<p>I don’t agree that “all the kids who apply [to Harvard] are academic superstars.” Locally, we have relatively few students who apply to Harvard, as mentioned above. However, only two of the local HS students I knew who were admitted to Harvard fit the “academic superstar” category, from a set of 6-8 who were admitted–to say nothing of the full set of local applicants.</p>
<p>Re Pizzagirl, #57: Despite all of the “education” I have been getting on CC, I still did not think that admissions to “top” schools is about likeability, really. Maybe I am wrong.</p>
<p>Thanks, lookingforward, #56. Our dog is 22 months post-surgery, and acting like his normal spirited self, but he’s approaching canine old age. We don’t plan on any further surgery for him.</p>
<p>I think Pizzagirl overstates the case too much with respect to what a smart kid should know. I think there are probably still a lot of kids in smaller towns in areas that don’t send a lot of students out of state who just don’t know that much about elite college admissions–and their guidance counselors don’t know that much either. I was talking to a teacher from a small town in Missouri the other day–this is somebody who teaches sixth grade, and has post-college children. She had never heard the expression “Tiger Mother.” She’s not a dumb person–all this stuff that’s on the minds of CC people is just not on her radar screen. The guidance counselor at the local high school there in Missouri may be just the same. When a student comes along who may have the horsepower to get into college–or even close–that GC may think that kid will get in anywhere–because that kid will have the highest SAT score anybody ever received at that school. Maybe it’s a 2260. If that kid doesn’t know to come on CC, he may not have anybody to tell him that he’s not the smartest kid in history.</p>
<p>I get that, but doesn’t the “I’m applying to a school with a 5% admit rate” tell the kid all he needs to know – namely, that he has a 5% chance of getting in? </p>
<p>That’s the piece I don’t get. The admit rates are very public. I honestly don’t get the arrogance of thinking that the 5% admit rate doesn’t apply to me. Do people think that the pool of applicants is just like a random sampling of their high school - with a range of D, C, B and A students --and so therefore if Johnny is in the top 5% of his hs class, he will be in the top 5% of Harvard’s applicant pool? </p>
<p>All I can say is that I made my kids stare the admit rates for their schools in the face. That’s what you’re up against. Do your best and Godspeed. But don’t for a minute think that you’re more entitled than anyone else.</p>
<p>No, nobody I know thinks that the applicant pool is like his/her high school class. However, if a student is realistically recommended as the top student within the past 5 years from a high school where 2-4 students are accepted by Harvard every year, then I think the student would be sort of clueless if he/she thought that the odds of admission were 5%. They certainly aren’t 100%, but I don’t think they would be 5% either.</p>
<p>If a student is the most highly recommended student at his/her boarding school, and has the accomplishments/essays/GPA/scores consistent with that, and if 15% of the class has been accepted by Harvard each year for the past 5 years, do you think the student’s odds are only 5%?</p>
<p>QM - are you serious?? Absolutely I’d still think of the kid’s odds as 5% and if it were my kid, counsel him appropriately and make sure he stared that 5% in the face.</p>
<p>There’s that arrogance and entitlement again, that Harvard (or whoever) “owes” a given high school a given number of spots. It’s just a very self-centered train of thought.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s wild. I know that “past performance is no guarantee of future results,” but I would estimate the odds as substantially higher than 5% in both cases #66 and #67. It’s not thinking that Harvard “owes” them the spots; but based on past patterns, I don’t think it would be arrogant at all to estimate the odds as better than 50% in both cases.</p>
<p>“The term “element of variability” suggested by Hunt is better than my “element of randomness.” That captures my basic belief that if the process could be re-run de novo with the same set of applicants, under slightly different conditions (different days of the week of review, different orders, different times of day) the outcomes in some cases would be different. Unfortunately, the experiment is impossible to run.”</p>
<p>I agree that outcomes could be different. However …</p>
<p>Let’s postulate World A - in which Harvard has a 5% acceptance rate, and there’s not a lot of variability (that is, if the adcoms suffered collective amnesia and had to re-pick the class, they would pick pretty much the same exact kids). </p>
<p>Now, let’s postulate World B - in which Harvard has a 5% acceptance rate, and there is a lot of variability --that is, if they suffered collective amnesia and re-picked, they’d pick a different crop of kids – that the oboe player from Montana who was compelling in the first set doesn’t make the cut in the second set. </p>
<p>Either way, it’s a 5% acceptance rate that an applicant has to accept! </p>
<p>It seems, QM, that you believe World B is an easier pill to swallow for the qualified rejected kid than World A? And my point is - rather than waste time on parsing out to what extent the truth is World A, World B or some place in between, isn’t it better for the kid to focus on the fact that he’s got a 95% chance of not making it, so while he may be upset in the moment, he shouldn’t feel entitled?</p>
<p>We will just have to agree to disagree, QM. I think that’s highly entitled, arrogant and foolish to set a kid up to think that he has got a 50% chance at a 5% acceptance rate school. </p>
<p>My kid was a double legacy at his first choice school, which had at the time an 18% admit rate, and at no time would I ever have had him get in his head that he had anything greater than an 18% chance. And I made it clear that he should think of legacy as a feather on the scale and nothing more. Better pleasantly surprised and humbled than over entitled and disappointed. </p>
<p>Pride goeth before the fall and all …</p>
<p>I’m not talking about a boarding school that sends kids to Ivies–I’m talking about a high school like mine that hardly ever sends kids there–and now along comes a kid who is a real superstar in the context of that school. People, including his GC, tell him, “you’ll get in anywhere. You should go to Harvard.” And they believe this, because this is the smartest kid they’ve seen in a decade, and maybe ever. Why wouldn’t they think he should go to the best college there is? Even if you tell them Harvard accepts only 5% of applicants, so what? As far as they are concerned, this kid is the best of the best. And he really is–in that context. This is a case where somebody may not know that there is something he doesn’t know.</p>
<p>I think it’s probably true that most kids in this situation would go on the Internet and find out the real scoop–but they won’t get it from Harvard’s website or from Harvard’s mailings (something else we’ve talking about before), all of which will encourage him to apply. If they look at the College Board site, they might think that they are in the sweet spot for Harvard, since they have a GPA and an SAT well within the range of admitted students.</p>
<p>It’s a long time ago now, but I can tell you that I, and my parents, and especially my guidance counselor were all totally clueless about what it took to get into selective schools, and it was almost by a fluke that I managed to put together an application that got me into Yale. I just filled out the application they sent, and the GC didn’t mess up anything (as happened with some of my other applications). The only reason it occurred to me to apply in the first place was that a buddy of mine got into Princeton the year before–he was probably the first Ivy admit from my high school, ever. Hopefully that level of uninformedness is no longer the case at that school, but I’ll bet it’s still like that in a lot of places. In lots of places, the smart kids always go to the state U, and nobody really needs to know much about college application strategy.</p>
<p>do you think the student’s odds are only 5%?
Let’s get wild for a sec. I’m not arguing some point, k? </p>
<p>Let’s pick a starting point, say, 30,000 apps, 2000 seats. First round sorts out the absolutely unqualified. Owing to the CA, let’s say it’s half. Now a kid with the goods and the well-presented application, is part of a pool of 15,000. Take it from there. Obviously, this is based on MY sense of who may be perceived how, based on ime. I won’t go further on that, for now. </p>
<p>Obviously, in the end, even for super great kids, there is no outside control; as the number of successively more compelling kids narrows, in the end, it’s going to be that H quoted thing- could fill the class 3 times over. Some super great kids don’t get chosen. I think the “5-6%/crapshoot” notion implies there truly is a random process.</p>
<p>Hunt, the wild card thing is that even a superlative kid from your example still has to pull together a competitive app package. No goofy angles, no LoR fumbles. No resting on the hs laurels. I think it’s tough for many kids to handle.</p>
<p>I think there are a few different things -</p>
<p>-are most people (parents, kids, GCs) not informed about elite college admissions? -to which I’ll say sure, absolutely, no argument; they genuinely and goodheartedly believe Johnny is the best of the best</p>
<p>-should any one kid, <em>before</em> the fact, have good, solid reason to believe and act as though he has a chance substantially above the 5% (or whatever) rate? - that’s where I say no. I don’t see the point in deluding oneself into believing that your chances are above the general chances at that school. There is no upside in thinking that way, and only downside.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate has only a weak correlation with actual chance of admission due to self selection in the applicant pool and a wide degree of applicant strength within the applicant pool. For example, College of the Ozarks has a much lower acceptance rate than Caltech, yet the Caltech acceptances as a whole have much higher GPA, SAT, ECs, course rigor, and other criteria associated with selective college. The difference occurs because of completely different admissions pools.</p>
<p>As implied by discussed in this thread, it’s rarely possible to accurately estimate the percent chance of admission at colleges that use a holistic process like HYPSM. At best one can look at the student’s information and give a rough estimate such as good, moderate, poor, or extremely poor chance. At HYPSM schools, very few would have a good chance since even top students are frequently rejected. </p>
<p>And even when knowledgeable persons do give a rough estimate, it’s not uncommon to be completely wrong. There are many threads on this site where students, parents, and GCs all have been extremely surprised by admissions decisions at these schools. When I was in HS, my GC told me I had almost no chance of being admitted at the 5 colleges I was most interested in since I had weak stats (not in top 10%, 500 verbal SAT, almost no ECs…). My parents and some of my higher achieving classmates who applied to many of the same schools had similar feelings to the GC. I applied anyway and was accepted to 4 out of 5, including 2 HYPSM.</p>
<p>Well, blessed are the pessimists, for they shall rarely be disappointed.</p>
<p>In practice, if the odds are not 100% in favor of admission, then for any given student, the actual observed outcome could be the same if he/she had 95% chance of admissions vs. 0% chance.</p>
<p>You’re either in or you’re out. You’re applying to Harvard; assuming you’ve got a competitive application, you’ve got a 5% chance. What you do with that info is up to you. I do note (with affection) that your INFP draws you to have a lot of sympathy for the rejected kid. In the moment, of course, a rejected kid should be treated with compassion. But I’d rather start from the realistic stance about what’s the likely expected outcome, than overblow expectations and then have the kid be REALLY disappointed.</p>
<p>Because I dare say the kid who says “H has a 5% rate, but as for me, I bet I have a 50% chance” is a heck of a lot less able to handle reality than the kid who says “H has a 5% rate so I just took my best shot and that’s all I cn do.”</p>
<p>Well, if a person has a 50% chance, then rejection is equally likely as acceptance. I doubt that anyone would treat the toss of a coin as a “sure thing” unless they had a weighted coin.</p>
<p>I read a book by Martin Seligman a while ago–he’s the psychologist who argues for optimism. He recognizes that pessimists are actually more likely to be realistic. But I have benefited from reading one of his books (there are several), and it is an exceedingly rare book of pop psychology that I can recommend that highly.</p>
<p>Oh, numbers. The beauty of numbers. How we can massage them, control for results- and then insist what is, is.</p>