Columbia, and Brown. And these type of stats and matriculation is common in her sport and other women’s sports.</p>

<p>The competition is truly fierce.</p>

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<p>pacheight - I don’t want to get into this debate with you on this thread. I am sure your daughter would have been admitted to all of those schools based on her academic stats, but it is a know fact that recruited athletes are looked at differently. It is a first hand experience at my kids’ school, and it has been discussed quite a bit on CC. Not to take anything away from your daughter. The only reason I am even pointing out the difference is I don’t want OP to get the wrong idea that her son could be recruited as a musician - a hook, yes.</p>

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<p>and all the great (not good) musicians, artists, and dancers, do get in to top schools. I don’t believe great talents get overlooked</p>

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<p>b-ball and football yes. 200 point lower SAT standard for men in many sports. But for all women sports except W-B-ball the stats are same or often higher to offset the men’s lower stats. they do this so the aggregate NCAA stat for the school is higher.</p>

<p>So 45% of the recruited athletes have exceptional stats. that’s a big percentage.</p>

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<p>love this: “known fact”</p>

<p>only to a non-athlete family</p>

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I thought you had the copyright on this phrase.</p>

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<p>Pacheight - in music, it’s sort of odd for pianists because they can’t join any team, like an orchestra. We learned that scholarships available for instrumental students (violin, cello, flute…) are hardly available to pianists. So from school’s perspective, they look at piano training truly as an EC, but they never would really “need” one. It’s obviously a different story if one applies to a conservatory.</p>

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<p>pacheight, musicians are NOT recruited. Period. End of story.</p>

<p>fiveacres, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and as is very common amongst the parents of recruited athletes is highly vested in the idea that their offspring “would have gotten in anyway.”</p>

<p>The only kids in the arts who get a really significant break in Ivy admissions are well-known performers.</p>

<p>It does sound like your son’s musicianship is at an unusually high level, and he should definitely prepare a music supplement. His teacher should be able to arrange a good recording.</p>

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<p>fiveacres: consolation is right, “well-known performers,” this is what I’m talking about in regards to doing something really well. I am not talking about just being recognized for art or athletics in your county.</p>

<p>you asked how do you get into a top school (ivy or similar). The answer is be exceptional at something. Otherwise it’s a roll of the dice. only 25% of the 2400 SAT kids who apply to Harvard and Stanford get in. And most apply to both. Only 25%, so to be more sure of your chances do something exceptional.</p>

<p>And again I’m agreeing with Consolation, my daughter got in because of her sport, and would have had a less than 25% chance purely on academics and good EC’s. I don’t believe she would have easily gotten in without her sport. And since Consolation seems angry at recruited athlete parents, this will really fry her; Columbia, Yale, and Stanford all sent airline tickets for my daughter to come visit and picked her up at the airport, how’s that for an application!</p>

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<p>Yeah, we’re all sadly aware that the ability to kick, throw or hit a ball is, for some mystifying reason, important to top colleges. However, your little brag notwithstanding, this is completely off topic and not helpful to the OP.</p>

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<p>OP my son has similar stats and was rejected at two ivies and waitlisted at one.</p>

<p>When he had his alumni interview with the very nice man from Harvard they talked about how few applicants they can take, and even though he found my son well qualified for the school it many times isn’t something the applicant is lacking but rather something another applicant may have that they are looking for to build that year’s class-perhaps they are looking for a writer for the paper or a trumpet player for the band-two things my son did have! But he reinforced to him that with all the qualified applicants they have to chose from not to take it as a sign that he wasn’t good enough if he was not accepted. He was great and his words helped cushion the blow when the rejections came.</p>

<p>So like others I would say your son’s chances are small-because there are just so many great applicants. I have heard that these schools are focusing more on “well-lopsided” rather than “well-rounded” . My son is the definition of well-rounded though and I couldn’t have changed him even if I had wanted to-which I didn’t and wouldn’t suggest anyone do.</p>

<p>If finances are not an issue for you there are just so many great schools out there. I would echo the U Rochester suggestion if he wants to pursue the music as well as academics-I was very impressed with that school and even though my son chose to attend a different college they were wonderful and gave him a very nice merit offer on top of it!</p>

<p>I would advise to go ahead and apply to the Ivies and anywhere else-he sounds like a solid applicant anywhere-whether or not he is ultimately accepted is something of course no one can answer.</p>

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<p>By no means should one interpret this as taking the SAT over and over again and once she hits the 2400 mark she gets the 25% chance. It’s more likely that the score comes effortlessly and the kid’s focused her effort elsewhere as her transcripts and ECs indicate. Without the later she stands little chance.</p>

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<p>How good one has to be in a sport to be helpful for her admission to an 'ivy" or equivalent? For example, if you are a musician, getting into all state band or orchestra may look good on the application. I wonder how sport achievements are measured by college adcom. Does anyone have an answer for this?</p>

<p>I think op is right - colleges don’t have need for a team of pianists. You don’t do piano for college though.</p>

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<p>^at the risk of it sounding like bragging the answer for the sport I know well is national champion level athlete. on my daughters team they were all in the top 50 or so in the country, one was in the top 10 in the world. they also had rock star stats, most 4.0+ and several 2300 level SAT…so pizzagr you can understand i hope that if harvard is looking at kids with similar academic stats yet some are also great athletes, well, there’s your lopsided advantage.</p>

<p>this is helpful to the OP to know how good a kid needs to be to have very good chances at these schools.</p>

<p>lake and pepper are right on with their advice and what I’m stressing is where the quality level of that lopsided skill needs to be in order for a real solid chance at hyps…</p>

<p>and great piano players do get in. as well as great public speakers, and great actors, etc. but great, not good, for a solid chance</p>

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<p>fiveacres, an aspect in which I will agree with pacheight is that singular greatness is not needed for admission to an ‘elite’ U. Not everyone will be a concert artist: that’s called, particularly when it’s a famous concert artist, celebrity admissions. If you are a highly accomplished cellist who has chosen to spend time, and summers, playing with well-known cellists such as your son has played with outstanding pianists, that fact alone says an awful lot about a singular dedication. You don’t need to be Yo-Yo Ma to be regarded by Ivy-level colleges as an outstanding cellist, whose extracurricular accomplishment is a signal of independent drive, a factor which such level of colleges values very much.</p>

<p>That said, college admissions should always be approached from the inside out, from the passions and goals of the student, not from the position of where the student can get admitted (or not). Continue to be Mom :), and proceed from that direction, concentrating on his current goals – not what his future may or may not be – and you’ll be fine in developing a college list that matches his current orientation. Too many parents look upon college as a “ticket” to something. The problem is that even college students can change a lot during undergrad years. It’s too hard to predict how they will or will not evolve. :)</p>

<p>That said, it’s great to be practical, looking at future possibilities & opportunities (practically) within a college campus, but not to exclusively focus on career choices which may change.</p>

<p>I think you’re on the right track to be focused on the development of self that he seeks right now, some aspects of which may definitely develop into career opportunities, as well as intellectual pleasure and personal fulfillment.</p>

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<p>“concentrating on his current goals – not what his future may or may not be – and you’ll be fine”</p>

<p>great advice!</p>

<p>being in the moment is not just a good idea, it’s what great athletes, actors, and piano players have in common! families that are strategizing for college admissions and therefore resume building are not doing their kid any favor.</p>

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<p>I think others are correct in their assessment I think that your son’s stats don’t disqualify him from the schools you are talking about, but after that it is basically a crapshoot. Your son has great stats, EC’s, etc, but the problem is as others have pointed out, they can be considered vanilla. Likewise, being an Asian male is part of it, because so many Asian kids, in his case among male students, have very similar stats and so forth, and he would need to stand out among them as well.</p>

<p>I don’t want to accuse the OP of anything in particular, but part of the problem with admissions to these highly selective schools is that a lot of parents and students are trying to ‘game the system’, they believe there is this mythical formula that gets you in, and it doesn’t. So you see kids who have academically achieved, gone the math science-route, 2300+ SAT’s, 4.0 GPAS, some sports, some EC’s…so now you have a ton of kids with these stats. And it raises questions about the student, fair or unfair, in things like do these EC’s represent the student, or do they represent what the student and/or parents think the college is looking for? For example, with music, there are a ton of kids from Asian backgrounds who are in music, a lot of the time in piano or violin. In the pre college programs, there are a lot of kids on these instruments who have achieved, have done as your son has, worked hard at it, etc, but have no intention of going into music, many of them don’t even particularly like it, but there is the notion that getting into a program like that gets them a leg up on getting into an ivy or other high level college program (many of them do end up at top schools, btw, but these kids are also academic achievers, etc). You have the story of the infamous “Tiger Mom” types that make their kid play music, and as in that case, decided it was piano or violin, period…and if someone bothered to ask many of these kids about music, it probably would become pretty apparent that music wasn’t a big passion (want an example? many of these kids, if you asked them, couldn’t name what time period Mozard was composing in or what city he was living in or know the difference between Baroque and classical playing styles and such…).</p>

<p>The key to admissions I would hazard a guess is to find a way to differentiate yourself or make the point that the applicant is not cookie cutter. That may not be easy, but it can help that on college interviews or essays instead of repeating what seems to be common on college applications, about how they want to change the world or whatever the topic ‘guaranteed’ to get you in these days, would be to talk about himself, maybe something like what music means to him, talk about the enjoyment and so forth, or about, for example, how playing music in a senior center as he has done was an amazing thing to experience, how it affected the residents, etc… the myth about college admissions is there is a formula, that everything is stat based, that a 2300 SAT student with 8 ec’s is going to get in ahead of a 2250 SAT student with 4 ecs or whatever, and it doesn’t work like that, college admissions is decided by human beings, not by computer formula. </p>

<p>As far as the prestige of an Ivy league school, it depends on what you are talking about. Other then some limited examples, like investment banking and a few other fields, getting an ivy education is not the be all and end all some would claim. Yeah, I have seen the studies about average incomes of kids coming out of the ivy league, but I am dubious of those studies, because I wonder how well they filtered things out. For example, an ivy league student who comes from a well off, connected family versus an ordinary kid is probably goiing to do much better on initial salaries, if only because the well off kid had a network to rely on getting that extraordinary job. Do they also filter out kids with comparable talents who went to let’s say a good state school versus an ivy? Considering the fact that a lot of the kids going to an ivy are already well off versus a ‘typical college’, I suspect that it may be the family background more then the school that gets the higher salaries in many cases, and I also suspect that over time it isn’t as true. One of the nice things about the US is unlike other countries, where you went to school stops meaning as much as what you do, there isn’t this automatic “Oh, you went to state school, you are only good enough to be a low level flunky, ah, you went to an ivy league school, welcome to the executive washroom club”, it doesn’t work like that with some limited exceptions.</p>

<p>Plus there are schools that are as prestigious as the Ivies, especially in given programs perhaps more so, and I would focus on that rather then the school name. If your son loves math and is thinking of using that, tell him to look into studying financial analysis that leads to what are known as Quant jobs, the people who are good in that can write their own ticket, they are the rockstars of the financial industry, in more then a few cases they do a lot better then traders and bankers (these are the guys who come up with the financial models used in trading strategies and the like,that help define strategies and ways to get a leg up on others). </p>

<p>I agree with what another poster said, the kind of top level musicians who get into Ivies and the like are getting in because they are already famous (celebrity admits), not because of the music alone. People like Gil Shahom (Columbia) and Yo Yo Ma (Harvard) were already performing artists when they went to those schools *(and probably got in because they were academically good as well), but that is celebrity level, the kid who won some competitions isn’t getting in there because of that, it would just be part of their application. While having musical achievement is a plus, I suspect its impact, especially since many applicants are using music as part of their ‘ticket’, is not that great.</p>