<p>I'm only posting this because I'm genuinely curious - it's an anecdotal story that made me raise an eyebrow.</p>
<p>Last spring, one of my friends at a different school casually mentioned that a girl at their school was accepted to Princeton off the waitlist. I thought that was cool and didn't think anything of it. But then, the town newspaper published the list of the top 20 students in his grade - when I looked at it, her name wasn't on it, and my friend casually commented how the girl (who is a friend of his) had told him she was ranked around the top 30% of students, and that her SATs were somewhere around 2000. She was editor of the school yearbook, but nothing else.</p>
<p>I would have completely forgotten this except that recently, a different person - a friend's mother who also knows the girl - was extraordinarily surprised when I mentioned that the someone from that particular graduating class went to Princeton. Apparently, according to naviance, every other student at the school had been denied outright - she was the only one even waitlisted. The rejected students included the valedictorian and salutitorian.</p>
<p>I'm just curious - how unusual is this case? Particularly since she was taken off of the waitlist. I was surprised, so I asked my friend if he knew if she was a legacy - he said he didn't think so. Is this just a random chance statistic or is there probably something that I don't know?</p>
<p>I didn't apply to Princeton for various reasons, but I'm familiar enough with the elite college admissions to know that this is an unusual statistic, to say the least (I'm a statistics geek, so college admissions statistics are sort of fun to look at. Which is odd, but I like that they're kind of unpredictable). I've been really careful writing this post because I don't want to sound like "sour grapes" - I'm just genuinely curious because this seems like such an anomaly, so I thought I'd get other opinions.</p>
<p>I guess a better question would be - does anyone else know any anecdotes like this? I’m just curious (I’m a stats geek, so I think these kinds of trends are interesting, hehe). Also, I mentioned it to my friend’s sister (who is just starting to look at colleges) and she got excited at the prospect of a kid getting accepted who wasn’t, from a surface viewpoint, a “superstar” since I think she’s feeling a bit intimidated.</p>
<p>Top schools know they can have whoever they want - I do think that it sometimes comes down to essays and recommendations - how else do all those applications on white paper with black type differentiate themselves??? It’s important to have personality and interests in a class, and not just statistics. Plus, I think so many kids are “packaged” these days through 5 year plans with the ivy league-or-die mentality that I believe they are looking for a “real” person. Sometimes, it’s just luck and just the right essay read by the right person at the right time.</p>
<p>My friend told me this story of a girl at her private Manhattan school–the girl was going to be rejected at Yale after the father had donated $1 million. She apparently had like Cs and crappy ECs and stuff but for some reason REALLY wanted to go to Yale. Yale was like, $1 million is not enough, dad donates $10 mill, girl gets in.</p>
<p>I know it seems implausible and I’m not sure it exactly happened like that, but my friend was pretty sure and I believe her. So…</p>
<p>Who knows…like I said…they can have whoever they want. I think they admit interesting people (people who make us scratch our heads) just to keep everyone guessing and on their toes…they could fill classes and classes of people with 2400, 36, 4.5 stat’s. That would be boring and probably too much of a challenge for professors (haha), so they go for interesting diversity - in all senses of the word.</p>
<p>I suppose this “heard from a friend” story could be true, but I don’t buy it. Recruited athlete, maybe; serious development case, possibly; regular plain vanilla applicant, highly implausible.</p>
<p>Sure, P is free to pick whomever they want, but that isn’t going to be a barely top 30% unremarkable applicant.</p>
<p>This isn’t nearly as cool as the anecdote you mentioned, but one guy from my school got into Princeton last year without being close to spectacular. His SAT was around 2100 and he didn’t play any sports. He did like math though, and took a few community college courses during the summer and school year. Still, he wasn’t good at competition math and didn’t get to the AIME.</p>