<p>Wow, artloverplus, thank you for the quote! Its really interesting to see what kind of competition people are facing for positions in the ivy league! And interestingly so, ‘bilguun’ is just one of 30 000 - 40 000 students in the ivies? He obviously brings so much to the college community!</p>
<p>To itsmylife99, I’m honestly beginning to think sat1’s have nothing to do with ‘hardworking’ and ‘studying’, on the highest levels, it pretty much boils down to innate ability or luck. There are tons of people who have tuition and study for years for it only to score lower to someone who simply takes it out of nowhere and gets like 2360. Also, Cornell is a really good school with definite international acclaim, you cannot generalize that people just draw ‘blanks’ on hearing the name. Its a really good school even by worldwide standards and you shouldn’t simply degrade it on the basis of one ignorant person -.-</p>
<p>Yes, the OP has a good track record. Applying costs some money, otherwise there is no downside as long as one is prepared for a negative reply and is realistic about it. 93% of the people that apply will get a negative response from Harvard, and it is not very different with Yale and Princeton. One has to look at the big picture that way, I think, not having a defeatist attitude in advance and not making excuses or rationalizations if it turns out negatively. It simple is extremely competitive, pure and simple. Big demand, scarce supply and all that stuff.</p>
<p>Yes!!! It would be so wicked if they had this. It would make applying to colleges so much more fun and it would make viewing applications more interesting for the adcom. </p>
<p>I honestly don’t understand that. The acceptance rates to Harvard, Yale and Princeton are 7, 8 and 10%. That’s not much, of course, but it is not that little!
At least compared to the number of candidates/openings in some courses of the University here…</p>
<p>helenarmc - I think you are not understanding the statistic very well. The Harvard acceptance rate is the lowest in the country. For every 100 people that apply, only 7 get offers of admission. Yes, it is better odds than the Powerball Lottery. It is still a very long shot to get in. 1 out of 10 in baseball doesn’t get you a major league contract, either. It is a low number.</p>
<p>^you do have to also take into account that the applicant pool itself is self-selective. in other words, the people who apply have high enough stats that they think they have a chance. the average person applying to yale, for instance, will have higher stats than the average person applying to their local university.</p>
<p>but yes, if you think of it that way, 7% is certainly a good probability.</p>
<p>I know people who applied to Harvard just to get a rejection letter so they could frame it as a weird momento of the application process !!! These applicants who know they don’t have a chance just add to the pool that admissions has to wade through…</p>
<p>I’d just like to point out that stanford has an 8% freshman admittance rate, and a 1.8% transfer admittance rate. That’s definitely comparable to HYP, and I think stanford’s atmosphere might actually be better than HYP.</p>
<p>Also, comparing admissions to a lottery ‘7/100’ is hardly apt, its more like the top 7% of applicants get accepted–its a far call from a random 7/100</p>
<p>Look at the bright side. There are so many other colleges out there. You can now look for one that would actually be a good fit for your child, where they would be happy. And where the teachers actually teach the classes and are involved.</p>
<p>Yes the 7/100 thing is a falsehood that I feel gets spread around. Some people who apply simply have a very high likelihood of acceptance, others do not. It is on an individual basis. Yes 7/100 are accepted, but for those seven like said before, there “chance” at admission was probably higher than the others. If I apply to say Yale, I may have a “10% chance of getting accepted” while my friend has a “5%” of getting accepted.</p>
<p>Why would an extrodinary school take a normal student? It actually does not make sense if you think about it. If you want your child to go to a school that is too good for them, get out the checkbook and make a series of very large donations. </p>
<p>Honestly why would a prospective school care if you are volunteering in Africa? How is that going to benefit the school at all? If it really is that important to the parents to get their kid into a good school, they will buy the skybox next to the schools chancellor or presidents at athletic events, and endow scholarships which can send a couple dozen impoverished urm’s to the school every year. They will start attending society functions in towns half way across the country if that is where they want their kid to go to school. They will make large contributions to the pet charities of the higher ups of these schools and use their political connections to pave the way. All of this should have been started at least 5 years before you want your normal kid to get into an extrodinary school. This kind of philanthropy is indeed self serving but it gets you what you want and is the way things are done not only in the college world, but in the business world as well.</p>
Is there even a point to that statement? Good Lord. Winning the lottery wasn’t undoable for that ticket holder, but that doesn’t means the odds were not long for them.</p>
These and similar statements would be true if in fact the Harvard applicant pool consisted of a large number of students that had no chance at all. Of course a student with superb credentials has a better than random chance, my point in the lottery example wasn’t to say HYP admissions are random. However, the fact of the matter is that Harvard and the others not only publish their admitted stats, but also their applicant stats and they are not very different. So in reality, thousands of students get denied admission even though they have virtually the same record as those that get offers of admission. Thus the numerous statements every year by Harvard admissions that they could wipe out the entire admitted class, take the next 2000 that would have been accepted, and not see a difference in academic quality. One year they even said they could wipe out those 2,000 and next the next set and still not see a difference.</p>
<p>So in fact the 7% acceptance rate does represent a very low chance, and getting in is very tough for almost everyone. Given that Harvard’s yield rate is about 85%, they wouldn’t have room for all the students that would go if they didn’t deny admission to most of those that applied, even those qualified for Harvard.</p>
<p>I’m liking this thread. I’ve come to be annoyed with the people who “game” the system so they can get into an ivy league school but, let’s not forget the 1000s of kids who apply but have a 0% chance of getting in. My freinds who’s taking no honors classes and makes C & D’s wants to go to Harvard. (He’s a big dreamer)
Some people have expandable cash that others don’t and can afford to stuff their kid’s resumes with expensive EC’s. I don’t think it’s fair for the rest of us. I mean, my parents never stuffed my resume, heck my dad stopped helping me in school when i got in freshman year. You know what that taught me? to fend for myself and to find ways to motivate myself. That is the best way to plod through school. Hell, When i have my own family, i’m never going to stuff my child’s resume. I’m doing to them what my dad did to me.</p>