Perhaps if one simply isolates GPA and SAT / ACT they might not understand admissions.
If a school has 20+ applications for each seat in its freshman class, one might imagine many candidates will look similar in terms of GPA and test scores.
So what makes for a winning applicant?
Those who understand what specific colleges look for will comprehend why it is certainly not a crapshoot.
Note that some divisions of USC may be more competitive than others (like at UCLA, though not necessarily the same divisions or the same relative level of competitiveness versus other divisions). In addition, the schools also consider and weight various subjective factors differently. For example, UCLA considers work experience more heavily, but does not consider legacy status, recommendations, or interview that USC considers.
“USC is not race blind admissions, this student being an over represented minority and in a competitive major means less qualified applicants (lower tests scores and GPA) got in while she did not.”
@socalmom007, you don’t know that she was displaced by “less qualified” applicants just because of her race. A holistic admissions school is looking at more than just stats. Maybe her essay didn’t resonate or her ECs weren’t what they were looking for that year or her application just caught an admissions officer on a bad day. Whatever. Trying to pin her rejection entirely on her being an over represented minority is not fair. I’m sure plenty of people in her over represented minority with her stats DID get in. Why them and not her? Who knows, except the handful of people at USC who evaluated her application?
Fair, it’s hard to say. A question was asked about URM and how big of a factor that is, my answer was more at some schools than others. USC seems to be a school where it’s a considerable factor. For the record, I am not white or Asian, I have no dog in this hunt, nor is my child applying to USC. It is well known among guidance counselors that being an URM is a considerable hook at that particular school.
It is not a crapshoot, but it looks like a crapshoot from the outside.
Exactly @ucbalumnus. S is thinking of applying to MIT as his one reach, with the rest of his applications going to matches and safeties. He knows that MIT has many more fully qualified applicants than spots, and that he will not know what the admissions office is looking for when he applies. So TO HIM it will look like a crapshoot because even though he knows MIT is carefully curating its freshman class, he doesn’t have any inside knowledge about what they will want that year. Vanishingly few students can be confident that they will DEFINITELY be accepted to schools like HYPMS, no matter how well they match the previous accepted student profiles.
Zinhead, there are many variables to consider. But if you take a Native American student with a 3.8 GPA, 5s in 5 APs, a 1500/1600 on the SAT, I doubt his chances of getting into a university like Cornell or Duke or Penn would be 20%. More like 50%-75%. An African American or Hispanic American with similar creds would have lower odds of getting into such universities, but still better than 20% in my opinion. Close to 30%-40% (depending on the specifics of the applicant) if you ask me. But of course, there is no real data to support either one of our claims. 
Knowing you’ll get in means you’re applying to a safety. A safety has to accept at least 30-40% applicants to be considered as such even if you’re super qualified. Anything 20% admission or under has to be considered reach for everyone.
Some universities admit based on stats, including state flagships (Iowa, Alabama USF and FIU…)
Who remembers where Malala Yousafzai enrolled?
Malala Yousafzai is Class of 2017 in high school.
@travler98 - @spayurpets did a yield ranking for Class of 2020 that broke out the RD yield for ED schools.
Among the Ivies and MIT, MIT was by far the worst school to apply ED/EA.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19868690/#Comment_19868690
@Alexandre - Thank you.
@Zinhead, yep, have read that. MIT isn’t actually my S’s top choice, so even without that info ED/EA was never on the table for him.
@Ynotgo: Thanks. I thought she was taking her A Levels last year. My bad.
It is a crapshoot, but not in the way most people think.
The reason it is a crapshoot at the very most selective is because there are 350 million people in this country, and about 4 million high school graduates every year. There are 35,000 high schools, which means 35,000 valedictorians. Add in another several hundred thousand well qualified international applicants. The total applicant pool is enormous.
Now, the super elite schools (lets say the top 10 National Universities and the top 5 LACs) have from 400 to 2000 spots each of their entering classes. That’s less than 20,000 total spots at all of those schools combined. Even if they took every American high school valedictorian out there, there still would be 15,000 more left over.
Now add in the fact that the very top high school applicants tend to apply to multiple top colleges - some apply to all of them. The colleges can’t really know everything about the applicant or who wants to go where or what other schools are accepting particular students. So sometimes one applicant will get multiple offers while another roughly equivalent applicant will get waitlisted or rejected everywhere.
Here’s the thing to understand. You can’t count on getting in to any particular college if you are applying to the super-selectives. I know someone incredibly qualified who wanted to go to Yale. They got into Stanford and Princeton but were rejected by Yale. I know someone who wanted to go to UChicago but had to “settle” for Harvard. I know someone who wanted to go to go to Amherst or Williams but ended up at Columbia, which is the exact opposite of an intimate, rural LAC.
And most of all I know lots of people who wanted to go to a super selective HYPSMCC type of school but ended up at an extremely good college just slightly down the rankings list. And their lives and future prospects are great.
If you are a really good applicant, you are going to get into a really good college. You just can’t know which one. If you are going in with an “MIT or Bust” attitude, you are going to have a rough time. And if you are going in with a “top 10 or bust” attitude so strong that you would be miserable settling for an elite college that is “only” in the top 30, you also are likely to have a bad time. Don’t do that to yourself.
How much of a boost would a URM get? How would the odds be between a black male compared to a Hispanic female? I am just trying to quantify the advantages"
You can’t quantify, except theoretically. In theory, does a NA, living among a larger community of NAs, with the issues in education and economics, etc, but with a 3.9, rigor, and good ECs (from an adcom’s perspective,) have some advantage? And with a solid app and supp, the writing evidences all the right attributes, etc? Of course. In some cases, that’s a personal triumph.
But to just say, oh, any NA will get in anywhere is to miss the point quite deeply. It’s also based on some assumptions that challenged kids can’t do well, don’t have inspirations in their lives and solid guidance, and don’t put forth the right efforts. And that privilege automatically makes a kid worthy. It doesn’t.
My OPINION (from reading these sites and others over the years and personal experience) is that African American males, from middle class or low socio-economic class, with top stats (35 or higher ACT, 3.9 UW GPA, decent ECs) have the best boost and are most sought after. Girls are over represented in college (in general, regardless of race).
“Those who understand what specific colleges look for will comprehend why it is certainly not a crapshoot.”
So many kids really don’t know enough about their targets. What they know is what worked in their hs environments or among family and friends. Eg, they have good stats and standing in their hs, impress people around them by saying things like, “I want to go to a top college.”
It takes more savvy and drive to look at what the colleges say (or show) they want to see in applicants. You can’t impress a highly selective college by saying, “I want a top college.” And, if OP’s name reflects WUSTL, most certainly not.
It’s also too simple to say girls are over-represented. The top schools are also looking at potential major (and other factors, like geo diversity,) and not all fields are over-pack with females.
I really like that top colleges don’t just pick the kids with the best test scores and gpa’s. It makes you think that everyone(within reason) has a shot.
@ThankYouforHelp “There are 35,000 high schools, which means 35,000 valedictorians.” Au contraire! There are a lot more valedictorians than that:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/education/27valedictorians.html
It is a crap shoot at top schools in the sense that applicants will not know whether you will get in.
It is not a crap shoot in the sense that all applicants have the same chance of getting in. Applicants are not selected at random. If that were true, then grades and test scores would not matter at all.
It is absolutely a crapshoot for students who cannot know 4 years in advance what each school that they want to attend (which decided to apply to 0.5 year in advance), the colleges’ desired composition of their classes in future years, what talents and capabilities the students develop, and what opportunities present themselves to each student. If an individual knew all that, they wouldn’t need college at all, they’d be an oracle.
As @ThankYouforHelp says, it works out pretty well for most of them. They might have been miserable at one of those dream schools anyway. I know plenty who were.