For Ivies, how many of the applicants actually have a realistic shot of getting in.

Applying to College
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<p>It's known that Harvard has an acceptance rate of 5%. Just to give exact numbers last year 34,295 applied and 2,048 were admitted. I'm just curious of those 34,295 applicants, how many do you think actually had the grades + scores to even be considered a serious applicant? What do you think the admissions rate becomes among applicants with a certain GPA and SAT/ACT score that are considered Ivy League caliber?</p>

<p>There are obviously some people who apply to Harvard who have no chance at getting in, I'm just not sure how many.</p>

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<p>Obviously, 2,048 had what they college was looking for. Supposing 10,000 of the applicants were “serious” - whatever that might mean - that would mean that they had about a 1/5 chance to get in. If 20,000 of the applicants were serious, than that would be about 1/10. Is that what you mean? </p>

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<p><a href=“The Harvard Crimson | Class of 2018 By the Numbers”>http://features.thecrimson.com/2014/freshman-survey/admissions/&lt;/a&gt; shows what surveyed Harvard frosh had for GPA and test scores.</p>

<p>Obviously, top end GPA and test scores may be necessary, but they are not sufficient. Probably some high level (e.g. state or national level) extracurricular achievement, award, or recognition is what most of the admits also had.</p>

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<p>I’ve heard that 86% of applicants at highly selective colleges are qualified candidates. </p>

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<p>At the top end, the most prestigious colleges turn away many more strong candidates than they have room to accept. At the bottom end I suspect it may be the opposite, with some colleges accepting students that they probably shouldn’t. In between it is a continuum. I think it would be very difficult to establish a specific metric whereby one applicant is “of caliber” and another isn’t.</p>

<p>Whether it is trying to get into an Ivy, the NFL, the Metropolitan Opera, or who knows what, even though statistics are against people, they keep on trying. And many who don’t quite make it have wonderful careers, at non-Ivies, as coaches, as members of the chorus, etc.</p>

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<p>Last year at Tufts 72% of applicants were qualified; 17% were accepted.</p>

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<p>I’ve heard Stanford say that they believe roughly 80% of the applicants could “do the work” (I’m assuming that means the adcoms believed they could graduate in 4 years with an ok GPA)</p>

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<p>Agree with butterfreesnd, I forget where but I believe I heard a Dartmouth rep say that 80% of their applicants would succeed should they be accepted. Now of course this is different than a “competitive applicant” who has a reasonable chance of getting in given the strength of the pool, but it does demonstrate that the ivy applicant pool is largely self selecting.</p>

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<p>If we assume that Tufts is not that different from how most top schools do it, you have to also realize that Tufts divides its applicants into four categories, only one of which is deemed “unqualified”. However, the vast majority of applicants come from the top two categories, the third one, “qualified”, you have to make a really compelling case to get in. It’s not impossible, but those are mainly amazing personal stories, and there aren’t many of those. So you might be able to do the work, it doesn’t mean you have any real chance of getting in.</p>

<p>I believe for Williams they use either a 9 or 11 point system to rate candidates academically, the vast majority of admits come from the top two or three ratings.</p>

<p>For a place like Harvard, you’d really have to divide it into domestic and international applicants, the 6% number is a composite. Based on our schools Naviance data, I’ve estimated Harvard’s true admit rate for well-qualified non-hooked candidates is 15-20%, probably closer to 15%. About 89% of admits are domestic, that’s 1822 admits. We’d need to subtract off the recruited athletes and developmentals who have 100% admits rates, so that’ll be around 200 or so less spots. If we back into the number of highly qualified applicants, that’s around 10,000 or so domestic candidates.</p>

<p>Another way to look at it would be how many applicants hit the 25th percentile on at least one of their SAT sections. That number is about 700 on any given section, or a high of ~17,000 for math to a low of ~14,000 for critical reading. To stand a realistic chance, you’ll probably need to hit that 700 mark on both sections, so that’s going to reduce the pool even further, but again we’re approaching the 10-12,000 range, but that’s combined foreign and domestic.</p>

<p>Given all that, I’d estimate about a third of Harvard applicants have a realistic chance of getting in. That’s not academically qualified, that’s a realistic shot which is a higher standard.</p>

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<p>@MrMom62, I believe that the percentage of athletes at the Ivies (outside the ones with big undergrad populations: Cornell and UPenn) is more like 20%. Plus, all the developmental cases, celebrities, URM, etc. at Harvard add up to more than 200, I reckon. So maybe a 1000 spots are left (give or take). And ties would go to legacies. You almost have to be top 10 in something (or super-unique) as well as have tip-top stats to get in to H if you are unhooked, IMO.</p>

<p>YPS (and maybe M) would have more spots for unhooked tip-top applicants with good (not spectacular) ECs.</p>

<p>If they play their cards right, someone who has the profile I detailed above has a good shot at at least one of the lower Ivies/Ivy-equivalents.</p>

<p>They should not fall below the UMich/UVa/Georgetown/ND/JHU/Rice/Tufts tier if they strategize well and actually give each app the respect it deserves.</p>

<p>Of course, someone who only applies to HYPSM, Brown, Dartmouth, and sends off a desultory app to WashU that screams disinterest runs a real risk of being shutout. </p>

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<p>Yes, but not all athletes are recruited with special set-aside slots. Some are actual students who get in on their own. Developmentals and celebrities exist, of course, but there aren’t that many of them. URMs are marked for admission, but the specific recipient isn’t, so they have to compete for their slot and I left them in my estimate. Even legacies have to compete for their spot among the other legacies, even if they do get a leg up. If they’re automatic, I’d consider them developmental.</p>

<p>I may be generous in saying how many open spots there really are, but I don’t think I’m that far off if you consider the fact that people have to compete for those slots, even if they are “marked” in some way. Of course we could go round and round trying to refine a back of the envelope calculation, but we aren’t that far apart once we agree on the definitions.</p>

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<p>@MrMom62, OK, right, many competitive slots, but still very tough for someone with no hook since many of those slots aren’t open to them.</p>

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<p>Looking at the chart I would estimate about %50 of the applicants have little to no chance of getting in if that helps. That reduces the acceptance rate significantly. If you apply EA your chances increase greatly also.</p>

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<p>I, too, am more comfortable with the 50% number. When I see university representatives say that 75% or 80% could “do the work”, I’m not too sure what that actually means. “Doing the work” isn’t at all the same as being successful at a particular university.
Anecdotally, when I think about the students I am most familiar with who apply to more selective schools, it’s easily half who would not be successful there, and it isn’t always reflected by “scores”.</p>

<p>I’m not so sure applying EA improves any particular applicants chances. It may appear that way on straight numbers, but has anyone worked over the different pools to see what the qualitative differences are between them?</p>

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<p>In December of 2013 the EA rate for Harvard was just over %21. Haven’t seen yet for this year.</p>

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<p>For reading lots of personal essays I would say like maybe 1 in 20 has a shot of being admitted. </p>

<p>34000/20= 1700
which isn’t too far from the actual figure. </p>

<p>If as @PurpleTitan says, half the spots are taken by hooked applicants that means someone with good essays has a 50% chance of being admitted. </p>

<p>IMO 75% of essays are bad
~15% are okay
<10% are good </p>

<p>A person can get great test scores and a high GPA but, unless they are hooked, all the work will be in vain unless their essays are really good. </p>

<p>Also from what I have noticed. People applying to Ivies and Stanford do tend to be a more selective pool with higher grades and test scores. </p>

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<p>@bomerr: I see that you offer to read many CC users’ essays and stuff – but you’re a HS student yourself, right? You’re not an admissions officer or sitting on a board of a scholarship committee? I’m not trying to discount your opinion but I think you’ve got to admit that those actually tasked with reading essays as a job – to match their organizations’ goals – are most suitable to indicate level of quality, no?</p>

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<p>Beyond that your starting figure of 34,000 would be incorrect. If %50(about) had little/no chance to begin with then the essays would essentially be accounting for the remaining 17,000 qualified applicants.</p>

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<p>@T26E4
BG info: College student. Applied to Berkeley-Haas as a transfer last year. Got rejected. Acceptance rate is 17% for people who have completed the pre-reqs, 5% overall. I was disappointed so I had to reevaluate my application. </p>

<p>Out of my local friend group, 8 people, only 1 person got admitted. So I asked to read his essay along with everyone else that got rejected. Plus the year prior, 2 other students got accepted, so I asked them for their essays. At the same time I read a few essays from the people who got rejected here on the forums. After a while I was able to start seeing the patterns in their essay. </p>

<p>I’ve also done a lot of research on the admissions process. Specifically there is a really good video on YouTube by a former Stanford admissions officer and the UCs have their own youtube channel. </p>

<p>So putting these 2 factors together I started getting a good idea of the application process. </p>

<p>Reading a lot of essays on this forum also helped a lot. </p>

<p>Over 50% of essays are too difficult and complex to read.
At least 30% say bad or negative things about the applicant.
At least 25% are just not relevant. In other words they don’t hurt the applicant but they don’t show qualities universities are looking for in students.
Every so often tho, there is a good essay that makes the writer come of as a likable human being. </p>

<p>In short the difference between essays is much more apparent then that of grades or test scores. </p>

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<p>

I’m not following that reasoning. If there are 6,000 applicants for 800 admits in the early pool and half (400) of the early admits are hooked, that means the chances for the unhooked applicants are now 400/5,600 or 7.1% as opposed to 800/6,000 or 13.3% as it appears from the numbers. And what is the definition of a “good” essay?</p>