Chances of Chance Threads-An Experiment

<p>Hey guys. Since I don't want to study for finals, let's play a game. I'm gonna give you the stats of a graduating senior (2013) with his college list and you tell me which colleges he got into.</p>

<p>GPA: 4.0UW and 4.5W </p>

<p>PSAT: 225 National Merit Scholar
SAT: 2310
SAT II:
Chemistry-760
Math II-800
Physics-800</p>

<p>AP Test Scores
World History-5, Calculus BC-5, Physics B-5, AP English Lang-5</p>

<p>Senior Year Academic Course Load:
max rigor</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
-XC and Track for 4 years: Top 7 scoring runner in XC for 3 years (Soph, JV, and Varsity) and 2 years Varsity Track
-Speech and Debate 4 years- Nat Quals Finalist, State Finalist, Captain of Team
-Science Club- President and member for 3 years
-Science Olympiad- Club Founder and President for 2 years
-Big Brother Program
-Over 200 community service hours</p>

<p>Internships and Work Experience:
-ATDP Cognitive Neuroscience Class at UC Berkeley (end of freshman year)
-Selected to be TA in aforementioned Cog Neuro Class
-Intern at a medical consultant company
-Intern at Dentists office
-Clinical Anatomy Camp at Stanford
- 8 week Research internship at Vanderbilt University</p>

<p>Personal:
Indian Male, Private School CA</p>

<p>College List:
Rice University
Johns Hopkins
Vanderbilt
UC Berkeley
Duke
Stanford
MIT
USC
UCSD</p>

<p>So this is your college list/stats then.</p>

<p>no. these are the stats of my close friend. He gave me all of this information so we could play this game.</p>

<p>^^I am a junior by the way. Why I am not studying for finals and AP tests right now is beyond my understanding.</p>

<p>Check out the wikipedia page on laziness and be enlightened.</p>

<p>All of them except for MIT.</p>

<p>Thanks for your response. I should have added in my post that just like any experiment, I will collect a sample of tests and then do my results. Basically, I will wait until I have a bunch of prediction posts and then I will post the actual colleges he got into.</p>

<p>I think the real question is why does anyone care?</p>

<p>This entire forum is built on the idea that people post stats that others don’t care about. No need to be so blunt about it. You don’t like it? Don’t reply</p>

<p>Neh. The bad premise of your experiment is that predictions are binary.</p>

<p>All but Stanford and MIT</p>

<p>Thanks for the responses guys, keep 'em coming. Philovitist, if predictions aren’t binary, then what else are they? Either a guy (or girl) gets into a school or he doesn’t. The whole 25% chance of getting in and stuff like that is bs because what does that mean? In a real scale admissions scenario, does that mean that he gets into 1/4 of the school?</p>

<p>25% of those with X stats will get into X school!</p>

<p>It’s the most meaningful prediction that can be made with the given data!</p>

<p>Again, confidence intervals would be necessary if admissions was a range between more than one value. But, here that’s not the case. If you choose to deny someone who is more qualified than the other guy you denied, that doesn’t mean anything. Both are denied. No need for confidence intervals because admissions are binary.</p>

<p>Bump. I only have two predictions so far. It would be interesting to see how successful these chance me threads really are.</p>

<p>If this was a chance thread, I’d say the only reaches are Stanford and MIT, and only because they are reaches for everyone. So I’m going to guess everywhere except Stanford, since someone already guessed everywhere except MIT.</p>

<p>Rice University - Accepted
Johns Hopkins - Accepted
Vanderbilt - Accepted
UC Berkeley - Accepted
Duke - Accepted
Stanford - Waitlisted
MIT - Denied
USC - Accepted
UCSD - Accepted</p>

<p>theres many other factors that you didn’t tell us
recommendation quality
did he go through struggles?
family income and parent education
essay quality
interview
etc.
so your experiment is horribly flawed
lol</p>

<p>edit: plus, your sample size is one
/facedesk</p>

<p>Lack of that information hasn’t stopped posters from posting chance threads nor has it stopped people from predicting what schools the OP can get into. If people can make statements like “you’re in” without that information, then I don’t see how I could possibly test the efficacy of chance threads if I give more information than the typical chance thread. I picked a typical person with a typical chance thread format/information to keep everything kosher</p>

<p>The problem is that you’re not accounting from voluntary response bias that occurs from doing a thread like this.</p>