<p>I mean the ivies and their peer schools. The kind of schools the OP listed.</p>
<p>Ok thank you. In that case I would agree with your statement for the most part.</p>
<p>hmom5,
You keep using this “40% hooked” figure. Do you have evidence to back this up? I don’t necessarily doubt it, but if true, it means the admissions game at the most selective private schools is far more “rigged” than is commonly understood.</p>
<p>The numbers are all published, so if anyone is doing the research, it’s all there.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Dirty</a> Secrets of College Admissions - The Daily Beast](<a href=“http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-09/dirty-secrets-of-college-admissions/full/]Dirty”>The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News)</p>
<p>It’s actually higher at some today:</p>
<p>Dartmouth:</p>
<p>athletes: 17%
URMs: 20%
legacies: 12%
first gen: 14%</p>
<p>Even with significant overlap, you do the math…</p>
<p>OK, but I’d guess there are a lot of “two-fers”, e.g., URM & first gen, or even URM & first gen & athlete, or the legacy who may not make the Dean’s list but is a terror on the lacrosse field. Still, it might be 40% at Dartmouth. But these are not all going to be in the bottom half of the class, either. I think the correct statement should be “schools lower the admissions standards a lot for <em>some of</em> those kids.” In many cases they might be perfectly plausible candidates for admission even without the hook; the hook may be what distinguishes them from the 9 similarly-credentialed candidates who aren’t offered admission, but it doesn’t involve a lowering of admissions standard in all cases, maybe not even in most cases.</p>
<p>I agree, legacies especially normally need at minimum median stats to get in. Yet, the unhooked with median stats have slim chances. Legacies are accepted at twice the rate and 12% of the seats are held for them. It’s considerably higher at some colleges such as Princeton–there they get in at 3 times the rate.</p>
<p>The most bending is done for revenue athletes…we could parse all day, but the bottom line is that 40% of the seats are taken before the average applicant is even considered. The effective admit rate for the unhooked is therefore much lower than published numbers.</p>
<p>I agree with you that most people don’t understand this. Colleges release most of these figures, but never in one place. </p>
<p>I cringe when kids on this board tell kids with median stats for one of the colleges that they have a good chance when the fact is, to have a good chance, every stat would have to be over the 75th percentile. At HYP, that would be 790 per SAT section, 770 for the mid tier ivies.</p>
<p>^ Well, I think it would be misleading to say you have a “good” chance of admission to any Ivy even with extremely high SAT scores. In 2009, Brown rejected 77% of applicants who scored 800 on SAT CR, 80% of applicants who scored 800 on SAT M, 69% of applicants who scored 36 on the ACT, and 74% of HS valedictorians. </p>
<p>[Brown</a> Admission: Facts & Figures](<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University)</p>
<p>Princeton rejected 74% of applicants who scored 2300-2400 on the SAT and 83% of applicants who had perfect HS GPAs.</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> University | Admission Statistics](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admission_statistics/]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admission_statistics/)</p>
<p>So I don’t think any unhooked applicant’s chances can be fairly said to be “good” at any Ivy these days. These schools have always been highly selective, but in recent years it’s reached absurd proportions.</p>
<p>As for whether a kid with median stats has a good chance for admission to a school, that depends a lot on the admit rate. If the admit rate is below 20%, the kid with median stats is highly unlikely to get in. If it’s in the single digits like HYP, the chances are almost vanishingly small. But if the admit rate is closer to 50%, the kid with median stats probably has a pretty good chance.</p>
<p>True, someone should sticky this atop the chances board.</p>
<p>hmom,
even if they recalculate all the gpa, will they still take into account your gpa in relation to class rank? Like a few B’s and a C, but still top 5%?(the school is still very competitive)</p>
<p>Yes, rank is the most important thing, otherwise there’s not context for GPA.</p>
<p>I was wondering about this with regards to transfer students:</p>
<p>1) how do universities calculate cumulative gpa when credits have been earned at more than one school? Several schools have sent me what their calculated cumulative gpa is for me and it is sometimes considerably different from the calculation I come up with when calculating my gpa to include all credits earned.</p>
<p>2) do they calculate classes such as remedial courses, institutional credit, or phys ed classes into your gpa?</p>
<p>3) when considering HS students it is my understanding that class rank is of higher importance than the actual gpa because it gives admissions a standard to compare the gpa against. How do universities evaluate/value your gpa when you don’t have a class rank as a university student to give a frame of reference as to the value of your gpa?</p>